*Kieran*
The world smelled wrong.
Too sharp.
Too flat.
Too many layers of exhaust and hot rubber and old coffee and human sweat, with not enough earth under it.
The highway stretched ahead, two gray lanes cutting through snow-bright fields. Sage’s truck hummed under us, heater blasting, wipers thunking rhythmically.
She drove like she’d been born doing it—hands steady on the wheel, eyes flicking between the road and the rearview.
I sat in the passenger seat, wearing jeans that didn’t quite feel like mine, a plain black t-shirt under a gray hoodie she’d insisted I put on, and a borrowed baseball cap pulled low over my eyes.
“You look…normal,” she’d said that morning, squinting at me. “Which is the weirdest part.”
“Defined by what you’re not,” Mara had muttered.
Now, as the miles slid by and the mountains in the rearview shrank, I forced my hands to stay loose on my thighs.
“First rule,” Sage said, breaking the silence. “Don’t stare at things.”
“Things,” I repeated.
“Billboards. Neon signs. People doing weird shit at gas stations. You stare, they stare. You snarl, they call the cops.”
“I don’t snarl,” I said.
“You absolutely snarl,” she said. “You snarl at soup. Just…keep your resting murder face in check.”
I snorted. “My what.”
“Never mind,” she said. “Second rule: don’t sniff anyone.”
“I know how to be human,” I muttered.
“You’ve never been in a Walmart,” she said. “Trust me on this one.”
A sign flashed by: BOZEMAN 24.
My chest tightened.
“Third rule,” she said. “Let me do most of the talking at the office. You’re ‘Ryan.’ You like fieldwork. You’re good with GPS units. You’re bad with computers. You’re not here to make friends.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Your coworkers could be…useful.”
She shot me a look. “You don’t want to charm them, Kieran. You want them to forget you exist five minutes after you walk out. Bland is safe.”
“I don’t know how to be bland,” I said.
“You’ll learn,” she said. “Consider it character growth.”
We hit the outskirts of town faster than I liked.
The first strip malls made my wolf itch—big, flat buildings squatting under sodium lights, parking lots full of cars, signs shouting about sales and sub sandwiches and auto repair.
Sage’s scent shifted.
Nostalgia. Anxiety. A faint thread of homesickness.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I used to come here every week,” she said quietly. “Buy groceries. Get coffee. Pretend I wasn’t counting down the minutes until I could go back to the valley.”
“And now?” I asked.
She huffed. “Now I’m wondering why there are so many mattress stores. Does no one here sleep on anything for more than six months?”
I smiled despite myself.
She turned into a side street, then another, then into a parking lot in front of a squat, beige building with a faded U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service sign.
“This is it,” she said, cutting the engine. “Last chance to bail.”
I wanted to.
Every instinct screamed at me to turn around, shift, run back to the trees.
I unclenched my hands.
“No,” I said. “We do this.”
She exhaled, a sound half laugh, half sigh.
“Okay, Ryan,” she said. “Welcome to my other den.”
***
The air inside was stale.
Too warm.
It smelled like toner, burnt coffee, and stress.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, humming at a frequency that set my teeth on edge.
Desks filled the front room, each piled with papers, folders, and computers. Posters of wolves and wetlands and migratory birds hung crookedly on the walls.
Humans moved through the space, shoulders hunched, eyes tired.
Prey.
And predators of a different sort.
Sage’s scent shifted again, picking up notes of…professionalism. A persona she slipped on like a coat.
She smiled at the receptionist—a woman with gray-streaked hair and reading glasses perched on her nose.
“Hey, Barb,” Sage said. “Long time.”
Barb blinked. “Holy shit, Holloway, you’re alive.”
“Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Sage said. “Storm knocked out half my equipment. Figured I’d limp back before the tower fell over.”
Barb’s gaze slid to me. “And this is?”
“Ryan Morales,” Sage said smoothly. “Seasonal tech. Kinda saved my ass when I almost fell off the ridge last week, so I brought him in to fill out some forms before he sues us.”
I arched a brow. *Really?*
She stepped on my foot.
I grunted.
“Nice to meet you, Ryan,” Barb said. “Any friend of Holloway’s is probably weird, but we’ll tolerate you.”
“Thanks,” I said.
It came out…normal.
Barb turned to the phone ringing on her desk.
Sage leaned closer to me, lips barely moving. “That was good,” she whispered. “Very non-threatening.”
“You said I shouldn’t be charming,” I muttered.
“That wasn’t charming,” she said. “That was…present.”
“I don’t know the difference,” I said.
“You and me both,” she murmured.
A door swung open at the back of the room.
A woman in her fifties stepped out, headset hanging around her neck. Dark hair pulled into a messy twist, sharp eyes, lines at the corners from frowning and laughing in equal measure.
