The second mark appeared at dusk.
It was a warrior who found it this time—one of the eastern patrols, voice tight and controlled as he reported in. Rowan was already moving before the words were finished, Dustin and Serena flanking him as they cut across the grounds toward the tree line.
Holly watched from the packhouse doorway, heart pounding.
She wasn’t supposed to follow.
She knew that.
But something pulled at her chest, a steady, insistent tug that refused to be ignored. Her wolf stirred again, stronger this time, not awake but aware, pacing just beneath the surface of her skin.
Danger, it seemed to murmur.
The mark was closer.
Not carved into a tree this time, but scorched into a fallen log just inside the inner perimeter. The same jagged lines. Deeper. Bolder.
A challenge.
