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The woods were still clingin’ to me by the time I rolled into the Wild Dog. Pine needles in my damn boots. Blood under my nails. But through it all, Birdie’s scent was lingerin’ on my skin.

I parked my bike out back, shut off the engine, and just sat there a second, starin’ at the dark clubhouse like it might offer answers.

It didn’t.

Place was lit up like usual, bikes lined up like soldiers, music rumblin’ low behind the walls, everybody probably two beers past good judgment.

I tossed the helmet and went in. The weed made it smell like a garage fire mixed with a whiskey distillery. Home sweet home. The familiar mess wrapped around me, but it didn’t settle the gnawin’ in my gut.

“VP’s back,” called TNT from the far table, feet kicked up, knife in one hand, an apple in the other. He carved it with precision, like every slice was a warning.

“TNT,” I grunted. “That blade better not be for decoration.”

“Don’t worry,” he smirked. “Still plenty of blood on it from the last bastard who thought it was.”

Chevy sat beside him, dark-eyed and still as a shadow. Witch blood ran thick in that one. He didn’t say much, but when she did, it landed like a prophecy. He had that sleepy, Southern charm that could flip like a switch when the spirits whispered.

Smokey was leanin’ on the bar, arms crossed over his chest like he’d rather be fightin’ than breathin’. “Heard you were out ridin’ solo,” he said. “That smart, after what happened last full moon?”

“Smarter than sittin’ here waitin’ for ‘em to come knockin’,” I muttered.

“Yeah? You find what you were lookin’ for?”

I thought of Birdie. Her scream. That damn rogue.

“No,” I lied.

We’d all been on edge since the last attack. The kind that don’t make the news ‘cause no one’s left alive to report it. And then what happened to Birdie. She could’ve ended up like the last folks. In the belly of a rogue.

Now, I had this new ache, somethin’ primal and stupid, curlin’ up my spine when I thought of her.

“Where’s Knox?” I asked, peelin’ off my cut and tossin’ it over a chair. I needed to tell him that the job was done.

“Out back with the prospect,” Smokey murmured. “Tryin’ to convince Flint not to bolt.”

“Shit,” I muttered, rakin’ a hand through my hair.

The kid had seen somethin’ in the woods, and word was, he was startin’ to put pieces together that didn’t belong to no human puzzle.

“Let him bolt,” TNT said. “He talks, we erase it.”

I gave him a look. “We don’t erase our own.”

TNT shrugged, unconvinced.

This was what it was like, bein’ VP in a club where most everyone carried a curse under their skin. I was the leash. The steel trap. The goddamn babysitter to monsters who wore leather and smiled too easy.

Almost all the officers were wolves like me, and unlike our prez Knox, but that’s not all the fuckers were. Well, Smokey, a firefighter was all claws and teeth. Nothin’ too special about our gray wolves. But TNT was half demon, they said. Red wolf came from some backwoods stock where possession ran in the family like red hair. The kind of man who laughed while burnin’ a body.

Another gray, Chevy could hex you six ways to Sunday without movin’ a muscle. His magic was subtle, but deadly. He always said he wouldn’t curse any brother. Unless he had a reason.

Bandit? A fucking feral dog. He was just mean. Had to be in this crowd. Not supernatural, not officially, but mean enough it didn’t matter. His knuckles were scarred from fights he’d start, and his heart was a locked room no one had the key to.

And me?

I was the wolf who’d let the animal out in front of a girl who smelled like sunshine and sleepless nights.

“Keep an eye on Bandit,” I said low.

Smokey frowned. “That kid?”

“Somethin’ off about him lately.”

“Off like sketchy?”

“Off like traitor.”

Chevy gaze flicked up then. “I had a dream about Bandit last night. He was bleedin’. Not from the outside.”

“Well,” Smokey drawled. “Ain’t that ominous.”

I sighed, exhausted already. “Y’all keep this place steady tonight. I got somewhere to be.”

“You sure you’re not just avoidin’ the girl?” Chevy asked with a smirk.

I paused, long enough to tell him I was thinkin’ about how hard I could hit him without breakin’ his jaw.

He flinched.

Maybe the fucker could read minds.

“She was in the woods,” I said instead. “Alone. Campin’. Some rogue went after her.”

All three of ‘em sobered.

“Did she see you?” Smokey asked.

I shook my head. “Don’t think so.”

“Does she know?” Chevy said.

“No. But if that rogue is after her, she’s about to find out what kind of shit this world is made of.”

I left before I said too much.

My apartment was dark and cold and empty, like usual.

