The Moon's Legacy

The Scent of Prey

Alpha Keith POV

The phone vibrated against the glass desk in my office. Dexter didn’t look up from the tablet in his hands when it started buzzing again. “That’s the third call in ten minutes,” he said calmly.

I let it ring once more before picking it up. “Yes.”

A nervous voice answered immediately. “Alpha Morvern, we’ve expanded the search radius like you ordered.”

“And?” I tapped my pen against the papers in front of me.

“There was a sighting.”

The words tightened something deep in my chest. I dropped the pen and focused on the man on the other end of the line. “Where?”

“West Virginia.”

Silence settled in the room as the words hit me. Dexter’s head lifted slowly, eyes narrowed as he looked up.

“Repeat that,” I said.

“Maple Glen, Alpha. A town called Maple Glen.”

Four hundred miles.

After a year, the distance meant nothing. Willow could have crossed three states by now if she kept moving. Most of the leads we’d chased had been hundreds of miles apart—rumors from rogues, bounty hunters, drifters who thought they’d seen a dark-haired woman traveling alone. Every one of them had been wrong. And none of them had come with the name of a specific town attached.

But this one…this one gave me a solid location.

“Who saw her?” I asked.

“A courier working with one of the bounty groups. He was delivering to a contact in town. Said the woman matched the description—dark hair, small build. He said she was alone, walking through the town. Looked like she keeps to herself.”

I leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. “You’re certain?”

“As certain as we can be without direct visual confirmation. I’ve tried reaching the group we had in the area. So far, no luck. They’re probably out of range. Service in the mountains can be spotty.”

“Contact me when you do.” I ended the call.

Dexter was already moving across the room, pulling up a map on the wall monitor. He zeroed in on West Virginia, and a small dot appeared where Maple Glen sat tucked into the mountains. The room fell quiet except for the soft hum of electronics.

“You think she’s been there this entire time?” Dexter asked.

I rose from the chair and walked toward the map. “I think she’s finally stopped running.”

Dexter folded his arms. “That would be a mistake.”

“Yes,” I agreed quietly. “Yes, it would.” My gaze traced the roads leading in and out of the town. Highways, forest routes, human traffic patterns.

A year ago, she had vanished like smoke. One moment, she had been exactly where she was supposed to be—quiet, obedient, preparing for the ceremony her father had arranged—and the next she was gone. Her father had sworn she had no one to run to, that there was no one who would have helped her in the pack. But the guards hadn’t seen her leave the grounds. The patrols found no tracks, no broken branches, nothing to show which direction she had run. There was no scent to follow. Just an empty room and a missing wolf.

I could admit that I’d underestimated her. That I’d taken her quiet demeanor and submissive response at face value and assumed she was, as her father said, biddable. That mistake had cost me a year.

Her escape, the finality of it, the sheer precision of it, had almost been impressive. And if it had been anyone else, it would have been. But even the cleverest prey made mistakes eventually. I was patient enough to wait for hers.

The information from our informant settled in my mind. Maple Glen. Something stirred, faint in my memory. “Run the town through the network.”

Dexter tapped commands into the tablet. “It’s just south of Crescent Peak. The closest human town to their borders.”

Crescent Peak. I studied the map more carefully, tracing the faint lines of the border with my finger. Leroux’s territory was larger than most realized—mountain forests and long stretches of wilderness that made it difficult for outsiders to move unseen. A cautious Alpha could keep rogues out of those woods for years without anyone noticing.

Willow would have chosen a human town deliberately. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere wolves didn’t pay much attention. If she had knowingly settled that close to Crescent Peak, she might have believed the pack itself would act as a shield—another Alpha’s territory discouraging hunters from lingering too long. And if that had been her reasoning, it had almost worked.

Almost.

A moment later, a notification appeared, and Dexter went still. His expression darkened. “You’re not going to like this.”

“Spit it out.”

He turned the tablet so that I could see the screen. A photo filled the display. A large, black tour bus with a Crescent Peak insignia. The timestamp marked it as taken earlier that afternoon.

Dexter hesitated. “Alpha Damian Leroux,” he said quietly, “was spotted in Maple Glen today.”

For a moment, I simply stared at the image. Then I laughed. The sound was low. The irony wasn’t lost on me. She’d worked so hard to hide from me and had all but fallen into another Alpha’s lap.

Leroux. The name was familiar. Another alpha who didn’t bend easily, if the rumors were true. He was young for his role, if I remembered correctly. Took over Crescent Peak after his parents were killed. Some said he’d rebuilt the pack in only a few years. Others said he ruled more like a general than an alpha—and had sworn off all talk of a Luna for his people.

Either way, he was not a man I wanted between me and my prey.

“That complicates things.”

Dexter didn’t laugh. “If she’s been living that close to Crescent Peak territory for a year—”

“I’m sure she didn’t choose the location for him,” I interrupted. “She probably doesn’t even know she’s that close to his pack.” Since the town sat just outside Crescent Peak’s borders, it was technically neutral ground. Which meant Leroux had no legal claim to her. But if he found her first…that would create a very different problem.

I walked back to the desk and picked up the whiskey bottle sitting beside the decanter. The burn slid down my throat as I drank straight from it.

Dexter watched me carefully. “What are your orders?”

“Double the bounty.” The rogues hunting her would need the additional incentive if they had to work under Leroux’s nose.

His brow creased. “Half the rogues in the region are looking,” Dexter continued. “Most of them are more interested in the reward than the hunt. They chase every rumor that crosses their path.”

“Which means they’re chasing the wrong ones.”

Rogues were impatient hunters. They wanted easy prey, quick money, and a warm place to sleep. The girl had survived a year because she wasn’t easy prey.

“If she’s been in that town for any length of time, we should have heard by now. I want her dead or alive,” I said.

Dexter’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You won’t be able to use her healing ability if she’s dead.”

“No.” That wasn’t the point anymore. “But neither will anyone else. Alive or dead,” I repeated. “Find her.”

Dexter nodded and began typing again. I turned back toward the map. A year. Three hundred sixty-five days of false trails and wasted leads. But hunters understood patience. Prey could run for a long time.

Eventually, though…

They slowed. They rested. They believed they were safe.

I picked up the whiskey again. “Prepare the cars,” I said. “And a small team.”

Dexter paused and looked up from his tablet. “You’re going yourself?”

“Of course.”

Willow believed she had escaped. She believed distance meant safety. But wolves were patient predators. And prey always grew tired eventually.

The trick was never chasing too fast. Prey ran farther when it thought it still had hope.

When she did…I would be waiting.