Fifty Eight

AIDEN'S POV

I have watched a great many hunts in my life, one of which I enjoyed, some I was hunted.

Mostly, I have run some of them myself. I have been the quarry in others — in the early years, when being a rogue Alpha meant that every established pack within three territories felt entitled to test whether you could be removed.

They all learnt the hard way and never got the chance to use such lesson.

You see you learn things about a hunt from both sides. You learn what the hunters are telling each other in the pitch and spacing of their howls.

You learn what the quarry is thinking from the direction of their movement, the choices they make at forks in the path, the difference between a person who is running in panic and a person who is running with a destination in mind.

The girl definitely had a destination in mind.

That was the first thing that struck me as strange.

The second was her determination and will to live and survive.

Her tenaciousness was way over the top.

We had taken position along the river ridge — myself, Nathan, and eight of my better wolves — spread deep quietly through the trees on our side of the border. The hunt had been audible for ten minutes before we saw the first of them: Maxwell's grey form breaking cover on the far bank at full speed, that massive body moving with focused and brutal violence that marked a wolf who had been doing this for decades.

Then the others came forth. There were three more fanning out in the coordinated arc of a trained hunting party.

And then, behind them — or rather, cutting through them, weaving between the trunks with reckless and furious precision — a motorbike sped past them, evading their attacks just at the right time.

She drove like an expert biker in a desperate situation yet she didn’t panic.

She is good so such a biker exist in the Black Shadow pack

I had no idea when my face started forming a smirk as I watched the girl run for her life heading to the edge of the hill.

Nathan made a sound at my shoulder. The sound he made when something had exceeded what he had been briefed to expect.

“Ahem, you are intrigued?"

“What no?” I quickly corrected my expression. Nathan gave me ‘Keep telling yourself’ nod

"She's faster than I thought and more tough," he said.

"Maxwell would get mad and fierce soon," I said. "He's been toying with her and enjoying the chase."

I could hear it in the howls — that slight, ugly edge of frustration underneath the bloodlust. Maxwell was not accustomed to being inconvenienced by his prey. He'd built an entire professional identity on the premise that the outcome of a hunt was decided the moment he decided to begin one.

The girl on the motorbike appeared to be unaware of this reputation, or had decided it was someone else's problem.

My men wanted to move. I could feel it — that collective tightening in the air around me, the way a pack translated its Alpha's restraint into a kind of physical pressure they each had to hold individually.

They wanted to tear the werewolf of the Black Shadow Pack limb by limb.

But they weren't questioning my orders.

They were simply constitutionally designed for action, and watching a hunt from the sidelines violated something fundamental in how they were built.

I kept my fist raised and gave the signal.

Not yet.

'Aiden, She's bleeding already.'

Damn Rex, I know be patient. The wind had shifted enough to carry her scent across the river — that sharp copper thread woven through leather and engine oil and cold sweat. She'd taken at least one hit, early in the chase. The wolves had gotten close enough, once, to leave a mark on her body.

I watched with great focus ready to act, immediately she was critical but I was watching.

Watching to see if she was the one. Because if she was actually the one it would reveal in the last second just like it did ten years ago I assumed.

My assumption was really far-fetched but I had to check it out.