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Crew straightened from where he was banging out a dent in the fender of one of the tractors that had been messed up by the other herd.

“Did you hear something?” he asked Ford.

Ford stood up and looked at him over the tractor. “Hear what?”

He snorted. “Asked and answered.”

He was about to take another crack at the fender when he was very certain he heard something.

“There it is again,” he said. He put down the rubber mallet and walked out of the barn, Ford on his heels.

“I did hear something. It sounds like someone is calling you.”

Wariness settled over him. He strode swiftly to the opening of the barn just as he heard Tris scream his name, followed quickly by the other herd members’ names.

She was running like she was being chased by some otherworldly demon and his whole being snapped to attention. “Shit,” he said, kicking off into a run to meet her. “Tris! What’s going on?”

“Zara’s hurt! She fell in a trap and we had no cell service,” Tris yelled as she turned on her heels and raced back the way she came.

“Call the park and see if the wolves’ doctor can come help,” Crew yelled. “Then follow me!”

“On it!” Ford shouted.

Crew raced after Tris, his long legs eating up the lead she had. His lungs were burning and his stallion was whinnying in his head in worry, but he pushed on until he saw his mate on the ground, holding a knife in one hand and staring into the trees that bordered the split-rail fence. They were nearly half a mile from the farmhouse, in a dead zone for cell service.

Skidding to a halt, he dropped to his knees next to his mate, breathing hard. “Baby?”

“Oh, Crew!” She hugged him and shuddered.

He looked down at her body and it was then that he saw a hole in the ground that had a mess of torn leaves and branches scattered around and in it. What the hell?

“What happened?”

“I didn’t see the pitfall,” she said.

He frowned at the term pitfall . “The hole?”

“Yeah, a pitfall trap. It’s something a few of the hunters in my former herd used to injure large animals. They’d dig a large, but shallow hole and cover it with leaves and branches, and then drive whatever they were hunting toward it.”

“Your ankle?” he asked.

“I can’t even get off the ground,” she said, her eyes widening for a moment as she tried to sit up more, and pain clearly made her freeze in place.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “I told Ford to call the doctor at the safari park to come help.”

Footsteps raced toward them and he looked up to see Ford and Grey. “Avi’s at the house with Khyle,” Grey said when they reached them. “He’s going to wait for Doc Paula.”

“She’ll be here in about twenty minutes,” Ford said.

“What the hell happened?” Grey asked, putting his hands on his hips and looking around.

When Zara couldn’t speak because the pain was swamping her again, Tris filled them in on what had happened.

“You didn’t see anyone?” Crew asked.

“No,” Tris said. “I was scared to leave her, but I couldn’t carry her myself.”

“You did the right thing,” Crew said. He was both worried about her injury and furious someone had clearly set a trap.

“Shit, look,” Grey said, pointing down the fence line.

Crew rose to his feet and looked, seeing odd, low piles of leaves and sticks in a line, one after the other. “Damn it,” he said. “If we weren’t looking for something, we wouldn’t even see them.”

“I’m going to count them,” Grey said. He hustled off down the fence.

Crew scooped Zara into his arms as gently as he could without jostling her leg and stood. “I’m going to wait at the house for the park doctor and reach out to Dexter and Khyle for a meeting as soon as possible.”

“What about the traps?” Ford asked.

“We’ll come back and scout after the meeting, but I want males at the house with our female herd members and we need all hands on deck.” He grumbled a sigh. “We know it was Colton. The question is whether he did anything else besides dig holes.”

“And it also means we need even more security in place,” Ford pointed out. “We focused on the house and buildings on the cleared property, not the whole damn territory.”

Crew nodded and walked to the farmhouse to wait for the pack doctor.

“How are you holding up, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Aside from feeling like an idiot?”

“Why would you feel like an idiot? There’s no way you could have seen those pitfall traps unless you were scanning the ground as you walked. And I’ll point out that there was no reason for you to be watching where you were walking because when Colton messed with us before, he went after the storage barn.”

“I know,” she said. “I just feel like he was watching us.”

Crew looked down at her for a moment before turning his attention back to the walk ahead. He didn’t trust that there weren’t more traps, even though they appeared to only be at the point she’d gotten hurt and farther down the territory.

It seemed to Crew that they were being watched too, but specifically her . Why else would there be traps where she’d been foraging with Nancy the day before? Colton must have assumed she’d continue her exploration of the area, so he was purposely targeting her. And that also meant that he hadn’t really left the area.

Neither of those things were good, but his stallion was furious that she’d been harmed when he’d assumed their territory was safe.

He would never forgive himself for her getting hurt.

* * *

By the time Doc Paula had come to the farmhouse, examined Zara, and declared the ankle badly sprained but not broken, the entire herd had gathered, including Nancy and Tris. Dani and Neo were there as well, having driven Doc Paula to the farm.

