28. Chapter 28
The compound was already awake when Sage arrived, her breath misting in the early morning chill.
Two weeks had passed since the memorial clearing.
She’d spent most of them learning pack rhythms from the inside.
But today was different. Today she started work.
The kind she’d trained for. The kind that had kept her alive when nothing else could.
Declan walked beside her, close enough that their shoulders brushed. The mark on her neck had settled into a silver scar that caught the light. Every wolf they passed could see it. Could scent the bond.
She’d stopped caring about being watched days ago.
Jace waited in the operations room, field reports spread across a heavy wooden table. Maren stood beside him, reviewing the same logs with the focused attention Sage recognized from her own investigative work.
“Morning.” Jace looked up. “Ready to get started?”
“Yes.” Sage moved to the table without hesitation. “What am I looking at?”
“Three months of field reports.” Maren gestured to the stacks. “We need someone who can see what we’re missing.”
“You want me to find the gaps.” She traced a route along the eastern border. “The places where someone could slip through unnoticed.”
“Among other things.” Jace pulled out a chair for her. “Your investigative background gives you perspective we don’t have. You think like someone trying to infiltrate rather than someone trying to defend.”
“Because I was someone trying to infiltrate.” She met his steady attention. “Two months ago, I would have exploited every weakness I’m about to show you.”
“I know.” His face held no judgment. “That’s why you’re valuable. You understand how threats think because you were one.”
Declan moved to stand behind her chair. His hand settled on her arm. Quiet support through the bond.
Sage pulled the first stack of reports toward her. “Then let’s find the holes before someone else does.”
The work consumed her attention completely. She didn’t read the reports so much as interrogate them, holding one account against another, looking for places where the record said nothing happened and something should have.
Within an hour, she’d found three weak points.
She marked three points and slid the layout toward Jace.
“Here. Here. And here.” Blind spots during shift changes.
Thirty-to-forty-second gaps. She sketched solutions without being asked.
Staggered transitions. Roving patrols off set routes.
An observation post on the northern ridge.
The kind of analysis that came from years of thinking like a threat.
Declan’s hand tightened on her arm. Quiet certainty in the touch.
They worked through the morning, Sage identifying weaknesses, Jace and Maren proposing solutions. No one questioned her authority or dismissed her insights because she wasn’t a wolf.
She was pack. And pack shielded each other. This was the first morning it felt completely true.
When they broke for lunch, Sage’s neck ached from hunching over the work and her hand cramped from taking notes. But satisfaction settled warm in her.
This was what she’d been searching for without knowing it. Not vengeance. Not closure. But purpose that served something larger than her own pain.
Declan walked her to the dining hall, his presence steady beside her. “You’re good at this.”
“I’ve been doing investigative work for years.” She rolled her shoulders, working out the stiffness. “This is just a different application of the same skills.”
“It’s more than that.” He held the door for her. “You’re not just identifying problems. You’re teaching us to think like you do. To see threats before they materialize.”
“That’s the point of intelligence work.” She grabbed a tray. “Prevent rather than react.”
They filled plates and found seats near the windows. Other wolves nodded greetings as they passed, comfortable rather than wary.
Sage had stopped being the outsider sometime in the last two weeks. Now she was just Sage. Declan’s mate. Pack intelligence. Home.
Maren joined them halfway through the meal, sliding into the seat across from Sage with easy familiarity. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“We have a ceremony coming up.” Maren’s face was carefully neutral. “Full moon gathering. The whole pack comes together to honor bonds and reinforce pack ties. I’d like you to participate.”
Sage set down her fork. “As what?”
“As pack.” Maren’s smile was gentle. “Not as Declan’s mate or the intelligence specialist. Just as one of us. Family.”
The word hit harder than expected. Sage had lived inside grief and anger long enough that they’d left no room for connection. The idea of belonging to something again, of being claimed not by one person but by an entire community, made her throat tight.
“I don’t know the rituals.” Her voice scraped rough on it. “I might do it wrong.”
“Then we’ll teach you.” Maren reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “That’s what family does.”
Declan’s hand found Sage’s knee under the table.
“Okay.” Sage managed a smile. “Yes. I’d like that.”
Maren’s relief was visible. “Good. We’ll go over everything beforehand so you’re comfortable. No surprises, I promise.”
They finished lunch talking through ceremony details. Sage absorbed the information with the same focus she’d given the field logs, memorizing steps and responses until Maren laughed and told her to stop treating it like an exam.
“It’s about connection, not perfection.” Maren let her shoulders ease. “Just be present. The rest will follow.”
After lunch, she returned to the operations room alone and pulled the eastern sector reports. Read them the way she read crime scenes. Not for what they said, but for what they didn’t.
Three of Nolan’s entries had the same clipped note. Eastern ridge, boot impressions, possible deer.
Deer didn’t leave boot impressions.
She charted the positions. Each one farther back from Blackridge’s boundary. Not withdrawing. Repositioning. They were learning where the patrols stopped looking.
Rhys appeared in the doorway. He crossed to the table without asking, favoring the leg he’d broken two winters back, and laid a chart beside hers.
“Every one of those kills sits inside the river corridor.” He tapped the cluster of markers. “Same ground Thornwood has been trying to claim for years.”
Overlaid on the new surveillance data, the kills weren’t just territorial markers. They were the opening move of a campaign still running.
Jace closed the door behind him. Read the room.
“How bad?”
“They’re still watching us.” She slid the chart toward him. “Three observation points since the rescue.”
Jace read the positions. Something behind his eyes went cold.
He set a folded paper on the table. “Declan brought this an hour ago. Runner from a neutral contact.”
Sage opened it. Three lines. Thornwood reaching out to allied packs. Building political support. Framing the failed kidnapping as Blackridge aggression on neutral ground.
“The kidnapping wasn’t the endgame.” She tapped the timeline.
Jace’s expression went very still. “Thornwood filed a territory claim on the river corridor the same year Mason died. Two months after.”
The room went quiet.
She didn’t need to re-map what she’d learned in the locked box. Chester had killed Mason. Random. Terrible. But Garrett had watched that death and seen opportunity. Five deliberate kills in exactly the territory he’d been trying to acquire. She’d carried those names for years.
“Their names go in the brief.” Steady. Controlled. “They deserve to be in the record as people. Not territorial markers. Someone needs to say their names.”
“Five murders tied to a land grab.” She picked up the pen. “The evidence standards are higher than anything we have yet.”
“We don’t have it. Not yet.” Jace’s voice was quiet. Absolute. “But when we do, Garrett answers for it.”
She straightened. “Not just him. All five of them deserve a case, not a footnote.”
“I can do that.” Sage straightened. “I’ll have a full counter-narrative inside a week.”
Jace gave a single nod. “Then get started.”
The compound was quiet around them. Wolves on watch.
Sage set down her pen.
Jace paused at the door. “This is exactly why we need you.”
He left. Rhys stood, winced once at the knee, and followed without a word.
Back to her records.
She could feel Declan from the cabin. Steady. Trusting.
She’d tell him in the morning. Tonight, she’d let him rest.
Sage pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward her and began to write.