Chosen by the Alpha Who Destroyed My Pack

Chapter 18 – The Hunter’s Glance

Elias Brant looked like any other overworked city officer at the end of a double shift.

Uniform shirt rolled to the elbows, dark hair rumpled, a smudge of something on his cheek that might have been road dust or coffee. Clipboard tucked under one arm, a carrier at his feet holding a very offended-looking orange cat.

Only his eyes gave him away.

They were too sharp, cutting past the noise of the waiting room straight to Sylvi the moment she stepped behind the front desk. Not just “hey, my favorite vet,” but assessment. Cataloguing.

“Dr. Arkett,” he said. “Figured I’d find you here eventually.”

“Officer Brant,” she replied, too level. “Cat emergency?”

He glanced down at the carrier. The cat hissed at nothing in particular.

“Street rescue,” he said. “Lady said he attacked her dog unprovoked. Dog’s fine. Cat, not so much.” His gaze flicked back up. “But that can wait.”

Mira, hovering a discreet half-step behind Sylvi, arched a brow. “We don’t usually triage based on detective vibes, but okay.”

Elias’s mouth twitched. “I was actually hoping to talk to you,” he said to Sylvi. “Off the record.”

Alarm bells chimed in her ribs.

“Sure,” she said. “As long as it happens while I’m working on something furry. Multi-tasking.”

He studied her for a second, then nodded. “Exam room two?”

“Three’s occupied,” Mira said quickly. “And four’s being cleaned. Two it is.”

She grabbed the carrier, shoved it into Sylvi’s hands with more force than necessary, and all but herded them down the hall.

“Subtle,” Sylvi murmured.

“Shut up,” Mira hissed back. “If he starts asking about demonic dogs, I’m claiming I have tinnitus.”

Exam Room Two smelled like disinfectant and old fear. Sylvi set the carrier on the table, opened the wire door with practiced fingers.

“Hey, handsome,” she crooned to the cat. “Let’s see what you decided to throw yourself in front of this time.”

The cat spat and swatted, catching her glove. She let him, using the flare of mundane annoyance to ground herself.

Elias leaned against the counter, arms crossed. He watched her hands more than the cat.

“You look tired,” he said. “Tired-er.”

“You try juggling nocturnal emergencies and day jobs,” she said. “What’s up, Brant? Besides your blood pressure.”

He ignored the bait.

“Three calls in the last ten days,” he said instead. “All near the reserve. People reporting ‘wild dogs’ acting off. No fear. Going for throats. Eyes wrong.” His jaw ticked. “Two of those ‘dogs’ ended up here. Brought in by me.”

Sylvi’s pulse skipped. “We see a lot of strays.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of strays too. These aren’t that.”

Mira fidgeted by the cabinet. “You think someone’s breeding something?” she offered weakly. “Dogfighting rings, maybe. Weird training.”

Elias looked at her. “Maybe.” Then back to Sylvi. “Or maybe there’s something in those woods neither of you is putting in your intake notes.”

The cat chose that moment to sink his teeth into Sylvi’s wrist. Pain spiked; she hissed.

“Language,” Mira said automatically.

“Cat,” Sylvi muttered, more grateful than she should’ve been for the distraction.

Elias stepped closer, holding out a gauze pad. “Here,” he said. “Before you bleed on your patient.”

As she took it, his fingers brushed the back of her hand.

Just skin. No magic. No alpha command. But her wolf lifted her head anyway, sniffing.

He smelled of city—concrete, coffee, cheap soap—and something else. Pine. Rain. The faintest echo of the reserve she knew too well.

“You’ve been out there a lot lately,” she said, before she could stop herself.

His eyes flicked to hers. “Yeah. Because I keep finding bodies.”

The room cooled ten degrees.

“Dogs?” Mira asked, voice tight.

“And deer,” he said. “And one coyote that looked like it tried to peel its own skin off.” He watched Sylvi’s face carefully. “I’ve been told it’s ‘just nature.’ I don’t buy it.”

Sylvi’s grip tightened on the gauze. Her mind flashed to Kalen’s hollow bond, Mara’s fraying line, the half-wolf on her table an hour ago.

“How many people have you told this to?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged one shoulder. “My captain. A guy at Fish and Wildlife. An old lady at the grocery store who said it was the end times. No one who can actually do anything seems too interested.”

“So you came to your local witch,” Mira muttered.

Elias’s brows shot up. “Your what now?”

“Nothing,” Sylvi snapped. “She meant ‘overqualified vet.’”

