Chapter Thirty-Eight
June
The smell of metals in the earth beneath me was strong in my nose.
Tanner took me on patrol with him to walk the entire border of the pack. If we just walked, it would take us more than one day to do it, so he let us run some of it since this was my first time. As I got used to the job, I would be able to walk around the very edges of Moonpeak territory and come back into town once a week.
I held my nose to the earth as a light misting of rain coated my shiny black fur. I resisted the near-constant urge to shake the wet off, but all I'd be doing was prolonging the inevitable soaking.
My wolf, more so than Tanner, was teaching me about smells. He told me she would be my best teacher, and he wasn't wrong. She might be the expert, but if I couldn't identify what she was trying to tell me about a scent or a mark she found, then I wouldn't be any use to a tracker team.
June, over here , Tanner said, pulling my attention from the tang of fresh soil in my nose.
I walked over to where he was standing by a tree, nose pointed to a marked-up patch on it. My wolf instantly picked up the smell.
That's damage from antlers. A buck will rub his scent on the trees in breeding season. Turns on the lady deer. Makes 'em horny.
Ew. I chuckled . That was maybe the worst pun I've ever heard. Why do we need to know about that?
Hunting, June. Now, these marks are pretty old. Last season, in fact. But this fall when they start appearing fresh, I want you to be able to spot them and tell me or Smokey or Alpha , Tanner said. We don't hunt the deer in their breeding season, or we'd never have enough deer the next year.
That makes sense , I said. Okay, I think I could spot them again.
Good , Tanner said . Spotting the first signs in certain animals' changing seasons is vital to our survival. We hunt what is excess, we harvest when it's time, we plant when the season calls for it. Knowing when animals are coming out of hibernation, or mating, or putting on fat for winter is all a part of a tracker's job.
I thought trackers just watched out for enemies.
No. Tanner moved on from the tree to keep us going around the pack lands. Wolves may be volatile by nature, but we really don't get attacked that often. Not way out here.
Not even by rogues? I asked.
Even with Tanner's wolf form to show his expression, I could have sworn his eyes darkened. No, I suppose those have changed things. I still can't believe we haven't found them.
I paused a moment before continuing to follow Tanner. Smokey had said the trackers were on the trail of the rogues both times now. He must be disappointed that they haven't found anything.
Hey, Tanner—
Shh , Tanner snapped. Did you hear that?
I jerked my head back, my ears flicking around to try to catch what he could have heard. It was hard to sort through the other sounds of nature for something out of place.
Damn. It's Vernon. He's wanting me to see something.
Do you want me to keep going on patrol or . . . ?
You better come with me. I don't want anyone alone with those rogue freaks out there , Tanner said.
He turned northeast and began running around the forested area and through a spacious patch of field. I followed him easily. My wolf loved the progress we made. Since finally letting go of my fears while running, I was enjoying it again. Unfortunately, that meant most other wolves went at a pace a little slower than I ever wanted to go. It's hard to find a good running partner when you're a tracker.
The sun was still high enough in the sky that I wondered if second breakfast was a bad call. I had eaten before leaving the house, when the sun wasn't even up yet, but I had already worked up an appetite, and lunch was still a ways off.
But I didn't want to interrupt Tanner with that kind of thing either. Not until we found out what Vernon wanted. Should I be worried, or was this routine stuff for the head tracker to deal with?
Finally cresting a small hill and heading down a steep slope, I spotted a gray wolf and a brownish one crouching behind a thicket of trees.
Vernon, Tess, what is it? Tanner asked as we approached them. We mirrored their crouching position.
Something weird was here , the gray one said. Look at these markings.
Tanner crawled forward on his belly, peering at whatever Vernon had found. I moved, curiously trying to see what it was.
You dug a damn hole outside of pack boundaries , Tanner said. Why did you even come this far?
It's my fault, Tanner. The brownish one spoke up. A female with an American accent that surprised me. I had been around the Canadians for too long.
She caught a trace of this on the wind , Vernon said. I thought she was thinking up things, smelling nothing. Drove her nuts for a good hour until I caught it too.
Whoever did this walked across pack lands, I just know it , Tess said.
If they did, they didn't touch a damn thing , Vernon said. We couldn't find a trace of where it was coming from on anything but the wind. That is, until we got here.
Tanner nodded, and leaned into what I could now see was a hole that Vernon and Tess had dug roughly in the damp ground. A glance at their paws told me they were muddy between the light rain and the digging.
