Calin Brey crouched beside the deer tracks, his fingers tracing the deep impressions in the mud. The prints were fresh. Steam still rose from the disturbed earth where hooves had pressed deep into the forest floor just minutes before. A clean kill waited somewhere ahead, but his mind refused to focus on the hunt.
"Sickness," he muttered, brushing dirt from his palm. "Elder Marcus said it was sickness."
The tracks led toward the river, but Calin's thoughts wandered back to yesterday's conversation with Elder Thorne. Missing, the old wolf had insisted. Your parents simply vanished one winter night. Happens sometimes in hard years.
Two different stories. Two different elders. Both claimed to remember that night twenty-seven years ago when Calin was barely two years old.
He stood, wiping his hands on his leather pants. The morning sun filtered through the oak leaves above, casting dancing shadows across his broad shoulders. At twenty-nine, Calin had grown into the kind of man who made others step aside without thinking about it. Not because he demanded respect, but because something in his steady brown eyes suggested he'd earned it the hard way.
A twig snapped behind him.
Calin spun, his hand moving to the knife at his belt. The motion was smooth, practiced. Living in a pack of werewolves meant always being ready for surprises.
"Easy, brother." Hills Worth emerged from between two massive pine trees, grinning like a fool. "It's just me."
Calin relaxed but kept his hand near his weapon. "You move like a pregnant cow. I heard you coming from fifty yards away."
"Maybe you're just getting better at listening." Hills Worth stepped into the clearing, and Calin noticed something different about his foster brother immediately. The alpha's usual confident swagger had been replaced by something lighter. Almost... bouncy.
Hills Worth stood three inches taller than Calin and carried more muscle in his legs from years of leading pack runs. At thirty-one, he'd grown into his role as alpha with the easy grace of someone born to command. But today, he looked more like a boy who'd discovered honey cakes.
"You're supposed to be leading the morning patrol," Calin said, studying his friend's face. "What are you doing out here chasing deer with me?"
"Can't a man visit his beta without suspicious questions?" Hills Worth's grin widened. "Besides, I have news."
"What kind of news makes you smile like that?"
Hills Worth glanced around the clearing as if checking for listeners, then leaned closer. "I met someone."
Calin blinked. "Someone?"
"A girl." Hills Worth's voice dropped to a whisper that somehow managed to carry excitement across the entire forest. "The most beautiful creature you've ever seen. Hair like spun copper, eyes like winter sky. She moves like water flowing over stones."
"Where?" The question came out sharper than Calin intended. Meeting strangers usually meant trouble for their pack.
"At the old oak grove, three miles past the eastern border." Hills Worth began pacing in a small circle, his energy impossible to contain. "I was running the boundary check when I caught her scent. Sweet like wildflowers, but with something underneath. Something..." He paused, searching for words. "Something that made my wolf wake up and pay attention."
Calin felt the first cold touch of worry. "What pack?"
"She didn't say at first. Shy little thing." Hills Worth's expression grew soft in a way that made Calin's stomach tighten. "But when I asked her name, she told me. Liana."
"Just Liana?"
"Liana of Howls Pack."
The words hit Calin like a physical blow. His hand closed into a fist without conscious thought. Howls Pack. The name carried weight in their territory, though Calin had never been told exactly why.
"You know that name means something to the elders," Calin said carefully. "Father Hughes always gets quiet when anyone mentions Howls Pack."
Hills Worth waved a dismissive hand. "Old grudges from before we were born. These ancient feuds between packs... they're holding us back from making real alliances."
"Some grudges exist for good reasons."
"And some exist because old men like nursing wounds instead of healing them." Hills Worth stopped pacing and faced his foster brother directly. "Calin, I've never felt anything like this before. When I look at her, the rest of the world just... disappears."
Calin studied his friend's face and saw something that made his chest tighten with unease. Hills Worth's pupils were slightly dilated despite the bright morning light. His breathing came faster than normal. Most troubling of all, he couldn't seem to stand still.
"How many times have you met with her?"
"Three times now." Hills Worth's voice took on a dreamy quality. "Each time, I understand more about what I've been missing my whole life. She makes me want to be better than I am."
"After three meetings?" Calin kept his voice neutral, but concern gnawed at him. "That seems..."
"Fast? I know how it sounds." Hills Worth grabbed Calin's shoulders, his grip almost desperate. "But you haven't seen her. When she smiles, it's like the sun coming out after the longest winter. When she laughs..." He trailed off, staring at something only he could see.
Calin gently removed his friend's hands from his shoulders. "What does she say about her pack? About why she's meeting you in secret?"
"She says her father is... protective. Old-fashioned ideas about pack mixing." Hills Worth shrugged as if this explained everything. "But love finds a way, doesn't it?"
