Planted

You sleep maybe three hours.

The rest of the night you spend staring at the ceiling with your phone face-down on your chest, replaying the conversation with Kael line by line. What he said. What he didn't. The way five years of silence could fit inside a few short messages and still leave room for everything else.

At six-thirty you give up, pull on boots and the gray Council coat, and walk out onto the porch.

Ansel Marrick is leaning against a pickup in your driveway, holding two coffees.

"Black, two sugars," he says, holding one out. "Unless that changed too."

You look at the cup. You look at him.

"It didn't change," you say, and take it.

The river border is twenty minutes north on a logging road that tries to shake your teeth out. Ansel drives with one wrist on the wheel and doesn't turn the radio on. That's how you know he's nervous. Ansel always used to sing.

"You look different," he says finally.

"Silver hair'll do that."

"Not the hair." He glances at you. "You walk like you own the ground."

"I don't own anything here, Ansel."

He's quiet for a mile. Then he pulls the truck onto the shoulder, kills the engine, and turns to face you.

"I should have said something," he says. "That night. Up on the rock, and after. I've thought about it every day for five years and I'm not asking you to forgive me, I just need you to know I know."

You remember him by your mother's truck, his face wrecked, moving out of your way.

"You were the Beta," you say. "He was your Alpha. You had a choice and you made it."

"I made the wrong one."

"Probably." You open your door. "Show me where they died."

The river runs fast and green here, wide as a highway, and on the far bank the trees are thinner, more managed. Ashcrest land. You can see the glint of glass through the pines where their main house sits on the ridge.

Ansel walks you to three spots marked with cairns of stones. The pack put them there. Someone has tucked wildflowers between the rocks of the last one.

"Ben Halloran," Ansel says. "Forty-one. He coached the kids' swim team."

You crouch. You close your eyes.

This is the part of the job nobody at the Council could teach you. Your wolf rises and you let her, just a little, until your senses sharpen past human: wet stone, crushed fern, deer, rot, the faint chemical bite of old blood soaked into the dirt. And over all of it, loud as a shout, the sharp, citrus-and-smoke scent of Ashcrest wolves.

Too loud.

You open your eyes. "When did they find Ben?"

"Eight days ago."

"And it's rained since?"

"Twice. Hard."

You touch the ground beside the cairn. The Ashcrest scent clings there like perfume sprayed on a pillow.

"It should have washed out," you say. "Real scent fades. This is fresh. Somebody came back after the rain and laid it down again. Somebody wanted it found."

Ansel's freckles stand out as the color drains out of his face. "You're saying it wasn't Ashcrest."

"I'm saying whoever did this wants you to think it was. That's not the same thing."

"Well," says a voice from across the water, "isn't that refreshing."

You both turn.

A man is standing on a flat rock on the Ashcrest side of the river, hands in the pockets of a camel coat. Tall, gold-haired, cheekbones like a magazine ad. He has Selene's eyes, but warmer, and a lazy, wolfish grin.

"Lucan Draven," Ansel mutters. "Ashcrest's Alpha. Don't let him charm you."

"Arbiter," Lucan calls. "I've been trying for three weeks to get somebody on that bank to listen to me. Mind if I cross?"

"Do you have a boat?"

"I have legs." He shrugs off the coat, kicks off his shoes, and wades straight into the river up to his waist, holding his phone above his head. The current drags at him. He doesn't seem to care. When he climbs out on your side, soaked to the ribs and grinning, he offers you his dripping hand.

"Lucan," he says. "You can call me whatever you like."

"Arbiter is fine." You shake it. His grip is warm and lingers a second too long. "You realize you've just crossed into Blackmoor territory during an active accusation of murder."

"I realize I'm standing next to the only person in this valley with any sense." His eyes travel over your silver hair, your face. "They didn't tell me the Council was sending a moonborn. Or that she was beautiful."

"They didn't tell me the Ashcrest Alpha was going to swim at me."

He laughs, delighted. Ansel makes a pained noise.

"For the record," Lucan says, sobering, "my pack didn't kill anyone. I've got wolves on my side of the river terrified to go fishing. Somebody is trying to start a war, Ava, and it isn't me."

You glance sharply at him. "I didn't give you my name."

"Everybody on this river knows your name." His voice drops, almost gentle. "You're a story here. The girl the Blackmoor Alpha threw away."

The wind changes.

You feel Kael before you see him. That scar in your chest flares like someone pressed a thumb into it. Your wolf goes up on her toes.

He comes out of the trees at a walk that's barely a walk. Black jacket, jaw set, eyes already on Lucan's hand, which is still hovering near your elbow.

"Draven," he says. "You're on my land."

"I'm wet on your land," Lucan says pleasantly. "It's different."

"Get off it."

"The Arbiter and I were just discussing the case."

"The Arbiter," Kael says, "doesn't need you to discuss anything with her."

He stops beside you. Not touching. Close enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, and the tension in his body, like a wire pulled tight enough to hum.

"Don't," you say quietly, without turning your head.

"Don't what."

"Stand there like you have a claim. You gave it up. In public. I was there."

His breath goes out of him, very slowly. Lucan's eyebrows rise with deep interest. Ansel looks like he wants to dissolve into the river.

"You're right," Kael says, and his voice is so low and rough it scrapes. "I gave it up."

He doesn't move away.

Ansel's radio crackles on his belt. A young voice, panicked, chopped by static.

"Ansel. Ansel, it's Tavish. Jory didn't check in from the north line this morning. His truck's at the trailhead. Door's open. Ansel, there's blood on the seat."

Kael's head snaps around. Lucan's grin vanishes.

"Jory Pike," Ansel says, already moving. "He's twenty-three. He's one of our scouts."

You're running before you decide to.

"Ava," Kael says behind you, sharp as a command. "Stop."

You don't stop.