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It’s recognition.

My wolf knows it immediately. This wolf. This one specifically. Something that has nothing to do with reason and everything to do with a force older than either of us, pressing up through the ground like roots finding water.

Not a mate bond. But nearly.

She feels it too. I know because she runs slightly ahead again after that. Not far. Just enough.

And not for the first time since I met Mia Reyes, I am utterly confused that she’s not my fated mate. And I desperately want her to be.

We find Ramsey’s abandoned camp in a natural hollow in the hillside just below the supply route. I bypass it and climb the hillside, looking for higher ground with better sight line. Near the top, I find a spot with natural cover that’s close enough to the thick trees for us to disappear quickly if we need to.

Echo is already there when we arrive, sitting on a flat rock near the center of the hollow with a silver button deposited in front of him like an offering on an altar.

We shift back. The change from wolf to human always takes a moment longer than human to wolf. Or at least it does for me. I wait while the world reassembles itself, language and thought and the weight of being a person settling back in over the clean animal clarity of my beast.

Mia ducks behind a thick tree with her pack. I listen as she gets dressed while I do the same. When she re-emerges, she doesn’t look at me immediately. She’s breathing harder than she’d probably like, and her hair is tangled. She looks undone in the best way. Like the woods gave her back something the city had been slowly draining from her.

I know better than to say so.

She walks over to Echo and the button. “Where does he even find these things?”

“Probably better not to ask,” I say.

She picks up the button. Turns it over in her fingers. Slides it into her jacket pocket. Echo clicks his tongue at her and trots off.

Apparently, they just bonded.

We set up camp in the practiced quiet of two people who’ve done this sort of thing many times before. She takes the sightline position while I establish the perimeter. We eat a cold dinner, which is safer than chancing a fire until we’re sure we won’t attract unwanted attention. Hopefully, tomorrow I can scope enough of the area to allow for a hot meal.

The supply route below remains quiet, though. No movement, no sign of life.

By the time the light starts to die, the hollow is as close to secure as we can make it, and Mia is sitting across the space from me with her knees drawn up, her eyes on the abandoned camp below, and her wolf still close to the surface in a way I can feel even from here.

She’s more herself out here than anywhere I’ve seen her.

I watch the woods.

But mostly, I watch her.

“Can I ask you something?" she says, and even though she doesn’t look over at me, I know she’s caught me staring at her.

“Shoot.”

“You’re a powerful alpha,” she says. “Crossvale is established, respected. You have resources, alliances, a loyal pack.” She pauses. “Why haven’t you taken a mate? By now, most alphas in your position would have.”

I meet her gaze steadily. “Because I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

“My fated mate.”

“That’s…” She trails off like she’s choosing her words carefully. “That’s a significant gamble.”

“I know.”

“A lot of wolves never find theirs.”

“I know that too.”