Chapter 40

Zane POV

I had expected Travis to heed the call, but I didn’t expect half the security detail to come with him. I also greeted some business associates and the wolf tutor, Leon Hayes, whom Sarah had hired for the girls.

I had hoped Ella might join us, but I supposed she was already in Paris.

It was a good night for a hunt. The sky was clear and the stars bright. When I told Travis I didn’t need to see the video, he knew I had taken the rogue wolf’s scent. As we gathered at the entrance to the hedge maze, I filled my lungs with the reek of him.

Mavis was there, I was pleased to see, though she wouldn’t be joining the hunt, of course. She was already gathering up the various piles of clothes and folding them neatly before putting them on a flatbed trailer behind her cart.

I had thought briefly of asking Sarah to see us off, but I didn’t want to take her away from the girls even for just a few minutes. Chloe and Grace had both practically plastered themselves to her side since we got back from the hospital, and Sarah rather obviously didn’t mind.

I had remembered to thank the acolyte and priest before they left, and I had already told my accountant to send a large donation in Grace’s name to the temple. It cleared the way for me to think only of the business now at hand.

I closed my eyes, breathing in deeply and letting my mind go back to that horrible sight of my girl lying on the ground, bleeding. I had thought for a moment she was dead.

I had already removed my clothes, and it was the work of seconds to transform. On all fours, I waited through the moment of orientation, feeling the scent of our prey intensify and settling into my open, panting mouth. I felt my muscles coil and spring, ready to be off, to be on the hunt.

My eyes open, I looked around. We were pack now, alphas and betas and even two gammas whose children were friends of Grace’s. I could never deny them this.

I looked up at the waxing crescent moon, called out to Luna, and then threw my head back in a howl. The others joined in. I saw Mavis back away from us, not wanting to be in the way.

I pawed the ground, howled again, and then set out, the rest of the hunting pack behind me. The rogue’s scent was as plain as a neon sign, taking me to the (now repaired) fence and then out of the grounds over the hill and down to a long stretch of uncut grass.

Had he thought he’d be safe out here, I wondered? Did he think this wouldn’t be his end? Or was he unable to think anymore?

Was this a mercy we were doing now? I found I didn’t care.

In wolf form, I find the world such a simpler place. Nuances and shades of gray all faded out. When a juvenile alpha got a little too close to my right flank, I turned my head to snap at him, and he settled back into the hunting pack and next to his father. It was a simple, pointed exchange.

In human form, I often found myself longing for the purity of the simple meanings of right and wrong, pack and not-pack, prey and hunter that I experienced while in my fur.

Take Sarah, for example. If she were a wolf, I’d have bit and mated her weeks ago. We’d be co-leaders of the pack, raising our children to be future leaders.

But no, she had to be a human, and as such she was a mix of contradictions and mysteries that sometimes made me lose my way. Right now, as I ran before the others, my wolf self knew she was not-pack, and this was pack business.

I tossed my head and growled. I heard the others snarling behind me. We could smell him more strongly. He’d holed up somewhere around the area, but he was on the run now. I’m sure by now he knew he had been targeted.

The air in my lungs tasted sweet, and the ground beneath my paws was soft and seemed to help me spring forward, sprint faster. I picked up notes of honeysuckle, jasmine, and sweet olive. I could tell tomorrow it would rain.

I felt my wolf rejoice and reminded myself to go on night runs more often. I shouldn’t have to need the excuse of executing a rogue to let my wolf free.

There. I could hear his heart beat now. I howled to let him know we were getting closer, and the pack echoed me.

We were in a field now that ran along a road that was always busy, even at night. We passed a weigh station, and some of the truck drivers waiting in line howled to us as we ran by. Others, humans I suppose, honked their air horns.

I felt the growing exhilaration within. Soon, we would see him. My mouth filled with saliva at the thought of tearing off his limbs. It would be my right to eat his heart.

There. I could see him now, a tall, gray wolf who was running fast before us, but not fast enough. In a moment, we would be on him. I reminded myself I had some questions to ask him before I took his life.

He veered abruptly and leaped over the wire fence lining the road. As I watched, he ran directly into the path of a semi, and his body basically exploded against the grille. His heart beat stopped.

I worried for the safety of the driver, but he expertly pulled over and put on his hazards.

Denied our kill, the pack and I trotted over to where he had jumped the fence and watched as the driver got out to inspect the damage. He caught sight of us, over twenty werewolves watching him.

“Don’t blame him, I guess!” hollered the man, who I saw now was human. “I’d rather be roadkill than face you guys too.” He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a phone to wave at us and let us know he’d be calling the police to report the “accident.”

I put my head back and howled. The pack joined in, saluting the night, the driver, even the truck. The rogue was dead, and that was all that mattered.

I turned and led the pack back to the hedge maze. The police would know to contact me.

Why had he run in front of that truck? Was it really just to meet his end quicker, or was he taking some sort of secret to his grave?