Chapter 13
Caleb
Icaught it on the second pass.
On the eastern line, just past the ridge, there was another scent. Fresh. The dew hadn’t taken it yet.
I was on another of my patrols. Donovan and I were taking turns in shorter cycles. With the Voss this close, we needed to read any tracks they left with utmost care.
Stella filled in when she could. Jake offered, but it was too soon for him.
I moved toward the scent cautiously, checking for anything else — human or wolf. I pressed two fingers into the soft ground beside a patch of weeds.
Elias Voss.
I gritted my teeth. Why him?
I quickened my pace. I picked up the next mark seconds later. It was thirty — no, forty yards from the current spot.
This one was carved into a cedar. Shoulder height. This wasn’t a wolf cutting through territory on the way somewhere else. He was watching.
The edges of my jaw tensed.
A third scent carried in the wind. This time, it was at the corner of the property. My legs weakened.
I thought about the angle from this point to the estate windows, which windows were lit at which hours. Thought about the east-facing ones: the kitchen, the sunroom, the room at the end of the hall where Olivia read in the mornings with her coffee going cold…
I knew what he was mapping.
The wolf inside me stirred. Angry. My hands trembled and clenched.
I finished the perimeter run without hurrying. It was one of the few things that came easily to me. I knew how to move without showing it. Jake called it scary. Donovan called it useful. My father called it discipline.
I already had my suspicions that the Voss pack knew about Olivia.
It would be wolf suicide to attack on another pack’s territory. Not only was going against another group ill-advised, but word would spread around to other packs. They would be condemning themselves to certain extinction.
There was only one explanation.
A stone formed in my throat.
For once, I knew exactly what I needed to do. And I refused to do it.
I was back at the estate before midnight.
I alerted the pack as soon as I arrived.
Donovan came down first, already dressed. Jake followed after, half-asleep and trying not to show it. I noticed him wince as he sat down. Still hurting from the shift. I almost made a note to ask Olivia. Tomorrow.
Stella came in a few minutes later. Even though she lived further down, it was easy for her to travel back and forth in wolf form.
When she entered through the door, Donovan looked at me, as if demanding an explanation.
Stella looked at him directly. “Don’t worry,” she said dryly. “I’m here for business.”
The four of us gathered in the study. We kept the lights low. If the Voss were watching, they didn’t need to know we were together.
I reported what I'd found on my patrol. I remarked specifically that it was Elias Voss who was prowling around, not Maykhel or one of the other units of their pack. I told them about the three marks — the placement, the angles, what each one told me about how long he’d been doing it.
“They’re spying even closer now,” I said. “And specifically on Olivia.”
“You said his smell was along Olivia’s running track?” Stella asked.
“Yes.”
“He’s watching her.” Even though her voice was low, I could hear the anger creeping into it.
Jake asked the most important question. “What do we do?”
Donovan leaned over the desk and looked at each of us firmly.
“We send a message,” he said. “A hard warning along the eastern line. Make it clear they don’t cross again.”
“Are you trying to get us into a fight?” Stella asked.
“They’re not that stupid,” Donovan reminded her. “And we’ve been patient long enough.”
Jake was quiet for a moment. “If we escalate, they escalate, won’t they?”
We turned to him. Jake shrank into the wall he was leaning on. “It’s just… that’s how things usually go in history books.”
“He’s not wrong,” Stella said.
Jake continued, this time his voice even lower than before.
“He’s seen her,” he whispered. “If Elias has been watching the property, he’s seen her. She needs to know. What to look for, who to avoid, why —”
“No,” I said.
The word dropped before I finished thinking it. The wolf moved first — it moved faster than the rest of me.
“But —”
I stepped closer to the middle of the circle. “We don’t tell her,” I said. “And we don’t move. We’ll do what they’re doing. We’ll watch and wait.”
“Don’t be stupid, Caleb,” Donovan pressed. “That’s not a strategy. That’s you trying to save your skin.”
“Donovan,” Jake warned.
“Am I wrong?” Donovan asked. “Don’t you feel bad that she doesn’t know?”
I did. That was the honest answer, the one I couldn’t say in this room without it becoming something else — an admission, an opening I couldn’t afford. Feeling bad didn’t make it wrong. I told myself that. I’d been telling myself versions of it since she arrived.
Jake’s fingers tensed. He stepped forward to say something, but he winced in pain again.
Stella dug her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket. “I’m with them on this. Olivia deserves to know. We’ve told her everything so far, haven’t we?”
No one said anything, but they stared at one another in agreement. I tried to ignore the dull sensation digging into my chest. Everyone knew.
