*Dr. Sage Holloway*
The first howl rolled over the valley just after sunset—long and low, like someone running a thumb along the rim of a crystal glass. It vibrated through my ribs, through the aluminum ladder of the observation tower, and straight into the part of my brain that still, after a decade, couldn’t believe I had built a life around this sound.
I lowered my binoculars and listened.
“Pack A,” I murmured to the empty air, because talking to yourself meant you were either alone too much or doing real science. “Male, two to three years old, southeastern ridge. That’s you, Blue Tag. Show me you brought friends.”
The tower creaked as the wind shifted. The October air in the Gallatin Range cut through my fleece and jeans and the thermal leggings I’d absolutely not needed when I’d left the cabin at noon. Typical Montana. The sunset was putting on its usual shameless performance—lavender spill on distant snowcaps, the sky burning sherbet orange westward. The spruce and fir trees blackened into toothy silhouettes.
Another howl answered, higher-pitched. Then another, shorter and closer.
“Good,” I breathed, lifting the binoculars again. “Come on, come on…”
A silver-gray shape emerged from the treeline a quarter mile away, slipping like smoke through willow scrub toward the gravel bar by the creek. He was big—bigger than when I’d collared him five months ago. Blue Tag’s winter coat had come in thick and plush, his shoulders rolling under it as he walked with that casual lope that always looked lazy and was anything but.
“Still handsome,” I muttered, adjusting the focus. “Still ignoring my camera trap like it’s diseased. Rude.”
He paused on the gravel, nose lifted, ribs expanding. A second wolf appeared behind him, darker, with a splash of pale fur at the throat. Then a third, smaller one, darting ahead and nipping at Blue Tag’s flank.
“Juveniles,” I said into my recorder, the little red light winking near my gloved thumb. “At least two. Possibly three. Behavior suggests—”
My satellite phone vibrated against my hip. I flinched, almost dropped the binoculars, and narrowly avoided teaching the wolves some new English words.
The display read: KIM – USFWS.
I rolled my eyes skyward as I answered. “Tell me you’re calling to say you accepted my grant proposal and not to ask if I’ve fallen off the face of the earth.”
“You’re the one doing fieldwork on the edge of creation, Holloway,” Kim’s dry voice crackled over the line. “If anyone’s likely to fall off something, it’s you. How’s my favorite wolf-obsessed hermit?”
“Cold, underfunded, and muttering into electronics.” I tucked the phone under my chin so I could keep the binoculars up. Another wolf slipped from the shadows—a sandy female, by the look of her, moving with measured, queenly strides. “But your grandchildren are thriving.”
“Sage.” Kim sighed. “They are not my grandchildren. They are apex predators.”
“They can be both.” I watched as Blue Tag bumped the sandy female’s shoulder with his muzzle, tail wagging in an arc just shy of deferential. “There’s that affiliative behavior we talked about. Bonds look stable. Hunting party of at least six. Maybe more behind the trees.”
“That’s the reintroduction update?”
“For tonight, yes.” I shifted on the wooden platform, boot soles scraping the frost-dusted plywood. “The collared male has *finally* stopped trying to chew off the GPS unit. If I believed in miracles, that would count.”
The wolves fanned out along the creek. Their breath made silver plumes in the dim light. One juvenile pounced at the icy water, splashing like a Labrador puppy.
Kim hummed. “What about predators of the two-legged variety? Any more ‘incidents’ with the ranchers?”
“You mean the one who parked his truck at the end of my access road and revved the engine until midnight?” My jaw tightened. “Or the one who left a coyote carcass on my porch with a note that said ‘Next time, wolf’? Define incidents.”
“So that’s a yes.”
“It’s Montana.” I shrugged, though she couldn’t see it. “Some people bring you pies. Some people bring you passive-aggressive carrion. I’m documenting everything for the report.”
“You spending nights out there alone still makes the regional director break out in hives.”
“Well, if Fish and Wildlife would kindly fund the technician position I requested, we could share a tent and talk about our feelings.”
Kim snorted. “I’ve read your budget. I know you put ‘decent coffee’ as a line item under ‘essential equipment.’”
“I stand by that,” I said firmly.
Blue Tag halted, head whipping toward my direction, ears pricked. My muscles went molten and then tight. I froze, lowering the binoculars a fraction, careful not to let the metal glint in any stray light.
“Hang on,” I whispered into the phone. “He heard something.”
“Vehicles? People?” Kim’s tone sharpened.
“Not that I can see.” I held my breath. “Wind’s shifting. East to north. He’s scenting, not listening. Curious, not alarmed.”
The other wolves followed his gaze, noses to the air. The sandy female stepped slightly ahead, shoulders squared, scanning the darkness. I pulled the hood of my jacket up, more out of habit than necessity. My scent should be mostly contained, but ‘mostly’ wasn’t a word you wanted to test with wild wolves.
“Talk to me, Sage,” Kim said.
“They’re unsettled. But I don’t see—wait.” The highest ridge line—farther west, across the creek and above a dense stand of Douglas fir—caught my eye. “There’s movement on the upper slope. Might be elk.”
