Chapter 100

Liam

The first sign was the deer.

Ryan’s patrol found it three days before the full moon, just inside the northern boundary, where the forest thinned toward the old north field. It hadn’t been hunted for food. It had been killed, opened, and left across the trail with its head pointed at Moonhaven, and someone had rubbed rogue scent over every tree within twenty yards.

“It’s a message,” Ryan said, when he brought the photographs to Kade’s office.

Kade didn’t touch them. “Saying what?”

“That they can walk up to our border whenever they like.” Ryan set the phone face down on the desk. “And that they want us to know it.”

The second sign came the next day. Patrols on the western line caught the scent of at least a dozen wolves none of us knew, crossing bac