The Alpha Under the Northern lights Book 4 The Wild Crown Legacy Series

The Alpha Under the Northern Lights - Book 4 of the Wild Crown Legacy Series

Chapter One

The Road North

Stimy’s scent disappeared eleven miles into Alaska.

One moment Torrent had it.

Silver-gray wolf. Old pine. Wild earth. The unmistakable trace we’d found tied beneath the border marker less than an hour after Stimy left it.

The next moment—

nothing.

Torrent surged forward inside me.

Gone.

I eased my foot off the accelerator.

Victoria looked up from the battered copy of the 1908 logbook spread across her lap.

“What?”

“Torrent lost him.”

Her head came around.

“Lost Stimy?”

“His scent.”

Delta rose immediately behind her eyes.

Victoria lowered the window.

Cold air poured into the cab carrying spruce, gravel dust, glacier water, and miles upon miles of wilderness.

Delta searched.

Then went still.

Nothing.

Victoria frowned.

“Delta can’t find him either.”

That got my attention.

Behind us, the rest of the expedition followed in a staggered line along the rough Alaskan road.

We had crossed the border before sunrise carrying an ancient Wayfinder stone, coordinates recovered from a century-old logbook, enough supplies to disappear into the interior for weeks, and the absolute certainty that Stimy had passed this way less than an hour before us.

We also knew where the stolen Vance painting was supposed to be.

For the first time in weeks, we’d entered new territory believing we actually knew where we were going.

Apparently Stimy had decided we’d been getting overconfident.

I lifted the radio.

“Owen.”

Static answered.

Then,

“Go.”

“Torrent lost the trail.”

A pause.

Long enough to tell me Owen was checking.

“I’m not getting it either.”

Jake came over the channel.

“Tell me the ancient mystery wolf did not just vanish.”

Naomi answered from somewhere beside him.

“Wolves do not vanish.”

“Thank you, Naomi. That’s enormously reassuring.”

Victoria’s mouth twitched.

“Stimy doesn’t vanish.”

I glanced at her.

“He disappears.”

“There’s a difference.”

“I’m sure he’ll be pleased you appreciate the distinction.”

Torrent wasn’t amused.

Neither was Delta.

Victoria had stopped listening to the radio.

She was staring into the forest.

I followed her gaze.

That was when the silence reached me.

We’d noticed it at the border the night before, standing beneath the aurora while green and violet light moved across the mountains.

That silence had felt enormous.

Majestic.

The kind of silence that reminded a man the world existed perfectly well without him.

This was different.

This silence felt occupied.

No traffic.

No aircraft.

No voices.

No ferry horns or harbor cranes or diesel engines from the world I’d left behind.

Even the birds seemed farther away.

Torrent stopped searching for Stimy.

His attention shifted.

Wolf.

My hands tightened on the wheel.

Stimy?

No.

Another scent crossed the road.

Then another.

Torrent counted before I could.

Three.

A beat.

Four.

Victoria turned slowly toward me.

“Delta smells them too.”

“Following us?”

She looked into the endless spruce.

“No.”

That should have made me feel better.

It didn’t.

“Then what are they doing?”

Delta answered through Victoria.

Watching.

I looked in the rearview mirror at the expedition following us deeper into Alaska.

Somewhere behind those trees, wolves we had never met were allowing us to pass.

Ahead of us waited Stimy.

The stolen Vance painting.

The coordinates in the 1908 logbook.

And whatever the Wayfinders had believed important enough to hide this far north.

Then the trees opened.

The Wrangell Mountains rose in front of us.

Torrent went utterly silent.

For several seconds, so did I.

White peaks climbed behind dark ridges, one after another, filling so much of the horizon that my eyes couldn’t find anywhere to rest. Glaciers caught the morning light between them. Forest ran toward their bases in endless green, and somewhere far below the road, a river flashed silver through the valley.

They didn’t look like mountains waiting to be conquered.

They looked like mountains that had never noticed we existed.

Torrent stared through my eyes.

Big.

I waited.

That couldn’t possibly be his entire contribution.

Very big.

Despite everything, I laughed.

Victoria glanced at me.

“What?”

“Torrent has discovered humility.”

Delta’s amusement warmed the bond.

Good.

Torrent growled.

But he kept staring at the mountains.

I understood.

For most of my life, power had been something measurable.

Ships.

Money.

Territory.

Pack.

Influence.

Strength.

Who controlled the harbor.

Who controlled the road.

Who could protect the people depending on them.

The Wrangells didn’t care about any of it.

They had been here before the first Vance put his name on the side of a ship.

They would be here after every company I’d built was gone.

Maybe we’d made a mistake thinking we had come north to find something powerful.

Maybe we’d come north because something had finally decided to remind us how small we were.

Victoria touched my arm.

“You went quiet.”

“So did Torrent.”

“That worries me more.”

I looked at her.

She smiled.

There were shadows beneath her eyes.

We were all tired.

The newly sealed mate bond between us didn’t change that. If anything, it made hiding exhaustion from Victoria considerably harder.

“You’re doing it again,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Pretending you’re not tired.”

“I am not pretending.”

She gave me a look.

