THE UNMARKED HIER

Rhys Callahan heard the first gunshot before he saw the shooter. He dropped low behind a stack of crates at the edge of Hollow Row, looking out the treeline. Three of his men were already down. A fourth was screaming for help that wasn't coming fast enough. "Get to the east fence," Rhys said to Torin, the guard beside him. "Draw them wide. I'll flank from the water." "There's too many of them," Torin said. "This isn't a raid. This is a hit." Rhys didn't answer. He was already moving, keeping to the shadow of the loading dock, counting attackers as they came through the brush. Six. Maybe eight. Wearing no colors, no pack markings, nothing that tied them to a rival family. That wasn't right. Every enemy the Callahans had made enemies wanted credit for a hit this size. These men wanted to disappear the moment it was done. A wolf came at him from the left, faster than Rhys expected, teeth bared before Rhys could turn fully. He caught the wolf's jaw with his forearm and drove him into the dock railing hard enough to c***k the wood. The wolf snarled and came again. Rhys ended it fast, no hesitation, because hesitation tonight would get him killed. "Rhys!" Torin's voice, farther away now. "They're pushing us toward the water! It's a trap!" Rhys already knew. He'd known for the last thirty seconds, watching the attackers fall back in a pattern too clean for hired muscle. Someone had planned this. Someone who knew exactly where the guards would be standing, exactly which routes led to the water, exactly how many men it would take to overwhelm a security detail this size. Only a handful of people had that kind of information. He turned toward the tree line one more time, and that was when he saw him. Wade. Standing at the edge of the brush, not fighting, not calling for backup, just watching. For half a second their eyes met across the chaos, and Wade didn't move. He didn't shout a warning. He didn't lift a weapon. He turned and walked back into the trees like a man leaving a job that was already finished. "Wade!" Rhys shouted, but his best friend didn't stop. A blow came from behind, hard enough to drop him to one knee. Someone had used the moment he lost focus. Rhys twisted, caught the next hit on his shoulder instead of his skull, and swung back with everything he had left. It wasn't enough. Two more wolves closed in, then three, pinning him against the loading dock with no clear path out. "Where's Declan?" Rhys demanded, blocking a strike that numbed his whole arm. "Where is my brother?" No one answered him. That silence told him more than words would have. He fought until his legs stopped obeying him, until the wound in his side went from burning to numb, until the world narrowed down to the shapes moving above him in the dark. Someone stepped closer, and for a moment Rhys thought it might be Torin, coming back to help him up. It wasn't. "Finish it," said a voice Rhys knew better than his own. It spoke in a Low, controlled, voice that used to call him brother across a dinner table. "Make sure it looks like the Voss family did this." Rhys tried to lift his head, tried to see Declan's face clearly enough to be sure, but the blood loss was pulling him under fast. The last thing he registered before the dark took him completely was the sound of footsteps walking away, unhurried, like a man who had just finished ordering dinner instead of ordering a murder. He woke up choking on his own breath. The room was unfamiliar, low light, a mattress that wasn't his. His side throbbed where the worst of the wounds had been, but when he pressed his hand there, the skin was already closing. That wasn't normal. Nothing about the way his body felt right now was normal. "Don't try to sit up yet," said a voice near the door. An older man, gray at the temples, watching him with the kind of caution people used around something dangerous. "You've been out for two days." "Fenwick." Rhys's voice came out rough. "Where's my family? Where's Declan." Fenwick's expression didn't change, which told Rhys everything he needed to know before the man even opened his mouth. "The pack was told you died protecting Callahan territory," Fenwick said. "Declan was confirmed as head three hours after the attack. There was no vote. No challenge period. It was already decided before your body was even found." "There is nobody," Rhys said. "I'm right here." "They don't know that," Fenwick said. "And until we understand what's happening to you, they can't." Rhys pushed himself upright despite the warning, ignoring the protest from his side, and reached for the door. Fenwick blocked it without raising his voice. "Try to walk out of here right now," Fenwick said, "and see how far you get before your own pack finishes what Declan started." "He gave the order," Rhys said. "I heard him." "I believe you," Fenwick said. "That's exactly why you can't go back yet. Not like this." Rhys stopped fighting him long enough to look down at his own hands, steady now, healed faster than any wound he'd taken before. He reached for Fenwick's wrist to check his pulse the way pack instinct demanded, an old habit, a way of reading another wolf without needing words. Fenwick's expression changed the moment Rhys touched him. "What," Rhys said. "You don't have a scent," Fenwick said quietly. "I couldn't track you the whole way here. I found you by sound, not by senses. I thought it was the blood loss confusing me at first." Rhys stared at him. "That's not possible," Rhys said. "Wolves don't lose their scent. Not from an injury. Not from anything." Fenwick didn't answer right away, which was worse than any answer he could have given. "There's something else," Fenwick finally said. "Something I need to tell you before you decide what to do next. And once I tell you, there's no version of your old life you can walk back into the same way.”