Chapter Fourteen
The morning after felt deceptively calm.
Too calm.
Lila stood outside the cabin, arms wrapped loosely around herself as frost clung to the edges of pine branches. The air was crisp, almost painfully clean, but beneath it she sensed something else — tension threaded through the forest like a wire pulled too tight.
Behind her, Darian was speaking quietly with two patrol wolves near the treeline.
She didn’t need heightened senses to read his posture.
Alert. Focused. Ready.
He felt it too.
The rival Alpha hadn’t returned openly. No howls. No direct challenge.
But silence could be more dangerous than noise.
Darian walked back toward her once the patrol dispersed.
“They found tracks along the eastern ridge,” he said. “Fresh.”
Lila’s stomach tightened. “Inside your bo
