2. Chapter 2
The cold settled into Rhys’s bones as he limped along the eastern boundary, his ruined leg protesting each step through the snow.
Two years since he’d been anything resembling whole.
His wolf barely stirred anymore. That was the worst part.
Rhys paused at the marker stone, checking the boundary line out of habit rather than need. Nothing ever happened on the eastern edge. Too far from Thornwood’s territory to be strategic, too close to human settlements to be worth claiming.
Just trees and snow and the endless Montana winter.
The wind shifted.
Rhys’s whole body locked.
Omega.
The scent hit him like a fist to the chest, wild honey and rain-soaked earth, fear and exhaustion woven through with what his body recognized before his mind could name it. His wolf surged awake with shocking force. His leg buckled.
He caught himself against a tree, his wolf clawing its way to the surface for the first time in two years.
His.
The word wasn’t thought. It was instinct. Violent. Absolute.
Not dead.
Not gone.
Waiting.
Rhys held himself still, his fingers digging into bark as he fought for control. His wolf snarled, pushing against his ribs, desperate to possess.
He breathed through his teeth, until the worst of the instinct burned itself down. When he could think again, he followed the scent carefully, each step measured. Not hunting. Just checking.
The trail led to a small cave tucked into the hillside, sheltered and hidden unless you knew where to look. Smart. He caught traces of blood, old, mostly healed, and beneath that, the sharper edge of prolonged hunger.
Weeks of broken sleep had hollowed her.
Rhys stopped thirty feet from the cave entrance, well within her sight line if she was watching. He waited, letting her see him. Letting her decide.
Nothing. Just the wind and his own breathing and the scent that made something inside him ache.
“I’ll keep my distance.” The words landed rougher than he meant. “You’re on Blackridge land. Alpha Jace will want to know you’re here, but no one is going to lay a hand on you.”
Still nothing.
“There’s a cache twenty yards north of here. Food, water, medical supplies. Take what you need. Pack rules say caches inside shifting radius are fair game. Drop point, retrieve point, no claim on what crossed the line.”
He fixed his gaze on the snow before his wolf could protest, forcing himself forward on the side that worked. Each step felt wrong.
Rhys gritted his teeth and kept walking.
The pack house sat at the heart of Blackridge territory, a sprawling structure that had grown organically over decades as the pack expanded.
Rhys bypassed the main entrance, heading for the alpha’s office around the side. He’d pushed too hard today, stayed out too long. Tomorrow he’d pay for it.
Jace looked up from his desk when Rhys knocked, his expression shifting from concentration to concern in a heartbeat. Theo stood at the side table, bent over a territory map, one hand braced against the edge. “You look like hell.”
“Feel worse.” Rhys lowered himself into the chair across from Jace, biting back a grunt as his knee protested. “There’s an omega on the eastern boundary. Cave near the old marker stone.”
Jace’s posture changed, not aggressive, but alert. “Alone?”
“As far as I could tell. She’s been running for a while. Injured, malnourished.” Rhys made the report clean. “I left supplies. Didn’t approach.”
“Good.” Jace leaned back in his chair, his fingers drumming against the armrest. “Thornwood?”
“Don’t know. Scent’s not familiar.” The lie tasted bitter, but Rhys swallowed it down. He didn’t understand what had happened out there, didn’t trust his wolf’s sudden awakening enough to put it into words. “Could be a refugee. Could be a scout?”
“Could be bait?” Jace’s expression hardened. “Garrett’s been testing our borders for weeks. An omega alone in winter, conveniently close to our territory?”
“Possible.” Rhys met his eyes.
“But you don’t think so.”
Rhys met his alpha’s eyes. “She’s terrified. That kind of fear doesn’t fake well.”
Jace was quiet for a moment, studying him. They’d grown up together, trained together. Jace knew him too well to miss the tension in Rhys’s shoulders.
Theo straightened from the map, brow drawn. “If her pack wants her back,” he said, “they could try the Council.”
A snort from the open doorway. Declan leaned against the frame, a folded report tucked under his arm. “No self-respecting pack is going to run crying to Council over a wolf they can’t get back themselves.”
Jace’s mouth twitched at the corner. He took the report from Declan without comment, scanned it, and frowned. “River-wash and juniper traces, both pulled from the eastern boundary in the same week. Someone’s running our perimeter scrubbed of pack scent.”
