Page 23 of Wolf's Reckoning
My gaze kept sweeping the area, my eyes taking it all in, remembering the pack I left and the one I had now. My attention wasn’t on what they were saying; that was Killian’s role. My attention was on the scent I’d picked up the moment we arrived.
Still heady. Still wild.
She’d left before we arrived.
Smart.
She was hiding. I could almost see the outrage in her eyes as they greeted her, ready towooher. I was surprised they still had their eyes. I fought back the smirk—yeah, the wildness in Rowen would be fighting this with every fiber of her being. But…but thedaughter, thedutifuldaughter whose life revolved around this pack, would go through with this.
For her father.
For her pack.
Not for herself.
Always so ready to sacrifice herself for the fucking pack.
She was escaping them for now, but she wouldn’t be able to outrun this forever. And when she returned, she’d see emissaries from a rival pack, and her guard would be up, and she’d be wary and then, andonlythen, could thetruegame begin.
“Wolfe?”
I turned to look at Lewis, who stood just inside the entrance to the hall.
“The druid’s ready to greet you.”
Are they?I wondered, keeping my thoughts to myself.
Killian didn’t look my way as we walked into the hall. The inside smelled like smoke, herbs, and slow decay. I sniffed once as the unpleasant smell enveloped me. It wasn’trot. Or death. It was just the scent of a legacy slipping from its grip. Killian looked undisturbed by it as he looked around, and I kept my thoughts to myself.
We followed Lewis through the narrow stone corridor toward the alpha’s quarters, the walls etched with faded runes that meant something once. Maybe they still did—to the right people.
Like the person waiting for us just outside the door to the alpha’s rooms.
The druid.
They stood straight, despite their years, wrapped in ash-colored robes, their white hair slicked back from their face and twisted into long locks that fell down their back. Their mismatched eyes didn’t catch me off guard; I’d been stared down by their gaze too many times in my youth. But I felt Killian’s surprise, though he masked it well. The infinitesimal narrowing of the druid’s eyes told me that Killian hadn’t masked it well enough.
The druid’s presence didn’t shout. It watched. Measured.
“Wolfe,” they said, voice low and dust-dry. “I’d heard the Stonefang representative was familiar with the Hollow. But still…I did not expect you.”
I inclined my head, letting my expression stay neutral. “Just here on behalf of the Stonefang Pack.”
“Of course.” Their lips twitched—not a smile. A flicker of something older. “And I’m merely the wind.”
Killian snorted beside me.
The druid gestured toward the heavy wooden door behind him. “Alpha Malric is weak but aware. You’ll be brief.” An instruction, not a suggestion.
They opened the door without waiting for a response.
My first impression as I stepped into the rooms of my old alpha was that Alpha Malric looked smaller than I remembered. Shrinking into the frame of a man who used to command mountains. The fire in the hearth was low, but his eyes still burned with the last of what made him alpha.
He coughed once, hard, and waved us forward. “Wolfe?” he rasped. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Didn’t expect to come,” I said truthfully. I watched him look me over like I was no more than the boy he remembered.
His eyes narrowed. Coolly calculating. “But you heard about Rowen.”