Where the last traces of daylight brushed the slope, something shadowy strode along the ridgeline. Bigger than a deer. Too smooth to be a moose. But there was a wrongness to it—a displacement, like heat ripples over asphalt.
Goosebumps prickled under my thermals.
“I’ve got a large mammal on the western ridge, maybe a quarter mile beyond the pack,” I murmured. “Silhouette only. Could be another wolf. Could be—” My breath fogged the binocular lenses for half a heartbeat. I swiped them with my sleeve. “No. Single. Too big.”
“Mountain lion?” Kim asked.
“Possibly.” I dialed the focus ring with numb fingers. The figure seemed to waver—one moment lean and low, four-legged; the next taller, upright. I blinked, adjusted again. My pulse thumped in my ears.
The wind shifted again. The scent of cold earth and pine resin flooded the tower. Then something else—darker and richer, like iron and rain-soaked fur. Instinctively, I rubbed at the gooseflesh on my forearm.
“Sage?” Kim prodded. “You’re quiet. I don’t like you quiet.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just…bad lighting. Might be my imagination.”
The figure halted at the crest of the ridge.
For a heartbeat, I could’ve sworn it wasn’t an animal at all.
Broad shoulders. Distinct head, neck, torso. Human lines, human height—no, taller. Naked skin catching a smear of dying light along a bared chest.
No. That was impossible. The ridge was over half a mile away. And human eyes weren’t meant to see like this in fading dusk.
My heart jackhammered.
“You ever get the feeling you’re not alone?” I asked, trying to sound flippant and failing.
“Sage.” Kim’s warning rolled over the line. “If there’s someone out there messing around near the wolves—”
“I know.” My mouth felt dry. I blinked, refocused—hard. The figure had vanished.
*All right.* I exhaled slowly. *You’re tired. You’ve been staring through glass for five hours. You had a granola bar for lunch. Your brain is generating Bigfoot to make your life interesting.*
Down by the creek, the pack shifted gears. One of the juveniles bounded ahead, nose to the ground. The sandy female followed at a trot, Blue Tag flanking her. Whatever they’d scented, it had pulled their attention away from my hill.
I made myself narrate again, letting the familiar language calm me. “Pack A appears to be initiating a hunt. Movement coordinated, spread pattern standard for this terrain. Will observe for another fifteen minutes before heading back to—”
The air froze.
Not the temperature. *The air itself.* Every hair on my body stood up. The tower, the trees, the very sky seemed to hold its breath. There was a low-pressure sensation behind my eyes, like the onset of a migraine.
“Sage?” Kim’s voice came from far away. “You still there?”
I swallowed. My tongue felt too big. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m—”
A sound ripped across the valley.
It wasn’t a howl. It wasn’t anything I had a name for. It was deeper, rougher, like something splitting along an invisible seam—a snarl drawn out into a chord that vibrated in my bones.
The wolves below stopped as one. Every head turned, not toward the sound, but toward me.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
They were…focused. Not curious, not cautious. *Locked on.*
My breath hitched. I crouched automatically, making myself smaller behind the railing. My brain, valiantly trying to do science under a tidal wave of adrenaline, supplied a desperate list: *Pack not previously aggressive toward humans. No recorded attacks in this valley. Height advantage. Pepper spray in left pocket. Rifle locked in truck, you idiot.*
“Sage. I’m losing you,” Kim said. “You’re breaking up.”
Somehow, my hand found the satellite phone and lifted it closer. “The wolves just—reacted. To something. I think—”
The line went dead.
A high whine rose from below—the thin, scared sound of a juvenile. Then a growl, sharp as a cracked bone, cut it off. The sandy female stepped forward, hackles up, lips peeled back, fangs bared *at me*.
No. No, not right. Predators didn’t *warn* dinner. This was…protective. Defensive. As if I were the danger.
Or as if something *behind me* was.
My spine tried to climb out of my skin. Slowly, I turned.
The forest pressed close around the base of the observation hill—a dark, tangled mass of trunks and branches. Between two spruce trees, halfway up the slope, something moved through the shadows. Large. Controlled. Almost silent.
I couldn’t see it clearly. My mind grabbed for familiar shapes and failed.
The wind hit my face, sudden and sharp. That wild, metallic scent slammed into me again, stronger this time, like standing downwind of a zoo enclosure after rain. Predator. Pure and undiluted. But not any species I recognized.
I fumbled for the pepper spray in my pocket. My fingers felt clumsy, half-numb in my gloves.
The shadow drew closer.
Then, without warning, it stepped fully into the open—a single, fluid motion that dried out my throat.
Wolf.
Huge. Easily one hundred and fifty pounds, maybe more. Thick dark coat banded in charcoal and deep brown, legs powerful and long. Head broad with pointed ears and eyes that—
No.
No, that couldn’t—
Amber. Not the flat yellow of wild canids. Deeper. Complex. Like liquid honey lit from behind by a knot of flame. They locked onto mine with a weight that felt…*aware*.
I froze. He—my brain supplied the pronoun without my consent—stopped ten yards from the base of the tower and stared up at me.
