No Longer Necessary

KAEL'S POV 

The truck rattles over the old logging road faster than it should, but I don't ease off the gas.

Bren rides beside me, quiet, checking his phone for signal we both know isn't coming out this far. I asked him instead of Darin. Darin's watching the house, watching Lyra, and some part of me feels steadier knowing it's him standing between her and anything that might come looking.

The old mill sits at the edge of North Ridge land, close enough to the border that it's belonged to no one in particular for longer than I've been alive. Ashford picked well. Neutral ground, easy to watch from a distance, easy to disappear from if things go wrong.

Three men are waiting when we pull up. Not Ashford himself. I don't know if that's a relief or an insult.

Mara sits on the ground a few feet from them, untied, hands loose in her lap, looking more confused than hurt.

I'm out of the truck before it's fully stopped.

"Mara."

She looks up, and something in her face doesn't match what I expected. Not relief, exactly. Something closer to disbelief.

"Kael... You came?" Her voice comes out rough.

One of the three men steps forward, unbothered, hands loose at his sides like this whole exchange costs him nothing.

"Alpha Varga." He says my title like it's mildly amusing to him. "Mr. Ashford sends his regards. He said to tell you the terms have changed."

"What terms. I didn't bring her."

"We know." The man's mouth twitches, close to a smile. "Turns out that's no longer necessary."

I don't understand what that means, and I don't like how little I understand it.

"Where's Ashford?"

"Elsewhere. Handling something more important than this conversation."

Beside me, Bren shifts his weight, close enough that I feel it more than see it, ready if this turns into something it doesn't need to turn into. The three men don't move toward a fight. They just watch me, patient in a way that makes my skin crawl worse than open hostility would.

"That's all I have for you," the man says. "Take her home, Alpha. You'll hear from Mr. Ashford again soon enough."

They're gone into the trees before I can ask anything else, unhurried, like men who've already gotten everything they came for.

I help Mara into the truck. She's shaking, though not from cold, and I don't push her to explain. Bren climbs in the back, watching the treeline until it disappears behind us.

"Something's wrong," Mara says quietly, once we're moving. "They had me for hours. Then all of a sudden, Ashford moves out with few men. I think he found something. He asked the remaining men to stay with me till you came.They untied me not long before you got there."

I don't have an answer for that. I have a feeling instead, low and constant, that we've been handed exactly what we came for because someone decided it no longer mattered.

"But why did you go to the east border alone?" I ask her, expecting a reasonable answer. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

She looks at me with her mouth half open, like she's deciding whether to say something or not.

"I..." she starts finally.

My phone rings before she could say anything. Darin's name on the screen. We are almost halfway back to the house.

"Alpha..." he says, cold in his voice.

That makes me unsettled.

"Please tell me you have good news," I say, answering.

There's a pause on the other end long enough that my stomach drops before he says a single word.

"Kael." His voice is tight, careful, the voice of a man about to say something he knows will land badly. "Lyra's gone."