rode all at once. It went the way a riverbank goes - a little more each season, until one day you looked u

he used to. The younger wolves, the ones who'd have once volunteered for patrol without being asked, waited now to be told. Nobody said anything to hi

ld pass. Packs forgot

dn't mo

ching a sparring match he wasn't actually paying att

fence line again last night," sh

hea

. Every week they push a little further in, see what we do about it, and e

hin covering ground we did

e into having." Mira's voice wasn't cruel. That was almost worse - she said it like a fact she'd rather not

what you're as

why. I know the pack doesn't need every detail. They need to know it wasn't nothing. Right now all they have is an Alpha who broke

uire explaining exactly what Elena was, and exactly what t

aid, quieter now. "Before you were A

ll your

ed a long moment, giving him the chance he didn't take, then shook

down neither of them had quite mastered yet, and thought about how much easier th

-

e way he did most weeks now, though he

tree line that Kane sometimes wondered if the old wolf had buil

me back," Kane said,

ing under Ridge will have changed her scent by now. Changed her walk. Probably changed the

pposed to

ng me when she's coming back like there's a date on a calendar somewhere. There isn't. She comes back when she's ready, and not one day before, and eve

a while, the fire poppi

compromised," h

e y

ght, and it's cost me nearly everything I built the four years

y. "Nobody tells you the job is mostly holding two tr

wer, but a little less alone in the not-knowing, whic

-

ne, checking the ground for signs of the scouts Mira had mentioned - boot

nto the mud just past the boundary marker, too small to be Calder, too deli

le part of him hoping, without letting himself say it out lo

hat had started somewhere in the last hour without his noticing - and he told himself

way. It was the closest thing to hope he'd allowed himself in three m