They rose well before midnight.
Derek dressed in dark, durable clothes and checked every blade twice.
Allison pulled on the jacket Mara had given her, settled the silver knife in an easy-to-reach sheath, and braided her hair back so it could not be grabbed.
The cabin felt different in the final hours charged, as if the walls themselves knew what was coming.
At ten-thirty the shortwave came alive with confirmation: all positions filled.
Elias on the eastern rise.
Sable and Thorn on the western approach.
Mara and the twins covering the northern trails that fed into the clearing.
The pack was ready.
Derek locked the cabin, and they stepped into the night.
The full moon had cleared the treeline completely, flooding the forest with cold, bright light that turned every shadow sharp.
Allison’s breath showed in pale clouds.
Derek’s eyes had gone fully gold and stayed that way.
They moved in silence.
Cal and Rian met them at the first marker and fell in without a word.
The four of them traveled the familiar route toward the heart of the territory.
The deeper they went, the colder the air became.
Allison felt the change on her skin, an unnatural chill that had nothing to do with the season.
The old clearing opened before them like a held breath.
It was larger than she had expected, ringed by massive oaks whose limbs stretched high enough to form a broken canopy.
Moonlight poured into the open center, turning the grass silver.
Derek led her to a place near the eastern edge where a fallen log offered limited cover and a clear view of the approaches.
“You stand here.
Visible.
Unprotected.
The rest of us will be in the trees.
When it commits, you hold your ground until I signal.
Then you move behind me, and you stay there.”
Allison nodded.
Her pulse was steady, but the silver knife felt heavier than it had in the cabin.
Derek cupped the back of her neck and pulled her in for one hard, brief kiss.
“Do not die.”
“Same to you.”
He melted into the trees with Cal and Rian.
Within moments, the clearing looked empty.
Allison stood alone in the moonlight, the jacket zipped to her throat, the knife in her right hand, and waited.
Time stretched.
The cold seeped through her boots.
Somewhere an owl called once and went silent.
The moon tracked higher.
Then the temperature dropped another several degrees in the space of a single breath.
At first it wore the shape of a man, one of the missing hikers, face blank, eyes empty.
Then the shape stretched and warped.
Limbs lengthened.
Joints multiplied.
A mouth opened too wide, filled with too many teeth.
The thing that stepped fully into the moonlight was neither wolf nor human nor any animal Allison had a name for.
It was hunger given form, and its flat, reflective eyes locked on her the moment it cleared the trees.
It smiled.
Allison did not run.
The Wraith-Beast took one step into the open grass, then another.
Its voice, when it spoke, sounded like several throats trying to use the same air.
“Little investigator.
You found the pattern.
You found the alpha.
And still you stood still long enough to be taken.”
Allison lifted the silver knife so the moonlight caught the blade.
“I’m not here to be taken.”
The creature’s head tilted at an impossible angle.
“No.
You’re here to be the reason he breaks.”
It lunged.