I steadied myself.
Outside, somewhere past the treeline, Elias Voss was patient. Maykhel Voss was more patient still. And Olivia slept down the hall. Unaware.
I thought about telling her. Pictured exactly how that conversation would go. Her questions. All of them. And at the end of that thread was something I wasn’t ready to hand her yet.
“I won’t change my stance,” I said. “We don’t know what the Voss pack wants just yet. Telling her changes things.”
More silence.
“We will tighten our patrols for now,” I said. “At least until we get a better understanding of their activity.”
The group looked at one another and then at me.
Donovan combed his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “Alright.”
Jake nodded.
Stella shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “Fine.”
I dismissed them.
The study emptied out and I was left with the low light and the sound of the house settling. I stayed there for a moment.
Remembering everyone's faces only made me want to question my own decisions.
“This is the best way,” I told myself.
As I made my way out, I caught sight of Stella and Donovan by the foyer. They stopped just short of the threshold. Donovan reached for the door handle at the same moment Stella’s hand came up to push it open, and both of them went still.
The shadow it cast against the side of their faces made it hard to read their expressions. They didn’t seem to notice. I did.
Stella lowered her hand first.
“Why didn’t you push harder?”
Donovan kept his hand on the door handle. He didn’t turn to look at her. “Have you tried pushing Caleb? Besides, I’ve been pressuring him since the first time he picked up their scent.”
Stella scoffed. “You pushed until it got uncomfortable. That’s not the same thing.”
“The bond could cost him, Stella.”
I noticed him linger on her name. He tried to continue. “If the distance —”
“Don’t.”
Stella stepped closer to him. Her eyes glowed as she sneered at him.
“Of course I know what the bond could do,” she said. “That changes nothing.”
A pause. She folded her arms. “You know, everyone says you’re the brave one. But that only applies to when you have the least to lose.”
Donovan opened the door wider. “You of all people,” he said, “don’t get to say that.”
Stella took her cue.
Before she left fully, I caught her last words.
“You’re a coward, Donovan.”
The door shut behind her.
I went out for the midnight run. It was my third perimeter check of the day and my body knew it.
I wasn’t in any pain. Not yet, at least.
I'd run these trails for years in both forms and could do it half-asleep, even with the fog slowing me down.
But the fatigue I felt tonight had little to do with physical exertion.
I thought about the night on the porch. Olivia beside me, moonlight on her skin. I remembered the way she looked at me when I asked if she wanted to stay. The feeling of her leaning closer, the kiss.
More importantly, Olivia kissed me first.
I kept returning to that. The way she closed the distance before I did. The way it felt like a decision she made deliberately, not something the bond swept her into. I wanted to believe that. It should have made me the happiest person in the world.
I ran another round along the east.
The scent-marks were where I found them. They were no longer fresh, but they were still taunting me.
Remembering the night with Olivia brought my mind to something else.
My mother.
I didn’t think about her often, mostly because her memory carried its own form of pain.
My mother looked at my father like that once, until it changed. The bond kept her there, and when it made leaving feel impossible, she became smaller.
As for my father… He called it love. But in some ways, that made things worse.
She died before I knew what was hers and what wasn’t.
By the time I came around the north side of the property, all the lights in the Ashwood estate were off.
Olivia would be asleep by now. She woke early — earlier than she admitted to, I noticed — but at least she was getting an appropriate amount of rest.
My mind returned to Elias's scent marks. Elias was not there by accident, and if he ever crossed paths with her…
I didn’t let myself imagine. It wasn't a physical danger.
Elias was dangerous because he knew how to use your own things against you. And this secret was definitely one he knew I feared.
Donovan was right. I knew Donovan was right.
The longer I waited, the worse it got.
I made the decision anyway. I would find a better time. I would find the right words. I would wait until the Voss threat was contained. I told myself there was a right time.
One where, once everything was okay, I could let Olivia choose me. Choose this life.
But until then, I needed to keep her safe.
Somewhere below, the creek moved over its rocks in the dark. I saw Jake’s light on the third floor. No doubt he was having trouble sleeping. I could already imagine Olivia scolding him.
I saw the gardens in the distance. In a few hours, Tomas would be coming out to water the plants. Maureen would make her run to the market, and Donovan would switch patrols with me. Everything I loved was inside that building.
That was yet another hard part about the decision I had to make.
I knew that if I didn’t tell Olivia, I was jeopardizing not only myself, but the chances of my pack — my family — in the event there was a conflict.
I finally wrapped up my patrol.
I went inside and got ready for bed. But I knew I wasn’t going to sleep for long.