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I fell in behind as the last of the pack entered the trail. If Charlie accepted her position as alpha, this would be my place, taking the rear when I wasn’t at her side, making sure the pack was covered from behind. Since we were safe on our property, I cut through the brush to a secondary path so I could catch up with Charlie. I wanted to see how close she got to the fence before I had to save her ass from a jolt.
I did this to every wolf, tested their sensory abilities when it came to spells. So far, all, including Johnny, had failed to detect the witch’s magic, and that was the way it should be. Levi, of course, had known it was there before he entered the forest, but Levi didn’t count because he had a built-in spell detector that allowed him to sniff out magic from miles away. Had I brought him to Sal’s office for the meeting, he would have known the collar was in play before Sal had even had a chance to put it around Charlie’s throat.
I growled under my breath over that shitshow, still cursing myself for being so naïve when it came to Sal. I might have outbid the other alphas who were very keen on obtaining Charlie, but that didn’t mean I had the man’s respect or trust. He was greedy as fuck and had taken my money gladly, but he was also not stupid, and I knew he had been testing me as much as he’d been testing Charlie that day. The fact that I’d broken his new toy and allowed Johnny to remove Charlie’s collar had told him a lot about my weakness. He’d make a move against Charlie, against us, sooner or later, and, I suspected, would attempt to take her back when he did.
Worries for another day. I had guys watching Sal, and he was staying put in his compound right now.
I turned my focus back to the progress Charlie was making toward the perimeter. She was more than halfway there. Of course, Levi had already pegged the magic by now, but Charlie seemed to be barreling toward the fence with no hesitation. I had hoped that she’d be able to sense more than the average male, but with each gallop she took closer to the danger, my high expectations slipped.
I made it ahead of the pack quickly, my shortcut might have been full of obstacles, but it sliced the time it took to get to the perimeter by a solid five minutes. I hunkered on my haunches, downwind in the foliage, then calmed my breathing and steadied my heartbeats so I wasn’t giving away my location to Charlie as she moved along the path.
The forest was flush full of enticing smells and stocked with some game, so there were plenty of things to pull Charlie’s attention away from the threat in front of her. A skilled wolf would be able to clock all the different smells and focus on the potential for danger. I wondered how she’d navigate the woods and all they had to offer? Would she be able to push aside the temptations that lay all around her? Would she fall victim, as so many had before her, to the quiet whisper, barely discernable from the forest noises, of the magic emanating from the fence?
I’d soon find out.
She should have been coming around the next bend right about…now. Oof.
A wolf landed on my back, front paws digging into my shoulders, forcing my face to grind into the dirt, before springing off in a great leap.
By the time I’d lifted my snout out of the damp earth, Charlie was facing me, grinning like the joke was definitely on me, with the rest of the pack circling her, looking equally as amused.
Okay, she got me.
I shook off the detritus then bolted toward the fence, keeping a good foot between me and the chain link. It didn’t look like a menacing barrier. There was no razor wire or anything quite so obviously dangerous. It was constructed so that it wouldn’t attract any attention from humans. We didn’t want them wondering why the mansion on the corner was shielded like a fortress. That, in my opinion, made whatever was on the other side much more enticing. Even with its blend-into-the-trees setup, the fence was our first line of defense, and it worked because it warned people away. Humans seemed to be particularly sensitive to the bad vibes and tended to stay clear. Wolves and other supernaturals weren’t as attuned or as smart. If they got too close, it was designed to pack a punch, thanks to some of our witch affiliates.
I sensed the vibration of the wards as I always did, like a current of electricity, warning me to step back. When I’d asked Johnny years ago if he could feel or hear the low murmur of magic like I could as a wolf, he looked at me with shock. He’d never detected a thing. Levi said it was a beacon for him, a warning light telling him how far he needed to stay clear, and he could detect it both when he was a wolf and when he was in his human form. Levi and magic though? It was complicated for him.
The question was, would Charlie feel it at all?
She let me take the lead, sniffing at the fence as we ran along, her ears swiveling toward the pulses of magic that I could hear. It was a good sign, and it made me feel like maybe she was meant to be my mate after all. Not that I really needed much convincing that she was the one… I sensed it in my bones, but maybe she was also compatible with my abilities. She was panting, taking scent into her mouth, tasting the power emanating from the fence. Her low growl and quick glance my way let me know that she’d identified the nastiness of the spell that was woven into the metal.
And it was nasty stuff. One touch and it’d send volts of magic to a wolf’s heart that would not only immobilize them instantly but also cause an arrhythmia that took days to recover fully from. It was meant to incapacitate the biggest werewolf, and most effectively force a werewolf to shift back to human. That way, when they were passed out on the property line and found by other humans, they’d appear as one of them and would likely be taken to the hospital, where they’d have some explaining to do.
It had only taken a few examples for word to get around, and we mostly had no werewolves trying to breach our boundaries. It was too risky and not worth the potential of being murdered by one’s pack for possibly exposing our kind to humans in the ER. There had been a few, though, who had tried…and they hadn’t liked what they got for their effort.
I refocused on Charlie as she got close enough to the fence to make me grumble a warning, snapping my jaw her way. She didn’t push the matter. Instead, seemingly satisfied by her investigation, she beelined into the trees and disappeared in a flash.
The game, it seemed, was back on, and the pack was hot on her heels.
