The large pale wolf stepped into the snow and stopped like it had always owned the clearing.
It did not bare its teeth.
That was the first wrong thing.
The others stayed between the trees, half-hidden by black trunks and white breath. Eyes glimmered, disappeared, then glimmered again from a different angle. They did not circle in hunger. They arranged themselves. One held the left tree line. Another took the shadow behind a low drift. A third stayed deeper where the moon-pale snow blurred into the dark trunks, almost invisible unless a person already expected to be watched.
Mikhailis felt that at once.
Too patient. Too neat. Too aware of where we would run.
A normal pack would have moved differently. Faster. Hungrier. Less interested in exits and more interested in panic. These wolves were not trying to make prey break formation.
They were trying to understand what stood in front of them.
