Afterward, the unease doesn’t fade.
It settles.
It follows me back through the trees, through the quiet edge of the territory, through the back door of the packhouse that closes with the same careful silence as before. Nothing looks different. That’s the problem. The house still smells like coffee and old wood and too many wolves sharing space. The halls still hold the low hum of sleeping bodies. Normal presses in from every side, insistent and heavy, like it’s trying to convince me that whatever happened out there doesn’t count if I don’t talk about it.
Layla isn’t normal.
She’s energized again. Not frantic. Not wild. Focused in a way that feels sharpened down to a blade edge. Her awareness keeps sweeping outward, testing angles, mapping distances, replaying posture and rhythm and tha
