Chapter 2 Shadows on the Wind

Jason’s Unease

The Riverland air was warm, and heavy with the dry scent of eucalyptus and distant river water. But beneath the familiar smells of home, something sour drifted on the wind. Something that didn’t belong.

Jason stood on the rise overlooking the western boundary of the pack lands, muscles tense, every sense sharpened to a blade’s edge. His wolf, Jack, shifted beneath his skin, alert, restless, not afraid but watchful.

Something was coming.

He’d felt it ever since the funeral pyres had gone cold. The grief was sharp, raw, but this wasn’t grief.

It was instinct. Ancient. Primal.

Footsteps behind him, careful but not hiding.

Nathan.

Jason didn’t turn. “Do you feel it?”

“Yeah,” Nathan answered simply, stopping beside him. “Something’s not right.”

Jason’s lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t have proof yet. No enemy he could sink his teeth into. Just a feeling.

But he’d been raised never to ignore his instincts.

“I don’t know what it is yet,” Jason said quietly. “But it’s out there.”

Nathan glanced sideways at him. “What do you want me to do?”

Jason finally turned, arctic blue eyes steady. “Find out what’s putting that scent on the wind. Quietly. Talk to the scouts. Don’t stir the pack unless you have to.”

Nathan nodded once. “On it.”

They didn’t need more words. They’d grown up in the same dirt, trained under the same harsh eyes of their fathers. Trust ran deeper than blood between them.

Jason watched him go, the weight of his father’s voice echoing in his mind:

Lead by strength. Lead by example. Trust your people, or die alone.

Nathan’s POV: Gathering Clues

By the time the third sunset slid down over the gumtrees, Nathan had visited every patrol on the western and southern flanks. Always careful. Always calm. Asking just enough questions to keep things casual.

It was Jemma, one of their sharpest scouts, who gave him the first real thread to pull.

“Odd scent a few days ago,” she told him as they stood beside the old irrigation tanks. “More than one wolf. Definitely not ours. Faint, but… together.”

“Direction?”

“East,” she answered.

East, toward New South Wales.

Another scout, young Eli, added more. “Whoever they are… they’re moving like they’ve got a destination.”

Nathan’s stomach twisted. Rogues didn’t move like that. Not unless someone was organizing them.

By the fourth scout report, he caught something else. A faint, foul note beneath the others. Familiar. Ugly.

Markus.

The bastard stank of blood and arrogance. He’d been exiled years ago after killing those campers two innocent humans, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Markus didn’t care. He never had. Proud. Violent. Entitled.

And now his scent was back on their land.

But Nathan wasn’t ready to take that to Jason yet. Not until he had proof. Not until it wasn’t just ghosts and guesses.

Still, the weight of it hung around his shoulders like a storm cloud ready to break.

That night, standing on the edge of the training fields, Nathan tilted his head to the breeze again.

There it was.

Rot. Ash. Wet fur. Blood and smoke beneath it.

Organized. Coordinated. Coming.

They didn’t know yet. The pack was still grieving. Still vulnerable. And Markus, if it was him, was cruel enough to strike when they were still raw.

No confirmation yet. Just whispers. Trails. Patterns no one else could see but him.

But soon… soon, it wouldn’t be whispers anymore.