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The gloomy skies split, and rain fell, gently at first, and then in steady sheets of icy sleet. It will drench everything soon, including any disturbances in the muddy snow mix and leaf litter.

Aspen trees come from the Old English word aespe and are synonymous with nature, resilience, and growth. Combined with Alder, a name symbolizing transition between worlds, water, and again, resilience; she is one tough package. She didn’t choose to be resilient; she had to be to survive. Aspen Aldereyne is the force of nature Elijah Wyldan underestimated, and that’s on him. The rest of us follow in her little footprints, literally, and we’ll stop at nothing to find her and bring her back safely.

Bonner stares at his screen as the drone circles above the thick canopy, the disappearing light blurring shadows of spruce into long-limbed fingers. He hands his compass to Luk, who snaps it open and studies it with strokes of his hand across his stubbled jaw. The move makes me reach for my father’s lighter, thumbing the flint once, twice, three times, until the flame dances to life before being snuffed out again. That’s how quickly nature works. A snowdrift to entomb a wrecked car; a determined, resilient woman hiking alone in the woods, searching for a family legacy that no one dares speak about anymore. Bonner stills, before peering at the screen and spinning in a circle. Then he yells at the top of his lungs.

“Aspen! Aspen. Baby, stop running!”

I can’t yell; my voice barely breaks a whisper. The pulse thrumming through me is loud enough for her to hear, evena mile away. Hold tight, baby, we’re on our way.

On the edge of his drone cam is a glimpse of pink through the deep greens and gray of the woods. The glimpse of pink doesn’t stop.

“She might think it’s Wyldan,” Luk says, all three of us crowded around the screen to determine which way she went so we can catch up with her. Bonner lands the drone, packing it haphazardly before we move out as a group. We haven’t traversed more than ten, maybe fifteen meters when the first solitary wolf howl punches through the stillness, followed by an answering somber howl, and then another.

“Run,” Bonner demands, and the three of us sprint toward the last place we saw that tiny glimpse of pink sleeve.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Lukaz

AMONG THE SCREAMING TREES…

Fox bounds through the undergrowth as if the howling wolves are hot on our heels, and not hers. Perhaps they were closer to us and we’re leading them straight to her. All I know is we are three men armed with weapons, and she’s one headstrong but tiny thing who is about to get her ass spanked raw when I catch up to her. For her to take off on her own without proper equipment is lunacy up here. With the colder weather gripping us in icy fists and darkness threatening, her predicament just became a whole lot tenser.

Our boots slap exposed tree roots and slippery moss, none of us slowing long enough to catch our breath or send Bonner’s drone up again. He’s sure there is a cabin about half a mile east, which isn’t far from where we saw her rosy sleeve earlier. She might have been heading for the cabin all along, or it may be dumb luck. If she doesn’t make it before nightfall, and we can’t locate her, the wolves will surely scent her, and they’re not the only predators roaming around out here. My skin chills at the thought of arriving too late.

The backs of my hands are covered in a minutia of tiny scratches, all of them welling with fresh blood. My saliva slowed the first few cuts, but my rapid heart rate is pumping the blood around my body faster, including to my peripheries and bleeding skin. Just another reason to get to that cabin. Bonner’s boots thunder along behind me, with Fox half a stride in front. The light is fading fast, all shadows stretching long fingers to embrace each other before the black will overpower any remaining light. Unlike the Larch when we had a glorious full moon by which to hunt, bathed under a silver glow, tonight’s cloud cover has all but secreted the waning crescent. By my calculations, we have minutes left, and then we’re fucked.

Saliva pools in my mouth, my arms pumping harder under branches, snapping twigs and thundering across the terrain. I blink into the distance, past Fox’s swaying hair and broad shoulders. We watch Aspen pick her way over slippery pine needles. Less than a quarter mile away, and just visible through the dense perennials yet to lose their leafy coats. “Aspen,” I yell. “Stop, baby, we’re coming. Please!”

She turns her head, her cheeks streaked with the same dried blood as my hands. The twigs and branches have not been kind to her journey, but she’s still the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.

“Lukaz?” Her voice falters, the sound labored. She’s likely running on fumes. We push around a copse of aspens, the thicket all but shielding our girl.

“Stay right there, beautiful,” I shout over the hail lashing my face. Fox’s hand settles on my shoulder, his chin lifting to a section of sparser trees and layers of shale boulders peeking through the snow cover. A set of glowing amber eyes aren’t trained on our pack; they’re trained on the weaker, easier target. Her. Bonner must pick them up a moment later because he pushes through the center of our group and straight for Aspen. Our soaked clothes and heavy boots cause unwanted drag and slow us to to a point where each stride borders on pain. Those eyes are closer to her than we are, which means we push on regardless, making as much noise as possible. Her soaked hair clings to her skin like strings. The next growl has her jerking around, facing the eyes head on. Only there isn’t one set anymore; there are two, and one more on the opposite side of the valley, closing in. This has to be a working pack. Yukon wolves thrive in unbroken boreal forests, alpine tundra, and mountainous border regions, and we’re in their territory.

