4. Elise

CHAPTER FOUR

ELISE

“ Y ou’re late.”

Rafe’s words greeted me before I’d even killed my engine. He leaned against his truck, arms folded across his chest, looking every inch the alpha he pretended to be.

“Traffic was a bitch,” I lied, climbing out of my car. The truth—that I’d lost track of time with my tongue down a feral wolf’s throat—probably wouldn’t go over well.

Rafe’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t call me on my bullshit. Small mercies. “Let’s go. We’re already behind schedule.”

I fell into step beside him as we headed into the woods. The scent of pine and damp earth filled my nose, almost—but not quite—masking the lingering traces of Nico on my skin. Fuck, I hoped Rafe couldn’t smell him on me.

“So, what’s this little powwow about?” I asked, ducking under a low-hanging branch. “Or are we just taking a romantic stroll through the woods?”

Rafe snorted. “You know Declan. Barely got a time out of the fucker before he ended the call. Said it was important, though.”

Great. Another crisis. Just what we needed.

We walked in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the crunch of leaves beneath our boots. I could feel Rafe’s eyes on me, searching for... something. It set my teeth on edge.

“You want to tell me the real reason you were late?” he asked finally.

I bristled. “I told you. Traffic.”

“Traffic? In Mill Creek?” He snorted. “Come on, Elise. Don’t lie to me.”

Guilt and annoyance collided in my chest, and I clamped down on the subsequent anger. “What, are you the hall monitor now? Is tracking our comings and goings part of your alpha duties?”

“When it impacts pack business? Yeah, it is.”

I whirled on him, fury burning through my veins. “You want to know why I was late? Fine. I’m getting fucked, Rafe. Is that what you want to hear? It’s dirty, face down, ass up, hardest I’ve come without a toy, best deep dicking of my life. Do you need more details, or am I, a grown woman, allowed a little fucking privacy?”

The words hung in the air between us, sharp and ugly. Rafe’s face went blank, his scent spiking with shock and... something else. Something that made my wolf bare her teeth.

“Fates, Elise,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t?—”

“Didn’t what? Think I had a life outside the pack? News flash, Rafe, I do. So, stay the fuck out of my business.”

I stormed ahead, leaving him to catch up. My cheeks burned with embarrassment and rage. What the hell was I doing? Harboring a strange wolf on pack lands was bad enough. But lying to my alpha about it? Covering my tracks with just enough offensive truth to stop the questions before they dug too deep?

The right thing—the smart thing—would have been to come clean. Tell him about finding Nico in the woods, admit to letting my wolf steal control. Explain.

But the... connection between us was dangerous. Rafe could order Nico killed for intruding on our territory. Nico could hurt someone and meet a bloody end. A damn semi could slam into a dark wolf running down the road on a dark night.

Any end, and he’d take me with him. I’d marked him as my mate. Our fates were now tied together.

I touched my lips, still tingling from his kiss.

What the fuck was I doing?

Rafe caught up to me a few minutes later, his expression carefully neutral. “Tara asked to be released from the pack.”

I stumbled, nearly face-planting into a tree. “What?”

“She and Corbin...” Rafe trailed off, but I could fill in the blanks.

The looks. The smiles. Our healer found a reason to make herself available anytime the Crescent Hollow second dropped by with orders phrased like updates.

Another one gone. Another piece of the pack, crumbling away.

My father’s legacy. My failure.

“I wanted to tell you in person.” Rafe scrubbed a hand over the back of his head. “She says she’ll keep acting as our healer until we find another.”

Fat lot of good that would do. We couldn’t keep wolves, much less recruit them. A dying pack in a dying town? Come for the space and low property values, stay because all your dreams burned to a crisp.

We walked the rest of the way in silence. Guilt and shame twisted in my gut with every step. Not just about lying, but about Tara. About Kai, Orion, and Maddy. About how few packmates remained, and how little hope there was for anything beyond their continued defection.

