Chapter 275
I passed Warrick in the hall; his features cut with guilt and regret. Deep inside, something was amiss, but somehow, my mind wasn’t really there again. Dane’s ambition had started snowballing out of control, and I had to get some answers before things completely got out of hand.
I’d been watching Dane across the dining hall, stiffened in his chair as he spoke with Trajan about patrols, when something in the set of his shoulders was not quite right—these times heavier, sharper.
“Something on your mind?” I asked, sliding into the seat beside him.
His gaze flicked to me briefly before returning to the map spread out before him. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
I laid a hand on the map, stalling his movements. “Dane, this isn’t like you. You’re pushing too hard. What’s really going on?”
He leaned back with a sigh. “The campfire near the border isn’t random, Aurora. It’s a sign. Wolves test us, and if we don’t act now, they’ll think we’re weak.”
I frowned. “And your solution is to claim more land? You’re risking everything we’ve built for what? Pride?”
His voice was low and sharp. “It’s not pride, it’s survival. The moment we show hesitation, we lose. You know that as well as I do.”
Our conversation was brought to a close by the arrival of Piper. Her eyes unreadable as she held a series of fast flashes of eye contact with Warrick. Something silent hung between them, but before I could comment on it, Dane abruptly stood.
“We’ll talk later,” he said, his tone ending the matter.
Later that afternoon, I went into the woods, closer to the border where Dane had described to me that the campfire had been.
The faint smell of charred wood still lingered in the air, combined with the earthy scent of the forest. I dropped to a crouch, eyes scanning the earth, tracing the arc of rocks around the depression. “This wasn’t random,” I murmured.
“Of course it wasn’t.”
I flinched as I jolted to my feet and turned to see Trajan strode to a stop beside me, his stone expression softened to wrinkles of interest.
“Dane sent you after me?”
“No,” he repeated. “I came because I’m worried. He’s not thinking clearly.”
I nodded, happy someone else was seeing what I was seeing. “This isn’t about territory. There’s a pattern here, Trajan.”
He scowled, folding his arms. “You think it’s something bigger than rogues?”
“I know it is,” I said resolutely. “And unless we are really careful, we will walk right into a trap.”
As we scanned around, Trajan spotted a piece of fabric hanging from a low branch. Black and coarse. Nothing any of our pack would wear.
“Whatever it was did not hang about, apparently,” Trajan said.
“Yeah, but it did leave a note of sorts.” I nodded towards the tree beside him. Etched into its trunk was a rude drawing, a circle scribed by a jagged line with smaller ones intertwined into a pattern about it.
Trajan cocked his head to the side. “What does it mean?”
“It’s a warning,” I whispered. “But we better get back.”
We walked back to the pack house and I went to look for Dane. I found him in the war room studying maps again.
“You’re pushing too hard, Dane,” I said, slapping the fabric down on the table.
He gave me an arch of his brow. “And you’re not pushing hard enough. You want to wait until they’re at our gates?”
“Do you even hear yourself?” I snapped, “It’s not some game of who’s the toughest. It’s calculated. They are testing us, Dane. One wrong move and we just walked into their trap.”
“What’s your big plan then? Just sit around and wait? Hope they’ll decide to play nice?” His voice is getting louder; frustration sizzles through every word now.
“I’m saying we need to be smart,” I said, moving in closer. “Charging into their trap doesn’t make us strong, it makes us reckless.”
He slammed a fist onto the table, jolting the maps. “We can’t afford to look weak, Aurora. Not now, not ever.”
“Strength isn’t about barking the loudest,” I replied, cold. “It’s about knowing when to act and when to stand your ground.”
There was absolute silence, only the tension hanging in the air between us.
Then Dane broke it, his voice barely audible, though no softer reassurance, “I am doing this for us… for the pack.”
I parted my lips to speak, but I closed it back as I closed my eyes and I took a few steps back.
Dane turned to me and his eyes softened a bit, as if he was going to say something, as if he was going to call on me to apologize and at least give ear to my opinion. But, no, he looked away as if he didn’t care.
I knelt down in the pale moonlight beside that strange symbol marked upon the tree, and traced it with my finger. The roughness of the bark seemed to hum, very faint indeed, beneath my fingertips—a strange sensation and one that put a run of cold up my back.
The woods were dead quiet, except that leaves suddenly quivered up in the trees. Then instinct kicked in, and my senses came alive to the shadows that had been here all along, as if even the air was heavier, the very forest holding its breath.
Then, a faint rustling in the underbrush, soft but enough to snap my focus out to the darkness beyond the clearing. I straightened with my heart thudding against my ribs.
“Who’s there?” I called firmly, though the unease made my stomach coil.
There was silence.
I turned, scanning the treeline. A moment, I thought I saw movement, a flicker of shadow across the pale trunks of the trees.
“Show yourself!” I called, stepping backward toward the center of the clearing.
A low growl puckered the air, raw and unmistakable, drawing in. The breath caught as a figure emerged out of the dark into dim light.
It wasn’t any wolf that I knew. The fur was dark, matted, and something about the eyes shone more than it naturally would.
My mind racing, I instinctively went to the dagger at my side: Lone wolf? Scout? Something worse?
It didn’t get closer, per se, but as I moved near, it retreated into the darkness so fast that I had no sign of it again.
What could that have been and how was it that fast?