Kim.
She spotted Sage and stopped dead.
“You,” she said.
“Me,” Sage said, lifting a hand.
Kim crossed the room in three strides and pulled her into a hug.
I stiffened.
Sage went rigid for half a heartbeat, then relaxed, arms coming up.
“Jesus, Holloway,” Kim muttered into her shoulder. “You scared the shit out of me. Storm blows in, you miss two check-ins, then you call sounding like you’re…smiling. I thought you’d had a brain bleed.”
“I’m fine,” Sage said. “Mostly.”
Kim pulled back, hands on Sage’s arms, looking her over with a blunt, assessing gaze.
I recognized that look.
Pack.
“Concussion?” Kim asked.
“Sort of,” Sage said. “Not…medical. More like…metaphorical.”
Kim’s gaze sharpened.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “You gonna tell me what that means, or do I have to waterboard it out of you?”
Sage’s smile flickered. “I might…owe you a beer first.”
Kim followed her glance to me.
“Who’s this?” she asked.
“Ryan Morales,” Sage said. “Picked up some seasonal help before the snow really hit. He’s a god with tangled cords. Less so with forms.”
Kim stuck out a hand. “Kim Patel. Regional coordinator. I pay her to chase your furry friends around.”
I took her hand.
Her grip was firm.
Her scent was…interesting. Coffee and paper and dry prairie, with an undercurrent of something sharp and curious.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“Construction background?” she asked, looking me up and down. “You’ve got ‘can carry heavy things and fix broken shit’ energy.”
“Road crews,” I said. “Couple seasons.”
Also true.
She nodded. “We can always use someone who knows which end of a shovel is up.”
“Don’t encourage him,” Sage muttered.
Kim’s mouth quirked.
“So,” she said. “You both want coffee, I’m guessing. Then Holloway’s going to tell me why she’s really here.”
Sage flinched, just a little.
“Is that a threat?” she asked.
“Only if you lie to me,” Kim said.
They retreated to a small conference room down the hall. I followed, feeling eyes on my back.
Humans smelled…different here.
Less fear.
More…wary curiosity.
Predators who thought they were prey.
“Sit,” Kim said, pointing at two chairs. “Talk.”
Sage sat.
I sat.
Kim closed the door and leaned against it, arms crossed.
“All right,” she said. “Storm story first. Then the bullshit you’re not saying over the radio.”
***
Sage told the truth.
Mostly.
She described the storm, the equipment failure, the near-fall from the tower. She mentioned Kurt vaguely, as “a concerned rancher who found one of my busted cameras and decided to keep it.” She talked about weird tracks, unusual wolf movement, the sense that something was…off.
She never said *shifter.* Or *werewolf.* Or *magic.*
But she painted a picture of tension. Of change.
Kim listened, frown deepening.
“Darnell,” she said when Sage mentioned his name. “Of course. He’s been calling every week for a month. Swears he saw a wolf the size of a truck with ‘demon eyes.’ I told him to lay off the meth.”
“It wasn’t meth,” Sage said quietly. “He…did see something. Or thought he did.”
Kim’s gaze narrowed. “What aren’t you saying?”
Sage’s fingers twisted in her lap.
I wanted to put my hand over hers.
I kept them on my knees.
“I’m saying,” Sage said carefully, “that the valley is…hotter than usual. Wolves pushing boundaries. Ranchers freaking out. Tourists posting blurry photos. It’s a powder keg.”
“And you,” Kim said. “In the middle. As usual.”
“I can help,” Sage said. “But I need…support. Funding. Maybe a grad student I can trust not to scream if a wolf sneezes near them.”
Kim snorted. “Those are rare.”
“I also…” Sage hesitated. “Want to…tweak our outreach strategy.”
Kim blinked. “Our…what.”
“Public perception,” Sage said, warming to the subject. “Right now, our message is very ‘wolves are back, they’re fine, don’t worry about it.’ Which is true, but not…sticky. People still tell their own stories. We need to give them better ones.”
Kim’s brows rose. “Better as in…?”
“Involving fewer pitchforks,” Sage said. “More…spooky mystery. Less ‘they’re going to eat your children,’ more ‘isn’t it cool that wild things are still out there.’”
Kim eyed her. “You have…a plan.”
“Flyers,” Sage said. “Social media. Local talks. Partnering with the tourism board to make ‘wolf country’ sound like an adventure, not a threat. If we can control the narrative, we can calm people like Kurt before they show up at your office with ‘evidence’.”
Kim considered.
“Evidence,” she repeated. “Of…what.”
“Wolves,” Sage said. “Big ones. Acting weird.”
Her heartbeat picked up.
Kim’s eyes flicked to me.
