Rage and admiration war in my chest as I track our mate through the moonlit forest. Even without seeing her, I have to appreciate her tactical mind. She’s played us perfectly—using the celebration as cover, projecting false emotions through the bonds, even anticipating our backup plans.

But now she’s made a crucial mistake. Now she’s in my domain.

The hunt.

“Spread out!” I command the search parties. “She’s heading west, not east like we expected. Teams of four, standard search pattern.”

There’s a flurry of movement as wolves break off into pairs, fanning out through the trees. Hunters—trained from birth to track and capture. Trained to search and hunt. Trained to defend and protect.

Trained to conquer.

Images flicker through my mind. Chase her. Chase her until she cannot run any longer. Chase her until she has no choice but to submit.

Through our bonds, I feel my brothers’ different approaches to the chase. Alaric’s cold fury manifests in precise, strategic movements as he coordinates our forces. Lucas’s playful nature has given way to something darker, more predatory as he ghosts through the trees parallel to my position. Our wolves rage at the threat to our mate. At her audacity. At her intelligence.

At her continued attempts to flee our bond.

But finding her is proving maddeningly difficult. Whatever this silver power is, it makes her nearly impossible to track. No scent. No footprints. Even the bonds feel muted, giving us only the vaguest sense of direction.

“She’s toying with us,” Lucas comments through our private link. His mental voice holds a mix of frustration and reluctant respect. “These tracks leading east? Deliberate misdirection.”

“Obviously,” Alaric replies tersely. “She’s buying time. The question is, for what?”

I study the forest floor, noting the subtle signs most wolves would miss. A bent blade of grass here. A displaced leaf there. “She’s doubling back on herself. Making us waste time checking false trails while she—” I break off as realization hits. “She’s leading us in circles.”

“What?” Alaric’s mental voice sharpens. “Why would she...?”

“Look at the search pattern.” I quickly sketch a map in my mind, sharing it through our link. “Every false trail, every misdirection—she’s keeping us contained in this area. Why?”

“Because there’s something nearby she doesn’t want us to find,” Lucas concludes. “Clever little wolf.”

A howl from the eastern perimeter interrupts our discussion. One of our patrols has picked up her trail—a fresh one this time. This is no longer a feint; our mate is doubling back to somewhere east of our border.

I sprint toward the sound, my massive wolf form eating up the distance. Through the trees, I catch flashes of my brothers’ shadows—Alaric’s sleek black wolf and Lucas’s slightly smaller but faster form.

The patrol leader, Liam, meets us at the edge of a small clearing. “She passed through here less than five minutes ago, my Kings. But... something’s wrong with the trail.”

I shift back to human form, kneeling to examine the signs she’s found. Broken twigs, disturbed earth, even a few strands of dark red hair caught on a branch. All too obvious. All too...

I tense. “They’re fake,” I growl, standing. “She’s laid another false trail. She wouldn’t be this careless. Which way did she really go?”

“Unless she wanted us to think exactly that,” Lucas muses. “What if the obvious trail is real, precisely because we’d assume it’s fake?”

Alaric’s laugh holds no humor. “Double bluff. She’s counting on us outsmarting ourselves.”

“Split up,” I order. “Lucas, take the obvious trail. Alaric, circle west to cut off her escape route. I’ll—”

A sudden flash of emotion bursts through our mate bonds—triumph mixed with fierce joy. For just a moment, we feel Lara’s true presence, bright and wild and free.

Then she goes silent. Blank. A blank space where her aura should be, too small to mark on our maps.

“Did she just...” Lucas trails off, disbelief coloring his voice.

My stomach clenches, but the scent of flowers makes me realize what she’s done. Silver power, it seems, is the only thing capable of masking her existence from the bonds. A tool she’s been carefully testing and sharpening these past weeks.

“She’s testing the limits of her power,” Alaric says grimly. “Learning how to control what we feel through the bonds.”

I slam my fist into a nearby tree, bark splintering under the impact. “She’s playing with us.”

“No.” Alaric’s eyes narrow. “She’s learning our responses. Every time she lets us feel her, we react. She’s cataloging those reactions, using them to predict our movements.”

“She’s hunting us,” Lucas says with something like admiration. “Even as we hunt her.”