The pepper spray trembled in my grasp. I didn’t aim it. Aim meant I intended to use it, and some ancient part of me screamed that spraying this animal would be like flipping off a thunderstorm.
“Easy,” I whispered. My lips barely moved. “Easy, big guy. This is a research station. I’m not—”
The wolf sat.
Just sat. Deliberately. Tail curling around massive paws, head tilting slightly, ears pricked forward.
The move was so…civilized it short-circuited my fear.
My rational mind fought its way back to the surface with a checklist.
Behavior: Unusual. Not aggressive. No piloerection on back or tail.
Posture: Non-threatening. Direct eye contact but no vocalization.
Possible habituation? Former captive? Rabies? No, movements were coordinated, gaze clear.
The phone in my hand buzzed—a text trying to muscle past the failed call. The vibration made me flinch. The pepper spray slipped from my grip, bounced once on the plywood, and rolled.
It hit the gap in the planks where two boards had warped apart over the summer and dropped through, clattering down the metal rungs of the ladder before thudding into the pine needles below.
“Shit,” I hissed, too loud.
The wolf’s gaze flicked down for half a second, tracking the movement. When he looked back up, something in his eyes had changed.
Not the color. The *focus*.
A moment stretched, taut and brittle.
I could hear my pulse in my ears. My breath came in short, sharp bursts that fogged the air in front of me. Survival instinct screamed *back away, back away,* but there was nowhere to go. The tower was a ten-by-ten square in the sky. Rope ladder down, drop to ground, sprint to truck—
Through him.
His nostrils flared. He inhaled deeply, as though drawing my scent up to him. My entire life—coffee and sweat and cheap shampoo and the trace of bear spray that always clung to my field jacket—seemed suddenly…on display.
“I’m not prey,” I said, my voice harsher than I intended. “You don’t want to do this.”
The wolf’s ears twitched.
Something rippled through him. His chest expanded, ribs lifting, muscles rolling under his fur in a…wrong way. Like a wave moving beneath thick fabric.
My mouth went dry.
Bones don’t *move* like that.
His spine arched. His forelegs extended, then folded, then—
A horrible crackling filled the air. Wet. Organic. A series of pops and grinds and muffled crunches, like someone twisting a bundle of green branches until they snapped.
The wolf tipped over onto his side.
I lurched to my feet, heart whamming against my ribs. The tower swayed under me. Below, the wolves at the creek began to howl—short, sharp bursts that climbed over one another in a chaotic, discordant chorus.
The body on the ground convulsed.
Fur…shifted. No, not shifted—*receded,* like it was being sucked inward. The dark coat seemed to melt, pulling tight and glossy to the frame beneath. Limbs lengthened, joints reforming, angles changing in ways that made nausea heave through my gut.
Front legs jerked and twisted, spurting outward, elbows bending in a new direction. Paws splayed, claws digging into the earth, then retracted, toes stretching, thickening—fingers.
“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.
The skull. Dear God, the skull.
The long lupine muzzle shortened, bones sliding beneath skin as if remolded by invisible hands. Teeth, too many and too sharp, shifted and rearranged, some swallowed, some spat as small white shapes into the pine needles. Ears shrank, sliding down the sides of the head. The whole face…*collapsed* into something flatter, smaller, terrifyingly familiar.
A low guttural noise reverberated from the writhing form. Not a howl. Not human speech. A raw, primal sound pushed through rearranging vocal cords.
One last shudder rippled through the body. Then the thrashing stopped.
Silence crashed down so suddenly my ears rang.
The wolves by the creek cut off mid-howl.
Below the tower, at the base of my ladder, something lay on the ground where the giant wolf had been.
A man.
Naked. Curled on his side, chest heaving, damp skin gleaming faintly in the thin moonlight. Broad shoulders, thickly muscled back. Dark hair, wet with sweat, plastered to his neck. One arm was thrown over his head, as though trying to shield his face from the sky.
My knees almost buckled.
“No. No, no, no…” The words tumbled out of me on a shaky exhale. “Not possible. Not—”
He moved.
The arm over his face slid down, palm digging into the earth. Fingers flexed, clawing at the dirt. He pushed himself up, turned his head, and looked straight at me.
The same eyes.
The same molten, impossible amber.
Some distant, rational part of me thought: *You’re hallucinating. You hit your head. This is a dream. This is a seizure. This is anything but what it looks like because what it looks like is not reality.*
The rest of me was busy trying not to hyperventilate.
We stared at each other. The night seemed to press closer, heavy and thick.
His lips parted. When he spoke, his voice was rough, as though his throat remembered howling more than it remembered words.
“Dr. Sage Holloway,” he said.
He pronounced my name perfectly.
“I—” My throat closed around useless sounds. “How do you—?”
“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
My grip on the railing slipped.
The world tilted.
And then the night rushed up to swallow me.
***
I woke to the smell of woodsmoke and wild things.
Not the clean, woodsy tang of my own soap or the faint musk of elk that sometimes drifted on the wind. This was deeper. Earthier. Pine resin and damp leaves, animal fur and cold river stones, threaded through with the rich, intoxicating warmth of burning pine logs.