“What have you seen out there, Ryan?” she asked casually. “You buy the ghost stories?”
I met her gaze, deliberately letting a fraction of wolf into my eyes. Enough to unsettle. Not enough to be…impossible.
“I’ve seen men get killed by ice because they weren’t paying attention,” I said. “I’ve seen elk tear each other apart over mates. I’ve seen lightning hit a tree twenty feet away. The world doesn’t need ghosts to be scary.”
Kim studied me.
“Good answer,” she said.
Sage exhaled slowly.
“So,” Kim said. “You want permission to…start a rumor campaign.”
“An education campaign,” Sage corrected. “With some…strategic framing.”
Kim sighed, rubbing her temples. “You always bring me the weird projects, Holloway.”
“They work,” Sage said.
“Usually,” Kim admitted. “Fine. Draft me something. Two pages. Budget on the last. No more than a thousand for ‘materials.’ If you can get the tourism board to kick in, even better.”
Sage lit up. “Yes!”
Kim held up a hand. “But. You text me every day you’re in town. Where you are, who you’re with, what you’re doing. You go off the grid again, I send people with badges and guns.”
“I—” Sage started.
“This isn’t just about you,” Kim said, softer. “It’s about my job. My reputation. If something blows up in your valley, it lands on my desk. I need to know you’re not accidentally incubating a cult up there.”
“If I start wearing robes, I’ll let you know,” Sage said.
Kim didn’t smile.
“Something happened to you out there,” she said. “Something you’re not telling me.”
Sage swallowed.
Her eyes flicked, just once, to me.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “It did.”
Kim waited.
“Weather,” Sage said finally. “And…wolves. And…the realization that if I keep sleeping in a tower alone forever, I’m going to die with more field notes than friends.”
The honesty in that last bit stunned me.
Kim’s expression softened.
“You always were a hermit,” she said. “You…doing okay? Really?”
Sage hesitated.
Then she said, “I’m…not alone.”
Kim glanced at me.
“Clearly,” she said.
“Not like that,” Sage blurted.
I stiffened.
Kim’s brows rose. “Didn’t ask, but thanks for sharing.”
Sage flushed. “He’s…helping. With the work. With…other things.”
Kim’s gaze sharpened again. “Other…things.”
“Like…not falling off cliffs,” Sage said quickly. “Like remembering to eat. It’s…good. Different. Scary, but…good.”
Kim studied her.
Then, finally, she sighed.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’m not your mom. I’m your boss. If you say you’ve got this, I’ll believe you. For now.”
“Thank you,” Sage said, voice thick.
“But,” Kim added. “If I smell smoke, I’m coming looking for fire. And if I find you standing in it, I will drag you out by your lab coat.”
“I don’t own a lab coat,” Sage muttered.
“Metaphorically,” Kim said. She straightened. “All right. Go. Do your thing. Download your data. Steal my printer. Try not to start a revolution before lunch.”
“We’ll do our best,” Sage said.
Kim pointed at me. “You break my copier, Morales, I bill you personally.”
“I’ll be gentle,” I said.
She snorted.
As we left the room, Sage’s shoulders dropped an inch.
“You did good,” I murmured.
“She knows I’m lying,” Sage said.
“She knows you’re not telling her everything,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“She deserves better,” Sage said.
“She deserves you alive,” I said. “So do we.”
She looked up at me.
For a moment, the office faded—the buzzing lights, the hum of computers, the scent of burnt coffee.
It was just her.
Me.
And the thread between.
“Come on, Ryan,” she said, voice a little rough. “Field techs don’t brood in hallways. We have data to steal.”
***
Her apartment was…small.
One bedroom, a worn couch, a kitchenette with mismatched mugs shoved into too-small cabinets. Wolf posters taped to the walls with curling edges. A bookshelf sagging under the weight of field guides, old textbooks, and three dog-eared romance novels she tried to hide under a stack of journals.
“Don’t,” she said as I plucked one up. “Those are my…brain candy.”
I read the title aloud. “‘Moonbound Desire.’”
She made a strangled noise. “I got it at the airport. It was a long flight. It’s not representative.”
I flipped it open to a random page.
Read a sentence about “his muscled wolfish frame pinning her against the tree.”
My mouth curved. “Research?”
She lunged and snatched it from my hand. “Shut up.”
I let her.
Because the flush climbing her neck was…worth it.
“Make yourself at home,” she muttered. “Couch. Bathroom’s there. Don’t open the fridge unless you’re prepared to see things that used to be food but no longer qualify.”
I eyed the door she pointed to. “Monsters?”
“Mold,” she said. “Worse.”
She set her laptop on the tiny table and started pulling out external hard drives, cords, notebooks. Her focus snapped into place.
