The Rejected Mate

Chapter 23 – The Window Opens

Twilight turned the forest into a bruise.

Amara stood at marker twelve with Sorrel and Tamsin flanking her, pack beacon cool on her wrist. Up in the trees around them, Silverpine and Blackridge wolves waited unseen. Farther back on the ridge, out of sight, her wolf could feel Rowan like a heavy, steady heat she refused to think about.

“Normal patrol,” Amara said. “We walk, we talk. If anything feels wrong, you say it. You don’t stare at it.”

“Love that this is ‘normal’ now,” Tamsin muttered, blowing into her hands. “Next time let’s just fight boredom.”

“Move,” Sorrel said.

They followed the narrow path. Frost crunched under their boots; pines crowded close on both sides. The house lights were already a memory behind them, just a faint glow through the trunks.

Amara’s wolf sifted the air: pine, damp earth, faint exhaust from the valley road.

Then a new thread slid under it.

Cold metal. Oil. Not old.

“Truck,” she said quietly. “Came off the road onto the service track. Engine’s off. Heat still in the ground.”

Gideon’s voice crackled in Sorrel’s hidden mic. “Visual on two vehicles. One van. Parked below you. No movement yet.”

Rowan’s voice followed, cool and thin through their earpieces. “Keep walking. They’ll want you far enough from the house to feel alone.”

“Already do,” Tamsin muttered, but kept pace.

The old lightning‑struck pine loomed ahead, pale scar in the dark. Beyond it, the trail pinched between two big rocks with drops on both sides.

Perfect place to block the path.

Every instinct in Amara screamed to stop.

She didn’t. She stepped between the rocks.

One. Two. Three paces.

On the fourth, the forest snapped.

Headlights blasted up from below, two white spears cutting through the trees. An engine roared too loud for this slope. A dark van burst from a hidden cut in the hill and skidded sideways across the trail, gravel spraying.

Doors flew open.

Five men in black poured out—masks, gear, practiced movements. No shouted orders. Just hand signals. Two went low, one high, one carried something that looked too much like a dart gun.

A net arced toward them, humming faintly.

“Back!” Sorrel barked.

Amara grabbed Tamsin and yanked her behind the stone. The net hit rock where they’d just stood and sizzled like a live wire, sparks snapping along its edges.

“Electric,” Sorrel snapped. “Don’t touch it.”

“Now,” Rowan’s voice cut in, razor‑steady.

The trees exploded.

Wolves dropped from branches and ridge—Silverpine and Blackridge both. Two hit the van, tearing at doors and tires. One slammed the gunman down before he could aim; the shot went wild, a dart hissing into bark inches from Amara’s cheek.

Another man scrambled up onto the left boulder, a metal canister in his hand.

Gas, Amara’s wolf realized.

He yanked the pin with his teeth and hurled it straight at her feet.

She lunged on instinct—

Something huge slammed into her from the side, knocking her clear as the canister burst where she’d just been. White, burning fog billowed up, claws raking her throat from the inside.

“Upwind!” someone roared.

Rowan’s weight pinned her to the dirt, his hand braced by her head, his scent all iron and adrenaline and something rawer underneath.

“I told you not to be a hero,” he growled in her ear.

“Shut up,” she coughed, eyes streaming.

Around them, the fight collapsed fast. Tires shredded. Men went down under fur and fists. The gas cloud thinned as wind tore it apart, dragging the worst of it into the hollow below.

Amara pushed up to her knees, lungs screaming but working, ears ringing. Her wolf strained to count scents—pack, strangers, fear.

For one stunned heartbeat, it looked like they’d flipped the trap. Van wrecked. Team down. Packs still standing. No one dragged into the dark.

Then Sorrel’s voice knifed through the chaos, too sharp to be anything but real.

“Where’s Tamsin?”