I kept my eyes closed.
The surface beneath me was softer than the plywood floor of the observation tower, but not a mattress—more like a thick pad or folded blankets. My cheek rested against something that felt like flannel. A faint, rhythmic sound brushed the edge of my hearing—a distant rush, like wind through high branches, and closer, the muted crackle of fire.
My pulse hammered.
Memory slammed into me.
Wolves. The giant black wolf. The impossible transformation. The man.
My eyes snapped open.
The ceiling above me was rough-hewn timber, supporting crossbeams blackened with age and smoke. A small skylight overhead held a square of star-pricked sky. The air around me was warm, lit with a golden flicker.
Not my cabin.
Panic ignited.
I jackknifed up, my hand flying to my waist for the knife I always carried in the field.
My fingers closed on empty air.
“Easy, Doc.”
The voice came from my left, low and edged—not unkind, but not soothing either. I spun toward it, heart in my throat.
A man leaned against a thick timber post a few feet away, arms folded over his chest.
Not the man from the base of the tower. Not the wolf. This one was smaller—though *smaller* was relative. He had the kind of rangy build that spoke of long runs and brutal strength training, all ropey muscle under sun-browned skin. Dark hair cropped short, a jagged scar bisecting his left eyebrow. He wore a faded henley shirt with the sleeves shoved up and jeans with dirt on the knees, as if he’d wiped his hands there without thinking.
And he was watching me like a human might watch a cougar that just woke up in their living room.
My gaze snapped around the room, cataloguing: Stone fireplace along one wall, flames snapping around split pine. A big wooden table littered with maps and a battered laptop. Hooks near the door holding coats, backpacks, what looked very much like a tranquilizer rifle.
One narrow window set high in the wall showed nothing but darkness and the vague press of forest.
No phone. No radio. No familiar landmarks.
My breath quickened.
Door. Where was the door?
To my right—a thick plank door reinforced with iron bands. Closed. No visible lock, but that didn’t comfort me.
“You took my knife,” I said. My voice came out calmer than I felt. “And my phone.”
He tipped his head, assessing me with eyes the color of dark river water. “You were out cold when we got you here. Leaving weapons on an unconscious stranger would’ve been…irresponsible.”
“We?” I repeated. “Who’s we?”
Something flickered across his face—wariness, irritation. “Not my job to answer that.”
“Whose job is it?”
“Not mine,” he said. “Name’s Rafe, by the way.” He said it like he hadn’t introduced himself voluntarily in a long time.
“Rafe.” I filed it away. “Last name?”
“Not important, Dr. Holloway.”
Blood roared in my ears.
“How do you know my name?”
“I know a lot of things.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Like that if you keep breathing that fast, you’re going to pass out again, and then *I’m* the one who’ll have to explain it.”
I forced a slow inhale. The smoky air tasted strange—cleaner than indoor air had a right to be, as if the whole place were somehow…ventilated by the forest. My head throbbed dully at the base of my skull. I reached up to touch it and found a tender bump beneath my hair.
“You fell,” Rafe said. “Off your little bird-watching tower.”
“I didn’t…fall.” I winced as my fingers brushed the sore spot.
“No?” He lifted a dark brow. “You remember what happened, then?”
Memory surged—amber eyes, cracking bones, fur sliding over flesh.
I clamped my jaw shut.
“I remember enough,” I said.
His gaze sharpened. “Do you.”
“You drugged me,” I accused. “Or…or stunned me. I’ve read about hunters using illegal tranquilizers—”
“You were halfway to unconsciousness before I got to the base of that tower.” His voice cooled significantly. “If I’d wanted to tranq you, you wouldn’t have woken up this soon and you sure as hell wouldn’t be stringing sentences together.”
My stomach did a slow, nauseous flip.
Base of the tower.
So I hadn’t dreamed that part.
“You…” The words fought to come out. “You were there. With the wolf.”
His eyes didn’t flicker, but his jaw tightened.
“Sure,” he said easily. Too easily. “Let’s go with that.”
Rage surged up through the fear, a familiar, grounding blaze. I clung to it.
“You can drop the evasive bullshit,” I snapped. “I don’t know who you people are or what kind of insane backwoods cult runs around with oversized wolves, but kidnapping a federal researcher is about the dumbest way you could’ve handled it.”
He pushed off the post with unhurried grace and took a single step closer.
I didn’t move back. I refused to.
“You think *we* are the problem here?” he asked quietly.
“You brought me here against my will. You went through my pockets. You’ve restrained my movement. Yes, *you* are the problem.”
“Lady, the problem is you saw something you shouldn’t have.” His gaze held mine, unblinking. “And that problem isn’t going away just because you yell at me.”
“Oh, I’m not done yelling.” My hands curled into fists in the blanket pooled around my hips. “You’re right, I saw something I shouldn’t have. That is *exactly* why I should be talking to the sheriff right now instead of playing hostage in your very rustic Airbnb.”
His lip twitched, like he wanted to smile and strangled it halfway. “Sheriff can’t help you.”