This was her element, too.
Not just snow and towers.
Screens and data.
She moved between them like she’d never left.
I watched.
Not just because I was supposed to keep her safe.
Because I…liked seeing her like this.
Alive.
Sharp.
Bright.
Halfway through a rant about outdated operating systems, she paused.
“Hey, Ryan,” she said without looking up. “You hungry?”
“Always,” I said.
“There’s a Thai place two blocks down,” she said. “I usually get takeout, but we could…eat in. If you want. It’s loud. Crowded. Lots of smells. Good test of your ‘don’t sniff people’ skills.”
“Challenge accepted,” I said.
She smiled.
And for a few hours, we pretended we were just…people.
Two coworkers grabbing curry after a long day at the office.
The restaurant was cramped, lit by hanging lanterns, tables too close together. Conversations overlapped. Dishes clinked. Spices perfumed the air—chili, basil, lemongrass.
My wolf wanted to flatten his ears and back into a corner.
I forced him to sit.
Sage ordered for us—no hesitation, no menu.
“This is my comfort food,” she said. “When grant reviews make me want to set my computer on fire.”
“Do they often?” I asked.
“Every cycle,” she said. “Apparently, rural apex predator projects aren’t as sexy as, like, microbiome studies or machine learning.”
“You’re sexy,” I said, without thinking.
She choked on her water.
I winced. “That came out…”
“Weird,” she wheezed. “Accurate, but weird.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “I meant—your work. Your…brain.”
“You like my brain,” she said, eyes dancing now.
“Yes,” I said firmly. “Very much.”
Her smile softened.
“Thanks,” she said. “I like your…everything.”
Desire punched low in my gut.
I wrapped my fingers around the water glass and tried very hard not to picture her lips around anything else.
A bell jingled.
New patrons.
My hackles rose before my conscious mind caught up.
Scent.
Faint.
Wrong.
*Them.*
I stiffened.
Sage saw my face change.
“What?” she asked, voice low.
“Northridge,” I said under my breath. “Or close enough.”
Her eyes widened.
“Here?” she whispered.
“Not them,” I corrected, nostrils flaring. “But…kin. Same pack. Same blood.”
I turned my head, slow.
In the corner, three young men slid into a booth.
Flannel. Beards. Baseball caps.
They could have been any locals.
Except for the way they moved.
Too graceful.
Too aware.
The way their eyes cut over the room, cataloguing exits, threats, food.
The way their scent curled through the air like smoke.
“Friends of yours?” Sage murmured.
“No,” I said.
One of them looked up.
Our gazes met.
His eyes were ice-blue.
Cassian’s color.
Recognition flared.
Not of me.
Of what I was.
His nostrils flared.
I swallowed a growl.
Sage’s leg brushed mine under the table.
Grounding.
“Act normal,” she murmured. “Whatever that means for you.”
“They’re Cassian’s,” I said. “Scouts. Or…cousins. He sent them to town.”
“To do what?” she asked.
“Watch you,” I said. “Watch us. Learn how far you reach.”
Her pulse picked up.
“Can they…tell?” she whispered. “About you? About me?”
“They know I’m not…like them,” I said. “But pack smells…related. They’ll assume I’m local. Rogue. Or…ally.”
“And me?” she asked.
“Human,” I said. “Alpha-adjacent.”
“Great,” she muttered.
The blue-eyed one nudged his buddy, nodding toward us.
They murmured to each other, too low for human ears.
I caught fragments.
“…him?”
“…doesn’t smell right…”
“…with her…”
“…Alpha…”
I forced my shoulders to stay loose.
“We finish our food,” I said quietly. “We leave. We don’t run. Running looks like guilt.”
“I’m not leaving you alone with them,” she hissed.
“You won’t,” I said. “We walk together. We get in the truck. We drive. They follow, they get lost in the snow. They don’t see where we sleep.”
“You make it sound easy,” she said.
“It’s not,” I said. “But we’ve handled worse.”
She laughed, humorless. “Have we?”
“Yes,” I said. “We faced down Cassian. We faced down Kurt. We can handle three half-trained pups in a noodle shop.”
Her mouth twitched.
“Okay, Alpha Batman,” she said. “Whatever you say.”
We ate.
We left.
They followed.
Of course they did.
I felt their eyes on our backs as we stepped into the freezing night, the heat of the restaurant slamming into cold air like a wall.
Sage’s hand brushed mine.
I caught it.
Held on.
She didn’t pull away.
We walked, shoulder to shoulder, toward her apartment.
Three sets of footsteps crunched behind us.
I smiled.
Let my wolf into it.
“Get ready,” I murmured.
“For what?” she whispered.
“For howling,” I said.
***
*To be continued…*