Marked By Silence

Chapter 3

A Scent That Isn't Mine to Want

Kade

I run every morning before the pack wakes, because it's the only hour Titan and I aren't fighting each other for control. Out here, in the fog and the quiet, I can let him stretch without worrying who sees, without worrying what my warriors think when they catch a glimpse of exactly how big he really gets when nobody's watching.

This morning, something changes halfway through the run. The wind shifts, and a scent hits me that I have never smelled in my life — sweet, warm, something like fresh bread and rain-soaked cedar, so strong it stops me mid-stride. My whole body goes taut, every instinct in me straining toward it before my mind has even caught up to what's happening.

Mate, Titan says, and the word lands in my skull like a thrown stone.

No.

Mate, he says again, more insistent, already turning us toward the source before I can stop him.

I dig my claws into the ground and force us still. We don't have a mate. We had one. She left.

This is different. This is ours. His voice is shaking with an urgency I haven't felt from him since before Mia, since before I learned to keep every door in myself locked. I can feel her from here. Can you not feel that?

I can. That's the problem. Something in my chest is straining toward that scent like it has a rope tied around it, and I hate how much I want to follow it. Four years I've spent convincing myself that whatever part of me used to want things like that had been cut out clean, the way you'd amputate something diseased before it spreads. I was wrong. It was only ever sleeping.

Titan doesn't wait for permission. He puts on speed, cutting through the trees toward the main road, and I let him, because fighting him right now would mean fighting myself, and I don't have the energy for that particular war before breakfast. My paws barely touch the ground. I haven't run like this in years — not with purpose, not with need, just the same grinding routine I use to keep my body tired enough to sleep.

We break out of the tree line just as a car comes into view, moving slow and cautious down the access road. The scent gets stronger with every yard, until it's the only thing in my head, drowning out every warning bell I should be listening to. I catch myself thinking, absurdly, that I could pick that scent out of a hundred others blindfolded, that some part of me will probably remember it for the rest of my life no matter what happens next.

There, Titan says, and through the windshield I catch a glimpse of the driver — a tired-looking man gripping the wheel like it's the only solid thing left in his world — and beside him, a younger man who has to be his son.

And in the back seat, half-turned toward a cracked window, hair loose around her face, a girl.

The second I see her, Titan goes half-feral in my chest, throwing himself against the inside of my ribs like he wants to shift right through my skin and reach her now. I've never felt him fight me this hard, not even in the worst weeks after Mia, when grief and rage had him clawing to get free just to have somewhere to put all that pain.

Stop. My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to, even in my own head. Stop it. Look at her. She's a child.

She's ours.

She's seventeen, Titan. I make myself say it plainly, brutally, because it's the only thing that might get through to him. Her wolf hasn't even woken yet. If we go anywhere near her like this, we terrify an entire family that's already running from a man who scared them half to death.

That gets through. He goes quiet, but I can feel him pacing, restless, unwilling to fully stand down, circling the thought of her the way he'd circle prey he's been told, against every instinct, not to touch.

We need to warn Wes, I tell him, already turning back toward the packhouse. We need to be human when they arrive. Controlled. Nothing about this can look like what it is.

And what is it? Titan asks, and for once I don't have an answer that satisfies either of us.

I mind-link Wes as I run, my voice clipped and businesslike in a way that costs me more effort than it should. They're here. Meet me at the main road. Bring two warriors, nothing more — I don't want this looking like a show of force.

On my way, he says, and then, a beat later — Alpha, you sound strange.

I'm fine.

I'm not fine. My whole body is thrumming with something I haven't let myself feel in four years, some dangerous, reckless hope that has no business existing anywhere near a seventeen-year-old girl who just crossed into my territory running for her life. I try to picture how I'll act when I see her up close — steady, unreadable, exactly the Alpha my pack expects — and I already know it's going to be one of the hardest performances of my life.

By the time I reach the road, the car has stopped, and the father has stepped halfway out, hands raised in the universal signal of a man who has learned, the hard way, exactly how careful he needs to be around strange Alphas. I force myself to shift, force Titan down into some small, contained corner of myself where he can't do any damage, and stride out to meet them, praying my face doesn't show even a fraction of what's happening under my skin.

The scent hits me again the second I'm human, stronger without the wind and the distance to soften it, and it takes everything I have not to let my face show what it's doing to me.

I look past the father, past the son, straight into the back seat, and the girl looks back at me through the window with wide brown eyes that seem to see straight through every wall I've spent four years building.

Fuck, I think, with a clarity that scares me more than Titan's snarling ever could. This is going to ruin me.

The car door has already opened by the time I fully register it, and a man steps out onto the gravel with the careful, deliberate movements of someone who has learned exactly how quickly a wrong move can get you killed. He's older than I expected, lines carved deep around his eyes, but he moves like a warrior even now — economical, alert, already scanning the tree line for threats before he's fully out of the car.

I have exactly the length of one long breath to compose myself before Wes and the two warriors arrive at a jog behind me, and I use every second of it. I think of Ivy asleep in her crib the night I found out Mia was gone for good. I think of the years since, the careful architecture I've built around my own heart so nothing could ever get close enough to break it the same way twice. I remind myself, with as much force as I can manage, that whatever Titan wants to call this girl, she is seventeen years old and terrified and none of what I'm feeling is hers to carry.

It doesn't fully work. Nothing about self-control has ever fully worked where Titan's concerned — he's always been more instinct than obedience, more storm than structure — but I manage to school my face into something that passes for calm just as Wes falls into step beside me.

"That's the family?" he asks quietly.

"That's them," I say, and my voice comes out almost steady. Almost.

Wes glances at me sideways, and I know, without him saying a word, that he's already clocked something is different about this morning. He doesn't push. He never does, not until he's decided the moment calls for it. I have a feeling that moment isn't far off.