The first attempt did not come from Black Hollow itself. It came from wolves who wanted Black Hollow to notice them.
Two nights after the meeting on neutral ground, Grimridge's southern perimeter began to feel crowded in a way Sable could not explain with maps alone.
The forest remained itself. Pine and damp earth still carried cleanly through the dark, and the patrol routes had not changed so drastically that a lesser observer would have marked anything wrong at first glance.
Yet something lay over the boundary like pressure before a storm. Scouts returned more often with reports that seemed thin when written down and far heavier when spoken aloud, and every wolf who crossed the southern line came back carrying that same sharpened awareness in the set of the shoulders and the way the eyes moved before settling.
