Chosen by the Alpha Who Destroyed My Pack

Chapter 15 – City Shadows

The city smelled almost offensively normal.

Exhaust, hot concrete, the faint sour of spilled beer outside the bar on the corner—none of it carried the cold, metallic taint that had haunted Sylvi’s nose for days. Streetlights buzzed. Somewhere, a car horn blared. A siren wailed and then faded.

It shouldn’t have been a relief.

It was.

“I still think this is stupid,” Riven said, cutting the engine of the beat-up pickup they’d borrowed for the trip. “If he’s mapping bonds through trees, what makes you think he’ll stop at the city limits?”

“He doesn’t need the trees here,” Sylvi said, staring at the familiar brick façade of the clinic. “He’s got me.”

“Comforting,” Riven muttered.

He’d traded his flannel for a plain black hoodie and jeans, hair pulled back. On any other man, it would’ve read as “bored bartender” instead of “armed escort.” On Riven, the predator still showed in the way he scanned the street, weight balanced on the balls of his feet.

“You don’t have to hover inside,” Sylvi said. “A couple hours. I check Jorek’s stitches, make sure my human job doesn’t implode, and we’re back in the forest before midnight.”

“You’re adorable when you think you can schedule supernatural crises around your shift calendar,” he said. “I’m coming in. I can pretend to be your cousin.”

“You’re too smug for that.”

“Your annoying cousin.”

“That tracks.”

He grinned, quick and sharp. The expression faded as his gaze snagged on the clinic door. “Something’s off.”

Sylvi inhaled again, deeper.

Under the antiseptic and animal scents she’d lived in for years, something else threaded faintly. Not the full, cloying wrongness of the sigil in the birch, but a trace of that same smoke-and-iron smear.

Her wolf’s hackles rose. Here.

“Stay close,” she said.

“Obviously.”

The bell over the clinic door chimed as they stepped inside. The familiar chaos rushed to meet her: phones ringing, the murmur of voices, a dog barking in the back.

And Mira, behind the front desk, snapping her gum.

“There you are,” she said, throwing her pen down like it had personally insulted her. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to say ‘I’m sure Dr. Arkett will call you back’ in the last forty-eight hours? I nearly started charging per lie.”

Sylvi’s throat tightened. Gods, she’d missed her.

“Family emergency,” Sylvi said. “Still ongoing.”

“I figured,” Mira said, eyes flicking over her face, down to the faint tremor in her hand, then to Riven. “This your cousin?”

Riven blinked. “I—”

“Yes,” Sylvi said smoothly. “From… up north. Riven. He’s helping me haul supplies.”

Mira’s gaze swept him from boots to jaw with open appreciation. “I bet he is.”

Riven choked.

Sylvi almost laughed. Almost.

“Later,” she told Mira. “Right now I need charts. Any weird cases since I left?”

“That depends,” Mira said. “Define ‘weird.’”

“Not a cat that swallowed a needle,” Sylvi said. “More… wolves out of range. Strays acting wrong. Bites that don’t behave like they should.”

Mira’s joking expression sobered. “Yeah. One.”

Sylvi’s skin went cold. “Show me.”

Mira led them down the hall, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. The scent got stronger the farther they went—the same wrong undertone she’d tasted in Jorek and Kalen, stretched thin over a different frame.

“In here,” Mira said, pushing open the door to Exam Room Three.

On the table lay what any human would call a dog—a big, rangy shepherd mix, coat a dull gray-brown, ribs showing under matted fur. His eyes tracked Sylvi as she entered.

Too sharp. Too aware.

His lip curled, just enough to flash the tips of longer-than-normal canines.

Riven’s hand drifted toward the small of his back, where a weapon would be if they were on pack land. Here, he settled for simply widening his stance, ready.

“Guy from animal control brought him in,” Mira said, oblivious to the tension ratcheting the room’s air tighter. “Found him near the edge of the reserve, trying to break into someone’s chicken coop. Dog wouldn’t let anyone near. He calmed down when I…” She frowned. “I don’t know. Talked to him? He has weird eyes.”

He did. Too pale, the irises a washed-out amber that didn’t quite sit right.

“What did you give him?” Sylvi asked.

“Sedative,” Mira said. “Dose for his weight. Should’ve knocked him out for hours. He’s been… up and down.”

As if on cue, the dog’s muscles twitched. His gaze flicked from Sylvi to Riven to the closed door, calculating.

The scent of wrongness coiled thicker.

“Hey, boy,” Sylvi said softly, stepping closer. Careful. “Rough couple days?”

His ears flattened. A low growl vibrated in his chest—not quite animal. Not quite anything.

Magic clung to him like cobwebs, thin strands of that same foreign signature tangled through his aura. Not as deep as in the wolves back at Vael, but present. Testing.

She felt, faintly, along those strands, trying not to sink. The pattern was cruder here, like someone had copied the big sigils onto a smaller canvas without quite understanding the scale.

A trial run. On the edges of human territory.

Her stomach turned.

“Riven,” she said under her breath. “That trace in the trees? It’s here. We’re on his map.”

Riven’s jaw clenched. “And he’s testing how close he can get to your humans without tripping alarms.”

The dog bared his teeth. For a split second, his gaze met Sylvi’s with horrifying clarity—

You.

The not-voice slammed into her, recognition and interest and a twist of cruel amusement.

Found you. Again.

Sylvi’s head snapped back as if struck. The exam room swam.

“Sylvi?” Mira’s voice, distant. “Hey, don’t you dare pass—”

Riven stepped in front of her on instinct as the dog lunged, teeth snapping, going not for Mira or the nearest hand, but straight toward Sylvi’s throat.

They were not on pack land. There were no wards here. No backup howling in the trees.

Just a too-small room, a feral half-wolf with foreign magic in his veins, and a human friend who had no idea what she was standing next to.

Perfect, the echo of that cold presence purred along Sylvi’s spine.

Let’s see how much you’ll bleed to keep them ignorant.