The Pup
Our howl had split the quiet above the riverbank. The pack answered—conversations dying, voices rising from the trail and the canopy above us—one howl turned into a chorus.
Toby was still in Zac’s arms, small gray paws braced against Zac’s chest. The sweet scent of melon and river mint still clung to his fur, made sickening by the dark, metallic odor of blood at his ear.
Go, I told Zac.
He took one step toward the water. “Must find her.”
Should’ve claimed her. I said, but he ignored me.
Toby dug his claws into our shirt. Body trembling, his heart battered against our hands. He squirmed, twisting away from the stream so sharply he almost fell.
Zac caught him. “I’ve got you.”
The pup came back alone. Whatever happened on that path, he had been brave enough to run for us. I wanted to follow his trail backward and tear into what frightened him. I also wanted him off the bank, out of reach of whatever had taken Lily.
I shook against his ribs. Home first.
“No time.”
Look at him.
Toby’s cut still bled, but he kept his eyes on the bend in the path, growling whenever leaves moved there. He couldn’t tell us what he had seen in this body, and Zac would not ask him to shift while he was terrified.
Zac wanted to argue, but Eli broke through the trees, followed by Cal and two other pack wolves. Eli’s gaze took in the blood, the green strip of Lily’s jacket, and the empty path.
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know,” Zac said, his voice hard enough to make Eli straighten. “Someone take Toby to the house. Two guards at every approach. No one walks alone, especially the children. Cal, close the river trail. Keep everyone in sight until we know what happened.”
Cal reached for his radio. Eli reached for Toby.
The pup snapped at his hand.
Eli stepped back at once. “Sorry, little man.”
Zac tightened his hold. “I’ll take him.”
Every part of us pulled toward the stream, and Zac could feel it too. I had never been so angry with him or so grateful—he had said the right thing without making me fight for it.
Mason appeared from the picnic ground, a rescue line still looped over one shoulder. He stopped dead when he saw Toby.
“Lily?” he asked.
“We’re looking for her.”
Mason glanced toward the river. “I’m coming.”
“You know the lower path,” Zac said. “Show Cal every place she might have taken Toby. Then stay with him.”
“I can do more than show a path.”
“I know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
Mason went with Cal, keeping his questions to himself until they were out of Toby’s hearing.
Zac turned toward the house. Pack members fell into place without waiting to be told. Someone ran ahead to clear the route, while another stayed behind with Eli. Fear moved among them, but they moved with purpose now. I knew these wolves. Some had been pups when Zac first took the Alpha’s place. Some had helped us through the months after Mara died, when Toby needed everyone and Zac struggled to speak to anyone.
They had come when we called. We would get them home safely, too.
Toby shifted in Zac’s arms halfway up the path, gray fur drawing back until a small boy clung to our neck. He wore no shoes. Mud streaked his legs. The cut on his ear remained—a thin red line against his skin.
“Lily,” he whispered.
“We’re going to find her.”
He pointed behind us. “Bad.”
“I know.”
“Lily said run.”
Zac stopped so abruptly the wolves behind us nearly collided with him.
I pressed against his ribs. Let him finish if he can.
Toby buried his face in Zac’s shoulder. “Run to Dad.”
“She told you to come to me?”
A small nod.
Lily had stayed behind to give him a chance. I knew what that choice had cost her. I also knew the sound of her voice in Toby’s memory would stay with him long after tonight.
She wanted him safe. Do that for her.
Zac started walking again. He carried Toby into the house and straight into the kitchen, where his mother was already waiting with the first-aid box. Her face transformed when she saw the child—then shifted again when she realized Lily was not with us.
“His ear,” Zac said.
She checked it while Toby sat on Zac’s lap. The cut was shallow. She cleaned it, bandaged it, and let him keep the wooden leopard she had fetched from his room. Toby held the toy so tightly its painted head pressed into his palm.
Zac gave his mother the short version: Lily missing. Unknown threat. Pack searching. The cold-stone scent. She asked where Toby had been found and whether anyone knew what had taken them. He answered what he could. She did not demand a promise that Lily would be home by morning.
“I’ll stay with him,” she said.
Toby caught our hand. “Dad stay.”
Zac’s mother looked away. She knew better than to decide for him.
I had wanted to leave the moment Toby crossed the threshold. My paws ached for the path. But Toby had seen Lily taken, and now he had to watch his father walk back out into the dark after her.
Zac knelt in front of him. “Eli and the others are here. Grandma is here. I’m going to find Lily.”
“Bad there.”
“Yes.”
Toby shoved the leopard toward him. Zac took it, startled.
“For Lily,” Toby said.
For a moment, he held the toy as if he might put it in his pocket and go straight back to the river. Mara had chosen it for Toby. She would have known how to make him feel safe without pretending the night was safe. I missed her with a force that nearly pulled me out of the present. Zac felt it, too, and put his forehead against Toby’s.
“Lily helped you get away,” he said.
Toby nodded.
“She did the right thing. You did, too.”
His small fingers opened against Zac’s cheek. “Lily scared.”
“I know.”
I needed to hear him say it aloud. Toby had seen her frightened. We could not make her brave by pretending she had not been. She had still sent him to his father and stayed behind. I carried that with me when I followed her trail.
My chest hurt. Zac’s hand closed around the toy.
“I’ll bring it back to her.”
I could not tell whether Toby believed him. He climbed onto his grandmother’s lap and held his bandaged ear away from her shoulder.
Outside, Cal reported every family accounted for. The house had guards; no strange scent had crossed its perimeter. Eli was waiting by the lower trail with a change of clothes and news from Mason.
Zac left the leopard with his mother; he would lose it if we shifted. Toby objected until she promised to keep it beside the door for Lily.
Then we went outside.
His mother followed us to the porch. She had pulled on Mara’s old coat—the one with the torn pocket Mara kept promising to mend. For one confused instant, I expected Mara to come through the door behind her. Memory could do that when I was already afraid.
“I’ll call if Toby remembers anything,” his mother said. “Don’t press him tonight. Let him sleep.”
“We won’t.”
She touched Zac’s shoulder. “Bring her home.”
He nodded. I wanted to promise her we would, but the words stayed where they belonged. We had a trail to work, not certainty to hand out.
I stayed still while the guards changed positions around the house. One walked the treeline; another took the path to the road. Neither left a blind approach. Zac had set those patterns after the bear came near Toby, and he checked them even now. He would follow Lily knowing someone else held the perimeter. I could ask for nothing better from my pack.
In the yard, Zac stripped off his shirt. His hands shook once as he passed it to Cal.
Let me lead.
“I know how to track.”
So do I. I can find more on four paws.
He gave me the body without another argument.
The world widened. Damp ground beneath my pads. Blood at the edge of Toby’s bandage. Smoke from the cooking fires drifting off the picnic ground. Lily everywhere she had been that afternoon—warm and alive in the grass where she had sat, stronger along the path where she had walked away.
Zac was inside now. I felt his fear as a second heartbeat.
Stay with me, I told him.
“I’m here.”
I ran.