Our best hope is to reach her, negating her exposure as a single person and forming a moving mass. Sensing our plan, Aspen stills, wedging her back against the closest, largest tree to provide some shielded cover from an attack from the rear. I withdraw my knife from the soupy mess in my sock, holding it the same way Fox palms his. Alert, aware, anticipatory. Aspen’s head darts around the tree over her left shoulder, only to swing back around and check over her right. The sleet has rinsed the blood off her cheeks, dripping it in pink rivers down her vest. She’s not dressed for these conditions, and the first thing we’re going to do is peel her out of her soaked clothes once we find that fucking cabin. Then my palm has dibs on that plump ass because she put herself in danger and put us through hell.

Fox doesn’t run; he glides with the grace of fierce, intelligent animal stealth. Bonner thunders along with his bulky drone, cursing when his feet slip and he loses balance. Never focus though; he is just as fixated on her as we are, and those howling wolves calling to bolster hunt numbers. Too late, my little canidae friends. You may have your pack, but our Fox is stronger and a thousand times more dedicated. His forearms thump into the lined bark above her head, caging her. His resounding growl is louder than the howls, the driving sleet, and our combined heartbeats.

“Mine!”

His proclamation reverberates through the darkened valley, overpowering the driving hail and letting everything with a heartbeat and bloodstream know that Aspen has been claimed. He will not let her go, and God help anyone or anything attempting to come between him and his focus.

Bonner lumbers up to us and stops briefly to glare at Aspen before mouthing “cabin” and taking off over the rocks and deeper into the valley. We follow close behind, Fox all but dragging an exhausted Aspen with him, protected in between his huge body and my own. Less than a minute later, the cabin comes into view above the valley floor. It looks like a simple hut made of hewn logs, constructed midway between the tree cover and rocks leading to a river. The light leaves us with the steady knives of hail, the sound of the river desperate to flow but losing the battle as water solidifies into an icy mass. We scramble over and through slippery shale, sludgy snow and onto decking boards before collapsing under the overhand of a pitched-roof porch. Up close, the hut is larger than first glance suggests, the elaborate stairs designed to keep four-legged visitors out, while allowing refuge for researchers and hikers of the human variety. Three unique door handles ensure the door can’t be opened by a hungry bear throwing its weight at a single lever. Once the three bolts are released, Bonner pulls the door open, and all four of us scramble inside. The same bolting mechanisms are locked from the inside. One just above floor level, another almost eight feet in the air, and the last one spanning the entire middle of the door, with the sliding, rolling bolt tucked up inside a protective channel. Clever.

Fox strikes his lighter, the flame illuminating an arch around his pale fist, while I fumble with my phone for the torch setting. It’s basic, but dry and offers layers of protection we wouldn’t have elsewhere. A wood fireplace and stove dominate the center of the space, with two couches and two more chairs on one side, a sink and simple shower with what I think might be a chemical toilet on the other. Next to the sink are cupboards, both below and above. Flicking each door open, I find canned and packaged food, matches, bottled water, a first-aid kit, flares, and maps of the region.

Another shelf holds books and pamphlets describing the surrounding woods and the diversity of metamorphic, sedimentary, and igneous rocks. Fuck that, I call everything flat shale, and everything round a boulder. If I wanted to know diversity, I’d be studying geology and not botanical science. Bonner dumps the drone near the shower and has a fire lit in seconds thanks to the paper and kindling pile readied by the last hut inhabitants.

As the orange glows to red, the flames searching and consuming more fuel, Fox searches to consume, too. Aspen has backed away to the far wall near the fire, her trembling hands trying and failing to peel the sodden clothes from her quaking frame. Fox slams his knife into the wall above her shoulder, missing her by millimeters. Her gasped shriek dies on her tongue when his mouth crashes over hers.

“Fox, Fox! You’re scaring her!” Bonner cautions, but Fox is unrepentant. I can’t do anything but stand and stare. Bonner and I couldn’t pull him away from his prey even if I wanted to. I know his desire is primitive where Aspen is concerned. The hours-long chase she subjected us to has turned him feral. Oh, little tree, do you have any idea what’s about to be let loose?

He peels her like the layers of an onion. When her shoulder knicks the blade above it and the blood bubbles around the cut, his mouth clamps down over it, sucking away the leak. His limbs move with a harried frenzy. He cannot wait to claim her, and I can’t wait to watch. Holy fuck, this is more erotic than the staged, scripted porn that circulates through immature group chats and “bro bars.” This is raw, organic need. Bonner peels himself from his own drenched layers. At least he was prepared, throwing on a slicker jacket over his Henley and jeans, but the denim took the brunt of the storm and must weigh a ton. I’d offer to help him with the bunched fabric near his ankles, dripping a pooling mess onto the floor, but my attention is pulled to another pooling mess. All five-foot-five of her, hair matted to her scratched skin and still so gloriously defiant.

“Off,” Fox croaks out, as his desperation to separate her from her clothing wars with their sluggish movements.

“Need any help there, bud?”