Page 129 of Her Wolf

The first thing Finn spotted was the dead dog.

The second was the glint of the ring that lay on its unmoving flank.

As he crouched beside the animal, the other three spread out. The field was mostly grass with large pockets of bare ground interspersed between.

Kane went to go stand at one of them, hands on his hips as he studied the dust.

Lars came up to Finn. Fingers brushed the tip of his ear, and he glanced up at the man.

“Her ring,” Lars said as he slowly came into a crouch beside Finn.

“A message,” Finn murmured, twisting the ruby until the light caught it just right. He looked up at Lars. The man’s eyes were bright, if blood shot.

He was falling apart.

“Guys!” Kane’s voice rang out, and Finn flinched at the sound.

Fuck, they were both falling apart.

He and Lars clustered beside Kane, Bailey joining them a second later. The man went into a crouch, using a long stem of dry grass to point out a faint track in the dust.

“Helicopter.”

At that word, Finn’s beast threw back its head and howled.

“They could be anywhere by now,” Kane added, coming to a stand as he brushed his hands on his pants.

Anywhere.

When Finn forced his eyes up and happened to catch Lars’s eyes, he could see his own dismal suffering reflected in those green irises.

Their group had gone so still, so silent that, a few yards away, crickets began scraping out their melancholy tunes again.

It was over.

They’d lost her.

One by one, the men turned away and headed back to the tunnel. Bailey was the last to leave, perhaps because he would take the longest to mourn Cora.

And Finn left first, because he knew he’d never, ever get over her.

---