I've never seen anything like this, but it smells like strong magic to me , Tanner said. June, come over here and get a whiff, but don't touch anything. I don't like the feel of it.
I crawled over between Tanner and Vernon. The hole was at the base of some kind of bush, so it was pretty full of roots. At the bottom, maybe my human arm's length into the ground, was an open metal box. There were some stones in it with red markings that I didn't recognize and a knife.
My wolf didn't like it at all.
You've got one hell of a nose to sniff this out from back in the pack lands , Tanner said. But I don't know what to make of it. It's not in Moonpeak, but we're close enough to the humans down here that maybe one of them practices magic. Could be something to look into.
Are you going to tell Alpha Evander? I asked.
The three of them looked up at me. Tanner sighed through his nose. Of course, it's his call if we pursue this or not.
Now I was anxious about being off pack lands, not that I was alone. I wished I could talk to Dom, but our mind link wouldn't work this far away.
Bury it again and try to leave it as you found it , Tanner said. We'll report it and I'll let you know what's decided about it. Good nose, Tess.
Thanks, Tanner , Tess said. It didn't have grass over it anyway, this thing looked like it got buried recently, or dug up and buried again, maybe. They won't notice a thing.
Good. Finish up and get back on your usual route , Tanner told them, standing up . Come on, June. Let's head back for today, I've got to see Alpha.
Okay . I followed him while Tess and Vernon started to put everything back as they had found it. Tanner took us up the slope and into the mountains again, easing my unrest with every step closer to pack lands we got.
Magic. My wolf didn't like it, that was for sure. She didn't like it the first time we smelled it, either, with Jerod and his demon-summoning thing.
I shuddered. But it made me wonder if Jerod had anything to do with it. Maybe he could at least identify it for us.
Hey, Tanner . . .
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to reveal what Jerod could do, or give anyone reason to suspect him.
Yeah? he asked.
Thanks for teaching me , I said.
Tanner let out a soft, barking laugh. It's no problem, June. You're fast, and you've got a good nose on you.
Not as good as Tess, apparently , I added.
No one has a nose as good as Tess , Tanner mused. But we're glad to have you on the team anyway. We could always use more trackers, I don't want to thin out like we did last time and have to put people on single patrols again.
Last time. Last time this place was having these rogue attacks.
How bad was it? I asked.
Tanner took his time answering, and the sadness in his one-word answer was palpable. Bad .
We took the final steps back into the range of the pack lands. I sighed with relief, and my wolf even relaxed.
What do you mean thin out like last time? I asked.
Tanner grumbled. I'm going to be frank with you. The trackers lost a lot of good wolves the last time these strange rogues showed up. People are on edge after these new attacks, and our job is more important than ever. If we can catch the first signs of an attack approaching it might make the difference in how many die.
My chest tightened. The hurt in his message came through loud and clear. Was Tanner the leader back then, too, or was he filling someone else's shoes?
I'm sorry , I said. That sounds like it was very hard times. But I thought you said the trackers were some of the safer jobs to have, rather than the warriors and hunters. What happened?
Tanner went quiet a moment while we navigated a steep, rocky part of our trek back. Normally, trackers find things. Smell things, scout things. We report. We don't fight unless it's a full-out pack war. It's not our job. Hell, that's why the moon gave us warriors and big-ass brutes like your mate.
But the rogues were different. They seemed to come out of nowhere, and if they caught you, that was it , Tanner said . Even if you were a strong wolf and could normally fight off a rogue or two, at least for long enough to slip away, these rogues are different.
Where are they coming from? I was worried. How are we supposed to protect the pack from something we can't find?
That's the big question, isn't it? Tanner sighed. Come on, I don't want to keep scaring you. Let's just get back to the village, and you can take off this afternoon. I need to report this to a few people.
Okay.
Tanner left me with more questions than answers, but he wasn't really saying much that I hadn't been told or figured out already. Once we got a little closer, I turned my attention to someone else.
Dom, are you busy? I asked.
For you? Never , Dom replied right away.
Somehow I didn't think it was that simple, but I let it go. The trackers found something unusual today. Tanner is going to report it to Evander. We need to talk to Jerod. It was magic, hidden a little outside the boundaries.
Fucking magic , Dom spat . I'll wrap up with Smokey and meet you at the house. Then we'll go to Jerod.
We dropped our link, and I focused on following Tanner. One way or another I'd find out about this magic stuff. For the good of Moonpeak.