Page 15 of Wolf Marked

The words stayed lodged in Astrid’s throat.

He rubbed his sweat-slicked forehead, and then his glassy gaze found Erec, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “Changed your mind, have you? Come to join us after all?”

Erec’s body tensed, but instead of saying a biting remark, he only nodded.

An amused smirk lifted the side of Boden’s mouth. “Good.”

That was her father, all right. She couldn’t help herself. She wrapped her arms around his bulbous middle, as much as his size allowed, and squeezed. One of his large hands pushed against her back. “Astrid, my girl, are you all right?”

She fought back the tears prickling in her eyes and ripped herself away from him. “Oh, yes. Fine.” She sniffed.

Boden peered over the top of her head at his empty wagon and untouched tent. “It looks like I still have my things to sort out.” He turned to Filip. “Tell the pack we’ll be leaving within the hour.”

“Of course, Father,” Filip replied, like he always did. As if nothing had changed.

But it had changed. It would never be the same again. Their father’s mind was slowly slipping away, and nothing could be done to help him. Although it seemed like he’d shaken the delusions for now, who knew when he would fall back into them again. He wasn’t Boden the Warrior anymore, the ruthless alpha who ruled the west territory. He was a shadow of that man. And with their pack being threatened by Jerrick, they needed him here more than ever.

She needed him, too.

A dull ache began to grow at the center of her chest, followed by the same intense sadness she’d felt ten years ago. First, she’d lost her mother. It had been sudden, unexpected. And now she was losing her father slowly. As she thought about it, she didn’t know what was worse.

More tears sprang to her eyes, but she blinked hard to keep them at bay.

Boden strode away, but once he stood below his prized moose antlers and pulled back the canvas hut’s entrance, he paused. “Make sure you stay with the group when we set off, Astrid. No wandering. It’s too dangerous.”

Astrid’s thoughts instantly went to Jerrick’s captives, who were still in the forest clearing, waiting for her and Erec to come back. They had to rescue them.

But then her father said something that made her heart plunge into the pit of herstomach. “Please…” Agony dripped from every word. “I can’t lose you, too.” With that, he disappeared into his tent, and everything seemed to make sense to Astrid: her father’s constant desire to keep her close and under the pack’s protection, his irrational fear whenever she ran off, and threats if she disobeyed. It wasn’t because she was close to her final Blue Moon, like she’d thought. He was terrified to find her dead…like her mother.

Snowflakes fluttered around the remaining three, hovering in the air for a breath before drifting to the ground and disappearing in the white blanket at their feet. Every once in a while the distant clang of a hammer against metal would shatter the early morning calm.

“Let’s continue our conversation away from here.” Filip gestured for her and Erec to follow him away from the tent, farther into the forest. In the shadows of the trees, where the heat of the sun didn’t touch, nature was painted in shades of black and white. Astrid never missed the spring as much as she did now.

“About the survivors, we need to keep this from Boden and the rest of the pack for now. We don’t want panic,” he started. “Boden only wants to protect his pack. He’s moved us a lot over the years to avoid danger.”

“That’s why we’ve had to resettle so much?” Astrid asked, and Filip nodded. She had never understood her father’s reasons for relocating their group every couple of years, but since the alpha’s word shouldn’t be questioned, she never did.

“Boden the Warrior wants to avoid danger.” Erec rubbed the sand-colored stubble along his jawline. It sounded like he was mulling it over himself.

“He’s not the same man he once was,” Filip said. “He won’t agree with risking his people to save strangers. He won’t allow it.”

“We will have to handle it on our own, then,” Erec replied firmly. “And we’ll have to go about dealing with Jerrick a different way. We can’t rely purely on brute strength or numbers, like he does. We’ll have to be smart about this.”

Filip paced over to a nearby tree and leaned against it, nodding. “We have a lot of men in our pack, but most are families here. Women and children.”

Astrid’s head pounded as she listened, and the danger of their situation sank in. A war with Jerrick’s pack was imminent. Rescuing all those innocent people dying in the murderous alpha’s chains and cages could cost them their lives, too, and now there was the truth of her father’s condition—it all sat on her mind like three unmovable, crushing boulders. She had no idea what they were going to do to survive all this.

“I’m worried about time,” Erec went on, but his face didn’t show a bit of that apprehension. “I didn’t exactly agree with Boden at first, but with Jerrick only miles from here, moving farther west might give us the time we need to form a plan.”

Filip reached into a back pocket of his pants and pulled out a scrap of paper. He began to unfold it. “The pack is moving to Svanna Rock. Do you know where that is?”

Astrid stepped closer to him and peeked at the twisting lines and tiny letters scrolled across the front, all in black ink. A map. She recognized the river first by its winding shape, which cut through many triangular trees before curving sharply west. There was Mikel’s name and Rohan’s, and many of the other pack territories, each outlined and marked. She even spotted Svanna Rock, just above a small clearing labeled “Boden” in scratchy handwriting. Their final destination.

Erec didn’t even look at the makeshift map in Filip’s hands. “It’s about a full day’s trip from here. That’s if you don’t stop and rest. It’s usually very dangerous during this time of year, though. Pointy rocks. Jagged cliffs. Slippery.”

Filip refolded the paper and smiled. “That’s it.”

Astrid was impressed, too. Her pack had to relocate many times, always within their territory, yet they still didn’t know the forest that well. A map was always a handy tool to have.

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