1 Finn #2
But it wasn’t the ledger that made my teeth grind. It was the scent of him. Tommy smelled of rain on slate and wild honey, the mark on his neck a fresh, red crescent where Kaia had claimed him. They had spent the night sealing the bond while I paced the treeline like a ghost.
I set my palms on the warm steel of the hood. The lacerations across my chest pulled tight, a sharp, clean reminder of the Alchemist’s blade.
He has his mate. He smells of rain and honey. We smell of soot and old blood.
“So,” Tommy said, not looking up from the glowing glass. “On a scale of one to ‘running into the timberline to become a ghost story,’ where are we?”
“I need the signatures from the ledger,” I said. I pulled a folded paper map from my pocket and spread it across the hood, pinning the corners with two loose nuts from the truck bed. “I’m charting the dead zones.”
Tommy’s eyes flicked to the paper, then up to my face.
“I saw you last night. With Santos. You think you’re invisible in the dark?
You had him pinned against the staging office.
You were making a copy of his map? Every dormant’s location?
You’re missing the point, Finn. We’ve got bigger problems than your itinerary.
The retreat is still putting up green-gold smoke.
That aurum latens in the basement is burning like magnesium. Water won’t touch it.”
The smoke is a guide. It points west. She is out there.
From the canyon road below, the faint, wailing thread of a siren rose through the pines.
“Did the boys finish the handline?” I asked.
“Scratch line down the southern flank is holding,” Tommy said.
“But the Forest Service dispatch already paged out the local county volunteers. They saw the plume. In thirty minutes, we’re going to have sirens coming up this road.
If they get a whiff of that alchemical smoke, half of them are going to end up sick, and the other half are going to start asking why the fire is burning green and why we’re staging the next Burning Man out here. ”
I looked at the smoke, a toxic insult to the sky. The Moon Goddess gave us fire to warm the pack, to clear the brush, to renew the earth. This wasn’t her fire. This was an abomination.
“Then we clear out before the county rigs show up,” I said. “We let the structure consume itself in the black. We’ve got the perimeter secure.”
“And you?” Tommy leaned his hip against the fender, his arms crossed. “You’re going to skip the demob? Just pack your gear and walk?”
“I have to,” I said. I picked up a charred stub of pine from the truck bed, using the carbon to mark the map.
“Look at the Conclave signatures in the glass. If I match them against Santos’ map, I can target them in the zones where no dormant wolves are kept.
No risk of triggering my mate’s suppression. ”
Kill them. Tear them open. Let their blood wash the scent away.
“Finn, you’re doing math with a loaded gun,” Tommy said softly. “You think you can just isolate yourself? Stay in the empty spaces forever?”
“It’s the only way she survives,” I said. My hand was steady as I drew a line through the northern valley. “If I go near her, the mate bond will flare. The Conclave will trace the resonance. They’ll find her, Tommy.”
“And you think she wants you to run yourself into the ground for her?”
“She told me to stay away,” I said. “I’m obeying the order.”
“Since when do you obey orders you don’t like?” Tommy reached out, his hand flat on the map, stopping my charcoal.
“I do today,” I said.
*\*\*\*/*/*/*
The yellow Nomex shell came off first, then the pack harness, folded and set on the tailgate in the order I’d worn it for years.
I replaced them with my old kit—the dark leather, the custom harness, the dead-magic rounds.
I checked each piece by feel in the shadows, my fingers tracing the cold iron of the blade.
I was almost done when two shadows fell across the tailgate.
Reed and Brann. They walked together, their movements synchronized with the quiet authority of the pack’s leadership. Reed looked at the gear spread across the tailgate, then at the ash I was smudging onto my wrists.
“You stopped testing the rows,” Brann said, his voice hard. “You left three rows of dormants untouched. Why, Finn?”
“I know she’s not in the camp,” I said, not looking up as I buckled the harness. “If she were, my wolf would have torn the wards down hours ago.”
“But you’re leaving anyway,” Reed said. His voice dropped, a low, resonant vibration that I felt in my chest. “Without telling the crew. Without finishing the demob.”
I looked up, meeting my alpha’s gold-rimmed eyes. “I waited for you. I could have been three miles into the timberline by now. I wanted you to see me leave, so you know I’m not going feral. I’m not running. I’m executing the ledger.”
“You’re going alone,” Brann said, stepping closer. “That’s suicide. The Conclave has sentries all over the northern pass. We can send a fire team with you. Santos and Tommy—”
“No,” I cut him off. “Santos and Tommy are staying here. The crew has to hold this line. You set fire to a Verdant Order retreat, Brann. The aurum latens is still burning, and the county engines are on their way. If the hotshots aren’t here to manage the containment line and feed the forest service some believable lies, the whole pack is exposed.
You need every shovel you have to keep this fire from jumping the ridge. ”
Reed’s jaw tightened. “We can spare two men, Finn.”
“You can’t spare a single claw,” I said. “This isn’t a hotshot run. I’m going where the dormants aren’t. Santos’ map shows the empty zones. I’m going to execute the names on that ledger, one by one. And I’m doing it as far away from my mate as physically possible.”
Brann frowned. “If Sloane is out there, why are you running the other way?”
“Why are you asking me bullshit questions you already know the answer to? You heard Kaia,” I said, the words tasting like lead on my tongue.
“If I find her, I kill her cover. The only way she stays alive is if I stay a ghost. I will clear the monsters between us, but I will not put myself in the same country as her.”
“And the quorum?” Reed stepped directly into my space.
He didn’t touch me, but the sheer physical mass of the crew’s alpha pressed against me.
“You think this revolution is a game, Finn? I stood in the ash last night and laid the bloodlines bare. We need five active, unbroken lines to invoke the override. We need succession. We need pups. If you walk away and play the martyr in the dead zones, the Treaty Court line ends with you. The quorum falls apart, and the Verdant Order with Conclave complicity keeps harvesting every wolf who ever shows a spark.”
The anger in my chest surged, hot and wild. I forced my posture to remain perfectly still, but my fangs scraped my bottom lip. I stepped forward, closing the remaining inches between us until my boots ground into the parched dirt.
“If the quorum is what wins this, Reed, then why is the burden on me?” I asked, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
“You stood in that ash circle and counted more than five royal lines. Sovereign. Vanished Court. Enforcer. Regional Title. And the fifth—the Founding Alpha. That’s you.
If the pups are what save us, if succession is the only shield we have left to fight the Conclave, then why are you standing here dry and unmated?
Why aren’t you walking the rows in the flats?
Why aren’t you sniffing the cots, trying to trigger a Heat to secure your own line? ”
Reed went completely still. Beside him, Brann’s jaw tightened, and he took a half-step back, his eyes darting between us.
“Finn,” Brann warned, his voice low. “Leave it.”
“No,” I pressed, keeping my gaze locked on Reed’s face.
Brann might be our king and Reed our alpha but they were both wrong about this. You don’t act like you enemy and expect to stay the heroes.