Night settled fully over the cabin.
Derek rose after a short rest and dressed again without turning on the main lights.
Allison watched him from the bed, the mark on her throat already darkening into a bruise that would be unmistakable in daylight.
He checked the radio, the locks, the windows, then stepped onto the porch to speak with Cal and Rian in low voices.
When he returned, he carried the scent of cold air and pine.
“They’re shifting the watch,” he said.
“Sable and Elias are coming in.
Mara and Thorn will take the far boundary until dawn.
No fresh tracks in the last two hours.
That worries me more than if there were.”
Allison sat up, pulling the sheet around her.
“Because silence means it’s choosing its moment.”
“Yes.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through his hair.
The gold had receded again, but the strain of holding the Change at bay was visible in the tight line of his shoulders.
Allison shifted closer and pressed her lips to the place where his neck met his shoulder.
He exhaled, and some of the tension eased.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“So should you.”
“I will.
After the next check-in.”
She did not argue.
Instead, she settled against him once more, listening to the cabin settle and the distant, ordinary night sounds that should have been comforting.
Sleep came in uneasy stretches, broken once by the far-off cry of something that might have been a coyote and might not.
“Alpha.
We have contact.
North hollow.
It’s not testing anymore.
It’s pushing the line.”
Derek was on his feet before the transmission ended.
Allison reached for her clothes.
He looked at her, eyes already shifting gold, and for a moment she thought he would order her to stay behind.
Instead, he said, “Stay behind me.
Knife where you can reach it.
If I tell you to run, you run back to this cabin, and you lock every shutter.
Clear?”
“Clear.”
They left the cabin together under a sky just beginning to lighten at the edges.
Cal and Rian fell in on either side without being told.
The four of them moved fast through the trees, following the direction Mara had given.
The air grew colder the deeper they went.
Allison’s breath showed in pale clouds.
They found Mara and Thorn at the edge of a shallow ravine.
The ground there was scored with fresh marks clawed, heavy, the stride wrong in the same way the earlier tracks had been wrong.
A black, oily residue clung to some of the gouges and smelled faintly of spoiled meat and ozone.
Mara’s face was set.
Briefly.
Then it pulled back when we showed ourselves.
It’s stronger than last cycle.
And it’s focused.”
Derek crouched, touched two fingers to the residue, and brought them to his nose.
His expression went flat and cold.
“It’s close to ready,” he said.
“The full moon will give it everything it needs.
We don’t wait for it to choose the ground.
We choose it for them.”
He stood and looked at each of them in turn, ending on Allison.
“Tomorrow night we end this.
The old clearing at the heart of the territory.
The pack will be at full strength under the moon.
So will it.
We draw it there, and we finish it before it can take anyone else.”
No one argued.
As they turned back toward the cabin, the first true light of morning touched the tops of the trees.
Allison walked beside Derek, the silver knife a small, cold weight against her hip, and felt the final pieces of the hunt locking into place.
Two nights had become one.
The Wraith was no longer circling.
It was coming.