“He can arrest you.”
“For what? Bringing in an injured hiker?” Rafe’s voice went flat. “You think they wouldn’t believe *us* before they’d believe you, city girl?”
“I’m not from a city.”
“East is east.” He waved a hand dismissively. “You smell like Houston or Denver or some shiny office in D.C. You don’t smell like here.”
“I’m from Flagstaff,” I snapped. “And what the hell does how I *smell* have to do with anything?”
He paused. For the first time, uncertainty flickered across his features, as if he’d said more than he meant to.
“Nothing,” he said. “Forget it.”
“Oh, great. Gaslighting, too.”
He opened his mouth, closed it again, and exhaled slowly, like he was counting to ten. “Look. I get it. You’re scared. You should be.”
“Comforting.”
“But me being the one in front of you right now? That’s good news, Doc.” He jerked his chin at the door. “Because the guy you actually need to convince that you’re not a threat? He’s…less patient than I am.”
Ice slid down my spine, chilling the anger.
“The guy,” I repeated. “The one at the base of the tower.”
Rafe went still.
“You saw him?” he asked.
“I saw…” My throat tightened. “I saw a wolf. A very large wolf. And then I saw…”
*A man.*
I couldn’t say it out loud without feeling like I’d rip something loose inside my head.
“And then you saw?” he prompted softly.
“Nothing,” I lied.
We stared at each other.
His eyes weren’t amber. They were a deep, complicated brown, almost black around the edges. But something in their stillness made the hair on the back of my neck rise.
“You’re smart,” Rafe said finally. “You wouldn’t be out there alone if you weren’t. So let’s not pretend this is a misunderstanding about camping permits.”
“You’re right,” I bit out. “It’s a misunderstanding about you thinking you can get away with whatever this is.”
He huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You really are something.”
“Not your something.”
“Relax, Doc.” He ran a hand over his short hair, the scar through his eyebrow fading as his expression softened a fraction. “No one here wants to hurt you. If we did, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.”
“That’s…reassuring,” I said dryly. “Coming from my abductor.”
“You want brutal honesty or pretty lies?” he asked.
“I’ll take my phone and a ride back to my car.”
He shook his head once. “Can’t give you that. Yet.”
The word snagged my attention.
“‘Yet’,” I echoed. “Implying that at some point you *can* give me that.”
“Depends.”
“On?”
He opened his mouth to answer.
The door swung inward.
The room shifted.
I didn’t move, but I felt it—as if the axis of some invisible orbit had shifted toward the threshold. The air thickened, charged. The shallow, survival-driven part of my brain went very quiet, folding in on itself like an animal in tall grass when a bigger predator passes.
A man stood in the doorway.
He had a blanket wrapped low around his hips, leaving his chest and most of his torso bare. Dark hair hung damp and disheveled around a face that was all hard planes and arrested motion—high cheekbones, strong nose, jaw dusted with dark stubble as if he didn’t much care about shaving on a schedule.
He wasn’t…pretty. His nose had a slight bump, like it had been broken once and not set perfectly. A thin white scar nicked the corner of his mouth. Another traced down from his left shoulder, disappearing behind the blanket. His build wasn’t the sculpted, glossy-muscle of gym rats, but functional—broad shoulders, thick arms, solid chest with a light scattering of dark hair, the kind of body that lifted, ran, fought, worked.
But that wasn’t what stole my breath.
His eyes were.
Amber. Exactly as I remembered. Deep and bright and gold-shot, like sunlight trapped in a bottle of whiskey.
Everything inside me went very, very still.
Rafe straightened. “Kieran.”
The name fell into the room like a weight.
The man’s gaze moved from Rafe to me.
For a fractured moment, he just looked. It felt less like being seen and more like being *assessed*—the way I’d look at an unfamiliar wolf through binoculars, taking in ear position, tail carriage, body language, alertness.
His nostrils flared, the smallest movement. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
“You’re awake,” he said.
His voice wasn’t rough like Rafe’s, though there was a rasp to it, as if his throat weren’t used to talking as much as it was to…other things. Command. Growls. Orders. It was low, edged with something I didn’t have a word for. Power, maybe.
“Excellent observation,” I said, because my mouth tended to run ahead of my self-preservation instincts when I was scared. “You must be the brains of the operation.”
Rafe winced, just barely.
A slow, humorless smile ghosted across Kieran’s mouth. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“She’s got teeth,” he remarked.
“Better than claws,” I shot back. “Though I’m starting to think I might need those.”
His gaze sharpened on my face. Not angry. More…interested.
Rafe cleared his throat. “She’s intact. No sign of concussion beyond the initial knock. Vitals steady. Vocal cords fully functional, as you can hear.”
“I see that,” Kieran said.
I swallowed.
“You’re the one from the ridge,” I said, my voice turning strange in my own ears. “You were watching the pack.”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“You were the wolf at the base of my tower.”
Rafe stiffened beside the post.
The fire popped.
Kieran didn’t flinch.
He held my gaze, and for a heartbeat I could’ve swum in that molten amber.
“Yes,” he said again.
The floor seemed to tilt.
