Chapter 4

The sound of approaching footsteps through the underbrush made my wolf stir uneasily in the pre-dawn darkness. I pressed closer to my mother's fevered form, her labored breathing the only sound in our makeshift shelter. The abandoned cabin's rotting walls offered little protection, but it was all we had left.

Ryan Mitchell emerged from the shadows like a ghost, his Beta aura subdued but unmistakable. In the three years I'd known him, I'd never seen his face so carefully blank, so professionally distant. The man who had once shared pack dinners with us now looked at me like I was…