Chapter 24 Alaric
ALARIC
Alaric told himself letting her go had been necessary.
The lie lasted less than an hour.
By the time darkness settled, every part of him that had been quiet since she drove off was pacing; his thoughts, his wolf, even his pulse.
He’d stood in the doorway long enough to see the storm roll in, to smell the static in the air, to hear his own voice echoing the wrong words: Goodnight, Elara.
“Should’ve called her back,” he muttered, grabbing his coat. The wolf growled inside him, low and sharp. Find her.
“She’s fine,” he said out loud. “She’s at the inn.” Find her now.
He swore under his breath, slammed the truck door, and turned the engine. Snow whipped sideways across the headlights. The road blurred fast in thick white, the kind that swallowed sound and distance.
The drive to Hollow Oak should’ve been fifteen minutes.
Tonight it stretched. He kept the wheel steady, eyes scanning the edge of the road where the pines bent under ice.
The closer he got to town, the worse the wind hit.
He almost missed it; the shape off the shoulder, half-buried under blown snow.
He braked hard.
Elara’s car.
The driver’s door hung open, snow drifting onto the seat. Headlights dimmed and pulsed weakly against the storm. His pulse spiked.
“Elara?” His shout vanished into the wind.
No answer. Just the crunch of snow and the slap of branches.
He followed the tracks of small boot prints heading toward the woods, fading fast under fresh fall. A hundred yards in, the scent hit him like a fist: not hers first, but them.
Hunters.
He felt the shift coming before he let it.
Bones lengthened, muscles tightened, the air sharpening into something electric.
The wolf surged forward, no hesitation, no thought.
The world split into scent and motion and though Elara’s trail was faint, it was bright like heat through frost, and laced now with panic.
He ran.
Trees blurred by, claws biting into snowpack. The storm howled, but the wolf’s hearing cut through it: branches snapping somewhere ahead, the faint, metallic click of a rifle bolt. He circled downwind, keeping to shadows.
Two scents. Maybe three. Human, cold, wrong for this place.
She’s close, his wolf breathed.
A broken branch hung at shoulder height. Her scarf clung to it, bright against the white. He nosed it—her scent was fresh, heart-thudding-fast. He growled deep in his chest.
“She’s running,” he rasped, half-wolf, half-man.
Protect her.
He followed, faster now, snow stinging his fur. He caught movement through the trees. A flashlight beam cut wide, rough voices arguing over the wind.
“She went this way!” one shouted. “I saw something move!”
“Could’ve been the damn dog again.”
“She’s here. Check the hollow.”
The wolf’s growl rolled like thunder. Ours. They hunt ours.
He moved before thought could stop him, body all instinct.
The first man never turned fully around.
Alaric hit him side-on, hard enough to send both into the snow.
The hunter’s cry was lost in the gale. His rifle skittered across ice.
Alaric’s teeth grazed his shoulder before he forced himself back, not to kill, just warn.
The man’s eyes went wide at the sight of silver fur, then wider still when the fur pulled back into skin and a man stood where the beast had been.
“Tell me where she went,” Alaric growled.
The hunter scrambled. “I—I don’t—”
Alaric stepped forward, voice low but full of threat. “You’ve got three heartbeats to pick a direction.”
The man pointed shakily toward the ridge. “Up there!”
Alaric left him gasping and took off again.
The ridge cut steep above the lake, the storm screaming through pines like wolves answering his own. He followed scent and wind, half blind, half guided by something deeper. The tether that hummed between his ribs and hers. Fear wasn’t his; it was hers, sharp as ozone, carried on the storm.
“Elara!” He called her name once, loud enough to shake snow from the trees. Nothing answered but wind.
His wolf clawed for control. She’s ours. Don’t let her vanish.
“I know!” He shouted into the blizzard. “I know!”
A glint caught his eye ahead. Metal, flashlight glass rolling in the snow. A drop of red dotted the ice. Not blood, maybe, but her lipstick, cracked plastic near the snow. He bent, picked it up, and his throat tightened.
He shoved it into his pocket and kept running.
The world narrowed to scent and survival.
Elara’s perfume threaded through pine, faint but constant. He pushed harder, lungs burning cold. The lake loomed below, black and half-frozen, mist curling where the Veil shimmered faint at its edges. That close to the barrier, the air buzzed. If she crossed, she’d vanish from his reach.
“Don’t do this,” he muttered. “Don’t step through.”
He found fresh tracks at the treeline of small prints, staggered like she’d been running blind. He followed them, heart hammering, until the world exploded with scent and sound. Gunfire cracked through the storm—one, two rounds—then shouting.
“Got movement!”
“Don’t shoot, idiot, that’s—”
Alaric tore through the snowbank. “Elara!”
A short, terrified, scream answered him and then cut off. His wolf howled before he could stop it, the sound raw and wild enough to shake the storm itself. It echoed off the ridge, through the forest, over the lake.
Every shifter in Hollow Oak would hear it.
He didn’t care.
He ran toward the sound, faster than the wind, the snow rising around him like waves. The wolf surged fully forward now, muscles singing with power, the scent of his mate sharp and desperate. Each breath was fire, each step a promise.
He would find her.
He would not let her vanish.