Page 25 of Alpha Wolf’s Nanny (Silvermist Wolves #2)

The stench of blood, thick and sour, clung to both of them as they sped down the highway back towards Silvermist. Dane’s knuckles were white where he clutched the steering wheel, his dark eyes narrowed and focused on the road, his rage a palpable thing.

It had been something out of a nightmare. The forest floor littered with body parts, viscera seeping into the churned mud, and trees splashed with red. Felix had seen many horrors in his life. He had led men into battles, held his friends as they died, but this…this had been something else.

This had been a message.

They didn’t speak for miles. The engine hummed, the tires hissing against wet tarmac. Felix stared out the window, his reflection ghostly in the glass. He could still hear the droning of the flies. Still see the slashes. Still smell the rot.

Eventually, he spoke. “We were lucky.”

Dane gave a single nod. “He’s long gone. Whatever this was, he was testing the limits. Testing what we would do. This isn’t the end of it, but I don’t think he’ll show up again for a while. He’s plotting something, Felix, I can feel it.”

Felix growled, “He wanted us to find it that way. Wanted me to find it.”

Dane’s jaw flexed.

“Red Teeth was always theatrical,” Felix muttered, “but this? This was art to him. A fucking show he put on.”

Silence again. The sky ahead was steel-gray, a storm threatening on the horizon.

“How did you know where to look?” Felix asked, turning his gaze on Dane now. “How did you come across the bodies in the first place?”

Dane hesitated.

“You said you were patrolling the boundary,” Felix continued, his tone casual, but his eyes sharp, “but the site was more than twenty miles past the edge of our territory. Practically in no-man’s land.”

Dane’s grip tightened on the wheel. “I was…following a lead.”

Felix raised an eyebrow. “A lead.”

“A contact. Someone I trust.”

Felix let the silence do the work.

Eventually, Dane sighed, rubbed a hand over his face, and muttered, “Okay. I was seeing someone.”

Felix blinked. “Seeing someone?”

Dane winced. “It’s not official. Just…casual. You know me. We meet sometimes. She’s from the Ashford pack.”

Felix stared at him.

Dane glanced over, defensive. “It’s not what you think. She’s discreet. And smart. We talk. Sometimes she hears things. Nothing sensitive, but enough to be useful.”

“So you were hooking up and got lucky with intel?”

“Pretty much,” Dane muttered.

Felix exhaled through his nose, trying to keep his frustration in check. “You crossed pack lines without clearance. You were exposed, vulnerable, and alone .”

“Not alone,” Dane muttered, “she’s a fighter.”

“That’s not the point,” Felix snapped, “this isn’t just about you , Dane. If they’d caught you out there, Red Teeth or anyone else, they wouldn’t have just killed you. They would’ve used you. As bait. Or a message.”

Dane didn’t respond, but his jaw clenched tightly.

Felix raked a hand through his hair. “And if your Ashford contact is compromised—”

“She’s not.”

“How do you know that?”

Dane opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Felix shook his head. “I’m not going to discipline you. Not yet. Not while this thing is out there. But understand me, Dane: if I find out that your little rendezvous gave Red Teeth even a whiff of our position, I will hold you accountable. No second chances.”

Dane nodded stiffly, his face flushed with shame.

Felix leaned back in his seat, eyes closing for a moment. He could feel the pulse of the pack through the bond. tense, anxious, distant. And somewhere in that thread, a faint pull.

Cassie.

He hadn’t meant to leave without saying goodbye.

He told himself it was safer. Cleaner. But as the miles blurred by, the silence between him and Dane stretching longer and colder, he couldn’t stop thinking about her face. Her voice. The way she’d looked at him that morning. Equal parts fury and hurt.

And now Red Teeth was back. The pack was threatened.

His hand curled into a fist on his knee. He’d thought putting distance between them would make it easier. Thought that by stepping back, by holding himself apart, he could think clearly again, could be the alpha the pack needed. But the further he’d gone from her, the worse it got.

He could still hear her voice, edged with frustration. See the wounded flicker in her eyes. The way her jaw clenched when she was holding back something she didn’t want to say.

He’d hurt her.

Not with words. Not with actions. But with absence.

And that might’ve been worse.

