Mated to the Alpha CEO
"I know."
We left for Ragnar's territory the next morning.
The journey took two days by car, then another day on foot. His lands were in the mountains, far from human roads. The forests were indeed dying—trees with blackened leaves, streams that ran thick and dark.
"This isn't natural," Alistair said, crouching by a polluted stream. "It looks like poison."
"Witch poison?"
"Maybe. Or something else."
We pressed on.
Ragnar's pack lived in a cluster of stone huts surrounding a central longhouse. The wolves we passed were thin, their fur patchy, their eyes hollow. Children stared at me with something like hope.