Doc Paula wrapped Zara’s ankle and gave her something for the pain while her natural healing abilities did their job. After the three left to return to the park, the herd males all met in the kitchen to make a plan of action.

“He’s obviously escalating,” Dexter said, rubbing his chin. “He went from just messing with the herd’s farming operation to outright trying to harm Zara in particular. Anyone could have gotten hurt in the pitfall traps, but she was the one who’d been foraging along the fence the day before, so it stands to reason that she was a target.”

“I agree,” Crew said, still fuming internally. “And that means he’s still lurking and attempting to cause problems. If his plan is to take over the herd, then targeting Zara makes sense because it would directly affect me, but I wonder if they just wanted to hurt her. We didn’t see any evidence of her being watched at the time when we got to her.”

“True,” Khyle said, “but maybe they booked it when they heard you guys coming. If the point was to snatch someone, Zara was a good target because they could use her to get to you. The question is if Colton just wants to hurt Zara for leaving his herd or if he’s got more nefarious plans.”

“Such as?” Avi asked.

Khyle gave Crew a long, quiet look. Then he said, “Taking out the herd so he can take over. They’re displaced and need somewhere safe. Didn’t you say they were acting weird about going to see the areas you suggested they could set up a new home?”

Grey nodded. “They just seemed to go along with it, as if they weren’t interested in actually finding a home.”

Crew’s gut churned. It was one thing for him to be targeted as alpha, but if Colton was actually planning to take out the whole herd? That was an animal of an entirely different color. It meant no one was safe.

“I need two of you to stay here with our females and keep an eye on the buildings and livestock. I need two of you to go get more security systems, wireless ones that we can link up to the new system here, and someone can go with me to scout the territory where the traps were set.”

Grey agreed to go with Crew, Khyle and Dexter went to get the security items because Khyle knew someone at one of the tech stores who could lead them in the right direction, and Ford and Avi were going to hang at the house and keep everyone safe.

Crew stopped in to check on Zara, who had her bandaged foot up on a pillow on the coffee table in the family room. She appeared to be asleep, her chest rising and falling and her lashes casting shadows on her cheeks.

“We should get some walkie-talkies,” Tris whispered. “Like they use at the park for the security team. Then you won’t have to worry about anyone being out in the territory where there’s a dead spot for cell service.”

“Good idea,” he whispered. “I’ll text Khyle and have him get some.”

She nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on her. Doc Paula gave her some tea to drink that she said would help her rest. Zara said that stallion females don’t heal as fast as males because they can’t shift and accelerate it, but that her healing is faster than a human’s, so hopefully by tomorrow she’ll be back to normal.”

Crew nodded. “Thanks, Tris.”

“You bet. Be safe out there.”

Crew caught up to Grey after sending a text to Khyle to get enough walkies for everyone in the herd to have one at the same time if needed, and then the two males headed out to scout the territory and do a grid search. With only two of them, it wasn’t going to be a fast job, and they had a lot of territory to cover, but it was necessary.

He and Grey walked a few feet apart into the woods, watching for any evidence of Colton or his males. After a half hour, they discovered a trampled section of grass that was fifty feet into the trees, directly across from one of the pitfall traps. From where the grass was trampled, he could see the split-rail fence, but the trees were thick enough that a male could easily hide behind one.

“You can knock that off,” Grey said.

“What?”

“You look guilty. This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have anticipated that Colton would make a move like this or that Zara would get hurt.”

“I can’t help it,” he confessed. “She not only got hurt, but she could have gotten snatched. It’s a miracle that one of Colton’s herd wasn’t watching at the exact time she was out there, otherwise they might have taken her when she was injured and alone.”

Grey put his hand on his shoulder. “Be thankful she’s okay and let go of the guilt. You’re not psychic. We all thought he was just fucking with us before he took off for good when he messed with the barn. This took all of us by surprise.”

Crew looked around the woods and then looked at his watch. He’d been gone almost two hours, and after the scare of Zara’s injury, his stallion wanted to see her to make sure she was okay.

“Let’s finish the perimeter sweep, and then I’ve got a job for you,” Crew said.

“Whatever you need,” Grey said.

“You’re the best tracker I know. I want you to find Colton’s group and get whatever intel you can—movements, potential plans, anything. Then report back to the farmhouse.”

“You got it.”

“Are you okay going alone or do you want me to send Ford or Avi to you?”

“I’m better on my own, less obvious. Besides,” Grey said, cracking his knuckles, “they’d just slow me down.”

“Be careful,” he said.

The two parted ways, Grey heading deeper into the woods and the herd’s territory to follow whatever clues he was sensing with his training, and Crew walking at a fast pace to the farmhouse to check on his mate.