She didn’t ask for any of this. Not the boys. Not the house. Not him. And yet she’d thrown herself into their lives, fearless and tender, creating space for herself in a world that had no map for her.

He hadn’t known someone could fit so neatly into a broken place.

And now she was alone. Vulnerable.

The thought made his stomach twist.

Red Teeth didn’t just kill. He toyed. He punished. He tore things apart not for strategy, but for pleasure. For chaos. If that bastard even sensed that Cassie mattered to him…

Felix’s fingers dug into his thigh.

He needed to get back.

He just prayed to the old gods and the new that when he did, she’d still be there.

Dane cleared his throat beside him, eyes still locked on the road. “So…she’s staying at Nicolas’s place now?’

Felix blinked, pulled from the spiral of his thoughts. “Cassie? Yeah. Nicolas took the boys. She was going to follow after.”

“Was that her idea or yours?”

Felix hesitated. “Mine.”

Dane nodded slowly. “She seemed…good. With the boys, I mean. Natural.”

“She is.”

Dane shot him a glance. “You care about her.”

“Not up for debate,” Felix said, voice clipped.

“I wasn’t debating,” Dane replied. “Just…trying to understand how worried I should be.”

Felix didn’t answer.

Because the truth was, he didn’t know. He didn’t know if Cassie was okay. If she was even still conscious. The idea of her in that house, maybe alone, maybe not, with that monster anywhere in the area…

He shut the thought down. Smothered it.

“Drive faster,” he said.

And Dane did.

But even as the engine growled louder, as the trees blurred past in streaks of green and dusk, Felix’s gut refused to unclench.

He tried not to imagine what he’d walk into.

Tried not to think of Cassie lying in a pool of blood, or the boys cowering in a closet.

He tried not to remember what Red Teeth had done to that last family.

The child with her throat torn out. The mother with her hands broken at the wrist, like she’d tried to protect them until the last breath.

Cassie wasn’t a shifter. She didn’t have teeth or claws or the instincts of a born fighter. But she had something else. Tenacity. Guts. A raw, determined kind of courage that made him ache.

She’d stand her ground if it came to it. He knew she would.

And that terrified him more than anything.

He rubbed his hands together, trying to banish the chill crawling up his spine. If Red Teeth had touched her…if he’d even thought about her…

Felix wouldn’t just hunt him down.

He’d bury him in pieces.

Felix’s phone buzzed violently in his pocket.

He didn’t look at the screen; he answered it before the second vibration had finished.

“What is it?” he asked, already sensing the worst.

Nicolas didn’t waste time. “They’re gone.”

Felix’s blood went cold. “Who?”

“Cassie and Rick. I dropped the boys off at my place, and when they hadn’t shown up an hour later, I went back to check the house.

” His voice was clipped, controlled, but Felix knew that tone.

It was the tone Nicolas used when panic hovered just under the surface.

“The car’s still there. The bags are by the door.

Cassie’s phone is in the kitchen. But no one’s home. ”

“Any sign of struggle?”

“Her bedroom window’s smashed. The whole place reeks of gas. One of those military-grade canisters. They didn’t even try to hide it. Whoever did this wanted to make a point.”

Felix was already grabbing the gear bag from the footwell. “We’re about an hour out of Silvermist.”

“Make that forty-five minutes,” Dane said, pressing his foot to the accelerator.

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Nicolas said.

“I won’t be.” He hung up and turned to Dane. “When we get back to Silvermist, ready the team and mobilize the scouts. Do it quietly if you can, but don’t waste any time. I want the perimeter doubled.”

Dane’s expression shifted. “Is it Red Teeth?”

“Almost certainly.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“No. If he’s on the move, I want eyes everywhere. We can’t lose his trail,” Felix clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll handle the house. You just get the team ready.”

Dane didn’t argue, but the tension in his jaw made it clear he wasn’t happy about it.

The drive felt longer than it ever had before. Felix spent the entire time doing what he could from his phone, contacting various pack members, alerting neighboring packs. Anything. If Red Teeth had struck, he wouldn’t stop.

His thoughts raced faster than the speedometer. Every possibility played out in grotesque flashes. Cassie bound and gagged. Rick’s body limp and broken. Both torn limb from limb.

