Chapter 25
Iona’s pack. That’s what they’d found. Washed up on the river bank where the water slowed enough to wade ankle deep.
My warriors had been searching the area for an hour but hadn’t picked up her scent. They’d returned, confused and frustrated.
Where could she be?
Siobhan shifted. Her body was healing but exhaustion was etched on the hard lines of her face. We’d all been awake for three days straight now, and our wolves couldn’t keep up this pace for much longer.
I followed suit, Konnor watched as it took me long minutes to rid myself of my wolf. I bit back a moan as my bones slowly snapped back into place.
“I don’t understand,” Charlie said, his ruddy blond hair a mess and dark rings around his eyes from lack of sleep. “How can she have just disappeared?”
“She must have climbed out of the river, up a tree, and moved that way to keep her scent off the ground.” Sam looked at me, wary.
All of them were wearing the same careful expression of someone standing near a live explosive.
“Is it possible? After running for days and almost drowning, she would be exhausted.”
“That’s if she ever made it out of the river,” Jake muttered, and I turned on him, snarling. He backed away immediately, showing me his neck with a submissive whine.
“Brother…” Konnor’s voice calmed me but only slightly.
“She’s alive, we know she is.” This was Siobhan, pulling my wolf back to Iona instead of Jake.
“The twins must have run right past her when they followed her downriver. There are crevices and caves all along the cliff side where it meets the water. Maybe she hid, maybe she was unconscious and got washed into a crevice where we couldn’t see or smell her.
But if she’d made it down here, we’d have found her scent by now and she wouldn’t have left this behind.
” She nudged Iona’s pack with her foot. She looked at me, waiting for my orders.
I took a breath, stilling my whirring mind.
Calm. Stay calm. You are not your mad wolf. You are still a leader, still an Alpha. You know how to do this.
“You two,” I focused on the twins, “search three miles out from here, if you don’t pick up her scent, double back and catch up to us.
We’re going upriver.” I turned to the rest of the group.
“Sam, I want you a mile inland, Charlie, two miles.
I don't see how she could use the trees, these pines are practically impossible to climb, but underestimating her has cost us before.” I glanced at my brother.
“Kon, take the cliff face, search every crevice and cave.”
He nodded, his focus shifting to the precarious terrain on the other side of the river. It would be hard and he was exhausted, but he was the lightest on his feet out of everyone here.
“I can take that side of the river.” Siobhan stepped forward.
“You should have your brother with you.” She was right.
Having Konnor close would help keep my wolf calm, but I was Alpha, and that meant everyone else came first, including her, even if my wolf was pissed at her for letting my mate get away.
“You’re injured. You’ll take the easier ground with me. If she climbed out of the river bank her scent would be weakest there. She’d be wet, her scent diluted, and she would have moved on quickly…”
“You have a better chance of picking it up than any of us,” Konnor said and I nodded.
I looked over all six of my warriors ? exhausted, some wounded, all loyal, all willing to die for me and my errant female.
“I want to say this to you now while I still can. I don’t know how much longer I can keep hold of my wolf.
I’ve given Konnor my orders and now I’m giving them to you.
If my wolf takes over again, you do everything you can to take me out.
” They might not be able to take me on just the five of them but I needed them to try.
I couldn’t risk my wolf hurting Iona. They stared at me. Only Konnor looked at the ground.
“Alpha…” Jake’s voice trailed off, his pained expression mirroring his brother’s. “We can’t…”
“You can. I order you to do this, if the time comes.” I put a hand on his shoulder.
“I will hold on for as long as I can. This is just a precaution.” I gave him a reassuring nod and he returned it, straightening his shoulders.
“Do you all understand what I’ve told you?
” They answered, one after the other, Charlie and Sam uncertain.
Only Siobhan looked sure of herself. She would kill me and cry about it later.
That was the other reason I wanted her with me during the search, but I didn’t need to say that out loud.
“Now,” I straightened, moving on, “finding Iona fast is our priority but we have to go slow. Take your time, leave nothing unchecked. Remember, we’re skirting the boundary between our land and the humans’.
Watch for any sign of their kind and be careful what you leave behind.
If you find anything, use the phones or yip.
Only howl if you have to, she could hear us and spook. ”
They all nodded.
“If Iona was within hearing distance, wouldn’t we be able to smell her?” Jardis asked, the quieter of the two brothers.
“Yes, unless she’s smeared herself in bear shit.
” I shrugged as they looked at me like I was insane.
“It’s what I’d do. She knows we can pick up her scent from miles away, she knows she can’t outrun us.
Covering my scent would be the first thing on my mind.
Bear faeces would be the smartest choice.
There’s plenty of it around and it would ward off other predators. ”
“Yeah but that’s…gross.” Konnor wrinkled his nose. “You think she’s crazy enough to do that?”
I found myself smiling, thinking of my determined, fierce mate. “I think she’s smart enough to do that.”
We followed the current back upriver, Konnor sprinting precariously from one rock to another. I moved along the water line where her scent would be weakest. The others spread out inland.
As the sun began to set, my anxiety grew at the thought of my mate out here alone all night.
My muscles burned and I forced myself to take my time, to search for her with painstaking care. We’d found nothing. Not a whiff of her and as time went on, my wolf became more and more frantic. I wouldn’t believe she was dead. I refused.
