3

3

The next morning came too fast.

I barely slept, just enough to keep my eyes from burning and my hands from shaking. The kind of sleep that leaves you feeling like you never truly came up for air. I showered, dressed, and packed like I was preparing for a deployment instead of a “visit home.”

Laptop. Scrubs. Stethoscope out of habit, even though I didn’t know if I’d need it. A duffel with jeans, boots, a heavy hoodie. A small toiletry bag. My wallet. My keys. And the letter.

I folded it once and slid it into the side pocket like it might combust if I kept looking at it.

At the door, I paused with my hand on the knob and stared at my apartment one last time. The neutral walls, the clean counters, the life I built where no one knew what my blood was.

No pack rules. No howls in the woods. No golden eyes. Just fluorescent hospital lights and human pain. I exhaled and stepped out anyway.

The drive started ordinary. Highways. Coffee shops. Early morning traffic. I blended in like I belonged. But the further I went, the more the world changed. Buildings have thinned. The cell signal dropped bars. The air felt colder even when the sun was up, like the trees kept secrets and didn’t want the light poking around.

I turned off the interstate onto back roads that got narrower, curving through dense forest and long stretches of empty farmland. No billboards. No gas stations. Just trees and silence. And something else I couldn’t explain. A pressure.

It crept in slowly, like humidity before a storm. My shoulders tightened without my permission. My eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror. Every shadow between the trees felt like it held a watcher.

I told myself it was paranoia. Old instincts waking up. But then the scents hit me. Not in the way a human smells things. Not “pine” and “damp earth.” This was deeper. Sharp. Animal. Like my blood remembered how to interpret the world even when my mind tried to forget. My pulse quickened. Territory. I knew it before I saw it.

The first marker was subtle, scratches on a tree trunk too high to be deer. Three long gouges, fresh sap bleeding down the bark. Beneath it, the soil was disturbed, churned like something large had paced there.

I drove past with my hands tight on the wheel. Then another marker. A faded ribbon tied to a branch, gray and frayed, but still there, an old pack signal from years ago. I hadn’t seen one since the night I was sent away.

My throat tightened. Home. The road curved and dipped, and my GPS finally went useless, blank screen, spinning icon. I didn’t need it anyway. My memory filled in the turns, the hills, the way the land sloped toward the river.

I hadn’t realized I still knew. A few miles later, I passed a sign: EDGEWATER FALLS — 12 MILES. My hands went clammy. The air felt heavier. And then I saw the first real sign that Adam hadn’t been exaggerating.

A line of trees on the left side looked… wrong. Not just broken limbs. Not storm damage. The trunks were shredded in places, bark torn off in wide swaths. Deep claw marks. Some old, darkened by time, others fresh enough that pale wood showed underneath.

I slowed without meaning to. My gaze tracked the forest edge. Something moved far back between the trunks. A flicker. A shadow. Then gone. I swallowed hard and forced myself to keep driving. Scouts, my mind supplied. My stomach dropped.

The road narrowed again, and the forest thickened. The sun disappeared behind clouds, turning everything the color of steel. A light mist drifted between the trees like breath.

I rolled my window down an inch. Cold air poured in, bringing scent metallic, sharp, faintly sweet. Blood. Not fresh enough to be obvious to a human. Fresh enough for me to taste in the back of my throat.

I rolled the window up and tried to ignore the way my body reacted, nerves sparking, instincts rising. I was human mostly but the pack had never treated me like one. And my blood never let me forget the truth of what I’d grown up around.

The road bent again, and my headlights swept across something in the ditch. A car. My foot slammed the brake.

The vehicle was half off the shoulder, nose down in a shallow ravine like it had been shoved. One headlight was smashed. The windshield was spiderwebbed with cracks. The driver-side door hung open.

No hazard lights. No sign of movement. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. I sat there gripping the steering wheel, staring at the empty open door. The smart thing was to keep going. The doctor in me trained, stubborn, and conditioned couldn’t.

