Page 57 of Howl Lotta Love

“Thank you. Also somebody owes me a new vest. This one has a bite mark in it now, and I refuse to wear a haunted vest.”

Gerri arrived on the heels of that announcement, sweeping into the clearing with two enormous casserole dishes and an expression that dared anyone to question her timing, heels sinking into scorched earth without a single complaint about the state of her shoes. “I heard there was a battle and assumed correctly that nobody would remember to eat afterward. Warriors never do. It’s very inconvenient for their mothers.”

“Gerri, the battle ended a few minutes ago.”

“And I have excellent timing.” She set the dishes down on the command vehicle’s hood as though the scorched earth and the lingering smoke were simply part of the catering challenge, and turned her attention to Emma with a fierceness that softened the second she took in the ice pack and the careful way Emma was sitting. “Oh, darling.”

“I’m fine, Gerri.”

“You’re visibly not fine, but I respect the commitment to the lie.” Gerri pressed a hand briefly to Emma’s cheek, uncharacteristically gentle, before straightening and reclaiming her usual brisk energy. “Eat. Both of you. I didn’t drive out here with casseroles to watch them go cold.”

Diesel emerged from the tree line last, a scorched first-aid kit slung crosswise over one shoulder and a pack warrior leaning on him for support.

“Anders is favoring his left side. Somebody get Milo before he decides he’s fine.” He said it as a statement of fact rather than a request, lowering the man onto the tailgate with more care than the moment strictly required.

“You’re not usually the one giving orders,” Roman said, eyebrows up.

“Somebody has to. You’re all terrible at triage.” Diesel didn’t look at anyone and headed for the food dish.

Jace helped Emma to her feet like she might come apart in his hands if he moved too fast, one arm banding around her waist to take the weight off her ribs, and the two of them surveyed the scorched clearing side by side—the parcel saved, the pack intact, the cost written plainly across every burned acre and bandaged shoulder in sight.

“We won,” Emma said, quiet.

“We won.” Jace’s shoulders carried every scorched tree like a personal failure, regardless of the outcome. “It cost more than it needed to.”

“It cost less than it would have without you leading that fight, and you know it.” She leaned into his side, ribs protesting the movement, fully unwilling to let him carry the guilt alone. “You saved this land. You saved your people. Let yourself have that.”

He didn’t answer right away, but his arm tightened around her, and that was answer enough.

Somewhere behind them, Jace’s father surveyed the same clearing, settled and unhurried. He’d seen worse than this and rebuilt from it before. “The land holds,” he said, quiet, to no one in the group directly, and there was enough history in the words that Emma understood exactly what he meant without needing it explained.

“It holds,” Jace agreed, and pulled Emma a fraction closer, the words clearly meant for more than the ground under their feet.

Miles away, in an office with a view Emma would never see, a phone lit up with a single line of confirmation.

Parcel lost. Commander dead. Federal filing already in motion.

The reply came back within seconds, entirely untroubled by the scale of the failure it addressed, the words of a man who had already moved past grief and straight into recalculation.

Land first is finished. Take the accountant. Break the wolf. Everything else follows from that.

SEVENTEEN

EMMA

Every screen in the command center went dark at once, then flickered back to life with the same message repeated across a dozen monitors, and Emma’s coffee mug slipped clean out of her hand.

Tomorrow, I take your mate.

The feed cut to grainy security footage a half-second later—a quiet suburban street, a modest house with a blue door, a woman loading groceries into her car with absolutely no idea two unmarked vans had parked across the road from her for the last twenty minutes.

“That’s Claire.” Emma’s voice came out strangled, barely her own. “That’s my sister’s house. That’s my sister, Jace.”

Tucker was typing, three windows open at once, shoulders hunched tight over the keyboard. “I’m tracing the broadcast source now. Whoever sent this routed it through half a dozen relay points, but I’ll have an answer inside a few minutes.”

“We don’t have a few minutes.” Jace had his phone to his ear, voice gone cold and lethal, a growl riding underneath every word. “Roman, Diesel, wheels up in ninety seconds. Tucker, I want everything you can pull on that street in the next sixty.”

“I’m coming.”