Kalen

Liam’s ears flatten. What is that?

Every muscle in my body locks. He’s caught it too.

Female. Wounded. Outsider.

His growl vibrates my spine. Smells like prey.

I body-check him into the boulder. False lead.

Bullshit. He bares his teeth. You hiding strays now, brother?

He says the word like a taunt. A reminder of the way we used to be.

Before I ruined his sister.

He sees right through me. Or maybe it’s our wolf connection, the bond stronger while we’re in this form. The pack circles, nostrils flaring. Eight pairs of eyes reflect lunar gold.

My claws scratch at the rock beneath my paws. Focus on the real threat.

Liam doesn't blink. This reeks of Blackwood tricks.

My tail lashes. The rogue went east. Take the pack and circle the lake.

A beat. Two. His ear flicks in reluctant obedience before vanishing into the pines.

I wait until Lyla's scent fades—ten heartbeats, twenty—before following.

By dawn, we've found nothing but false trails and fox dens. The elders meet us at the council oak, faces carved from granite. We shift back to human form and accept the clothing they offer us.

"Fifth attack this moon cycle," rumbles Old Tavia. Her arthritis-swollen fingers worry at a wolfsbane charm. "The people whisper of cursed leadership."

My skin crawls as I pull the jeans over my hips.

Cursed leadership.

If the only knew.

“Jax?” I ask.

“In the lodge,” Thaddeus says. “With Cassie.”

I want to get back to the cabin and check on Lyla. My thoughts spin toward her, and I’m torn between anger that she left the cabin and worry that she didn’t make it back.

But I’m Alpha. My pack comes first.

Jax is alive when we return, barely. Cassie's sitting cross-legged beside him in the lodge, surround by a halo of blood-soaked bandages, her healing glow reduced to faint starlight. She meets my eyes when I enter, and I see the exhaustion on her face. She gives a slight shake of her head, and something cracks in my chest.

“Morning will tell,” she says.

I step to her and squeeze her shoulder. “Sleep, Cassie. We’ll need you rested.”

“But who will watch him?” she murmurs.

Elara would be the best candidate. But I hesitate even as my eyes track toward Liam’s sister, the woman I once loved.

She still reeks of pain when she looks at me.

“I’ll stay with him,” she says, saving me the awkwardness of speaking to her. Saving both of us.

I nod and leave the lodge, leaving my pack to stare after me.

I should stay. Be at Jax’s side.

I’ll return before he draws his last breath, I promise myself.

But I have to see Lyla.

As I draw closer, the cabin door swings open in a silent invitation. A rush of anger surges through me – she knows better than to leave it unsecured. My heart pounds against my ribs, and I don’t breathe until I spot her huddled against the stone hearth.

"Damn it, Lyla," I growl, my gaze darting around the room for any signs of danger. “I told you to stay in the cabin and lock the door!”

But as I approach, my anger ebbs away, replaced by a sharp stab of concern. She’s partially shifted, the claws of one paw bloody from scratching at the gaps between the stones, desperate and frantic. Her amber eyes are wide and wild, and her breathing comes in small, rapid gasps.

My reprimand dies on my lips. This isn't defiance or carelessness—this is fear, raw and potent. It tugs at something primal within me, stirring up an instinctive need to protect her from whatever haunts her mind.

I cross the room in two strides. Her fist connects with my solar plexus before I can block, her claws slashing across my bare flesh.

Lyla

I need air.

The cabin presses in around me, thick with the scent of blood and magic, of firewood and damp wool. Kalen's warmth lingers on my skin, but it isn’t enough to drown out the pressure mounting in my skull. My pulse is a frantic drum against my ribs. I need space. I need distance. I need—

I yank open the cabin door.

Cold air slams into me, sharp as a blade, cutting through the fog in my mind. I gulp it down in greedy, desperate lungfuls. The scent of rotting pine needles, of damp earth, of copper-tinged warning slides down my throat like poison. The trees loom, skeletal fingers scratching at the night sky, their shadows stretching long and hungry.

But my feet move forward.

Curiosity pulls me like a fish on a hook, even as my instincts scream. The night hums with silence too thick, too deliberate, pressing against my ears like a held breath. I step past the threshold, onto the porch. The wooden boards groan beneath me, a whisper of warning.

Something shifts forty yards east. A twig snaps.

I freeze.

The wind shifts, and with it comes another scent. It snakes around me, coils into my lungs, burrows deep into my bones.

Sweat. Blood. Fear.

My stomach curdles, my nails bite into my palms. The scent is wrong—familiar yet unnatural, layered with decay, as if something dead had walked too long in living skin. My breath comes sharp and shallow. I should go back inside. I should lock the door.

Then the scent changes.

It thickens, weaves through my mind, twists and digs like thorns. The world tilts. Shadows pulse at the edges of my vision. My throat tightens around a scream that won’t come. The scent—

I remember it.

I stagger back. The world narrows to the pounding in my skull, the thing clawing its way into my mind, unraveling my thoughts, twisting my memories. The trees ripple like water, their edges bleeding into one another.

I can hear it breathing.

Not with my ears—with my soul.

The Rogue is inside my head.

I claw at my throat, my nails lengthening into something inhuman, scraping against skin, desperate to rid myself of the scent, of the infection it carries. My other hand stays human, useless.

No. No, no, no.

I have to get back.

I force myself to my feet, legs trembling beneath me. The wind howls through the trees, mocking my weakness. My breath rags in and out of my lungs. I turn and run, the forest warping around me, shifting like a living thing, branches reaching, roots grasping. My vision tunnels.

The cabin.

The door swings open before I reach it, but I don’t stop to wonder why. I slam it shut behind me, the wood rattling in its frame. My heart slams against my ribs. The scent clings to me, burrows deep beneath my skin. I can’t scrub it away. My nails find the gaps in the stone hearth, digging, clawing.

It won’t come out.

I’m losing myself.

The door bursts open.

I flinch, spinning, half-shifted, instincts lashing before reason catches up. Claws flash through the dim light, slicing through skin.

A grunt.

I snarl, teeth bared, chest heaving. He’s too close, his scent tangled with blood, with rage, with—

I don’t know him.

He steps forward, bare-chested, the crimson streak across his skin stark against pale moonlight. His mouth moves, forming words I can’t hear over the blood rushing in my ears. He reaches for me. I lash out, twisting, fighting, my body a frenzy of motion, of fear, of instinct.

“Damn it, Lyla!”

He pins me.

Arms lock around me, strong, steady, unyielding. His weight anchors me, grounding me in the now, in the warmth of his skin, in the steadiness of his breathing. I fight, I thrash, I sob—but he doesn’t let go.

“Breathe, hellwolf,” he murmurs, voice steady.

A command.

A plea.

His voice is deep. Familiar.

I gulp down air, trembling. His palm presses against my heart. His skin is warm. Solid. Real.

“Kalen,” I whisper. I close my eyes, a whimper escaping my lips.

He speaks again, softer this time.

“Name five things you smell.”

I can barely think past the madness clawing at my mind, but his voice is an anchor. I latch onto it.

“Pine resin,” I whisper. “Iron blood. Your... your stupid musk.”

A huff of amusement. “Two more.”

“Wood smoke.” A breath. A pause. A shuddering inhale. “Rotted meat.”

The words leave my lips before I can stop them, and suddenly I’m freezing, my heart seizing in my chest.

That scent—

Kalen stiffens against me.

His grip tightens.

“Is it here?” My voice is a whisper, barely more than breath.

He doesn’t answer right away, and I lift my eyes to his face.

Then he says, softly, “No.”

But the way his jaw locks tells me everything.

Not now.

But it was here.