They came at three in the morning.
Not through the valley corridor — that was the first thing that told me Reuben Ashfen was smarter than I'd hoped. Sade's team had done exactly what they'd promised, the rockfall site disturbed with surgical precision sometime around midnight, and the corridor was now significantly less passable. We'd positioned wolves along the expected approach route, watching, waiting.
Ashfen came from the west instead.
I felt them before the border patrol did — a sudden pressure against the edge of my awareness, like a hand pressing flat against glass. Dozens of wolves, moving in coordinated silence through the western tree line, crossing the boundary markers with the practiced ease of a pack that had done this before.
I was on my feet before the runner reached me.
