Page 19 of Ranger's Honor
Sharp and potent. Laced through the air like a challenge and a plea. I track it like a lifeline, lungs burning, legs relentless. I will reach her.
I run. Not because I’m afraid, but because if anyone other than our kind sees me like this, they will start asking questions I won't be able to answer. I move through the landscape, using cover when I can and speed when there is none available.
Sent trails crisscross the ground. Blood, gunpowder, and sea salt. Beyond all of it? Vanilla, ink and Kari. The barest trace of her fear—sharp and clinging like static before a storm, cutting through the other scents. It punches straight through my chest, dragging everything in me toward her with a primal urgency I can’t shake.
I angle south, tracking the familiar scent like a lifeline. My body aches, my shoulder throbs, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. She’ll be waiting.
I need her to be safe.
Even if it means exposing the wild edge I’ve kept buried—soaked in blood, bone, and instinct forged in war. I may well have to bare the visceral, unvarnished truth of what I am. A creature honed by violence and driven by something darker.
But she’s one of us. A wolf in her own right. She won’t flinch at the fur or the blood. She won’t mistake instinct for brutality. She’ll see past the violence to the truth beneath. She won’t see a monster. She’ll see a reflection. She’ll see me, and just possibly, she’ll still want what she sees—bloodied, breath ragged, heart hammering with a hope I barely dare name.
CHAPTER 7
KARI
Ifeel it before I see it, before the wind changes or the creak of the old house settles into silence. My skin prickles. My wolf paces. And the longer the front door stays shut, the harder it is to breathe.
Dalton said he'd be gone a couple hours, tops. I clung to that—hoped for a check-in, a smart-ass text, even just a heads-up that he was delayed. Anything that might anchor me in the waiting and remind me he was still out there, still okay. A couple is two. It's been four—and every tick past that second hour has dragged like barbed wire over my nerves.
At first, I told myself not to panic. That maybe he stopped to check a perimeter route or got caught in some digital dead zone where cell signals go to die. But each minute past the third hour scraped a little more harshly against my nerves.
Now, I can’t shake the thought—what if he’s not okay? What if something went wrong? The question burrows under my skin, sharp as splinters. My pulse skitters, my stomach clenches, and I swear the air gets thicker just from letting the fear in. I press my hand against my chest like I can physically hold myself together, but it doesn't help—not when every instinct in me is screaming that something is off.
I clutch the throw pillow tighter against my stomach, the fabric rough and familiar against my palms. The air feels too still. My heartbeat thuds in my ears, a dull, anxious rhythm that matches the restless stir of my wolf beneath the surface. Her pacing sharpens, frantic, urging me toward the door.
What if I never see him again? The question guts me, leaves a hollow echo where my calm used to be. My lungs seize. A band of pressure clamps down over my ribs, sharp and unrelenting. The thought is so sharp, so brutal, it steals the breath right out of me. I flatten my hand against my sternum, pressing hard against the ache blooming there, like that pressure might keep everything from unraveling. That one dark fear has already sunk its teeth in.
The thought hits hard—sharp, unexpected. My breath stutters. It’s not just worry—it’s dread, cold and rising, like a blade pressed to my spine. It knots in my gut, not like fear, but warning—like my body senses something my mind hasn’t caught up to yet.
I press my palm to the windowpane and stare into the dark, the cool glass biting at my skin like a warning. The night outside feels dense, like it’s pressing inward, thick with silence and something I can’t name. My breath fogs the glass in a shallow puff, and for a moment, I imagine I’m staring into the eye of something watching back.. There's no movement, no headlights, no shadows slinking past the live oak near the curb. Nothing but the distant rumble of surf and the occasional rustle of wind through the palmettos.
"You're spiraling," I mutter to myself, turning from the window. "He can take care of himself. He's probably just being overcautious. Like he always is."
My wolf doesn't buy it. She's pushing at the edges of my control now, urging me to do something—pace, shift, howl—anything but sit still. The need to move, to act, to find him isa rising tide in my blood, the pull of Dalton as my fated mate thrumming in my chest with sharp, unrelenting force.
Unease hums under my skin, prickling sharp at the back of my neck, winding tighter with each breath—a warning I can’t shake. It’s not a bond, not yet, but something in me is already tuned to him, keyed to the space he should occupy. And tonight, that instinct is screaming. Like a shadow pressing close, it tells me he’s out there… hurting.
I pace the living room, unable to sit still. The open laptop on the coffee table blinks with Sookie’s files, a too-familiar reminder of everything I’ve already combed through and can’t unsee like they’ve got something smart to say. I slam it shut with a sharp snap, the finality of it echoing louder than it should in the quiet room. Not now. Not when it feels like leaving the laptop open might invite more darkness in. Shutting it is the only thing I can control right now—a line drawn, a barrier against spiraling. Against helplessness.
I need Dalton home. Well, not home exactly, not for him, but I need him here.
My hand shakes when I pick up my phone. No texts. No updates. No smart-ass remarks about how I need to stop leaving the porch lights on because it ruins his perimeter shadowing.
Where the hell are you?
I’m halfway to shifting. I can feel it building in my spine, the pull of fur and instinct, the pressure of change rising fast.
And then the back door creaks.
I whirl, heart in my throat. A split second of frozen shock pins me in place—recognition slams into me before logic can catch up. My wolf stills, instincts flaring bright and hard. It’s Dalton. I feel it in my bones before my brain can process the image—injured, stumbling, but alive. Dalton. My breath catches, and instinct surges faster than reason.
Mist clings to the threshold, swirling in iridescent tendrils of violet and gray, thick with the coppery tang of blood and the electric bite of danger. It parts just enough to reveal the bulk of him stumbling through—still barefoot and bare-chested, blood smeared down one arm and a fresh cut blooming red along his shoulder. The mist remains for a moment longer, trailing off his skin like it’s reluctant to let go. He’s human again—naked, clothes destroyed by the shift, every inch of him marked by the fight he survived to get here.
Dalton.
Relief hits so fast I nearly go to my knees.