Suddenly, the river bank opened up, the treeline pushed back revealing a wide, rock-filled embankment. The water slowed here, it was the perfect hunting ground for bears.
I kept my nose down, my ears straining for signs of predators or people. Not that I needed to worry about predators, we could take down anything, but a grizzly would be a challenge and I didn’t want the distraction.
The scents here were overwhelming. Deer hit me first. My stomach rumbled.
I was starving and desperate to hunt but there was no time.
The area was covered in bear scent, the smell of fish overpowering.
If she hadn’t been my mate I would never have noticed the faint whiff of her, like a puff of smoke lost on the breeze.
It was almost overpowered by the stench of a grizzly.
I let out a call, alerting the others, and paused, pacing the area. I heard a splash as my brother jumped into the water and swam back to our side. I rumbled at him to keep back, not wanting to contaminate her scent anymore than it already was.
The scent from the bear was fresh and so was hers. They crossed over one another. He was male, young but full grown. The thought of her facing down a grizzly turned my stomach but there was no blood here. That was a comfort.
Siobhan, Charlie, and Sam caught up to us, Iona’s pack still safe in Sam’s mouth.
Konnor huffed in relief. We’d found her. Charlie shifted. Pulling the phone from the case, he called Jake. They’d be with us in a few hours.
The scent of the bear moved off upstream but my mate’s led into the woods.
Smart.
She’d figured out this was bear country and staying on the river would bring her into contact with more of them. Sticking to the treeline, she could use the sound of the river to guide her but have a better chance at avoiding something that could kill her.
My warriors at my flanks, I tracked her into the woods.
Her scent was faint, barely detectable until it disappeared entirely. I stopped in my tracks. Where had she gone?
I turned, doubling back. I picked her scent up again and followed it once more, slowing my pace. She couldn’t have just vanished into thin air. I traced it to a pile of flattened bear shit, mixed in with her own scent.
Konnor’s wolf huffed. He was laughing and I didn’t blame him. The clever female really had smeared herself in bear faeces to keep us off her trail. I was both pissed and impressed.
My mate was a force to be reckoned with. She’d made tracking her a hundred times more difficult considering the amount of separate bear scents that were in this area.
The scent from the dung moved in two different directions. One would be the bear’s, the other hers. Frustrated, I nodded at Konnor, sending him in one direction with Charlie and Sam flanking him. Siobhan I kept with me.
We passed the night in circles, and by morning I was so frustrated I could scream. My only comfort was hoping that my mate had found somewhere safe to pass the night, hoping she’d prioritised that over putting more distance between us.
Jake and Jardis had found us during the night.
Konnor, Charlie, and Sam had doubled back as they realised they were heading after the wrong trail, each of them taking turns carrying Iona’s pack.
It was tempting to leave it behind but I didn’t know what state we’d find Iona in and there were first aid supplies in there that we might need.
I felt like I was lost in a maze, hitting one dead end after another. The sun was high in the sky by the time I finally followed a bear scent to a crevice in a cliff face. Relief hit as I realised she’d spent the night here. She’d rested, maybe slept.
We passed the day in another maze of frustration, doubling back, splitting up, returning together again with aggravated grunts. She was smart. She wasn’t moving in a straight line, instead using trees, rocks, water, anything she could to confuse us and avoid leaving behind footprints.
There was no sign of food or foraging along her trail. No sign of her relieving herself either which meant she must have done it in the river to hide her scent.
We had other animals to contend with too, animals that we didn’t fear but didn’t have time to take out.
By nightfall we were close. I could feel it. At dawn, a call caught my ears, a familial smell hitting my nose. The sound was smaller than our own creatures’ and I slowed, seeing a grey wild wolf on the rock line, a large rabbit dead in its jaws.
He lowered himself as I approached, tail between his legs, his neck turned up in submission. He laid the rabbit at my feet. Ignoring him, I tore off a leg, leaving the rest for my warriors. It did little to ease my hunger but it was meant as an offering, not a meal.
I rumbled, letting him come close and lick my teeth in greeting.
There, on his fur, was her scent. He’d met her.
I pressed my nose into the scent, inhaling its freshness, my wolf not threatened by this wild wolf carrying it.
Knowing what I wanted, the wolf turned and we followed as it led us across broken rockery to a spot so well hidden it would have taken us hours to find it.
Her scent was strong here and only an hour or two old. She’d spent the night here and we were close, so close to finding her. She’d been out here for days and was still unharmed. Later, when I wasn’t so frantic with worry, I would have time to be impressed by that.
The wolf went on its way, leaving us to pace the area. I was following her scent back to the treeline when Konnor whined. Something was wrong. I went to him where he stood at the highest point of the rocks, and immediately I knew what had upset him.
The beast. That's what the humans called him.
He’d been here.
She must have seen him too.
My chest ached with grief. Konnor pressed his body to mine while the rest of my warriors hung back. He wanted to go after him, and so did I, but now wasn’t the time. We could come back or send warriors. They’d find him. But not today.
With a heavy heart, I turned. We followed her back to the river as was her pattern in the morning, but instead of continuing on, she’d doubled back on herself.
That was strange. Why would she do that? Had she seen something? We tracked her to the base of another cliff, her scent carrying up.
Higher ground.
She was trying to get a better idea of where she was. I slowed, keeping us hidden by the trees. Then I saw her and everything inside me stilled, my body crying out with relief. She was safe. Alive and safe.