The screaming chorus in my head—*That’s impossible, that’s insane, that’s not real*—rose up, filling my skull with white noise. But it crashed uselessly against the simple solidity of his admission.
No hedging. No excuses. No *you must have imagined it*.
Just yes.
“You’re expecting me to believe that,” I said. My voice came out thin and too high. “That you…what, turn into a wild canid on weekends? Like some kind of bullshit paranormal romance? Do you sparkle in sunlight, too?”
Rafe muttered, “Oh, this is gonna be fun.”
Kieran’s gaze didn’t leave mine. “I’m not expecting you to believe anything.”
“That’s good,” I snapped. “Because I don’t.”
“You saw it,” he said.
“I saw…” My hands clenched in the blanket again, knuckles white. “I saw something my brain can’t currently process. That doesn’t make it real.”
“What would make it real?” Kieran asked quietly.
“Peer-reviewed articles,” I shot back automatically. “Double-blind studies. A stack of data as high as your—” I broke off before I said *shoulder.* Or *ridiculous ego.* “A large stack of data.”
“That’s not an option,” he said. “So you’ll have to settle for us.”
“Us who?” I demanded. “The Big Bad Wolf Fan Club?”
Something flickered in his eyes. Not humor. Not quite anger. An old, tired kind of resignation.
“My pack,” he said. “You’re in our territory, Dr. Holloway. You stumbled into something you weren’t meant to see. And now I have to decide what to do with you.”
Rafe shifted his weight, arms crossing more tightly over his chest. “We talked about this,” he reminded him. “Options are limited.”
My skin went cold.
“‘What to do with me’,” I repeated. “I’m right here. Maybe include me in this charming conversation about my fate?”
Kieran’s gaze slid over me—flicking from my face to my hands, to the way I sat, to the tension in my shoulders. An appraisal. Not sexual. Not yet. Something more primal than that. More…assessing threat levels and likely outcomes.
“You’re a biologist,” he said. “You understand ecosystems. Prey. Predators. Balance.”
“Don’t use my own lectures against me,” I snapped.
“Then you already know there are things that don’t survive contact with humans.” His tone didn’t change, but something cold crept into it. “Species that only exist because they stayed in the shadows. Because no one wrote papers about them.”
Ice tightened in my gut.
“You think I’m going to…what?” I forced out. “Publish, *Dear Journal of Applied Ecology, today I discovered werewolves*?”
Rafe made a strangled noise. “Don’t say the W-word,” he muttered.
“Why?” I demanded. “Is it offensive? Speciesist? Do you prefer *lycanthropically gifted*?”
Kieran’s eyes flashed. “Names have power,” he said sharply. “Words have…weight.”
“‘Werewolf’ is a *word*,” I shot back. “You know what else has power? *Evidence.* Photos. Videos. GPS collars. Which, by the way, your four-legged friends are wearing.”
I watched his face carefully as I threw that out.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “We’re aware.”
“Then you also know I have months of data on pack behavior, territory, movements.” My voice steadied as the scientist in me clawed to the fore, desperate for something solid to stand on. “I know every valley, every ridge in this area. If you think I’m going to politely forget what I saw and go back to counting scat samples, you’re more delusional than I am.”
Silence pooled in the room for a heartbeat.
Then Kieran said, very quietly, “I have three choices.”
Rafe’s head snapped toward him. “Kieran—”
He ignored him.
“One,” he said, holding up a finger. “I can kill you.”
The words landed like stones. Cold, heavy.
My heart stuttered.
“I don’t want to,” he added, as if that made it better. “You haven’t harmed us. You were doing your work. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“So magnanimous,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
“Two,” he continued, as though he hadn’t heard me, “I can have our healer…change your memory. Blur it. Remove tonight from your mind.”
My breath caught.
“Like a lobotomy?” I demanded. “Do you have any idea how memory is stored? You can’t just snip out one file and leave the rest. You’d be risking—”
“Brain damage,” he finished. “Yes. I know.”
Rafe’s jaw worked. “Kieran, *no one* wants that.”
“Which leaves,” Kieran said, “option three.”
His gaze locked fully onto mine now. No more distance. No more quiet detachment.
“You stay,” he said. “Here. With us. Until I decide how to handle you.”
Rafe exhaled sharply, somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “And here I thought you were gonna pick the easy one.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Stay,” I repeated. “As in…what. A guest? A prisoner?”
His mouth tightened. “A…guest who can’t leave.”
I let out a jagged little laugh that hurt my throat. “You realize that’s literally the definition of ‘prisoner,’ right?”
“I’m trying,” he said slowly, “to give you a choice that doesn’t involve you dying or losing pieces of yourself you can’t get back.”
“And your idea of *kindness* is house arrest.”
His eyes flicked to Rafe. “Rafe. Give us the room.”
Rafe hesitated. “You sure you want—”
“Out,” Kieran said, not raising his voice.
For a moment, it seemed like Rafe might push back. Then he rolled his shoulders, shot me a look that was equal parts apology and warning, and headed for the door.
As he passed Kieran, he said under his breath, “Don’t scare her more than she already is. We need her calm, not hysterical.”
