Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
The soil was damp under Reece Monahan’s black paws. But it wasn’t mud that dirtied his fur. They blackened as they reached the ground, as if he’d been formed out of the earth and only turned into a gray wolf halfway up his legs.
Around him the forest teemed with life. It was green and fresh. Perfect.
He pushed himself faster, vaulting over a fallen log and taking a turn on his path so fast he almost jammed his hind legs into a tree.
Even though he’d been a wolf since he was seventeen, he sometimes forgot what this body could do versus his two-legged form.
Luckily, the bruises from those mistakes rarely showed once he shifted back.
The ground flew beneath his paws. His muscles stretched until they almost hurt. He loved to run.
The smells were layered—wet earth, animal trails—and throughout it all was pack, family. This was his territory, his home, and he had covered every inch in one form or another.
An owl hooted, and he heard the burbling of the creek in the distance. His senses were at their most potent right now, though the colors were more muted than when he was human. That was a small blessing. If he lived every moment of his life with that much sensory detail, he might go mad.
Again.
Around him, wind whistled through the dull-green of the trees that would have been lush if he were human. It wasn’t all different. Brown was still brown, as was yellow. And he relied far more on his nose than his eyes in these woods.
Reece had made an excuse about going out to patrol. He was a beta for the Southern Basin pack, so it was accurate enough. But he was out here to clear his head.
The past few months had been strange, and it was still difficult to wrap his mind around the fact that there was a witch in the house from time to time, and most people weren’t bothered by it.
Sure, Elise earned a few glares from the holdouts, but she was so damned annoyingly nice that even those who had assumed she was tricking Nico with her feminine wiles and planning to take down the pack from the inside had started to open up to her.
Not that Reece had spotted a single feminine wile on Elise.
She reminded him more of a woodland creature, perhaps a rabbit, and he didn’t find rabbits cute.
He found them tasty.
But not tonight. He’d eaten a gigantic hamburger for dinner and wasn’t in the mood for raw, unseasoned meat.
Life had been calm ever since Elise and Nico settled into their abomination of a relationship.
The Iron Runners weren’t giving them any trouble, and Cole had made the call that they would back off on riskier jobs for now until things cooled down There was no need to ruffle feathers or fur when Dawson, the alpha of the Iron Runner pack —the most powerful and largest pack in the area —was willing to play nice.
But that meant things had been quiet. Disturbingly quiet.
Not the forest around him. That teemed with life and animal sounds. Everything he expected.
He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For fallout from Elise and Nico, or from the bullshit that came when Austin, a former beta from the Iron Runner pack, had kidnapped Elise and Nico, or any of the hundred other things that could come of a risky relationship.
But things were all right at the moment. The pack was settled. Cole had fully recovered from his injury a few months ago. Nico was playing house with his little witch, but he was doing his duties as well. Everything was supposedly fine.
Reece did not trust fine.
He wished Elise would stay away. If Nico wanted to fuck her, fine, whatever. But didn’t she have a house of her own? She didn’t need to be here on pack territory, making everything confusing.
She didn’t need her coven sisters dropping by unannounced to pick her up and take her to the city or bring something she had forgotten from her own home.
Did the woman even have a car? He was certain she didn’t. How did a grown woman not have a car?
And those coven sisters? Delainey?
God damn it, he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her.
Reece had spent most of the last four months successfully not thinking about Delainey.
With her corkscrew curls, and her rich brown skin, and the fire in her eyes and on her hands—the way she had almost killed herself to save his life, and he had been forced to drag her out of that mess by his teeth.
Reece growled low in his throat.
He was supposed to be angry about that, or neutral about it. It wasn’t supposed to make him wonder.
But there was a fire in Delainey that sparked his curiosity and made him want to know more.
He refused to give in to said fire because he wasn’t a fool.
He knew better than most that witches and wolves could not mix, that it only ended in disaster and heartbreak, and he wasn’t willing to put himself through that for even the slightest hint of curiosity.
Delainey was interesting, sure, but there were many interesting women out there. He would find one and ignore the allure of the forbidden, just as he had been successfully ignoring it for the past four months.
A scent snagged his senses.
