CHAPTER ONE
GARRETT
As I stalk through the trees, searching for that delectable scent I swear I caught a half-mile back, I give in to my wolf, letting him filter through each scent in the thick Wyoming woods. Rotting leaves, mushrooms, snow-covered dirt, insects, mice. There’s nothing here that doesn’t belong in the dense area of woods. Certainly not anything floral, at least not this time of year. I’d imagined the scent, my mind playing tricks on me yet again.
With a subtle shift of the wind, I catch Callen’s scent. The enforcer’s moved further upwind, east of my position, while Hayden lingers south of us, heading toward the clearing. Whatever had piqued his interest, he didn’t share with the rest of us.
The chill in the air slices through my fur easier than it should for this altitude. Maybe I’m just getting older. Thirty-five and no mate, no family, except a few cousins who have become strangers to me over the last few years.
Don’t need family.I have a pack. That’s all a shifter needs.
My wolf nips me from the inside, reminding me to focus. We agreed a long time ago that when I’m in wolf form, he leads and Iwouldn’t distract him. Letting my mind wander is a big fucking distraction when we’re hunting.
No tracks on the ground, no broken branches. Nothing’s been through here.
And yet my hackles rise. My wolf senses danger, and he’s not sharing why. Just like Hayden.
“Nothing here,” Callen calls out, breaking the silence.
“Agreed,” Hayden adds, closer than I realized.
“Let’s head East, toward Bowman’s Pass,” Hayden suggests, oblivious to how my wolf’s hackles remain up.
I’m not ready to leave, and I’m not fucking sure why.
Bones crack and muscles reform as I shift to human form, even as my packmates shift into their wolf form. They reach the stream, but I don’t move an inch.
“These are the coordinates, Hayden.”
He shifts back to human form, an annoyed expression filling his features. “We never had coordinates. Only the shifter’s description.” Green eyes survey the area, even though he had agreed with Callen that there’s nothing here, certainly no shifters in distress. The male always behaves as if he’s expecting to be stabbed in the back.
The faintest whiff of something rather enticing—like sugar caramelizing in a pan—tickles my nose. The scent seems trapped in a small wind eddy, swirling around me instead of drifting toward my packmates.
“I’ll catch up. I need one more look.”
“We’ll wait. Go.”
Even though he’s not originally from our pack, Hayden’s a smart shifter, and a good leader, second only to Damien. He doesn’t discount anyone’s instincts.
I used to be like him. Confident, even when the facts don’t add up. Tragedy will do that to a shifter—fuck with his ability to trust himself. Even his own wolf.
While I review the facts in my head, my wolf stalks forward, looking for any sign that we’re in the right place. That lone wolf that reached us half-dead held no doubt about where the WSSO had captured him. The narrowing canyon, the high peaks ahead of us and the frozen river bed east of here… everything fits. This is definitely the place he described, but we’re days from Devil’s Peak. The time it took us to find this place gave the humans ample time to flee. And yet I can scent their presence here—very faint, likely days old—amidst a lot of skunk musk. Too much, now that I think about it. That probably sent them running. And with the unexpected surge in temperature, the snow’s melting as soon as it hits the ground, destroying any foot prints they may have left.
“No one’s out here, Garrett.” Callen trails behind me, keeping a respectful distance, but not giving me time to figure out what I can’t let go of this. “We’re heading home.”
“I caught a scent. Female.”
“Your brain’s playing tricks on you. We would have smelled her by now. That shifter?—”
“Carter,” I interrupt Callen. “From Greyson’s pack. I never forget a face or name.”
“He said the female’s scent lured him into that trap. If the WSSO is using a female to trap male shifters up here, we would have found it by now.”
“You think he’s lying?”
“Not lying exactly. But something about his story didn’t add up. How’d he get away so easily? Why head toward our pack instead of his own? Sounds more like he’s running from his alpha and used all these recent disappearances as a way of walking into our pack, no questions asked.”
“You see conspiracies everywhere. And incompetency.”