“Shut the door,” Kieran replied.
Rafe did.
We were alone.
The fire crackled. Outside, distant and muffled, an owl hooted. Somewhere far off, a wolf howled—a long, curving note that raised the hairs on my arms.
Kieran moved closer, untucking a second blanket from a nearby chair. Without asking permission, he draped it over my shoulders. His hand brushed my collarbone for a fraction of a second—hot, even through the worn cotton of my thermal shirt.
I went rigid.
“I don’t—” My voice scraped. “I’m not cold.”
“You’re shaking,” he said.
“I’m *angry*.”
He studied me for a long moment. “Yes,” he said. “You are.”
“Don’t.” I jerked the blanket tighter around myself, more like armor than warmth. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a…a problem to be managed.”
“You are a problem,” he said evenly. “That doesn’t mean I enjoy it.”
“Wow. I’m touched.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “This is not my idea of a relaxing evening, either, Doc.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“What should I call you?”
“Sage,” I snapped. “Dr. Holloway if you want to be formal. But not Doc. That’s what my advisor called me when I broke a centrifuge in grad school.”
“Sage.” He rolled it around his tongue, tasting it. There was something disconcertingly intimate in the way he said it. “Who names their kid after an herb?”
“Who names their kid after a knight?” I shot back. “Or is Kieran just your ‘business’ name? Should I be calling you Big Bad instead?”
A surprised huff of air escaped him—almost a laugh. “You’re not afraid of me.”
“Oh, I’m terrified,” I said. “I’m just more annoyed than terrified at the moment.”
His eyes burned brighter for a heartbeat. “Good.”
“Good?”
“If you were only afraid,” he said quietly, “you’d make stupid choices. Fear makes people dangerous. Anger makes them…predictable.”
“I’m not predictable,” I said. “Ask my ex.”
A shadow of something—not quite amusement—passed over his face. “We’re getting off track.”
“We were never on a track I agreed to.”
He stepped back, giving me a little more space. I hadn’t realized how close he’d come until then.
“You can’t leave,” he said again, more gently now. “Not yet. Not until I know what bringing you back to your world would do to mine.”
“My world?” I echoed. “We’re in the same woods, Kieran. This isn’t Narnia.”
“You think your people would accept this if they knew?” he asked. “That they’d embrace the idea of…us?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what *this* is. Shape-shifting? Genetic anomaly? Collective psychosis?”
“Call it what you like,” he said. “It’s been here longer than your data sets. Longer than your Fish and Wildlife Service. Longer than the fences you build and the collars you slap on anything that moves.”
I flinched as if he’d struck me.
“I don’t collar *anything that moves*,” I snapped. “I collar a carefully selected sample of wolves to gather non-invasive data that helps keep ranchers from shooting them on sight.”
“And how’s that working out?” he asked, voice like a blade.
Anger flared, hot and bitter. I thought of the coyote on my porch. The bullet holes I’d found in one of the field cameras last month. The graffiti on my truck.
“Some of them are listening,” I said stubbornly. “Some of them care. It’s slow.”
“Slow doesn’t keep us alive when someone finds a video of me halfway through a shift,” Kieran said flatly. “Or when a bored kid with a drone catches Rafe running the ridge at midnight and posts it on whatever app is rotting people’s brains this year.”
I swallowed. “You think I’d—what. Upload you to TikTok?”
“I think humans are human,” he said. “Some can’t keep a secret if their lives depended on it. Some would want to hunt us. Study us. Cut us open to see how the insides work.”
“…Some of us,” I said tightly, “just want to document and understand and help conserve the ecosystems we depend on. Some of us are on *your* side, even if you don’t think so.”
“Are you?” he asked softly. “On our side?”
My answer hung on the precipice of the impossible.
I stared into those impossible eyes and thought about the way the other wolves had reacted when I had seen him. The way the air had…shifted during that transformation. The sheer weight of *otherness* I’d felt at the base of the tower.
I also thought about the report I was supposed to file in three days. The dataset on my laptop. The career I’d built on being rational, methodical, evidence-driven.
“I don’t know what *your* side is yet,” I said finally. “I don’t even know what you *are,* beyond one very traumatizing demonstration.”
Something darkened in his gaze. Not anger. Something far more dangerous.
“And that,” he said quietly, “is why you can’t leave.”
My chest constricted.
“So those are my options,” I said. “Death. Brain damage. Or indefinite captivity.”
“Temporarily,” he said. “Until I decide.”
“Wow,” I whispered. “You really know how to make a girl feel safe.”
He rubbed a hand over his face, suddenly looking…tired. The hard lines of his shoulders sagged a fraction.
“You being here puts my pack at risk,” he said. “It also puts you at risk.”
I blinked. “I’m at risk *because* I’m here.”
“You’re at risk because you *saw,*” he corrected. “Not just from us.”
A chill slid down my spine. “From who, then? Animal Control? The Ghostbusters?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “There are others. Packs who don’t live as close to your kind as we do. Packs who don’t share our…restraint.”
“Other…were—” I bit the word back as his expression sharpened.