Declan was already at the clearing when we arrived, leaning against a massive tree like he didn’t have a care in the world. The Crescent Hollow alpha flicked eyes to me, then Rafe, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Poacher,” I greeted him, injecting as much venom into the word as I could manage.

Declan’s eyebrows shot up. He looked to Rafe. “She knows?”

Rafe nodded, and Declan shrugged. “Ah, well. Can’t blame a guy for trying to expand his territory, can you?”

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly where he could shove his territory, but movement in the undergrowth caught my attention. A massive grizzly bear lumbered into the clearing, and I tensed, ready for a fight.

But then the bear’s form blurred, shrinking and twisting until a naked man stood before us.

“Wyatt,” Declan said, nodding to the newcomer. “Thanks for coming.”

I watched the bear warily from the corner of my eye as he reached for a knapsack hidden in the bushes and pulled out clothes. Declan might have been willing to carve out a chunk of his land for a clan of bears, but I still had my doubts.

I glanced between the three men, suspicion prickling along my spine. “Yeah, hi, nice to see all of your ugly mugs. Someone want to tell me what we’re doing here?”

“Well, hello to you too, sweetheart.” Wyatt puckered his lips in a loud smooch. “If you’d prefer, I can keep my information to myself.”

“Wyatt,” Rafe warned, his voice low.

The bear shifter rolled his eyes and pulled two manila folders from his bag. He tossed them unceremoniously into the dirt at Rafe and Declan’s feet.

Not mine.

My wolf snarled at the blatant snub. I wasn’t the alpha, but I wasn’t some random pup either. I was pack. And this... this was bullshit.

Rafe bent to retrieve the folders, his brow furrowed as he handed the extra to Declan and flipped through the contents. “What am I looking at here?”

“A string of shifter crimes going back a year, as far as my contacts can tell,” Wyatt said, his voice grim. “Recognizable by the animal nature of the attacks, and the proximity to large tracts of land. If the pattern holds, they’re headed toward Denver next.”

My blood ran cold. Shifter crimes. Animal attacks.

Nico’s face flashed through my mind, his silver eyes wild with feral rage. The way he’d torn through that cabin like a hurricane, destroying everything in sight. How he’d reached for me without a trace of hesitation.

No. It couldn’t be him. He wouldn’t?—

But how well did I really know him? A handful of words, a mate mark given in the heat of the moment. That was all we had. And it wasn’t enough.

“What are we supposed to do with this?” Rafe asked, snapping me out of my spiraling thoughts.

Wyatt shrugged. “Keep your eyes open. I’m doing my part by sharing the intel. What you do with it is up to you.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and tasted copper. I should tell them about Nico. About the feral wolf I’d found in our territory not so far from Denver. The one I’d fucked and marked without a second thought.

The words sat heavy on my tongue, begging to be spoken. But something held me back. Maybe it was the memory of Nico’s broken expression as he struggled to remember how to be human. Or maybe it was just my selfish desire to keep him to myself.

Whatever the reason, I kept my mouth shut.

“Great,” Declan drawled. “Guess we’ll see the survivors on the other side of this latest emergency, huh?”

I wanted to punch the smug look off his face. To scream and rage at the unfairness of it all.

Instead, I turned on my heel and stalked back into the woods. I needed to get away and think.

And figure out what the fuck I was going to do about Nico.

NICO

The scent of her lingered in my nostrils as I crept through the underbrush, careful to stay downwind. My wolf bristled, urging me to claim what was mine. To sink my teeth into her flesh and never let go.

No. Not prey. Mate.

The distinction felt important, even if I couldn’t quite grasp why.

I shook my head, trying to clear the fog of distorted thoughts. It was getting harder to think straight and remember why I was here. Why I was me .

But Elise’s scent grounded me. Kept the wolf from taking over completely.

I’d pegged her for alpha when I first caught her scent. There was power there, raw and untamed. But watching her defer to the male—Rafe—had been a shock. She clearly hated taking orders, if the snarl on her face when the bear handed out those folders was any sign.

So why did she submit?

Mine, the wolf growled.

