(Kennedy's POV)
The woods smelled damp from the morning dew, the faint aroma of pine and earth mingling with something sharper—a metallic tang carried by the wind. I didn't need to smell it to know it was blood. Faint traces lingered in the air, old enough to dull its freshness but recent enough to remind me that rogues had passed through.
My grip tightened on the reins as my steed snorted uneasily, ears flicking at invisible dangers. The stillness of the woods was unnatural; it felt forced, the kind one experienced before a storm or the ambush of an enemy.
"Alpha," Dean called out softly, his voice low and to my right as he flanked me. "Signs of movement ahead. Inconsistent tracks, but they're moving deeper into the woods.
I didn't turn to him; my eyes stayed fixed on the shadowed exp
