He was alone in the building at midnight and the wolf had been restless for three weeks.
The restlessness was not new as a phenomenon. The wolf had always been a presence he managed rather than suppressed, a separate awareness running beneath his own consciousness like a current beneath still water, occasionally surfacing and then settling again. He had developed a precise understanding of its moods over thirty one years and he trusted that understanding completely because it had never been inaccurate.
Territorial threat produced a specific quality of alertness, sharp and directional. Pack conflict produced something heavier, a weighted vigilance that settled in his chest and did not release until the situation was resolved. The approach of something that required the Alpha rather than t