They thundered down the highway, and soon the familiar view of the Silvermist outskirts rose from the trees.

Dane tore through the town center, tires squealing over tarmac, and pulled up fast by the house.

Felix leapt out, slamming the door behind him.

Dane immediately tore off again in the direction of the Pine Shadow Club.

Already, his neighbor’s lights were turning on, distance sounds of rousing life. The pack coming together.

Nicolas was on the porch, pacing. His shirt was rumpled, his sleeves rolled up. His phone was in his hand, but he wasn’t looking at it. He glanced up when Felix approached.

“No change,” he said. “Nothing since I got here. I didn’t touch anything inside. But Felix—”

Felix barged past him into the house, not waiting for him to finish his sentence, as he raced up the stairs to Cassie’s room.

“Felix, wait, there’s something you need to know!”

“What?” Felix turned with a snarl, his fists bunching.

Nicolas’ jaw tightened. “I don’t think it’s Red Teeth.”

“What? Who the fuck else would it be?”

“I can’t scent him anywhere,” Nicolas said. “This isn’t his style. And then there’s the gas…when have you ever known Red Teeth to use chemical warfare?”

Indeed, the air was thick with the residue.

The canister, military issue, as Nicolas had said, lay dented in the corner.

The furniture had been tossed aside. There was glass in the rug.

And the envelope of photos still lay where it had fallen, half-splayed open, images of Cassie and the boys scattered like ashes.

Felix picked one up.

Cassie laughed, one hand on Danny’s shoulder.

The red cross bisecting her face made his vision blur.

“They were watched,” he said quietly. “This wasn’t a chance attack. They were watched. Followed.”

“It doesn’t make sense that this is Red Teeth,” Nicolas said again, stepping inside. “From the looks of these photos, it seems like Cassie was the target.”

“But Rick was also taken,” Felix said. “This gas is specifically designed to take shifters down. He wouldn’t let himself be taken without a fight; this knocked him out. Maybe this envelope was meant for me.”

“Then why was it in Cassie’s room?” Nicolas said. “Why not take the boys when he had the chance? Why risk taking Rick? Why not just kill them here?”

“Perhaps he wants to hold them for ransom.”

Felix’s fists clenched. “Or Rick was already compromised.”

“You think he turned?” Nicolas asked, his voice incredulous.

Felix paused, scraping a hand down his face. His wolf was howling within him, desperate to find Cassie, to get her back. He wasn’t thinking straight. “No. No, I think he was taken down somehow. There’s no blood anywhere. He was unconscious before Red Teeth took them.”

“Felix,” Nicolas said, laying a hand on his shoulder, “I really don’t think this was Red Teeth.”

“Who else would it be?”

Nicolas looked out the window. “I don’t know. But whoever they are, we’ll find their trail. We’ll hunt them down. And we’ll get Cassie and Rick back.”

Felix nodded once, his blood roaring in his ears, and the walls of the house seemed to be shrinking around him.

He stepped out into the hallway. The scent of Cassie’s fear still lingered, driving his instincts wild.

A broken mug on the floor, likely knocked over in the struggle.

Her bag was by the door, only half-packed, her shoes still by the stairs.

She hadn’t expected to leave in a hurry.

“She was on her way to your house,” he whispered, more to himself than to Nicolas. “She hadn’t left yet.”

“Which means whoever came, came fast,” Nicolas said. “They knew exactly when to strike. Probably watched me leave. Waited until she was alone.”

“Except she wasn’t alone,” Felix said darkly. “She had Rick.”

The implication hung in the air.

If Rick had failed to protect her…

If Cassie had been harmed under his watch…

Felix turned toward the door.

“I’m getting her back.”

“We will,” Nicolas said, “we all will. Some of the boys are headed over; they’ll pick up the trail.”

But Felix didn’t answer. He was already moving, the bond between him and his pack thrumming with fury and focus.

He didn’t care whether it was Red Teeth or someone else. Someone had broken into his home. Someone had threatened his family. Perhaps the world had gotten far too used to Felix, gentle giant of the shifter world, reasonable golden boy of politics.

They had forgotten his teeth.

And he would make them regret it.