Kaiden Stone had learned long ago to trust silence.
Not the comfortable kind—the kind that settled over the Bloodstone Pack at night like a familiar blanket—but the sharp, listening silence. The kind that pressed against his ears and made his wolf restless beneath his skin.
That was the silence clinging to the forest now.
He stood at the northern ridge, arms crossed over his chest, eyes scanning the dense tree line beyond the patrol boundary. Dawn had barely broken, pale light threading through the pines, yet Rhydderch was already pacing inside his mind, claws scraping against bone, muscles coiling with restrained energy.
Something is wrong, his wolf rumbled.
Kaiden exhaled slowly through his nose. “You’ve said that three times.”
And I will say it again.
Rhydderch’s presence was mas