Declan nodded once. “First one I let slide. Second one in the same week, I’m thinking again. That mix is Garrett’s tradecraft, the same scrub his scouts ran when they sniffed around our western flank last fall. Someone Thornwood-trained is walking our line learning the rotations.”
“I’ll send Rachel to check on her tomorrow,” Jace decided. “Female approach might be less threatening.”
Rachel ran Blackridge’s medical supplies and had a way of putting skittish wolves at ease. If anyone could approach without triggering a flight response, it was her.
Relief and disappointment warred in Rhys’s chest.
He crushed the instinct. “Good call.”
“You should rest. You’re favoring that leg worse than usual.”
“I’m fine.”
“Rhys.” Jace’s voice gentled. “There’s nothing left for you to prove. Not to me, not to the pack.”
The words stung more than they should have. Because that was what he’d become. Someone who needed reassuring.
Rhys pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the fire that shot through his knee. “I’ll write up a full report.”
“Tomorrow. Go home. Sleep.”
Rhys nodded and left before Jace could see how much the dismissal hurt.
His cabin sat on the northern edge of pack lands, isolated enough to be private but close enough to reach if needed. Rhys had moved here after the injury, after it became clear he couldn’t keep up with the warriors anymore. After the pitying looks and careful words had worn him down to nothing.
The interior was sparse, bed, table, chair, shelves lined with books he’d read too many times. A warrior’s space stripped of anything that mattered. He built a fire, more for the routine than the warmth, and lowered himself onto the bed with a grunt.
It hadn’t stopped since catching that scent. Agitated, desperate to return to the boundary. To her.
Mine.
He looked down at his leg, at the mess of scar tissue that twisted across his knee and down his calf. At the weakness that had cost him everything that mattered.
The eastern boundary was dark when Rhys returned, the moon hidden behind clouds. His leg screamed with each step, but he stayed off the open ground and worked the deer-trail Sage had cut three winters back, knowing it threw his prints into the brush instead of the snow.
The cave entrance was a darker shadow against the hillside. He stopped well short of it, setting the supplies on a broad stone where she’d see them. Food. Water. Medicine. A blanket that didn’t smell like fear and desperation.
Movement at the cave entrance.
Rhys kept perfectly still as she emerged, small, dark-haired, moving like an injured animal expecting an attack. Even from this distance, he could see the way she favored her left side, the careful way she tested each step.
Before she reached for the supplies her eyes swept the tree line in a quick deliberate arc. Not searching for him. Marking the ground. Picking out where the next way out had to be. Someone who’d been hunted long enough to think in maps.
She spotted him immediately, freezing mid-motion.
They stared at each other across the snow. Her eyes caught the moonlight, wide and wary. Her scent hit him again, stronger now, wild honey and fear and something underneath that made his wolf whine with desperate need.
Rhys held still, gaze level. Just let her look, let her see that he wasn’t a threat.
Her weight rocked back onto her heels, ready to bolt.
“The supplies are for you.” He gentled the words.
Her fingers hesitated against the pack he’d left, her gaze never leaving him. She pulled it back toward the cave entrance, moving like she expected him to lunge.
He stayed on the log.
“There’s food,” he continued, careful with the words. “Medicine for that hip. The blanket’s clean.”
She clutched the pack against her chest, her breathing rapid and shallow. Terrified. Absolutely terrified.
Something he’d been holding gave way at the base of his throat.
“I’m Rhys.” He let the words settle between them. “I patrol this boundary. You’ll probably see me around.”
Her jaw worked once. The only answer was the slight tremor that ran through her frame.
“You can stay silent. Trust comes later, if it comes at all.” He let his hand fall back to his side instead of reaching toward her. “Just take care of yourself.”
His fingers curled once, like he was holding himself in place.
She swallowed hard. For a moment, he thought she might speak. But then she backed into the cave, the pack clutched tight, and disappeared into the shadows.
Rhys sat on the log until his leg went numb and the bark beneath his palms turned slick with frost. Some of the desperate need eased now that he’d seen her. Confirmed she was real.
Of course she was terrified. He was a male wolf on pack lands, and she was an omega alone in winter. Even broken, he was a threat.
The thought should have made him leave. Should have driven him back to his cabin to let Rachel handle this properly.