Grace of a Wolf by Lenaleia

Chapter 47: Caine: Knock Like a Normal Person

The campground entrance is easy to miss, hidden in the darkness without any streetlights to mark it. Thankfully, many of the campers parked here have LED lighting strips along their rigs, and I slow before I miss the turn.

"Where?" I demand.

Thom closes his eyes, concentrating. "Keep going. She’ll be on our left. I’ll know when we get closer."

I drive deeper into the campground, wheels crunching on gravel. Rolling my window down seems like a mistake at first. The place reeks of humans—their food, their waste, their cheap alcohol. But beneath it all, I catch hints of her scent, growing stronger.

"That interference," Thom mumbles, seemingly to himself. "It’s stronger here. Almost like..."

"Like what?" I snap.

"Like something’s deliberately masking her." He opens his eyes, pupils dilated. "Something old."

Jack-Eye opens his own window, shoving his head outside to breathe in deep. "There’s a shifter... Blue Mountain."

I can smell him, too.

"There." Thom points to a large RV. The lot next to it isn’t empty, but only holds a blue sedan and a tent. "She’s there."

I park the car on the opposite side of the road and kill the engine, and Jack-Eye slides out of the car with languid ease. "I’ll deal with the traitor."

I grunt at them both, reaching for Grace’s pillow with fingers that itch to crush something. One brief caress over the soft fabric. One deep breath of her scent—blueberry muffins, mixed with fabric softener.

My chest loosens as the pillow’s scent cuts through the noise in my head.

"Stay here," I tell Thom without looking at him.

warlock slumps in relief. "Yes, Your

car door, I step out into the night, vaguely irritated by the humid heat despite the sun having

system, and her scent grows stronger. She’s close. My muscles

form condensing into something more mundane—at first glance he appears to be a large black dog rather than a monstrous wolf. Even his ethereal blue glow has dimmed to almost nothing,

says as he pads beside me. She’s already frightened

I mutter through clenched

Your face

trying to reshape stone. If I approach her with

she’s safe. I didn’t kill the Forest Springs Alpha. Or her boyfriend. I wanted to, but I didn’t; I even held Fenris back. This should be enough to prove she

in time for the crunch of gravel to

his scent far too familiar.

carrying through the

deliberate; he’s not stupid. He’s

Jack-Eye first, but then his eyes land on me. His

approaches with his head slightly bowed,

he murmurs,

suppress the snarl building in my throat. His scent is all over the area and around the camper—all over Grace’s space.

when she walked into my suite, and I take a deep

violence

to repay this

him back to Blue Mountain," I tell Jack-Eye, not wanting to linger. Not

"Got it, boss."

and Jack-Eye, weighing his options. Smart enough to know there aren’t many. "Alpha Wilder asked

yet you’re not

the air with the sour smell of fear. "She... she decided to come with someone else. A stranger. I couldn’t