THE WOLFLESS ALPHA

CHAPTER FOURTHE WOLF HE SPARED

The knife was gone when Cole woke.

His hand closed around an empty blanket.

He sat up too quickly, and the stitches beneath his ribs pulled hard enough to stop his breath. The room was still dark, but Adam was already dressed. He stood beside the forge, packing dried meat and a coil of rope into a leather bag.

Cole searched the floor.

“Looking for something?” Adam asked.

“My knife.”

“Mine.”

“You gave it to me.”

“I let you hold it.”

Cole found the sheath hanging from Adam’s belt. “While I was asleep?”

“That’s usually when taking a weapon is easiest.”

“You said you’d teach me how to keep it.”

Adam pulled the strap tight on the bag. “Lesson started before you woke up.”

Cole pushed the blanket aside and stood. His side hurt, but not enough to put him back in bed.

“Give it back.”

“No.”

“I need it.”

“You had it last night. I took it without waking you. That means you didn’t have a knife. You had something sharp beside your hand.”

Cole reached for the sheath.

Adam caught his wrist without looking.

Cole twisted the way Garrick had taught him. Adam turned with the movement, used Cole’s own arm against him, and stopped with Cole bent over the edge of the worktable.

Nothing about it had been fast.

That made it worse.

Adam released him before the stitches tore.

“You’re injured,” Cole said.

“No. You are.”

“You used that.”

“Everyone you fight will use what you give them.”

Cole straightened carefully.

Adam handed him the smaller leather bag. “Carry this.”

“What’s in it?”

“Food.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough.”

Cole looked toward the forge. “You said we were leaving.”

“We are.”

“This is your home.”

“It was useful because Frost Fang didn’t know about it.”

“They know now.”

“Yes.”

Adam opened the door.

The yard was empty. Frost Fang’s scent had faded during the night, but the horses had left deep tracks leading north. Cole could still separate Garrick’s scent from the others.

He looked at the road they had taken.

Adam waited beside the door.

Cole pulled his old coat from the hook. The missing Pack crest had left a rough square on the shoulder. Without it, the coat looked smaller somehow.

“Where are we going?”

“South.”

“To the river?”

“Not by the road.”

Adam started toward the trees.

Cole followed.

The first half mile was easy enough. Adam kept his pace slow, though he pretended not to. Whenever Cole began to fall behind, the man stopped to check the ground or break a branch that did not need breaking.

Cole noticed.

He said nothing.

The wound began to burn before the forge disappeared from view.

Adam crossed a narrow stream and continued along the opposite bank.

Cole stepped into the water after him.

Cold pushed through his boots.

“Why are we walking in this?”

“Because Frost Fang can smell your blood.”

“I’m not bleeding.”

Adam looked at the side of Cole’s coat.

A small dark patch had appeared beneath his ribs.

Cole pulled the bag strap away from the wound.

“You are now.”

Adam pointed upstream. “Walk in the water until I tell you to stop.”

Cole looked at the current. “That won’t hide everything.”

“No.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“It makes them work harder.”

Cole followed him through the stream.

Adam did not lecture. He asked questions.

Which way was the wind moving?

Where would a patrol look first?

Which bank held tracks longer?

Cole answered most of them correctly. When he did not, Adam made him look again until he found the mistake himself.

After another mile, they left the water and climbed through a stand of cedar.

Cole smelled the rogue before he saw it.

Old blood.

Wet fur.

The same sour hunger from the night before.

He stopped.

Adam took two more steps before turning. “What?”

“It followed us.”

Adam breathed in.

“It’s west of us.”

“You knew.”

“I suspected.”

“Since when?”

“Since it started following the forge before dawn.”

Cole looked between the trees. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to know when you noticed.”

The rogue remained out of sight, but Cole could hear the uneven rhythm of its steps. The bad front leg dragged slightly each time it touched the ground.

“It could attack again.”

“It could.”

“You don’t sound worried.”

“It had its chance.”

Cole touched the tooth beneath his shirt.

Adam noticed the movement.

“Don’t.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“You were reaching for it.”

“The wolf listened last time.”

“The wolf listened to something. You still don’t know what.”

Cole lowered his hand.

They continued south.

The rogue stayed with them.

Sometimes it moved closer. Sometimes its scent faded so far that Cole thought it had left. It never crossed into view.

Near midday, a sharp metallic snap cracked through the trees.

A wolf howled.

Cole dropped the food bag and ran.

Adam caught the back of his coat.

“Stop.”

“It’s the rogue.”

“I know.”

