Page 118 of Wolf's Reckoning
He stepped beside me, his arm brushing mine. The contact sent a jolt through my system so sharp I had to clench my fists.
“We weren’t prepared,” I whispered.
“I know.”
I finally looked at him. “This is what you’ve been saying all along?”
“No. Not all along.” His gaze held mine, clear and unflinching. “But this is why we came here,” he said, looking away. “One of the reasons.”
My throat tightened. “And what does that change?”
He didn’t answer.
Silence stretched between us. Heavy. Charged. Until he moved away, walking amongst the fallen, helping the injured.
We’d been caught off guard. The perimeter had been weak. Wolfe had told us that, and I was too busyragingagainst an injustice, so busymopingthatIleft my pack fragile.Was it just our perimeter that was weak? Or had someone known how to slip past the wards? I turned back toward the heart of the field—and stopped.
Wolfe stood at the center of it. Towering. He had a pair of shorts on but was still shirtless, bloodied, his eyes lit up silver-white, gleaming like twin moons under the midday sun. Not a drop of hesitation in him. Not a flinch. Not a flicker of doubt.
Around him, pack bowed their heads.
Even mine.
Evenmine.
The rogues were dead or gone, the threat neutralized—but the real reckoning had just begun. I could feel it in the way the pack shifted their weight, looking to him. Their alpha.
And he hadn’t needed to raise his voice once.
Lewis appeared beside me, grim. “He’s something,” he said quietly, handing me a dress, and I didn’t ask where it came from as I slipped it on. “Look how easily they follow.”
“I noticed,” I ground out. My wolf bristled. Not in fear. In fury at what had happened here today.
Wolfe raised his head. His voice poured through the Hollow, steady and calm—but soaked in something deeper.Power. Authority. A command that didn’t demand submission. Itinvitedit—and the pack ran to give it.
It is over, for now. But they’ll be back, and we need to be prepared.
The effect was immediate. Chests lifted. Shoulders squared. The panic subsided. It shouldn’t have surprised me. But it did. Because I knew this pack better than anyone—and they were ready to follow him without question. And worse? Part of me understood why.
Wolfe didn’t try to soothe. He didn’t sugarcoat. Hestood, and right now, that was what we needed.
I watched Wolfe, his Stonefang Pack coming to stand beside him, their eyes watching the pack gathered. I saw what they were thinking; this wasn’t a random attack.
Wolfe glanced my way, and I held his gaze across the blood-slick grass.
He didn’t smile. Didn’t soften. But he dipped his chin—just once—and the raw heat of his acknowledgment sent a tremor through me.
Not as his mate. As someone who knew exactly what it cost to lead. I turned before he could call for me. We had dead to bury and possibly a traitor to find.
The adrenaline was startingto fade, leaving behind the ache of bruises and the sting of failure, but my mind wouldn’t settle. The rogues hadn’t just stumbled onto our land. Not with the way they’d moved. Strategic. Surgical. Like someone had drawn them a goddamn map.
I knew this territory like I knew my own bones—every ridge, every fault line, every hidden passage through the dense Appalachian pine. They hadn’t guessed their way in.
They’d beenled.
I moved through the camp in the hours after, checking on packmates, murmuring comfort I didn’t feel, eyes constantly scanning. Not for more attackers. But for cracks.
Lewis joined me near the creek, his face pale, blood drying in streaks across his jaw.
