I return to the front door in three long strides and step out onto the porch again, dropping to one knee as I scan the ground carefully. The faint scent of Annika still lingers in the wooden boards beneath my fingers.
But it’s tangled with something else.
Humans.
My nostrils flare as anger surges through me, brows furrowing with confusion.
There’s metal dust scattered across the boards, nearly invisible to human eyes, a faint chemical residue clinging to the air.
Suppressors.
My hands curl into tight fists as realization dawns.
They didn’t come here by accident. Humans don’t come to these parts of the valley.
They came for her.
Rage pulses violently through my veins as the mate bond flares suddenly in my chest. It’s faint, distant, but unmistakable.
Pain.
Annika’s pain.
The sound that leaves my throat is closer to a growl than a breath.
I close my eyes briefly, letting my wolf rise closer to the surface as I inhale deeply. The scent trail is faint but present, dragged across the forest floor toward the mountains.
Whoever took her tried to cover their tracks, but they underestimated what an alpha werewolf can do when his mate is threatened.
I shift without another thought, unable to concentrate on the million questions roaring through my being. It doesn’t matter why humans were here; all that matters is that they have my mate.
Bones snap as my wolf takes control, fur bursting across my skin as instinct replaces reason. Within seconds, I’m racing through the trees, my nose pressed low to the ground as I follow the scent trail carved through the valley.
It leads east, toward the mountains. The farther I run, the stronger the scent becomes. Human sweat. Gun oil—industrial metal.
And beneath it all is the faintest trace of Annika’s sweet scent, not appealing now, but alarming.
My wolf runs harder, branches whipping past me as the forest begins to thin, replaced by jagged stone and rising slopes that lead toward the mountain ridges surrounding the valley. The scent pools near a narrow ravine carved between two cliffs.
I slow down as I approach, because something about the air here feels wrong. Then I hear it.
A scream.
It’s faint, but unmistakable.
Annika.
The sound detonates inside my chest like a bomb. My wolf surges forward without hesitation, launching across the rocky ground toward the dark opening of a cave hidden between the cliffs.
Two humans stand guard outside.
They barely have time to react when the first one turns toward me just as I leap. My jaws close around his throat before he can raise the weapon in his hands. Bone snaps instantly beneath the pressure of my paws, blood spraying across the rocks as his body collapses beneath me.
The second man manages to fire a shot. The bullet grazes my shoulder, slicing through fur and skin, but I barely feel it, my body absorbing the pain like it’s nothing, thanks to the adrenaline pumping through me.
My claws slam into his chest, sending him crashing into the stone wall behind him. His skull cracks against the rock with a sickening sound, and he drops lifeless to the ground.
The cave beyond them smells like blood.
