Chapter 4

Griffen's Point of View

The morning sun is already burning through the haze when I step out of the hardware store, a crate of supplies in my arms and sweat sticking my shirt to my back. The town’s starting to wake up, cars rolling by, kids dragging backpacks towards the high school across the street, and a couple of humans chatting on the corner like it’s just another peaceful day.

To them, it is.

To me, it’s a thin layer of quiet stretched over a battlefield.

I toss the tailgate of my truck down with one arm and load the crate into the bed, next to the bag of canned goods, fuel canisters, and the new medical kit I paid for cash. None of this is for me.

I slam the tailgate shut and lean against it for a second, scanning the street out of habit. No one’s watching. No patrols. No wolves sniffing the air for betrayal.

Good.

It’s safer here, out in human territory, where Lycans don't usually bother keeping close tabs. They think we blend in too easily. Too dangerous to start a scene in front of witnesses. But that’s what makes it perfect for what I do.

A few years back, I thought I was the only one left. The only one with Thorne’s blood still on my hands and vengeance burning in my chest. Then I ran into Maddox and the others, ghosts from my father’s old pack. They slipped through the cracks the night Jensen’s warriors tore everything apart.

They’d been hiding out, scraping by like wild dogs with no name. But they remembered.

They remembered who my father was. What he stood for.

And they saw the fire in me.

Since then, I’ve been helping them out however I can. Supplies. Information. Territory maps. Patrol patterns. Anything to keep them alive long enough for the next move. For my move.

One of the duffel bags in the back is full of burner phones. Maddox asked for more, said they were planning to spread out, create safer routes in and out of the forest. I didn’t ask questions. The less I know, the less anyone can rip out of me if I’m ever cornered.

I hear footsteps on the sidewalk behind me. Human pace. No threat.

Still, I glance over my shoulder.

Just some teenager on a skateboard, earbuds in, no idea he just cruised past a ticking bomb.

I return my gaze to the supplies, double checking the straps. Every second I spend out here is a risk, but it’s one I’ll keep taking. For them. For what’s coming. For what was taken from me.

I pull my baseball cap lower and head around to the driver’s side. The truck is old, but reliable. Like me, worn down, but still moving forward.

And every mile I put behind me takes me closer to payback.

Jensen doesn’t see it coming. None of them do.

But I do.

And I’ll be ready.

The road fades behind me, nothing but gravel and overgrown brush now. I drive slow, tires crunching over broken earth as I follow the barely there trail to the drop site. The GPS on my burner phone glitches in and out, but I don’t need it. I know the place. Maddox always sends the same kind of coordinates, off-grid, deep in the wild, where the trees grow too thick and the wind carries too many scents to trace clearly.

When the canopy finally closes in overhead, I ease my foot off the gas and bring the truck to a stop in a clearing just wide enough to turn around in. I cut the engine and let the silence settle. For a few seconds, there’s nothing but birdsong and the low tick of the engine cooling.

Then I step out, my boots hitting the packed dirt.

I walk around the side and drop the tailgate. It creaks under my weight as I hop up and sit down, hands resting loosely on my knees, eyes scanning the treeline. The forest is quiet, but I know better. It’s never just trees and wind in these places.

They’re already watching.

The scent hits me first. Not quite wolf, not quite feral, just rough enough around the edges to tell me it’s Maddox’s crew. Rogues. Survivors. The ones who saw the truth and lived to crawl out of it.

Branches shift near the northern edge of the clearing.

Then they emerge.

Four of them, silent, lean, and armed. They move like shadows given shape, eyes constantly scanning, bodies tense but fluid. Maddox is at the front, his dark hair pulled back, scars still fresh enough to remind anyone what Jensen’s pack did to him.

“Griffen,” he says, voice low, almost like a growl. “Right on time.”

I shrug. “You said dawn. Here I am.”

He glances towards the truck bed, already sniffing out the supplies. One of his men hops up and starts unloading, quick, efficient, practiced. They don’t waste time.

“I brought the burners you asked for. Fuel, rations, med kits. That’s everything I could get without raising suspicion.”

Maddox nods his head, eyes flicking back to mine. “You’re risking a lot.”

“So are you,” I reply. “But that’s the cost, right?”

He cracks a smile. It’s not friendly, more like the kind of grin wolves flash before they bite. “You’re still in Jensen’s pack. Must be hard pretending you don’t hate every second of it.”

I look out towards the trees. “I don’t pretend. I survive. That why I stay at the school most of the time. I can't even remember the last time I was on Dark Moon lands.”

He gives a grunt of approval, and for a moment, we sit in silence as his men finish loading up the gear into large, beat-up duffels. One of them disappears into the woods with the first load, quiet as breath.

“You’ll have what you need soon,” I say, my voice low. “I’m getting closer to his routines. His blind spots. And that daughter of his… she’s a window he doesn’t realize is wide open.”

Maddox raises a brow but doesn’t ask. He knows better than to push for details out here.

Instead, he just says, “We’re ready whenever you are. Just say the word.”

“I will.”

He claps my shoulder once, solid, silent, and gives the others a signal. Like mist in the morning, they vanish. One by one, back into the forest without so much as a snapped twig.

And then it’s just me again, sitting on the tailgate, watching the woods swallow them whole.

I hop down and close the truck bed, my eyes still on the trees.

This war didn’t end when Thorne died. It just went quiet.

But it’s starting to wake up again.

As I get settled behind the steering wheel again my personal phone chimes from the passenger seat. I pick it up to see a text from Rosalee.

"Hello Griffen, I hope all is well. Can we expect you to make an appearance at Leo and Aria's eighteenth birthday party?"

I quickly type another excuse of why I can't make it and hit send before tossing my phone back on the passenger seat.

As I start the truck I can't help but think Aria hates pack events, she is sure to sneak out later that night. And I will be waiting, it seams like the perfect opportunity to put my plan in place.