Another howl came from the west, followed by the sound of metal dragging against stone.

Cole pulled free.

Adam stepped in front of him. “That was a hunter’s trap.”

“It’s caught.”

“That’s how traps work.”

Cole tried to move around him.

Adam blocked him again.

“Human hunters check their lines before sunset,” he said. “Where there’s one trap, there are more.”

“So we leave it?”

“Yes.”

The answer came without hesitation.

Cole stared at him.

“The wolf could have killed me.”

“It tried.”

“It stopped.”

“That doesn’t make it yours.”

Cole heard the chain drag again.

The howl ended in a low, broken sound.

He remembered the rogue lowering its throat into the snow. He had held a stone above its skull. It had trusted the thing inside him enough to stop fighting.

Cole picked up the food bag.

Adam relaxed slightly.

Cole threw the bag past him.

Adam turned his head.

Cole ran the other way.

He made it between two cedars before Adam caught him around the waist and lifted him off the ground.

Cole drove an elbow backward.

Adam took the blow without letting go.

“Put me down.”

“No.”

“It followed us.”

“That was its choice.”

“It’s going to die.”

“Possibly.”

Cole kicked at Adam’s knee.

Pain tore through his side, but he kept fighting.

Adam set him on his feet and held both shoulders.

“Listen to me. Silver traps are set for wolves. Human hunters may already be close. You are injured, you cannot shift, and you don’t have a weapon.”

“Because you took it.”

“Because you couldn’t keep it.”

The trapped rogue cried out again.

Cole looked toward the sound.

Adam tightened his grip.

“You cannot save everything that suffers in front of you.”

“My father thinks that too.”

Adam’s hands went still.

Cole pulled away.

This time, Adam let him.

The rogue lay in a shallow ravine less than a hundred yards away. A steel trap had closed around its injured front leg. Silver teeth pressed through fur and flesh, and the chain had been looped around the base of a tree.

The wolf snapped when Cole approached.

Its eyes were wild with pain.

Cole stopped outside the reach of its jaws.

“It’s me.”

The rogue growled.

Whatever had made it submit the night before was gone.

Or Cole did not know how to call it.

Adam came down the slope behind him.

“Still think it trusts you?”

Cole examined the trap.

The metal jaws were connected to two heavy springs. Garrick had shown him smaller versions used for foxes, but this one had been made to hold a shifting wolf. If Cole pulled at the jaws with his hands, the silver teeth would tear deeper.

He looked at the chain.

“Knife.”

“No.”

“I need to cut the leather around the anchor.”

“You need to leave.”

Cole found a fallen branch and wedged one end beneath the trap’s spring.

The rogue lunged.

Cole jerked back before its teeth reached his hand.

Adam folded his arms. “Good plan.”

“Be quiet.”

“You approached an injured wolf from the front.”

“It knows me.”

“It knows pain.”

Cole moved around the trap, keeping outside the chain’s reach. The rogue followed him with its head, snapping whenever he came close.

The trap had been baited with a strip of meat tied to a narrow cord. The cord disappeared under leaves and connected to a second mechanism several feet away.

Cole stared at it.

“There’s another trap.”

Adam looked where he was looking.

A loop of thin wire lay beneath the leaves between Cole and the tree.

If Cole had taken one more step, it would have closed around his ankle.

He backed away.

Adam gave a small nod.

Cole found a stone and threw it onto the hidden wire.

The snare snapped upward.

A hooked silver spike swung from the branch above and buried itself in the ground where Cole’s chest would have been.

Cole looked at Adam.

“You saw it.”

“Yes.”

“You let me walk toward it.”

“You saw it before you stepped on it.”

“What if I hadn’t?”

“I would have stopped you.”

Cole was not sure he believed him.

Adam pointed at the trapped wolf. “Now you know the hunters expected someone to come close.”

“Then help me.”

“No.”

“You said you’d teach me.”

“I am.”

Cole looked at the two traps, the chain, and the rogue’s bleeding leg.

The hunters had designed the snare to catch anyone approaching from behind the wolf. The front was dangerous because of its teeth.

That left the slope above it.

Cole climbed the side of the ravine and circled behind the tree. From there, he could reach the chain without entering the rogue’s range.

The anchor leather was thick.

Without a blade, he could not cut it.

He looked at Adam’s belt again.

Adam saw him looking.

“No.”

Cole ignored the knife and examined the tree. The chain passed through a metal ring nailed into the trunk. The nail was thick, but the wood around it had begun to split from the rogue’s struggling.

Cole wedged the branch into the c***k.