Torrent offered absolutely no support.

Liar.

I tightened my hands on the steering wheel.

“Traitor.”

Victoria smiled without asking who I was talking to.

Delta answered anyway.

He is tired.

“Thank you, Delta.”

“You are both remarkably disloyal.”

Victoria leaned back against the seat, the old logbook still open across her lap.

“Your pack has been traveling for days. Naomi has reorganized the supply manifests three times. Jake drank gas-station coffee voluntarily. Owen hasn’t slept more than four hours at a stretch because Leo keeps waking up to look for the northern lights. I think we’re all allowed to be tired.”

I checked the rearview mirror.

Jake was driving the second truck. Naomi sat beside him with a tablet balanced on one knee, still working because apparently exhaustion had no authority over logistics.

Behind them, Owen had Leo tucked against one side of the backseat while Truly occupied the other, Sparkle the unicorn wedged between them like a very small, extremely committed expedition member.

The third vehicle carried Cole, Maeve, and Flora.

Every few miles, I caught a glimpse of Maeve staring out the window rather than at her notes.

That alone told me how different this place was.

Maeve usually studied everything.

Here, sometimes, she simply looked.

The radio crackled.

Jake’s voice came through.

“Alpha, either Alaska is intentionally trying to make me feel insignificant or Naomi changed the route again.”

Naomi’s voice followed immediately in the background.

“I did not change the route.”

“You changed the scale.”

“That is not how maps work, Jake.”

“It absolutely feels like how maps work.”

Victoria laughed softly.

I pressed the transmit button.

“Stay on me.”

“Copy that.”

A pause.

Then Jake again.

“Do we have any idea whether this road improves?”

Naomi answered before I could.

“No.”

“Wonderful.”

The radio clicked off.

For another hour, we followed the gravel road deeper into the interior.

The farther we traveled, the more completely civilization seemed to erase itself behind us.

The roads stopped pretending to belong to anyone.

The mountains remained.

The rivers remained.

The forests remained.

And the wolves remained too.

Not close enough for me to see.

Close enough for Torrent to know.

Every now and then his attention shifted toward the trees.

He didn’t challenge.

Neither did they.

That interested me.

A hostile pack would have made itself known.

A territorial Alpha would have stopped us.

These wolves were doing neither.

They were watching.

Measuring.

Waiting.

I wasn’t sure which bothered me more.

Victoria turned another fragile page of the logbook.

“We should be getting close.”

“To what?”

“The first interior coordinate.”

I glanced down briefly.

“You said that forty minutes ago.”

“I said we were approaching the coordinate range.”

“That sounds suspiciously like something Naomi would say.”

“Don’t insult me.”

Delta laughed.

Torrent did too.

I was surrounded by traitors.

Victoria ran one finger beneath a faded handwritten entry.

“Flora’s reconstruction was right. The coordinates repeat three times in the margin.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Helpful.”

“I’m an antiquities dealer, not a dead man’s conscience.”

“You’ve been remarkably good at both.”

She looked at me.

For a second, the mystery disappeared.

The mountains disappeared.

Everything except her.

Then Delta stirred.

Torrent answered.

The bond between them had become easier since Salish.

Quieter.

Not less powerful.

More certain.

Victoria’s expression softened.

Then Naomi’s voice came over the radio.

“Mateo.”

I reached for the mic.

“Go.”

“We’re coming up on the first coordinate.”

Victoria straightened.

“How close?”

“Four-tenths of a mile. There should be some kind of historical survey pullout on the right.”

Jake’s voice followed.

“So naturally, we’re stopping.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t even ask.”

“You were going to.”

“I dislike how predictable I’ve become.”

I slowed the truck.

Victoria closed the logbook carefully.

The turnout appeared almost without warning.

Little more than a widened patch of gravel beside the road.

An old timber post leaned at an angle near the tree line, half swallowed by brush and decades of weather.

I pulled off.

The other trucks followed.

The moment I opened my door, Torrent lifted his head.

Closer.

I didn’t need to ask what he meant.

The watching wolves had moved in.

Or we had moved farther into their territory.

Possibly both.

Cole stepped out of the third truck and looked toward the trees.

“Still there?”

“Yes.”

“Ridge says the same.”

Jake joined us.

“Threat?”

“Not yet.”

“Comforting.”

“They’ve had plenty of opportunities.”

“That is somehow less comforting.”

Naomi was already checking the coordinates.

“This is it.”

Victoria came around the front of the truck carrying the logbook.

“The exact coordinate?”

“Within the margin of error from Flora’s reconstruction.”

Flora joined us.

“I resent the phrase margin of error.”

Naomi looked at her.

“There is always a margin of error.”

“Not when I spend six hours reconstructing a century-old coordinate system.”

Jake glanced between them.

“I’m going to stand over here where it’s safer.”

Maeve laughed.

For one brief second, we sounded normal.

Then Victoria saw the post.

She stopped.

“Mateo.”

I followed her.

The timber had weathered nearly silver, split along one side and worn smooth where generations of snow and wind had struck it.

At first, I saw nothing unusual.

Then Victoria brushed away a strip of moss.

Carved into the wood was a familiar pattern.