Mira made a face but held her tongue.

Elias pushed off the counter, coming a step closer. “Look,” he said. “I’m not asking you to break client confidentiality for whatever weird backwoods commune you volunteer for on your nights off. I’m asking if you’ve seen the same thing I have. Animals that don’t act right. Attacks that don’t fit the pattern.”

Yes, she wanted to say. More than you know.

She thought of the dog in the kennel down the hall, magic ash clinging to his bones. Of Vesk’s distant purr: found you.

She could lie. Buy time. Tell herself she was protecting him, protecting Mira, protecting the thin line between worlds a little longer.

But that line was already fraying. And he was already in it.

“Yes,” she said.

Mira let out a quiet breath.

Elias’s jaw tightened. “How bad?”

“Bad enough I’m not sleeping,” she said. “Bad enough that if you keep patrolling out there alone, you’re going to trip over something you can’t put in a report.”

His eyes searched hers. “You know what it is.”

“Pieces,” she said. “Not enough to stop it yet.”

“And if I keep calling in ‘weird dogs’ and you keep fixing what you can, how long before someone else notices the pattern?” he pressed. “Because I have colleagues who don’t shrug and walk away when something looks wrong. Some of them carry cameras.”

The image of a news van parked at the edge of Vael territory made her skin crawl.

“Elias,” she said, stepping closer, lowering her voice. “If this goes the way you’re thinking, you’re not going to get a promotion. You’re going to get dead. Or disappeared. Or drafted into a war you don’t have the tools for.”

His mouth curved, humorless. “Story of my career.”

“Not this,” she snapped. “You don’t get to be noble about this.”

“So what do I do?” he demanded. “Pretend I didn’t see the half-wolf that tried to take your head off last week? Pretend the reserve isn’t turning into something out of a nightmare?”

Mira winced. “You… saw that?”

“Different dog,” he said. “Same look.” He pinned Sylvi with his gaze. “I smelled the same thing on you when I brought him in.”

Her heart stuttered. “You what?”

He hesitated, then said, softer, “Whatever’s in those woods? It’s on you, too. Like smoke.”

Mira’s eyes darted between them. “So you’re not just here about cats.”

“No,” he said. “I’m here because sooner or later, whatever’s doing this is going to jump your little fence between ‘wolves’ and ‘civilians.’ I want to be standing on the right side when it happens.”

The right side. As if there was one.

Sylvi’s bones felt suddenly too small.

“You’re asking to be in,” she said slowly. “Into something you don’t have a name for yet.”

“I’m asking not to be left blind,” he said. “If I’m going to keep stumbling into your world, I’d rather do it with my eyes open.”

The bond in her chest hummed, an echo of Corren’s instinctive distrust of outsiders—and his grudging respect for those who chose in.

Sylvi swallowed.

“You can’t unknow this,” she warned. “You can’t half-see it. Once I start talking, your life stops being simple.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “You think my life has ever been simple?”

Fair.

She glanced at Mira. Her friend’s jaw was set, eyes bright.

“I vote we don’t let him go get eaten alone,” Mira said. “For what it’s worth.”

Riven, somewhere down the hall with the dog, sent a faint ripple down the edge of her awareness—irritation, concern—through whatever budding sense of pack her gift had decided to grow.

Sylvi exhaled, feeling all the tiny, stubborn ties that had wrapped themselves around her life—forest and city, wolves and humans, blood and choice.

“Okay,” she said.

Elias straightened.

“Okay,” she repeated. “You want in? You start by listening. No heroics. No charging into the dark with a badge and a flashlight.” Her mouth twisted. “We’ve already got one i***t alpha for that.”

Somewhere, very far away, that i***t’s wolf pricked his ears.

“And if I say no?” Elias asked.

“Then you walk out of here,” she said. “You keep filing weird reports. You keep smelling smoke and pretending it’s your imagination.” Her voice softened. “And one night you don’t come back.”

He met her gaze for a long moment.

“All right,” he said finally. “Teach me where not to step.”

Something in the air shifted. A line crossed. Another world admitted one more human onto its messy, dangerous stage.

Sylvi felt the distant tug of Corren’s concern through their fragile bond, as if he’d sensed some small seismic change and didn’t know its source yet.

“Hope you like long stories,” she said, reaching for the cat again. “Because this one starts with: once upon a time, a wolf decided he hated fate more than anything.”

“And you?” Elias asked.

She gave him a tired, crooked smile.

“I,” she said, “decided I hated collars more.”

Then she began.