His head jerked up, snout pointing east. That wasn’t a witch. No, he smelled wolves, and not any wolves that belonged to the Southern Basin. He could recognize every single one of his pack members by scent. He wouldn’t have cared if any were on their own runs.
But these weren’t his pack members. And he was deep in pack territory.
These were interlopers.
His hackles rose. Reece wanted to sprint toward the scent and run them off, but he forced himself to creep along slowly. If they were this deep in the territory, they were here for a reason, and he wanted to gather as much information as possible before he did damage.
He moved swiftly and quietly, no longer bumping into trees or forgetting how his body functioned.
This was the kind of deliberate movement that made him a beta—an experienced wolf and a honed killer.
He was downwind, which gave him the advantage, and he was quiet enough that neither of the wolves noticed him get close.
He peered at them through two trees. The spot wasn’t great for stopping; it was barely a trail, which gave Reece cover. But it also meant he’d have to vault over vegetation and fight nature and the enemy.
Just because he didn’t recognize their scent didn’t mean he might not recognize their wolf forms.
There were two gray wolves, though one was much darker, with nearly all black fur.
Both were on the smaller side, but still formidable.
Though most wolves were smaller than Reece.
They padded around with the confidence that usually only came from wolves in their own territory, which made Reece wonder exactly who these assholes were.
He was guessing these two were freelancers. If the Iron Runners wanted to cause trouble, they would have sent far more than two. And if they wanted information, they wouldn’t have needed to send spies like this. Somebody else wanted in.
They were close to the cabins that dotted the edge of the property, where mostly some families within the pack lived if they didn’t want to stay in the main house but still wanted to be close.
Each cottage had more than enough space for a family of wolves to make a home. It was almost impossible to see one house from another. And, if Reece remembered correctly, at least three were vacant right now.
Were these two playing house? Reece would have to check it out later.
Reece took another step forward, and his paw crushed a leaf. Two lupine heads snapped toward him.
Damn it.
The wolves launched themselves at him without warning, further proof that they were professionals.
But Reece was bigger than both of them, and no one liked to fight him.
He bared his fangs while he growled, and let the fight bleed through him.
Reece had been itching for violence for weeks. He almost felt bad for his attackers.
It was a brutal thing.
Claws scored fur and teeth dug in until they reached bone.
Reece tasted blood from the wolf under him, and it would take almost nothing to snap his neck, even in this form.
But the wolf’s friend wasn’t standing idly by.
He attacked Reece’s flank with enough force to make Reece rear back.
Reece snapped and turned toward the second wolf, and the one he had bloodied took off running deeper into the woods.
Goddamn it. He would have to deal with that later.
But now it was one on one, and his enemy wolf was significantly smaller than him. Reece showed no mercy, snapping at him and digging his fangs into fur.
But he hesitated. Killing an interloper could cause problems. The supernatural world wasn’t so violent that they didn’t have to answer for murder, even when it was done in self-defense.
Reece’s hesitation cost him. The wolf managed to jerk away and took off running faster than Reece would have thought possible. Reece took off after him and then forced himself to slow down.
Because what if this wasn’t just two isolated interlopers?
They could be leading him into an ambush. Reece could easily take on two wolves. But four? Five? No, it was probably better to let them run away and report this back to Cole. The pack would increase its patrols, and if anyone else tried to cause trouble, they would take care of it.
With that in mind, Reece turned back toward the main house, and then paused as a sensation rolled over him and made his hackles raise once more. But this wasn’t the scent of a wolf.
It was the scent of magic. Sour and so out of place, Reece growled.
He’d gotten somewhat used to smelling Elise’s magic, but she used it sparingly, and it smelled like flowers and warmth. She was a healer.
This was something off, and even more wrong because it was on pack territory. His animal recoiled, but he forced himself to slowly move in the direction the wolves had run. That was where the scent was coming from.
Three steps later, the scent evaporated. That was the annoying thing about magic. It was there, and then it was gone, and you couldn’t trace a damn thing if you didn’t have magic of your own.
Reece prowled back and forth for several minutes, trying to make out any sort of scent, any sort of clue that he could take back to the pack that would offer insight, but there wasn’t anything. Reece hated that he would have to go to Cole empty-handed, but this had to be reported.
He made his way back to the pack house, senses on high alert, and had a feeling that the other shoe he had been fearing was starting to fall.