CHAPTER 6 ALPHA ELENA

CHAPTER 6

ALPHA ELENA

“It's not closing.”

Gideon had a towel pressed against the scout's ribs, blood soaking through it fast. Seconds earlier, two Blackwood guards had dragged the man onto the metal exam table. Cage had already stripped off his coat and grabbed the trauma shears, cutting through the ruined flannel.

Louisa pushed past two Blackwood warriors without looking at them. She dipped a gloved finger into the grey foam around the torn flesh and sniffed it.

“Nightshade and silver,” she said. “Contact paste. It numbs the wolf and eats into the tissue.”

“Rogues can't make that in the woods,” I said from across the table. “Raw silver burns skin. You need binding oil to handle it, and you can only get that from a pack’s supply.”

Cage looked up, not at Louisa or the pack doctor. At me.

That same lost look from the yard was back in his eyes, like he was trying to remember something he couldn't place.

“Wash it with yarrow and boiled salt water,” Louisa told the doctor. “Get every bit of that paste out before you stitch him up, or he won't make it to dinner.”

“Listen to her.”

Cage stepped away from the table, his eyes still on me.

“Strategy room,” Cage boomed, heading inside. Luke followed.

"Outpost Four is cut off by the river bend, Alpha."

Luke didn't look up from the tablet, already leaning against the screen table when we walked in. "I say we send Elena's point squad. Dark Fang knows the wetlands better."

I planted both hands on the table.

“Are you always this bad at your job, or did you practice for today?”

Luke's face went stiff.

“Excuse me?”

“Outpost Four sits in a low bowl. You want to send ten of my wolves into a mud pit with three ridges looking down on them?” I pointed at the map. “That's not tracking. That's tossing meat into a pen.”

Cage stepped up beside me.

“She’s right. Rain's coming within the hour. If we don't check the crossing now, the river will wash away their tracks.”

“I can take a team—” Luke started.

“No. Lock the front gates. Elena and I will take the truck.”

I looked at him.

“I don't need company, Blackwood.”

“You're on my side of the river. We go together. Gideon, grab the field gear.”

Gideon dropped two belts and two knives onto the bench.

I looked at the route blinking on the map and pointed at the green line before I could stop myself.

“Take the ditch behind the old sawmill, or the truck will get buried in the red clay.”

Gideon's hand stopped over the leather sheath.

That ditch wasn't on any map.

It was an overgrown rut we pups used to take on hot July afternoons, sneaking down to the old dock before the elders caught us.

Shit.

I shoved my hand into my jacket pocket to hide the fidgeting.

“My father kept old boundary surveys,” I said, shrugging. “Your woods aren't that hard to read.”

Gideon didn't argue.

He picked up the hunting knife and handed it to me.

Not my right hand, but my left.

I took it without thinking.

He stepped back, watching me like he'd clocked something.

We headed for the car. There, Cage’s hands tightened around the wheel.

Rain hit the windshield in grey sheets. The truck smelled like musk and pine shavings, and Cage hadn't said a word since we pulled out of the gate.

Every few seconds, he glanced at me.

Instead of watching the road, he watched me.

“Garrick didn't survey the south end during the border talks, did he?” Cage said.

I didn't answer, so he continued.

“I ran those meetings myself. He never came south of the ridge.”

I stared at the trees. “Then someone else drew the lines.” I shrugged without turning.

“Nobody knew about that sawmill ditch except pack kids.”

“It won't be the first time your pack was unable to handle secrets,” I said.

Cage slammed on the brakes.

The truck slid sideways before hitting a mound of wet gravel. He threw it into park and killed the engine.

“What are you doing?”

He unbuckled his seat belt and leaned across the console. His body blocked the light coming through the window as he studied my face.

“Who are you?”

“Back. Up.”

“I don’t appreciate being taken for a fool, Alpha Elena,” he said, ignoring my warning. “And right now, I feel like a big one cause you seem too familiar in this car to be just a ‘stranger.’ So I ask again, who the fuck are you?” This time it wasn't a question but a demand.

His voice dropped, but the anger had given way to something more unsettling: uncertainty.

I looked down.

My thumb was resting on the notch in the dash where the radio bracket had broken years ago.

My hand froze.

I knew that crack. I'd picked at it for years.

I pulled my hand into my lap. But Cage noticed. His eyes narrowed.

“You've been in this truck before.”

“No.”

The answer came too fast.

He reached toward my face, his fingers trembling slightly before stopping barely an inch from my skin.

“My wolf hasn't responded to a damn thing in five years,” he said. His voice cracked. “He died in the marsh with Astrid.”

The name hit like ice water in my veins. My breath caught, and for half a second my fingers curled into the fabric of my jeans, fighting the phantom ache of cold mud and a heartbeat that stopped before it ever had a chance to start.

I forced my features into stone. Cage stared hard at me, searching my eyes, but he would find nothing.

“But around you…”

He swallowed hard, and his eyes darkened.

“He loses his mind.”

His hand curled into a fist.

“He wants you. Badly. Wants to drag you into my lap and keep you there. I can barely think when you're this close.”

My pulse jumped.

“Why?”

I held his stare.

For one second, I saw something behind his eyes that scared me. That made me forget why I hated him in the first place.

It wasn't just desire but recognition.

Like his wolf knew something his mind couldn't find.

Then the memory of what followed that marsh tore through me, and the hatred surged back ten times stronger. He had abandoned me to his pack's mercy, and he deserved no pity for the life that was stolen because of it.

“Then your wolf is a fool,” I seethed. His expression hardened. “Just like his Alpha.”

I held his gaze.

“Now, get your fucking fingers off my face and turn the damn key, or I'll break them.”

He stared at me for another second.

Then he removed his hand, sat back, turned the key, and hit the gas.

The cabin was in pieces before we even reached the clearing.

Outpost Four had been torn apart, timber knocked off its blocks, cedar planks scattered through the wet ferns.

The big pine stood bare in the clearing.

Its bark had been hacked away down to the white wood.

A wolf skull was smeared across the trunk in thick, dark blood. Its throat had been cut clean through.

Cage crouched beside the tree and ran two fingers near the smear.

“Still wet.”

I walked the edge of the clearing, my boots sinking into the dark earth.

Something caught the grey light near a patch of flattened ferns.

I pulled a thick leather strap from the dirt.

A heavy brass tag hung from it.

The Blackwood wolf was stamped into the metal above four numbers and a line of block letters:

COUNCIL GUARD — CLEARANCE A

A boot stepped into the mud behind me. Cage stood over my shoulder, staring at the tag in my hand. His face lost all its colour.

“Where did you find that?”

His voice didn't sound like an Alpha. It sounded like a man who had just dug up an empty grave.

I turned and pressed the cold metal against his jacket.

“In the dirt.” I held his eyes. “The rogues didn't have to guess your patrols, Cage.”

I let the words sink in.

“Someone in your own house gave them the key.”