Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. The Castle Pack members returned to their territory and my encounter with Gabriel became nothing more than a tiny blip on my timeline. Despite this, when the memory crept into my mind, on quiet days or late at night when I couldn't sleep, I again felt an uneasy sensation in my stomach.

It was coming winter now, and although several feet of snow had already fallen in the mountains, the valley was only just beginning to see its first morning frosts. The creeping chill brought with it an unsettled feeling. My instincts felt raw and frayed. I tried to detach myself, but I knew I was feeding off of the pack's energy. Though a good deal of the link was lost on me, when emotions ran high I could feel them all churning together inside of me in one large, indistinguishable mass.

I tried everything to settle myself, to reach inside and pull at the strands and untangle the mess. I couldn't master it, and it seemed like the harder I tried to make sense of the feelings the further away I got.

"How do you do it?" I asked Jack one morning over breakfast. I was feeling particularly charged after unsuccessfully meditating for over an hour.

"Do what?" He asked, mouth full of bacon.

"How do you make sense of...all of this?" I gestured with my hands to the air around me. "I just can't get a fucking grip on it."

"You're looking at a full-blooded wolf, baby." He teased. I glared at him, annoyed, and he winked before taking his plate to the sink and calling over his shoulder: "Eat it up."

Jack's wide grin and gentle ribbing could usually relieve the tension, but I knew that he was feeling it too. Disquieted. There had been a number of closed-door meetings lately, and from what I could glean from Jack's nighttime musings and whispers around the clinic, the Council was overwhelmed. One of the human settlements to the south, which we'd been tracking for years, was beginning to expand and encroach on our shared border with the Castle Pack. I could only imagine how Gabriel wanted to handle the issue, but our Alpha, Dmitri, had never advocated for violence against humans. If there was a peaceful resolution to be had, he would find it.

The Sawtooth Pack was known to be one of the most tolerant in the region, and Dmitri didn't hesitate to follow in his bloodline's footsteps in keeping our relations with humans warm. In fact, there were several settlements that sold or traded us medicine and other supplies for our crops and livestock. But the group to the south had always been an issue. They wanted us out. Gabriel was fiercely protective over the Castle Pack and their territory: I'd heard from one of the other healers that he wanted to wipe out the settlement entirely.

Dmitri and the Council were doing their best to maintain our alliance with the Castle Pack, which was tenuous at best. We needed them: their soldiers were stronger, faster, and fiercer than our own.

Jack was the one to discover the raid on our stores. I was trailing behind him, as usual, hauling a sack of squash he'd harvested the day before. Our supply sheds were near the edge of town, fortified but unguarded. The worst we'd encountered there to date had been a mouse infestation one spring several years before.

Jack and Lowe were pulling a heavy wooden cart, hauling a freshly slaughtered pig to hang in the smokehouse. Jack left Lowe to the cart and went ahead to open the doors. Even from a distance, I could see Jack stiffen.

"What is it?" I called. I let the sack fall off my shoulder onto the ground, out of breath.

"Stay there," he yelled over his shoulder. Like hell. Lowe dropped the cart and moved to stand next to Jack. I left the bag where it had fallen, one squash rolling lazily toward the side of the road, and jogged over.

"What is it? What's—" Jack cut me off. He grabbed my arm before I could look in and began towing me away, back up the street. Lowe split off in a run in the direction of the nearest guard post.

"Someone's been here." Jack said brusquely, moving at a quicker pace than I could maintain. He was usually conscious of my slower pace, but whatever he'd seen had given him tunnel vision. I dug my heels in.

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"They destroyed it, everything's gone." Jack backtracked to where I stood and took both my hands in his. "I want to get you back to the house, Ki. Please? They could still be around."

They weren't, and both of us knew it, but I could tell it had Jack spooked so I let him drag me back to the house.

Jack kept me in the house for nearly a full week, staying close enough to keep an eye on me and make sure I didn't leave. Truthfully, I was grateful for the space from everyone. The air crackled with electric, nervous energy; the entire pack was on edge.

I knew even before I got the call to come down to the clinic that something had gone horribly wrong. The other shoe had dropped; I felt it as surely as I'd felt the weather change from autumn to winter. Jack insisted on driving me the short distance, but I was still too late.

I nearly slipped in a puddle of blood on the floor as I walked into the waiting room. I could taste it in my mouth, the sharp metallic smell hanging heavily in the space. I found one of the newer nurses, Christa, slumped in a waiting room chair, holding her head in her hands. I knelt in front of her.

"What happened?" She didn't respond at first, so I shook her gently. "Christa," I said sharply. She looked up at me, pale, and shook her head.

"We couldn't help him," she choked. I left her there and followed the trail of blood back to our operating bay. I tried to calm my breathing and slow my heartrate, but I was afraid of what I might find.

There was a large body on the table, covered by a sheet stained a deep crimson. It was still wet. Shiva and Rosalind stood beside it, along with two guards who I recognized as belonging to Castle Pack. They had been on the truck when Gabriel came in, almost a year ago now. My stomach clenched. I looked between them and the body on the table, wide-eyed. The tension I'd felt now pulsed around me, as though the air had grown into a living, breathing thing.

"Who..." I started but trailed off, unable to finish my question. If it was Gabriel's body on that table, I wasn't sure that I wanted to know.

"We need to report this," one of the men said quietly. Angrily.

"Keep the body cold." The other snapped at no one in particular. "We'll be back for it."