I dumped my keys on the counter and peeled off the shirt stickin’ to my side. The wound from the rogue was already closed. He’d gotten a good swipe in, but my blood ran hot, healed fast. Perks of bein’ what I was.

I stood under the kitchen light, starin’ at the scars that never went away.

One ran down my ribcage, left by a silver blade in a fight with a reaper-assassin outta Nashville.

Another across my thigh, earned from a hunt gone wrong in Arkansas.

But the one I never talked about? The one that never showed?

That was the injury from college. The one that blew my knee out and took my whole damn future with it.

One minute I was Carter, star quarterback at the University of Tennessee. Top, they called me. Like the song that played when we ran outta the tunnel at Neyland. I thought I’d be the next Peyton Manning someday.

Then came the injury.

No draft. No NFL .

Just painkillers, fist fights, and a patch handed to me by a man with a growl in his throat like mine.

Knox saved me like he was some sort of shifter preacher, lookin’ for lost souls. Or maybe he just gave me a new kind of cage to pace in. But he didn’t bring me into this club of wolves. That was our old Prez, Apollo, before he went onto to better things.

Old timer wasn’t dead and gone. Shifter, he’d live forever if he was unlucky enough to win every fight. Our old Prez retired, was in Alaska with his family. Knox’s grandad, Reynard who brought Knox into the fold had been Apollo’s second before he perished.

Knox was the one who gave me purpose. Made me his VP.

I turned the radio on. Not even sure why. Chris Stapleton crooned about drinkin’ away bad decisions.

I cracked a beer and stood there, shirtless and bruised, thinkin’ about the way Birdie had looked, sittin’ by that fire with a flashlight in her mouth and not a damn clue what kinda world she’d wandered into.

She wasn’t like the club girls. She was fire and lipstick and somethin’ delicate under the glitter.

And now she was in it. Whether she knew or not.

I drank half the beer, then set it down.

Sleep wouldn’t come easy. It never did when the wolf was restless .

But I still crawled into bed, pulled the blanket up, and closed my eyes to the sound of crickets and silence.

And the last thing I saw in my mind?

Was her.

At work the next day, I went through the motions. But my day really started when I walked into the club. The Wild Dog was louder than usual. Thursday nights weren’t what they used to be, but ever since word started spreading about rogues sniffin’ around Knox County, everybody’d been a little more restless. More booze. More blood. More of everything.

I stalked into the clubhouse, noddin’ to Smokey at the bar. He lifted a beer without a word and slid it down the counter toward me. I caught it clean, cracked it open, and didn’t bother thankin’ him. He knew how I liked it.

The music was old-school outlaw country, perhaps Waylon, rough as the bark on a whiskey barrel. The scent of grilled meat and leather hung stuck in my nose, undercut by the hint of perfume.

That’s when I saw her. My nose crinkled.

Tara.

In skin tight leather and her hair slicked back like a cobra ready to strike, she leaned against the pool table, eyes locked on me like a predator who’d spotted the wounded gazelle in the herd.

I sighed. Here we fuckin’ go.

Tara wasn’t just any she-wolf. She was Bearcat’s sister and came from the Whitlock family out of North Georgia, a lineage known for producing alphas and assholes in equal measure. Her uncle once challenged Apollo back in the day and Old Prez lost an eye for his trouble. Tara carried a glass eye in her pocket as a reminder. Liked to pull it out to prove points. She’d had a thing for Knox once until he met Eliza and stopped takin’ Tara’s calls.

Now she had her sights on me.

I took a long swig of my beer, hopin’ she’d take the hint.

She didn’t.

“,” she purred, stridin’ toward me with the kind of hips that knew what they were doin’. “Heard you were out prowlin’ the woods lately. Somethin’ got your attention out there?”

Yeah. A sunshine girl with big green eyes and a stubborn streak that made my wolf howl.

“Just club business,” I muttered.

She stepped closer. Too close. Fingertips grazin’ the front of my cut like she had any right. “Maybe you oughta let off some steam with someone who knows how to handle you. It’s been too long.”

I hardly remembered. I grabbed her wrist, firm but not cruel. “Tara.”

She arched a brow. “What?”

“I ain’t interested. Knox should’ve booted your ass for what you did to Eliza’s car. ”

“That fox won’t dare get rid of a dire wolf like me and piss off my brother.” Her mouth twisted, a smirk with too many teeth. “He still chasin’ that human girl? Heard you were talking to her friend. What’s her name? Barbie?”

Damn, word traveled fast. “Birdie,” I growled. “And she ain’t yours to talk about.”