My pulse changed.

“That’s ours.”

“No.”

I looked at her.

“That is absolutely the same motif.”

“It isn’t.”

“Looks pretty damn similar.”

“No.”

She touched the upper lines carefully.

“The water is gone.”

Maeve moved closer.

Flora stopped checking the coordinates.

Even Naomi lowered her tablet.

Victoria traced the carving.

In Salish, those curves had meant waves.

Water.

Movement.

Here, the familiar lines rose instead of flowing sideways.

Sharp angles.

Peaks.

Ridges.

Victoria’s expression changed.

Not excitement.

Something deeper.

Recognition.

“Mateo.”

I leaned closer.

She pointed.

“Those are mountains.”

The words settled into the silence.

Maeve crouched beside the post.

“The lower marks are still branches.”

Victoria nodded.

“Trees. Land.”

“But no water,” Flora said.

“No.”

Victoria stepped back.

For several seconds, she simply stared.

Then she whispered,

“The language changed.”

Naomi studied the carving.

“Or adapted.”

Victoria looked at her.

Naomi gestured toward the mountains.

“If this really is a language, why would the same symbol look identical everywhere?”

Victoria’s eyes sharpened.

“It wouldn’t.”

She opened the 1908 logbook.

Pages fluttered beneath her fingers.

“Wait.”

She turned backward.

Then forward again.

“What?” I asked.

“The margin marks.”

She held the book beside the carving.

What I had taken for meaningless scratches beside the coordinates suddenly looked very different.

Victoria traced one.

Then the symbol on the post.

Her breathing changed.

“They’re the same.”

Flora moved beside her.

“You’re sure?”

“No.”

Victoria smiled faintly.

“But I’m getting there.”

Torrent shifted inside me.

His attention wasn’t on the carving.

Here.

I went still.

What?

Old wolf.

My head snapped toward the trees.

Then I smelled it.

Silver-gray fur.

Pine.

Wild earth.

Stimy.

Fresh.

Victoria saw my expression.

“What?”

“He was here.”

Everyone stopped moving.

Owen came toward us.

“How fresh?”

I walked around the marker.

There.

Caught beneath a narrow split in the timber was a tiny tuft of silver-gray fur.

Not tied this time.

Pressed into the crack.

Deliberate.

Owen crouched beside it.

He didn’t touch.

His expression told me what I needed to know before he spoke.

“Recent.”

“How recent?”

“Hard to say out here.”

I looked at the fur.

Victoria folded her arms.

“He’s doing this on purpose.”

“Of course he is.”

Jake exhaled.

“I would like to officially request that our next ancient guide use text messaging.”

Naomi looked at him.

“No signal.”

“Then carrier pigeon.”

Flora pointed toward the forest.

“You want to introduce pigeons into this?”

“Fine. Very motivated raven.”

Victoria laughed.

Even I almost did.

Then Leo spoke behind me.

“I think somebody’s there.”

Every adult in the turnout went still.

Owen turned immediately.

Leo stood beside Truly, who had Sparkle tucked securely under one arm.

“Where?” Owen asked.

Leo pointed toward the trees.

“There.”

I followed his finger.

Nothing moved.

No wolf.

No person.

No branch.

But Torrent was fully alert.

So was Ridge.

Delta pressed forward behind Victoria’s eyes.

This scent was different from Stimy’s.

Smoke.

Pine.

Human.

Wolf.

One of the watchers.

Closer than before.

I stepped slightly in front of Victoria without thinking.

Her fingers closed around my forearm.

“Mateo.”

“I know.”

The wind shifted.

For one brief second, I caught him clearly.

Male.

Wolf.

Unknown.

Watching.

Not hiding badly.

Hiding deliberately.

Whoever was in those trees had followed us for miles.

Maybe from the moment we crossed.

And he knew exactly where this marker stood.

I looked back at the carving.

Mountains instead of waves.

The same marks inside the 1908 logbook.

Stimy’s fresh scent.

The watching wolves.

None of this was accidental.

The Wayfinder trail hadn’t ended at the Alaskan border.

It had changed.

And someone here already knew how to read it.

Several hundred yards uphill, hidden behind a screen of black spruce, a man lowered a pair of binoculars.

Beside him, a massive gray-brown wolf stood completely silent.

The man pulled a satellite radio from his coat.

“Silas.”

Static answered.

Then a deep voice.

“Go.”

The scout kept his eyes on our trucks.

“They found the first marker.”

Silence.

“They read it?” Silas asked.

The scout watched Victoria hold the old logbook beside the carved mountains.

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“They found the gray fur too.”

This silence lasted longer.

“Stimy?” the scout asked.

The radio crackled.

Silas didn’t answer the question.

“Bring everyone back to the lodge.”

The scout frowned.

“All of us?”

“All of you.”

Silas’s voice hardened.

“And don’t approach them.”

The scout looked down toward the road.

“Why?”

Silence hummed through the radio.

Then Silas Frost answered.

“Because if Mateo Vance crossed the border carrying that stone and followed the first mark without help, he’s not lost.”

The scout waited.

Static crackled.

Then Silas added,

“He’s early.”