Page 5

The solitude that had once felt natural now seemed stifling. In the Silvercrest pack, every interaction was layered with politics and hierarchy. Every conversation carefully constructed to maintain order. What would it be like, he wondered, to speak freely with someone who had no expectations of him? Someone who didn't see him as the future Alpha, but simply as Kieran?

"Damn it," he growled, pushing his hair back. "I'm not going to become my father."

The certainty of that thought surprised him. For so long, he'd accepted that becoming Alpha meant becoming like his father—cold, calculating, and ruthless. The crown and the man were inseparable. Or so he'd been taught.

As he approached the clearing where he'd shifted three nights ago, Kieran's senses heightened. The forest smelled different today—pine and earth and something else. Something that hadn't been there before, or at least not this strong.

A human scent. Female. Fresh.

Kieran froze, inhaling deeply. The scent hit him like an electric shock, shooting straight to his core and settling low in his belly. His wolf lurched forward in his mind, suddenly alert and interested in a way that Kieran had never experienced.

"What the hell?" he whispered, his voice rougher than before.

He tracked the scent to the remains of a small camera mounted to a tree—now in pieces on the forest floor. Someone had been here recently. Very recently.

Following the trail deeper into the woods, Kieran moved with predatory silence. Each breath brought more of that intoxicating scent—vanilla and jasmine and something uniquely her. His chest tightened as if an invisible thread was pulling him forward, drawing him toward its source.

The realization slammed into him with the force of a physical blow.

"It can't be," he murmured, but his wolf knew better. This pull and instant connection meant only one thing.

A mate. His mate. A human.

The absurdity of it would have made him laugh if he wasn't so shaken. His father would sooner disown him than accept a human daughter-in-law. The Council would see it as further evidence of his unfitness to lead.

Yet the pull remained, undeniable and powerful.

Kieran crested a small hill and finally spotted her—a woman kneeling beside a fallen log, scribbling something in a notebook. Her copper-red hair caught the sunlight filtering through the trees, creating a halo effect around her pale face. She wore practical hiking clothes, a worn leather backpack at her side.

The sight of her sent another shock wave through his system. His wolf howled within him, recognizing what his human side was still struggling to accept.

"Eliminate the witness," his father had suggested. The Council had agreed.

Kieran's hands clenched into fists. No. He couldn't kill her. He wouldn't. But he couldn't let her expose their kind either.

His cabin in the remote reaches of Granite Ridge territory flashed through his mind. Isolated. A place where he could keep her safe while figuring out what the hell to do about this impossible situation.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, watching her from the shadows, already formulating his plan. "But I need to know who you are... and what this feeling means."

THREE

MAYA

The insistent beeping of Maya's alarm sliced through her dreams at 5 AM sharp. For once, she didn't resent the early hour. When her eyes fluttered open, her mind already started to race with possibilities as the camera footage played on repeat in her mind—a man starting to transform into a wolf. Not a costume. Not a camera trick. A literal transformation.

"This is either career-making or career-ending," she muttered, swinging her legs over the side of the cramped bed in her research van.

She dressed quickly in her practical clothes—worn dark hiking pants, navy thermal shirt, and her lucky army-green field jacket with a multitude of pockets. Her fingers traced over the small wolf embroidered on the collar, a gift she'd given herself after receiving her PhD.

"Today's the day I find you," she whispered, whether to the embroidered wolf or the shapeshifter from her footage, she wasn't entirely certain.

She finished packing her field kit methodically—notebook, pencils, small specimen containers, compass, high-resolutioncamera, water, protein bars, and the small silver pendant her grandmother had pressed into her palm years ago with those cryptic words about the deep woods. Maya had always dismissed it as superstitious nonsense, but today, the pendant felt important somehow.

The hike took longer than anticipated. By the time she reached the clearing where she'd set up the motion-activated camera that captured that strange man, golden morning sunlight filtered through the trees. Nearly 9 AM—later than she'd planned.

"What the hell?"

The camera lay in pieces at the base of the tree, clearly destroyed with purpose rather than by accident or animal. Maya knelt beside the fragments, picking up the shattered lens.