Another flicker through the bonds—this time determination tinged with satisfaction. Southwest of our position, about two miles out. As I watch, the map spreads in my mind’s eye, the forest overlain with her path.

I shift back to wolf form, muscles bunching as I prepare to sprint in that direction. But Alaric’s command stops me.

“Wait.” His mental voice holds the weight of centuries of strategic experience. “That’s too obvious. When has she ever given us her true location?”

“So we ignore it?” Lucas asks.

“No. We use it.” Alaric quickly outlines his plan through our link. “Kian, take half the hunters and follow that trail. Make it obvious. Lucas, you and I will circle around to—”

A howl splits the night—not one of ours. A stranger’s howl, carrying warning and challenge.

Through the bonds, we feel Lara’s flash of surprise and fear before she masks herself again.

“Border patrol,” I snarl. “She’s led us right to the edge of our territory.”

Our blood hums in unison as the same conclusion sears through our minds. She was willing to let us find her, our clever little mate. But only because she thought she was safe this close to our border.

“And straight into a rival pack’s hunting grounds,” Lucas adds. “Brilliant. Now we have to split our forces between finding her and defending our borders.”

Alaric’s growl holds deadly promise. “Signal the warriors. Full defensive formation. No one enters our territory without our express permission.”

“And Lara?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Is about to learn why challenging the Alpha Kings was a terrible mistake.” Alaric’s eyes gleam silver in the darkness. “Find her. Whatever it takes.”

We split up, each taking a different section of the border. Through the bonds, I feel Lara’s presence flickering in and out like a candle in the wind. Sometimes northeast, sometimes southwest, sometimes seemingly everywhere at once.

Not as careful anymore. Lost in the chase and relying too heavily on her new powers. She’s spent so much time figuring out how to hide, she’s forgotten how much we know about her too.

By the third flash of presence, I can estimate her rough position. Another mile north, where the canyon caves spread through the mountain.

“She’s getting tired,” Lucas observes after an hour of fruitless searching. “The power drain is affecting her control.”

He’s right. Each time her mask slips, we feel more of her exhaustion. The silver power might make her harder to track, but maintaining it is clearly taking its toll.

Just before moonset, we finally pick up her real trail. The scent is faint but distinctive—sunshine and steel, mixed with fatigue and determination.

“She’s hurt,” I realize, noting the slight copper tang of blood in her scent. “Must’ve caught herself on something in the dark.”

“Good,” Alaric says coldly. “It’ll slow her down.”

We converge on her location, moving with the silent precision of apex predators. This time, there’ll be no escape. No clever tricks. No—

A branch snaps to our left. Then another to our right. Similar sounds echo from multiple directions, too perfectly timed to be natural.

Dread curls in my stomach. There’s no wind tonight, nothing to dislodge so many branches at once.

“She’s rigged the forest,” Lucas says with reluctant admiration. “Set up noise traps to confuse our tracking.”

I grind my teeth in frustration. “How long has she been planning this?”

“Since the moment we marked her,” Alaric replies grimly. “Every morning walk, every casual exploration of the grounds—she was preparing for this.”

Dawn is approaching. Soon the advantage of darkness will be gone, and she’ll be even harder to track in the chaos of daily pack life. How far would she make it if given the chance? If the other packs don’t kill her on sight, the sheer wildness of the lands between is enough to overpower even the strongest.

“We need to end this,” I growl. “Now.”

Alaric is quiet for a moment, then says, “She wants us angry. Wants us charging blindly after false trails and random sounds. So we do the opposite.” His mental voice hardens. “Fall back. All forces, return to the castle.”

“What?” I spin to face him. “We can’t just let her go!”

“We’re not.” A cruel smile curves his lips. “We’re giving her exactly what she wants—a clear path to escape. And when she takes it...”

Understanding dawns. “She’ll think she’s won. Let her guard down.”

“And that’s when we’ll show her exactly what it means to run from her mates,” Lucas finishes, his usual playful tone gone entirely.

I shift back to human form, staring into the lightening forest where our mate has so cleverly eluded us. “She’s going to hate us for this.”

“She already hates us,” Alaric replies calmly. “But she’ll learn to love us eventually. After we teach her the consequences of her defiance.”

As we head back to the castle, I catch one last flicker of emotion through the bonds—Lara’s bone-deep exhaustion warring with fierce determination.

Run while you can, little Alpha. We’ll find you.