Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 31 - Chapitre 40

•Shaun•I didn't leave my office for almost two hours after Luke and Tobias walked out.I told myself it was strategy, sitting there turning the pieces over, trying to map out every possible angle before I let myself react to any of it. Mostly it was just me staring at a closed folder on my desk, trying to figure out how I was supposed to look Faye in the eye tonight and not tell her that the man she believed she'd killed, the man whose death had cost her running from all she knew, might very well still be breathing somewhere.She'd confessed that to me with her hands shaking and her voice cracking down the middle of the worst sentence she'd probably ever had to say out loud. She'd carried that weight alone for days before she trusted me enough to hand it over. And now I was sitting on information that could undo the entire shape of what she thought she understood about her own life, and I had no idea yet whether telling her would help her or just hand her something new to be afraid o

•Faye•I was still half-buried in shopping bags, trying to figure out where exactly Mimi expected me to put six pairs of shoes I definitely hadn't needed, when Clare walked into the room like she owned the floor underneath her, which, for all I knew, she might have.She had that effect. Big, confident energy, the kind that filled a doorway before the rest of her even caught up to it, shoulders back, stride unhurried, like she'd never once questioned whether a room would make space for her. I liked her for it all over again, the same way I had the first day, except now I actually understood a little more about what I was looking at, an entire pack hierarchy, rank and bloodline and strength all stacked into one person who apparently outworked half the warriors here without breaking a sweat."There she is," Clare announced, dropping onto the couch across from me without an invitation, which seemed to be exactly her style. "The Luna returns from battle. How many stores did Mimi drag you t

•Shaun•The scent of blood hit me before I even reached the tree line, cutting through the cold night air, and my wolf surged forward hard enough that I felt my control slip half a step behind him, teeth already lengthening in my mouth before I'd consciously decided to let him that close to the surface."Report," I snapped at the warrior jogging beside me."They came from the east ridge, Alpha. Hit our patrol in a pincer, split the line before anyone could call it in properly." His voice was tight, controlled, but I could smell the fear underneath it, old enough as a wolf himself to know exactly what a coordinated hit like this meant. "Ashcroft colors confirmed. This wasn't a border test. This was planned."We broke through the tree line and the fight was already spread out in front of us, chaos given shape, wolves locked together in the moonlight, snarling and snapping, the ground already torn up with claw marks and worse. I caught sight of one of ours down near a boulder, not moving

•Faye•How? How is that even possible?I kept running my legs burning, lungs scraping raw with every breath, and I didn't know how long I'd been going, didn't know how far, only that it felt like forever, felt like every single time I'd ever run in my life collapsing into one endless stretch of trees and cold air and my own heartbeat pounding too loud in my ears.Eventually my body just gave out on me, legs folding under me without permission, and I dropped down hard into a patch of brush somewhere in what might have been a mini forest or might have been the edge of something much bigger. I didn't know where I was. I didn't recognize a single tree, a single shape of the land around me, nothing except the vague, useless sense that I'd put enough distance between myself and the pack house that nobody was going to stumble onto me by accident.I sat there, knees pulled up to my chest, arms wrapped tight around them, and let myself finally catch up with the thought that had sent me running

•Shaun•Dawn broke and I still hadn't found her.By midmorning the trail had gone cold entirely, that strange, unplaceable scent and hers both vanishing somewhere near the edge of pack territory like whatever had taken her, or whatever she'd run from on her own, had simply stepped through a door the rest of us couldn't see.I called Luke and every available tracker into my office, exhaustion sitting heavy behind my eyes, my wolf pacing so hard behind my ribs I could barely hold a coherent thought together."I want the human world searched too," I said, voice rough from hours of shouting orders across open ground. "Every town within fifty miles of the border she originally ran from. Motels, bus stations, anywhere a scared woman with no money and no ID might try to disappear into." I planted both hands flat on my desk. "And I want her stepfather found. Now. If he's actually alive, I want eyes on him, I want to know exactly where he is and what he's doing, because if there's any chance a