BOUND BY BLOOD AND THE MOON

TRACKS

Dawn came grey and quiet, the kind of morning that felt like the world was holding its breath. Elira was already dressed by the time Priya knocked, tugging on boots that had once belonged to a stranger's sister, feeling stronger in them than she expected to.

"Kade's assembling scouts in the east courtyard," Priya said, eyeing her with something between approval and worry. "Are you sure about this?"

"No," Elira admitted. "But I'm going anyway."

Priya's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "Yeah. That track."

The courtyard was already busy when Elira arrived a dozen wolves in various stages of readiness, weapons checked, scent markers reviewed. Marcus stood at the center with a map spread across a makeshift table, tracing a route with his finger while Kade listened, arms crossed, jaw tight with focus.

He looked up when she approached, and something in his shoulders eased, just slightly, the way it always seemed to when she was in view.

"You remember what I said," he told her. Not a question.

"Stay close, don't wander, fall back if you say so." She met his eyes. "I remember."

"Good." He gestured her toward the map. "We found tracks half a mile past where we found the casing yesterday. Multiple wolves, moving in a deliberate formation not a hunting pattern, more like an escort. Whoever's coordinating this isn't sloppy."

"Escort implies they were moving something," Marcus said grimly. "Or someone."

Elira's stomach turned. "You think they took someone. From Larkspur."

"It's possible." Kade's voice was carefully even, the tone of a man trying not to give her false hope or unnecessary despair before they had facts. "If your mother or brother survived the fire and were caught trying to flee, and if this operation is what we think it is..."

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

"Then we go," Elira said, steadier than she felt. "Now."

They moved out within the hour, a dozen wolves spreading into the treeline with Kade and Elira at the center, Marcus flanking with two others toward the outer edge of the formation. The morning mist clung low to the ground, muffling sound, and Elira found herself grateful for the quiet it gave her mind somewhere to go besides the spiral of hope and dread twisting through her chest.

The tracks, when they found them, told a story Elira didn't like.

Boot prints are human-shaped, not wolf paw prints, which meant whoever left them had been in human form, deliberately avoiding the more traceable shift-scent that came with running as a wolf. Careful. Professional. And threaded among them, fainter, a second set of prints smaller, uneven, like someone being half-dragged, half-walked.

"Someone was resisting," Marcus said, crouching to study the marks. "Or hurt."

Elira knelt beside him, forcing her breathing to stay even, and caught the scent before her mind fully processed what it meant. Familiar. Painfully familiar cedar and rain and something underneath that had, for as long as she could remember, simply meant home.

"That's my mother," she said, voice cracking despite every effort to hold it steady. "That's her scent. She's alive. She was here."

Kade was at her side instantly, one hand steadying her shoulder without hesitation. "Alive as of when these tracks were made. Which means"

"Which means we're not too late." Elira was already on her feet, scanning the tracks' direction with a focus that cut cleanly through the fear threatening to swallow her. "They're heading northeast. Toward the old logging roads."

"How do you know that?" Marcus asked, surprised.

"Because my father used to run patrols through here. He mapped every route a wolf could use to move something through this territory without being seen by main roads." She was already moving, following the tracks with a certainty that came from someplace deeper than conscious memory. "The logging roads haven't been used in a decade. No cameras, no patrols, easy vehicle access if they're planning to transport her somewhere."

Kade fell into step beside her, calling orders back to the others without breaking stride, the formation shifting seamlessly to follow her lead. "You're sure."

"I'm sure." She caught his eyes for a fraction of a second. "Trust me."

"I do," he said, simply, and something about the immediacy of it settled a fraction of the fear clawing through her chest.

They moved fast now, urgency replacing caution, the mist starting to burn off as the morning wore on. The tracks grew fresher the further they went hours old now instead of a full day, which meant they were closing the gap.

Then, ahead, the scent of exhaust faint, but wrong, out of place in a forest that hadn't seen a working vehicle in years.

Kade's hand shot up, signaling the group to a halt. Through the trees, barely visible, a clearing came into view an old logging depot, rusted equipment scattered like bones, and at its center, a transport van with its rear doors open, two men in nondescript dark clothing loading something into the back.

Elira's heart stopped.

"That's her." The words tore out of her before she could stop them, low and anguished, her mother's silhouette unmistakable even slumped and half-conscious between the two men. "Kade, that's her"

"I see her." His voice had gone lethal-quiet, the Alpha fully surfaced now, gold eyes tracking the scene with cold, calculating precision. "Marcus, flank left with your team. I want the van's exit route cut off before they realize we're here. Elira"

"I'm not staying back."

"I wasn't going to ask you to." His eyes found hers, sharp and certain. "I need you to get to her the second we move. You'll be faster than any of us reaching that specific spot, and she needs someone she recognizes the moment we breach that clearing. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

"Then on my signal." He turned back toward the clearing, every line of his body coiled and ready, and for a moment Elira saw exactly why three territories told stories about him in warning tones. "Not one second before."

The signal came in the form of a low, resonant howl, cutting through the morning air like a blade, and the world dissolved into motion.

Kade moved first, a blur of controlled fury breaking from the treeline with the rest of the pack surging behind him. Elira ran too, faster than she'd known she could, adrenaline and terror and something fierce and protective driving her legs across the clearing floor toward the van, toward her mother, toward the only piece of her old life she'd been given a chance to save.

One of the men spotted her, reached for something at his belt and she didn't wait to find out what. She hit him full-force, more instinct than strategy, and they went down together hard against the packed dirt.

Somewhere behind her, chaos: snarls, shouts, the sound of bodies hitting metal. She didn't look. She couldn't spare the attention. She scrambled free, scrambled up, and threw herself toward the van where her mother lay slumped against the interior wall, eyes fluttering, barely conscious.

"Mom." Elira's hands were shaking as she reached her, cradling her mother's face, searching for injuries, for any sign of how badly hurt she was. "Mom, it's me, I'm here, I'm so sorry, I'm here"

Her mother's eyes opened, unfocused at first, then sharpening with slow, disbelieving recognition. "Elira," she whispered, voice raw and cracked. "You're alive. I thought" Her breath caught, tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on her face. "I thought I'd lost everyone."

"You didn't," Elira said fiercely, holding her close, the terror of the last four days breaking loose all at once in her chest. "You didn't lose everyone. I've got you. I've got you now."

Behind her, the clearing was falling silent, the last of the chaos settling into something more controlled, and she looked up in time to see Kade standing over one of the men, expression carved from stone, the other already restrained by two of his wolves.

His eyes found hers across the clearing checking, the way he always did, cataloguing that she was whole, unharmed and something in his face eased at whatever he saw, relief bleeding through the Alpha's composure just for a moment before he turned back to the men on the ground, voice dropping into something cold and merciless.

"Now," he said, "you're going to tell us everything."