I pulled onto the shoulder and killed the engine. Silence flooded in immediately, thick and unnatural, like the forest was holding its breath. I grabbed my phone, no service.Of course.

I popped the trunk and took out the small emergency kit I always kept. Flashlight. Gloves. Gauze. A basic trauma pack.Ridiculous, I thought, packing for war with a first-aid kit. But my hands moved anyway.

I approached slowly, boots sinking slightly in the damp grass. The closer I got, the stronger the scent became. Blood. Oil. And something else… Wet fur. My breath hitched.

The car’s interior was a mess. Seatbelt sliced. Airbags deployed. The dashboard cracked. There was blood smeared across the steering wheel and streaked along the inside of the door like someone had tried to crawl out.

My stomach tightened. “Hello?” I called, voice sounding too loud in the quiet. “Is anyone here?”

No answer. The woods gave nothing back. I shone the flashlight inside, beam jittering with my pulse.There was a purse on the passenger seat. The strap snapped. A few things spilled across the floor: lipstick, a hairbrush, a set of keys. And a tuft of dark fur caught on the edge of the torn seatbelt.

I froze. Not seatbelt material. Not fabric. Actual fur. My throat went dry. That wasn’t from a deer. Not from a dog. The hairs were coarse, thick, and they clung like something had fought inside this car, something that didn’t belong.

A branch snapped behind me. My entire body went rigid. I turned slowly, flashlight swinging. Nothing. Just trees. Mist. The road stretches empty behind me.

But my skin prickled like it had when those wolves stepped out of the woods in my nightmare. I backed away from the car. Another sound, soft, like leaves shifting. Closer.

I forced myself to breathe, to think, to act like I wasn’t a terrified fifteen-year-old behind locked doors. I reached into the car and grabbed the purse, heart hammering. If the driver was alive, I might find ID, information, or something useful. If they were dead… I swallowed hard and stepped back again.

My flashlight beam swept the ditch. That’s when I saw it. In the mud near the open door,prints. Not human. Not bear. Too big for a coyote. Paw prints with claw marks dug deep as if the creature had launched itself upward toward the vehicle. Several of them. And another set of marks leading away drag lines. Something had been pulled into the trees. My stomach lurched violently.

“Oh my God…”

A low growl vibrated from somewhere in the forest. Not close enough to pinpoint. Close enough to send ice through my veins. I didn’t run. I wanted to. But the instinct that saved you in pack territory wasn’t sprinting blindly, it was getting to safety without looking weak.

I backed toward my car slowly, flashlight up, scanning the tree line. The growl came again, deeper this time. My pulse roared in my ears. I reached my car, got the door open, and slid inside fast, locking it the second I was in.

I didn’t start the engine right away. I sat frozen, listening. A shadow moved at the edge of the road, just beyond my headlights. Too big. Too smooth. Gold eyes. It paused, like it was considering stepping into the light.

Then another shape shifted behind it. My hands shook violently as I jammed the key into the ignition. The engine turned over with a loud, desperate sound. I hit the gas and the tires spun slightly in the damp gravel before catching.

In the rearview mirror, I saw them clearly for the first time. Wolves. Not coyotes. Not dogs. Wolves with shoulders too broad, bodies too heavy, eyes glinting unnaturally bright in the thin daylight. They watched me leave. They didn’t chase. And that scared me more than if they had. Because it felt like… they were letting me go.

The road twisted and I took it too fast, hands white-knuckled, breath shallow. My mind kept replaying the drag marks. The blood. The fur. Civilians. Organized. Bold. Adam wasn’t calling it war as a metaphor. This was war.

A few miles later, a familiar scent hit me, cedar smoke, leather, the faint bite of metal. Pack.

I rounded a curve and saw a vehicle pulled off just ahead of an older black SUV I recognized instantly. It was parked in a way that blocked the shoulder, not the road, but made it obvious: stop here.