Tara’s eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t belong here. You know that. She doesn’t understand what we are.”

“Maybe not. But she ain’t pretendin’ she does. That’s more than I can say for you.”

She jerked her wrist back and stormed off, heels clickin’ like a goddamn clock counting down to drama.

“Damn,” muttered one of the waitresses as she passed. Destiny, I think. New girl with a pink pixie cut and a fake ID she thought I didn’t know about.

“You lookin’ to die single, ?” she teased, tossin’ a rag over her shoulder.

I grunted. “Better single than shackled.”

Behind the bar, Moonie poured two shots of whiskey and set them in front of me without askin’. She was one of the older girls, been around since Apollo’s reign. She wore fishnets like armor and had a switchblade in her bra.

“That girl’s dangerous and not in a fun way,” she said, noddin’ toward where Tara was now pretendin’ to flirt with one of the visiting Nashville boys.

“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know.”

“Your ex is back in town.”

I paused, hand halfway to my drink. “What?”

Moonie smirked. “Saw her drivin’ past the hardware store in her cherry red Jeep. Same one you used to wash shirtless out front, tryin’ to win her back.”

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

“Name's Delilah, right? The one with the tattoos and the trust fund?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That one.”

Delilah and I didn’t end bad. We didn’t end good either. She wanted a life I couldn’t give her. Smooth walls, clean sheets, no monsters under the bed. Problem was, I was the fuckin’ monster. She was the kind of shifter in denial. Wanted to pretend she didn’t turn into an animal and lick herself.

And now she was back. The same week Tara’s in heat and Birdie’s got me dreamin’ about claimin’ her for real.

I downed the whiskey in one burnin’ shot and headed out back.

Chevy wandered over then, half-glowin’ from whatever spell he’d cooked up out in the yard. “You got a storm brewin’, brother,” he said like it was the weather forecast.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “And I’m about to be the goddamn lightning. ”

The sound of gravel crunchin’ under boots wasn’t loud, but I heard it all the same. Wasn’t much slipped past me these days. Not after everything.

I didn’t turn. Just kept starin’ out from my perch on the back patio, cigarette burnin’ low between my fingers.

“Thought I’d find you out here,” Knox said behind me.

“Figured you would,” I muttered, blowin’ smoke into the cool night air. “Ain’t many places to hide when the ghosts start knockin’.”

He came up beside me, leanin’ on the railing, his arms folded tight. He didn’t speak right away, and neither did I.

That’s how we did things. Never in a rush to ruin a good silence unless the devil demanded it.

Finally, he said, “Eliza told me somethin’.”

I flicked ash off the end of my smoke. “Yeah?”

He nodded, jaw clenchin’ just once. “She said Birdie had been seeing someone. Said one of Mark’s boys.”

My spine straightened.

“And she didn’t tell us ?” I said, sharper than I meant to.

“Didn’t want to drag us back into that mess if it was nothin’. Eliza only brought it up ‘cause she’s worried. So am I.”

I stared hard into the trees.

“Any idea who it was?” I asked.

“Eliza didn’t say his name,” Knox said.

I growled low in my throat. “And you didn’t ask?”

“No,” he said. “Which is why I’m tellin’ you. I need you to find out who it was. Quietly. I don’t want Eliza spooked any more than she already is. I acted like it meant nothin’. That it couldn’t have anything to do with what happened to Birdie in the woods.”

My hands curled around the railing. “You think it’s revenge?”

He looked at me. “When you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that hollers is the one you hit.”

“You think they know?” I asked, real quiet.

His gaze was steady. “If they don’t now, they will soon.”

A beat passed between us, heavy as sin.

“I did what you asked,” I said finally. “He’s gone.”

“I know,” Knox replied. “But that doesn’t mean the rot didn’t spread before we cut the root.”

I nodded once. “You want me to run the names?”

“I want you to do more than that,” he said. “Track his old crew. Anyone left standin’. Find out who’s got somethin’ to gain from stirrin’ up shit.”

“And if I find ‘em?” I asked, turnin’ toward him.

Knox met my eyes, and I saw the fox flash behind them. “Make sure they don’t ever get close to my girls again. ”

I took one last drag and ground the cigarette out under my boot. “I’ll handle it.”

He clapped a hand to my shoulder. “I know you will, Rock.”

And with that, gears were already turning in my mind. I would start diggin’ through names, faces, old whispers from Mark’s circle. If Birdie had been seeing someone from that world, we were sittin’ on a powder keg.

And I’d be damned if I let her light the match without me knowin’.