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We run in formation, Amara's gray form dancing ahead while Toby's brown wolf stays steady at center. Jason, still gangly in wolf form, lopes behind. The forest knows us, accepts us. Pine needles whisper beneath our paws, and the autumn air carries a thousand stories.

But three miles in, those stories turn wrong.

Amara freezes, ears pricked forward. I catch the scent a second later—human technology, plastic, and metal where it doesn't belong. We shift back as one.

"There," Amara points to a pine trunk fifteen feet up. "Camouflaged, but the lens caught the sun."

I move closer, examining the device. "Trail camera. Professional grade."

"Hunters?" Toby asks, voice tight with the fear all young wolves carry.

"Possibly." I scan the surrounding trees with new eyes. "Spread out. Look for more. Don't touch them yet."

We find a total of six cameras over the next hour, all positioned to monitor the main pack trails. My wolf snarls at the violation, wants to destroy every trace of human intrusion. But the man beneath him knows better. We need intelligence more than satisfaction.

"But why would hunters put trail cameras five miles from our border?" Jason asks for the third time as I carefully remove one device for evidence.

"Because they're not hunting deer," Amara says quietly.

Smart girl. I'll recommend her for advanced training, I think faintly, distracted, worried, brain buzzing with unpleasant possibilities.

"These are recent," I tell them, examining the camera housing. "No weather wear. Probably placed within the last week."

Toby's heart rate spikes—I can hear it hammering. "Should we warn the pack?"

"That's exactly what we're going to do." I wrap the camera carefully. "Amara, can you backtrack their entry trail?"

She nods, dropping to examine the forest floor. "Two humans, maybe three. They came from the southeast, left the same way. Boots, not hiking shoes.”

Professional. Organized. Motivated enough to risk nearing known wolf territory. None of these things bode well.

"We head back," I decide. "Stay in formation, stay alert. If you catch any fresh human scent, you howl immediately. Understood?"

Three voices chorus in agreement. We shift and run, but the forest feels different now. Watched. Evaluated. Hunted.

By the time we reach pack territory, the sun hangs low on the horizon. I send the younger wolves home and head straight for the lodge. Nic needs to know about this immediately.

But it's James who intercepts me at the entrance, his phone already in hand.

"We've got a problem," he says without preamble. "Anti-shifter rally in Millbrook. Thirty miles south."

I follow him to the security office, where multiple screens show social media feeds and news clips. The images make my blood run cold—crowds of humans with signs reading "Humans First" and "Regulate the Beasts." One woman holds a poster with a wolf in crosshairs.

"The unease started small last week," James explains. "But it's growing. They're organizing, Thomas. Talking about 'the threat in their backyard'."

"There’s more,” I say grimly, setting the evidence on his desk. "Found these five miles past the eastern border. Professional surveillance equipment."

James whistles low. "They're getting bold."

"Or desperate." I study the rally footage. "Any idea who's funding this?"

"Working on it. But Thomas..." He hesitates, unusual for the typically blunt Head of Security. “I’m worried. So is Nic. Remember we had that surge in hunter activity around the territory—what, six years ago? Seven? People got hurt.”

I wince. I remember it far better than James could ever know. One of those hunters still shows up in my nightmares.

"We should increase patrols," I tell him, not an order, because we rank the same even if, on paper, I outstrip him. "Doubles on all borders. Can you get me everything you can on these rally organizers?”

"Already on it." His phone buzzes. "That's Nic. He wants us both in the morning for strategic planning."

I nod, suddenly exhausted. The weight of the day—Fiona's avoidance, the lottery announcement, cameras in our forest, threats to our south—presses down like mountain stone.

"Go home," James says, recognizing the look. "Get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be long."

Home. The word mocks me as I make my way through darkening woods to my cabin. Home is supposed to be a sanctuary, but mine is haunted by a ghost who is very much alive.

The cabin sits exactly as I left it this morning, but I see her everywhere.

The kitchen where she once tried to make pancakes, leaving flour handprints on every surface.

The living room where she'd curl into the corner of my couch, book in hand, unconsciously beautiful in the firelight.

The bedroom doorway I can't bring myself to fully enter anymore.

I pour three fingers of whiskey and drop into the leather chair that's been my bed more nights than not. The burn of alcohol does nothing to stop the memories.

In my imagination, it’s still six years ago. August.

She sleeps beside me, her body soft and trusting against mine. I can't sleep, can't stop watching her breathe, memorizing every line of her round face, her full body. My phone buzzes on the nightstand—another message I won't read, another threat I can't process yet.

"Can't sleep with that buzzing." Her voice, husky with sleep and satisfaction.”And you’re thinking too loud.”

"Just thinking." I pull her closer, breathing in lavender and rain and us.

"About?" She traces patterns on my chest, each touch electric.

"How I want every night to be like this."

She turns in my arms, those green eyes finding mine in the darkness. They hold entire worlds, futures I want desperately to claim. "Thomas..."

"I mean it, Fi. After this training mission, everything changes. I'll talk to the Elders, make it official. You and me."

She kisses me instead of answering, but I feel her smile against my lips, taste her joy. In that moment, I believe my own words. Believe we can have forever.

The memory fractures as my phone buzzes, this time in the present day. Nic, in the group chat he shares with James and I: “We have a lot to do in the morning. This is looking risky.”

I drain the whiskey and force myself to focus. The pack needs their enforcer, not a lovesick fool pining for a woman who's moved on. A woman with a child and a life that doesn't include me. A woman who looked right through me like I was nothing.

Exactly what I deserve.

But as I stand at the window where I once held her, watching the moon rise over the pines, I can't shake the image of her careful avoidance. The way she held herself like armor, protecting something precious. The child at her side with dark curls and bright eyes.

My wolf howls somewhere deep inside, recognizing a loss it doesn't fully understand. Six years, and her ghost still owns this place. Still owns parts of me I thought I'd cut away.

Tomorrow, I'll be the enforcer. The protector. The right-hand who puts pack before everything else.

Tonight, I'm just a man standing in an empty cabin, wondering if the threats circling our borders are any match for the danger that walks through our market square with lavender-scented hair and eyes that won't meet mine.

The moon climbs higher, and I let myself remember for just a moment more—her laugh, her touch, the promises I made and broke. Then I close the curtains on the past and prepare for a future that suddenly feels far more uncertain than any hunter's camera or angry crowd.

In two weeks, the lottery bowl will hold her name among twenty-two others.

And I'm terrified that fate isn't done with us yet.