All Chapters of AWAKENING THE PINK WOLF: Chapter 21 - Chapter 25

Nolan’s POV I shifted before I reached the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t decide to. My wolf just took it — ripped forward and took it — and for once I didn’t fight him. There was nothing to fight with. The part of me that made careful decisions and weighed consequences and held itself together with both hands had gone somewhere quiet and dark the moment I saw that empty crib. My wolf hit the ground floor at a run. Her scent was everywhere. That was the first thing. It coated the back hallways of Crescent Moon’s pack house like she’d wanted to be found — too present, too deliberate. Giselle had always worn too much perfume. I’d found it charming once. Now it felt like a taunt. I followed it through the back corridor, through the kitchen where a servant dropped a pot and stumbled backward at the sight of me, out through the rear door and into the cold morning air. The scent split at the treeline. Not split. Divided. Three directions, roughly equal in strength, fanning out int

Nolan’s POVWe left before dawn.Eight of us. No more. Kieran had been firm about that — a large force moves loud and vampire scouts don’t miss loud. Eight people who knew what they were doing could move like water. An army would announce itself three miles out and get Arlo killed before we cleared the first tree line.I understood the logic.I hated the logic.But I understood it.Kieran’s four lycan warriors were not what I expected.I’d brought elite wolves from Silvermoon on operations before — trained, lethal, reliable. These four were something different. They moved with a quality of stillness that wasn’t quite natural. Like the space around them was quieter than it should be. Like sound thought twice before touching them.The two trackers were smaller. A man and a woman, both young, both with the distant focused look of people whose senses were turned permanently outward. They hadn’t spoken since we assembled. They just moved.Kieran fell in beside me as we crossed the south bo

Nolan’s POVI lied to Kieran.Not about waiting — I’d meant that when I said it. I’d stood at the edge of the vampire territory with every intention of holding position outside the border temple until he could follow.Then the trackers picked up Arlo’s scent moving.Not toward the border temple.West.Back toward Crescent Moon.I looked at the tracker — the woman, Sari, who had said maybe twelve words since we assembled — and she looked back at me with an expression that required no translation.The child is moving west.And the glow on the horizon was Crescent Moon burning.I stood in the dead trees of vampire territory for four seconds and understood.There was no border temple.The omega woman in the cage — she’d heard something, she’d passed it on in good faith and I believed her — but what she’d heard was what Giselle had intended her to hear. A misdirection planted in a cage full of people who’d have no choice but to repeat it if anyone came to rescue them.Giselle hadn’t moved