Then—
A muffled cry cuts through the night.
My spine stiffens.My wolf surges forward, his low growl vibrating in my chest.
Christian’s jaw tightens as he hears it, too.
“We split up,” I say quietly.“Circle from both sides.”
He nods once.No wasted words.No hesitation.
I veer left, moving deeper into the woods, keeping low and silent.Every sense sharpens.I can smell adrenaline now.Fear.Human fear, raw and panicked, carried on the wind.
And something else.
Oil.Sweat.Metal.
Men.
My wolf presses hard against my ribs, claws scraping inside my bones, demanding release.He hates this, hates predators who hunt what they shouldn’t.
I crest a small rise and see the cult spread out before me.
An old, half-rotted house, the kind of place no one claims anymore, squats at the edge of the forest like a forgotten secret.Dark windows.Sagging porch.And in front of it?—
A girl.
She’s fighting them with everything she has.
Three men drag her toward the door, hands locked around her arms as she kicks and screams, her voice tearing through the night.Her hair—long and wild—whips around her face as she thrashes, nails raking one man’s cheek.
“Let me go!”she screams.“Help!Someone help me!”
One of them laughs.Another curses as she lands a solid kick to his shin.
My vision goes red.
We need to save her,my wolf snarls.
I grit my teeth in agreement.
“It was the chain on the gate,” Christian says as he appears by my side.
“They just brought a woman in,” I tell him.
He studies the scene below us, taking a step closer.“Shit.You know who that is, right?”
“Who?”I frown, trying to keep my wolf in check.
“That’s Roxie.Fern’s friend.We’ve been looking for her for weeks!She just dropped off the face of the earth.”
“You think they’ve had her this whole time?”I growl.
“I mean, maybe.Not here, though.They wouldn’t take her off the property and then bring her back.”
“And we would have seen her before now,” I add.
“We could take them.”