A man stood beside it, hands in his pockets, posture casual but eyes scanning the forest like he was counting shadows. The moment I saw him, relief hit me so hard it almost made my eyes sting. Matthew. Adam’s best friend. The Beta.

He looked older than I remembered, broader through the shoulders, a little harder around the eyes. But it was still him. Still that same steady presence that used to make the packhouse feel safe when everything else felt sharp.

I pulled over quickly and climbed out. “Matthew,” I breathed, like saying his name proved this was real.

His head turned, and for the first time his expression broke with relief flashing across his face. “Lotty.” He crossed the distance in three long strides and stopped just in front of me like he wasn’t sure if I’d let him touch me.

Then he pulled me into a hug anyway, strong, warm, familiar.I didn’t realize how tight I’d been holding myself together until I felt him there. My hands fisted in the back of his jacket.

“I didn’t think it would be you,” I said into his shoulder, voice rough.

“Adam didn’t want to send anyone else,” Matthew murmured. “Not right now.”

I pulled back just enough to look at him. “How bad is it?”

His jaw clenched. The Beta mask slid into place, controlled, careful. “Worse than what he told you,” Matthew said quietly.

My stomach sank. I swallowed, then forced the words out. “I stopped back there. A car in the ditch.”

Matthew’s eyes sharpened instantly. “Where?”

“About seven miles back,” I said. “Blood. Drag marks. Fur caught on the seatbelt.” My throat tightened. “Someone was taken.”

His face went grim. “Damn it.”

“So it’s real,” I whispered. “They’re hitting the roads.”

“They’re hitting anything they can,” Matthew said, voice tight with restrained fury. “And they’re trying to make it look like an accident. Like animal attacks. Like people just disappear.”

My skin crawled. “Why didn’t they chase me?” I asked the question that had been gnawing at me since I drove away. “They watched me leave.”

Matthew’s gaze flicked to the woods, then back to me. His voice dropped. “Because you’re bait,” he said bluntly. “Whether you want to be or not.” A chill rolled through me. “Dark Mountain knows who you are,” he continued. “They know your blood. They know Adam brought you back into the conversation the moment that letter went out.”

I stared at him, heart pounding. “So they want me to lead them to him.”

Matthew’s mouth flattened. “Or they want you for leverage.”

My hands went cold. I forced a breath. “Then why the hell am I standing out here instead of in your SUV?”

Matthew’s lips twitched faintly, almost a smile, but bitter. “Because you’re still you,” he said softly. “And because I missed you.”

That warmth flickered again, painfully bright, then he stepped back and all business returned.

“Get in,” he said, opening the passenger door for me. “Windows up. Seatbelt on. We won't stop again.”

I hesitated, looking down the road behind me toward that wrecked car, toward whatever was in the trees. “Did you send someone?” I asked.

Matthew’s eyes darkened. “A team is already on it. You did the right thing leaving.” The words didn’t soothe me. But I nodded.

I climbed into the SUV, and the moment the door shut, Matthew locked it automatically. He slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and pulled back onto the road like he was trying to outrun something invisible.

We drove in silence for a long moment, the forest pressing close on both sides.

Then Matthew spoke, voice low, like he didn’t want the woods listening.“Lotty… there’s something else.”

My stomach tightened. “What?”

He glanced at me, and there was a flicker of something in his eyes recognition, worry, maybe guilt.

“The wolf you described,” he said carefully. “Gold eyes. Bigger than the rest.” My throat went dry. “That’s not just any Dark Mountain warrior,” Matthew continued. “We’ve seen him.”

I gripped the edge of the seat. “And?”

Matthew’s jaw clenched, and the SUV seemed to hum with tension. “And every time he shows up,” Matthew said, “someone ends up dead.”

I stared out at the trees, my reflection faint in the window glass pale, tired, eyes too wide. Home was only minutes away now. And the war had already reached the road.