“Other shifters,” he said. “Some of them have been listening. Waiting. Hoping that someone would slip. That we’d be careless enough to let a human see and live long enough to talk about it.”
“Why?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Because some of them want war,” he said simply. “An excuse. A reason to come out of the dark teeth-first and see who’s still standing at sunrise.”
My mouth went dry. “That’s insane.”
“It’s nature,” he said. “Predators compete. Packs fight. Territory is never truly shared.”
I thought of Pack A—Blue Tag, the sandy female, the juveniles. The way they’d moved as one along the creek. The way they’d all turned toward me when that…wrongness had shivered through the air.
“They know I’m here?” I asked. “These…other packs?”
“Not yet,” he said. “But they felt it. The shift in the balance. Word passes. It always does.”
“Felt it,” I repeated. “Like they’re psychic?”
He shrugged one thick shoulder. “Like birds knowing when it’s time to migrate. Or elk leaving a valley three minutes before an avalanche. Call it instinct. Call it magic. Doesn’t matter what name you give it.”
The word *magic* did strange things in my chest.
I tried to laugh and failed. “You expect me to buy all of this while you’re standing there in a blanket like you wandered out of a Calvin Klein ad for forest hermits?”
Heat flickered in his eyes. Not temper. Something else. Something that made my stomach do an inconvenient little flip.
“Would it help if I put on a shirt?” he asked, voice suddenly dry.
I hated that my gaze flickered, helplessly, down his chest before I jerked it back up. “It would help if you opened that door and let me leave.”
“Can’t do that,” he said again.
“Then no,” I said. “A shirt won’t help.”
We stared at each other, the crackling fire the only sound between us.
“Sleep here tonight,” he said after a moment, gesturing around the room. “Rafe will bring your things from your truck. Tomorrow, we’ll talk again. I’ll show you…more. Answer questions.”
“You think a slideshow is going to make me okay with this?”
“I don’t expect you to be okay,” he said. “I expect you to be *alive.* And under my eyes, where I can make sure no one else decides to solve this problem…permanently.”
My head throbbed harder. I pressed my fingertips to my temples. “I can’t just disappear. I have daily check-ins with the Fish and Wildlife office. Field logs. If I drop off the map, they’ll send someone. Rangers. Maybe even a helicopter.”
“I know,” he said. “Which is why Rafe is at your cabin right now, answering your radio as we speak.”
My eyes widened. “You can’t—”
“He knows your routines,” Kieran said. “He’s been watching you work the valley for months.”
Heat flared in my cheeks. “You’ve been *spying* on me?”
“Protecting our own,” he countered. “You weren’t a problem as long as you were watching *wolves.* But now…”
He let the sentence trail off.
I swallowed hard. “What did you tell them?”
“That you slipped on ice,” he said. “Hit your head. Nothing serious, but you’re going to be off-grid for a few days. You’ll check in again when the weather clears and you get the tower’s solar back up.”
My stomach roiled. “They’ll want to talk to me. Hear my voice.”
“They will,” he said. “Tomorrow. On a secure line. Rafe will bring the radio here. You’ll tell them what you *need* to tell them. No more. No less.”
“And if I don’t cooperate?” I whispered.
Amber eyes burned into me.
“Then,” he said softly, “I’m back to two options instead of three.”
My mouth went dry. “You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?”
His lips curved in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You have no idea.”
Firelight threw shifting shadows across his bare chest, the muscles along his shoulders and arms flexing as he reached for another log and tossed it onto the fire. Sparks leapt up, briefly lighting the amber in his eyes like two coins held to the sun.
“Sleep,” he said, straightening. “You’re no good to anyone staggering around half-conscious. There’s a bathroom through that door.” He nodded toward a narrow interior door beside the fireplace. “You’ll find clothes in the trunk at the foot of the bed.” His gaze flicked to the blanket folded over my legs. “And no, before you ask, nothing is…marked. We don’t dress in pelts and teeth, Sage. We buy jeans like everyone else.”
Something in the dry way he said it stole a reluctant snort out of me.
He paused at the doorway. For a heartbeat, something like conflict passed over his face.
“Sage,” he said without turning back fully.
“What,” I said warily.
“You have my word,” he said. “As Alpha of this pack. No one will hurt you while you’re under my protection.”
My throat tightened.
“And if I don’t *want* your protection?” I asked.
He half-turned, amber gaze catching mine across the firelit room.
“Then,” he said, “you’ll have to survive without it.”
The door shut behind him with a soft but final *thunk.*
I stared at it.
My whole body shook, but not from cold. The fire cracked. The owl hooted again, closer this time. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled—a long, low note that threaded through something deep in my chest and tugged.
I dragged the second blanket around my shoulders like armor and lay back on the too-soft pallet, eyes wide open, staring at the empty doorway.
Survive without his protection.
Survive with it.
Those were my options now.
Neither felt safe.
But as exhaustion weighted my eyelids and the smell of smoke and pine pressed close around me, a horrible realization settled in my ribcage like a stone:
For the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t alone.
And that scared me more than the wolves.
***