It didn’t stay with the boy.
That was the problem.
By the time night fully settled over the pack lands, the question had moved.
Not spoken loudly.
Not repeated in full.
Just carried.
Shifted from one conversation to another like something too important to drop.
Are you going to leave?
Denise heard fragments of it everywhere they passed.
In the way wolves looked at her when they thought she wasn’t paying attention.
In the pauses between sentences that ended too carefully.
In the quiet recalculation behind their eyes.
Liam noticed it too.
Of course he did.
“They’re thinking in patterns again,” he said as they walked.
Denise glanced at him.
“What kind of patterns?”
Liam’s gaze stayed forward.
“Not fear patterns.”
A pause.
“Outcome patterns.”
Denise frowned slightly.
“Tha