He leaned his weight against it.

Nothing moved.

The stitches in his side pulled.

Cole changed his grip and pushed again.

The wood cracked.

Below him, the rogue jerked against the chain. The sudden pull tore the ring halfway out of the trunk.

Cole shoved the branch into the gap and forced it down.

The nail came free.

The chain dropped.

The rogue tried to run, but the trap remained clamped around its leg. It dragged the steel jaws two feet before collapsing.

Cole climbed down.

“You freed it from the tree,” Adam said. “Not the trap.”

“One problem at a time.”

Voices carried through the woods.

Human voices.

Adam turned north.

“Three men. Two dogs.”

Cole could hear the dogs now, pulling against their leads.

The hunters had heard the trap.

Adam drew the knife.

Cole held out his hand.

“Now?”

Adam gave him the handle.

“Keep it.”

Cole took the knife and approached the rogue from the side.

The wolf bared its teeth.

Cole crouched beyond the reach of its jaws and cut the bait cord from the trap. He used the cord to tie the branch across both springs, then twisted until the pressure shifted.

The jaws opened less than an inch.

Not enough.

The dogs barked closer.

Adam looked over his shoulder. “Cole.”

“I know.”

He twisted again.

The branch began to split.

The rogue thrashed, nearly pulling the trap from Cole’s hands.

“Stop,” Cole said.

The wolf snapped at him.

Cole gripped the tooth through his shirt.

He remembered the blow beneath his ribs. The moment before the rogue had lowered its head.

He reached for that place.

Nothing happened.

The dogs were close enough now that Cole could smell them.

Adam stepped toward him. “Leave it.”

Cole shut his eyes for half a second.

He did not search for a wolf.

He searched for the feeling that had filled the space between him and the rogue. The certainty that it would move because he had told it to.

Something struck once beneath his ribs.

Cole opened his eyes.

“Stay.”

The rogue froze.

Not completely. Its body still trembled, and blood ran over the silver teeth, but it stopped fighting him.

At the same moment, far to the north, Mira’s hand closed around the edge of a stone table.

Pain moved through her wrist so suddenly that the cup in her other hand slipped and shattered.

A thin line of blood appeared along her gums.

The guard outside her room shouted for her to clean up the mess.

Mira wiped her mouth before he entered.

In the ravine, Cole twisted the branch one last time.

The trap opened.

The rogue tore its leg free and stumbled away.

Adam grabbed Cole by the back of his coat as the branch snapped and the metal jaws slammed shut.

A second later, the first dog appeared at the top of the ravine.

The rogue turned toward it.

“Go,” Cole said.

This time the command came with no heat and no answering blow.

The rogue hesitated anyway.

Then it ran south.

Both hunting dogs broke from their handlers and chased after it.

Adam pulled Cole up the opposite slope.

They crossed the stream they had followed earlier and climbed through a narrow cut between two ridges. The hunters shouted behind them, but their dogs had taken the rogue’s scent and dragged the chase in the wrong direction.

Cole made it another quarter mile before his legs gave out.

Adam caught the food bag before he fell on it.

“You tore the stitches again,” he said.

Cole leaned against a tree and looked back.

The hunters’ voices had faded.

“So fix them again.”

Adam stared at him.

Then he laughed once.

It was not a warm sound, but it was the first time Cole had heard him do it.

“You reached for the power on purpose.”

Cole touched the tooth.

“It didn’t answer at first.”

“But you kept trying.”

“The wolf would have lost its leg.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Cole looked south, where the rogue had disappeared.

“I felt something.”

“What?”

“Like a door that didn’t want to open.”

Adam’s expression changed.

“Next time, don’t pull harder just because it resists.”

“Why?”

“Because you still don’t know what’s holding it shut.”

Cole thought of the Elder jerking his hand away. Of Mira begging him not to return.

He looked down at Adam’s knife.

“I kept it.”

Adam held out his hand.

Cole stepped back.

Adam waited.

Cole tightened his grip on the handle.

After a moment, Adam lowered his hand.

“Better.”

A branch moved behind them.

The rogue emerged from the trees.

Its injured leg barely touched the ground, but it had returned. It stopped several yards from Cole and lowered its head.

Adam looked from the wolf to the boy.

“You freed it,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it belongs to you.”

Cole watched the rogue take one limping step closer.

“I know.”

It followed when he started walking.

Adam picked up the food bag.

“First lesson,” he said. “Anything that chooses to follow you becomes your responsibility.”

Cole glanced at the wolf beside him.

Then he continued south.