The word 'love' made Calin's jaw clench. Three meetings, and Hills Worth was talking about love? The alpha he'd grown up with was cautious, thoughtful. He tested his decisions like a wolf testing ice before crossing a frozen stream. This breathless, impulsive creature wearing his friend's face felt like a stranger.
"Have you told Father Hughes about her?"
Hills Worth's expression flickered. For just a moment, something that might have been guilt crossed his features. "Not yet. I wanted to be sure about my feelings first."
"Or you know he'll forbid it."
"He can't forbid me anything. I'm alpha now." But Hills Worth's voice lacked conviction. Despite his position, he still sought his father's approval in all important matters.
Calin turned back to the deer tracks, using the movement to hide his troubled expression. Something was wrong with this whole situation. Hills Worth falling in love wasn't unusual, but this intensity after such a short time? And with someone from Howls Pack, a name that made every elder in their territory go silent?
"The tracks are getting cold," Calin said. "If we're going to catch this deer, we need to move."
"Forget the deer." Hills Worth's voice carried the command tone he rarely used with Calin. "I need you to come with me to meet her."
Calin straightened slowly. "What?"
"Today. This afternoon. She'll be at the grove again." Hills Worth's eyes brightened with an almost feverish intensity. "I want her to meet my beta. My brother."
"Hills..."
"Please." The single word carried more weight than any alpha command could have. "Your opinion matters to me. If you approve of her, then I know..."
"You know what?"
Hills Worth looked away, suddenly vulnerable in a way that reminded Calin of the boy he'd grown up with. "I know I'm not making a fool of myself."
The honesty in those words cut through Calin's resistance. Whatever was happening with his foster brother, Hills Worth genuinely believed his feelings were real. And if there was one thing Calin had learned in twenty-seven years of brotherhood, it was that Hills Worth's happiness mattered more than his own comfort.
"All right," Calin said. "I'll come."
Hills Worth's face lit up like dawn breaking over mountains. "You'll like her, Calin. I promise. She's nothing like what you'd expect from Howls Pack."
"What am I expecting?"
"I don't know. But whatever it is, she's different." Hills Worth clapped him on the shoulder with enough force to stagger a smaller man. "Meet me at the eastern border after the noon meal. And Calin?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't mention this to Father Hughes yet. Not until after you've met her."
Calin nodded, though unease continued to twist in his gut. "I won't say anything."
Hills Worth beamed and jogged back toward the pack settlement, leaving Calin alone with the cooling deer tracks and too many questions.
The wind shifted, carrying new scents through the trees. Calin lifted his nose and inhaled deeply, sorting through the layered smells of forest, earth, and distant woodsmoke from their village. But underneath it all, he caught something else. Something that made his wolf nature prickle with alertness.
Magic.
Not the clean, natural magic that wolves used to shift between forms. This was different. Darker. It carried the smell of burned herbs and something that might have been blood.
Calin followed the scent toward the eastern border, moving carefully between the trees. The trail led him to a small clearing where the grass had been pressed down in a perfect circle. At the center, he found the remnants of a small fire. The ashes were cold, but when he sifted them through his fingers, they left a residue that made his skin itch.
Someone had been working magic here. Recently.
He stood and wiped his hands on his pants, but the oily feeling remained. As he turned to leave, something white caught his eye near the base of an ancient elm tree. A piece of cloth, no bigger than his thumb, snagged on the rough bark.
Calin freed the fabric and held it to his nose. The scent hit him immediately - wildflowers and winter sky, exactly as Hills Worth had described. But underneath the pleasant surface smells lurked that same dark magic he'd detected in the ashes.
His fingers tightened around the cloth. Either Liana was working magic herself, or someone close to her was. Someone who wanted Hills Worth to smell like wildflowers and winter sky when he thought of her.
Calin tucked the fabric into his pocket and started back toward the village. His foster brother might be falling in love, but love enhanced by magic wasn't love at all. It was something closer to slavery.
The deer tracks led away toward the river, forgotten. Bigger prey had revealed itself, and the hunt was just beginning.
As he walked through the forest, Calin's mind turned over the elders' conflicting stories about his parents. Now Hills Worth might be falling under the spell of a girl from a pack whose very name made their elders nervous.
Maybe it was time to start asking different questions. Not just about how his parents died, but about why so many people seemed to have different versions of the truth.
The scent of magic lingered in his nostrils all the way home, mixing with the smell of deer tracks and distant woodsmoke. By the time he reached the village edge, Calin had made a decision that would change everything.
He was going to find out what really happened that night twenty-seven years ago.
Even if the truth destroyed everything he thought he knew about his family.
The morning sun climbed higher, casting shorter shadows through the trees. In a few hours, he would meet the girl who'd captured his brother's heart. But first, he had elders to question and stories to untangle.
The scent of truth, Calin realized, was often the hardest smell to follow. But once you caught it, you could never pretend you hadn't.