Page 9 of Wolf's Reckoning
“Don’t get detained,” he warned, louder as he stepped back.
“It was one time,” I complained with a roll of my eyes. “And they apologized afterwards.”
“Because I tore through their chamber,” he reminded me gruffly. “I’m not going to be able to do that again, daughter.”
“I’m ten years older and wiser,” I said with a wry grin. “I know how not to get caught.” With a wink, I left him and the druid both muttering about me being impulsive.
Me impulsive? Once maybe. Six years leading my pack and taking care of the essential things that my father would have deferred to my mother, had sculpted me into a moreresponsibleshifter.
I spoke to a lot of the pack as we left. A few reminders to the kitchens for meal requirements, a menu for the upcoming week, even though I was only going to be goneone, now two, nights, they needed to prep more than just a day in advance.
We were a medium-sized pack, and not all ate together, but it was good to plan ahead and know what stock we needed.
Lewis was my silent companion throughout; he never hurried me, huffed, or gave a pointed look. He knew I was doing as much as possible so my father wouldn’t have to.
The druid had assured me they would be on hand in my absence, but all I needed was some sign from the Goddess, and the druid would drop my father’s needs for the supposed needs of the land.
Which was how it should be. I knew that. The druid served the pack, not just one member. Yet, I couldn’t help but wish they would be a bit more selective about who they served first.
When I was finally at the edges of the packlands, I looked over at Lewis, who was already stripping out of his shirt.
“We’re shifting?” I asked him in surprise. We had a pack vehicle, but I wasn’t a fan of covering ground on wheels. However, I had assumed we would drive there. Somehow, I imagined the Pack Council was more refined than a bunch of naked shifters turning up.
“Don’t plan to walk there on two feet.”
Because four feet were faster. Obviously. I looked down at my oversized jacket and my lace-up boots.
Damn it, I would need a bigger pack… I eyed the backpack Lewis had with him.
“You want me to strap it to you?” I asked him, focusedon his pack and wondering if I could sneak my boots in there.
“I got it.”
Right. Of course. I pulled my jacket off and quickly shed my clothes. The small pack the druid had given me had room for my pants, top, and underwear. My jacket and boots were an issue. Quickly, I tied the laces of the boots together and looped them around the strap of the pack.
I looked up to see Lewis waiting, his pack open—definitely a man who had daughters. With a grin, I handed over my jacket, and with a sigh, he rolled it, packed it, and then draped the straps out so he could pick it up when he shifted.
He shifted into his brown and black furred wolf. Deftly, he scooped the pack off the ground, and I waited until he had a firm grip before I shifted.
The fluidity of the shift made me stretch out immediately. It was as if all my muscles had been comfortable but not relaxed. They welcomed the leisurely stretch I gave them. My wolf was much smaller than Lewis’s. My fur was pale ash with streaks of silver throughout. I had a long black stripe that ran down my back, the color matching my father’s wolf. The ash was my mother. The silver was unique to me. The combination allowed me to blend into the shadows at night.
I was the fastest wolf in our pack, a trait I was sure Lewis forgot until I started the run. My boots banged against my chest until I had a firm grip on the upper leather. Looking back, I saw the larger wolf was handling his pack just fine.
We left the Hollow early in the morning, slipping past the iron-bound trail posts before the mist burned off. Thepath west ran through forgotten logging cuts and overgrown switchbacks—no roads, no towns, no scent of outsiders, just ridgelines and the thick, pulsing breath of the forest.
By midday, the trees had changed. Denser. Older. The kind that whispered ancient.
We were in the Smokies now.
We crossed the state line without fanfare—just a river to ford, a grove to pass through, and then it hit: the deep, wild silence that lived between Tennessee and the sky.
The shift was subtle at first—a difference in the smell of the moss, the shape of the ridgelines, the way the air didn’t move the same. But my wolf felt it. Every hair on my arms lifted in response.
Old mountains.
Older than us.
And it felt like theyknewwe didn’t belong.