I pushed the thought away. I had no right to claim her, no matter what instinct said. Not with the blood on my hands.

The meeting played over in my head, each word a dagger in my gut. Shifter crimes. Animal attacks. A trail of bodies leading straight to Denver.

Straight to me.

Bile rose in my throat. Flashes of memory assaulted me. Blood and screams, the scent of death choking me. I could hear my sister’s cries, see the silver bullet meant for me tear through her body?—

No. Focus.

I nipped at my leg, using the pain to anchor myself in the present. I couldn’t afford to lose myself. Not now. Not when I finally had a chance to make things right.

Elise’s mark burned on my neck. She’d given me a tether with her bite. A lifeline back to humanity when I’d been drowning in the depths of my own madness. I owed her more than I could ever repay.

And now I’d brought danger to her doorstep.

Voices drifted on the breeze, and I pricked my ears to listen.

“...meeting Maddy at Ink and Beans for a baby group,” Rafe was saying. “You good to split patrol with Orion?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it covered,” Elise replied, her tone clipped. “Anything else?”

“Here. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious.” A rustle of paper. “Quiet trails.”

Car doors slammed, engines roared to life. I watched from the shadows as they drove off in opposite directions. The choice was simple—I followed Elise.

I loped after her car, keeping to the tree line alongside the lonely road. My paws ate up the ground, muscles bunching and releasing with each stride. It felt good to run. To have a purpose beyond mere survival.

The scent hit me as soon as I crossed the invisible boundary—wolf. Not just one, but many. Their mingled odors clung to every tree and bush, a clear warning to outsiders.

Nature gave way to civilization. A home here and there, then more. Voices. Engines. I peeled away from the road and gave their buildings a wide berth, sticking to the shadows as I tracked Elise’s familiar scent.

Her trail led me to a small cabin tucked away in the woods. I crouched in the underbrush, watching as she climbed out of her car. She rolled her shoulders, then reached back inside for something in the passenger seat.

For a moment, her body went rigid. Then she relaxed, clicked the lock on the car door, and strode for her door with a folder dangling from her fingers.

What had caused that reaction? I inched closer, straining my ears.

“Hey, Orion,” Elise’s voice drifted through an open window. “I won’t be able to make our patrol. Something came up I need to handle.”

A pause. Then, “Oh, fuck off. No, I will not sabotage cars just so they need your tow truck.”

There was no lie in her voice. Just exasperation and... fondness? The beast in my chest growled at the thought of her caring for another male.

I shook it off. Focus.

Footsteps stomped away, and her front door opened. Closed again. Her keys jangled at her car door.

Then she was gone.

I waited, counting seconds, then minutes. Nothing moved save for the wind whispering through the trees.

Breaking in was child’s play. I shifted and tried the handle. The lock gave way with barely a whisper, and then I was inside. Her scent wrapped around me, and for a moment I lost myself in it. Fur and wild heather. The promise of rain.

Home.

I stood at the edge of her living room, fighting to keep my wolf from surfacing. To cling to this form, as unfamiliar as it felt. The room was small and cozy. Paperbacks crammed the shelves of a small bookshelf, and a quilt hung haphazardly off the arm of an old sofa.

I shouldn’t be here.

I didn’t deserve to be anywhere near her. But I had to know what they’d found. Had to see how close they were to?—

There. On the kitchen counter.

My hands shook as I flipped it open. Crime scene photos spilled across the surface, each one a punch to the gut. Bodies torn apart. Blood splattered across walls and furniture. It was all so familiar. So horribly, painfully familiar.

The screams. The rush of power.

I remembered. I remembered all of it.

A year, the bear had said. How long until they learned about the two before that?

The lights flicked on.

“You know,” Elise drawled behind me, “if you wanted to read my mail, you could have just asked.”

Slowly, I turned to face her. She leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest. But it was her eyes that held me captive.

Bright gold churned with an intensity that made my wolf want to see how many times we could pin her before she made us bare our throat.

“Well?” she asked, arching a brow. “Care to explain why you’re pawing through my things?”