The pack feels it the moment I cross the boundary.
Not as a wave or a shock, but as a subtle tightening in the air, the way a room changes when someone dangerous walks into it without raising their voice. Conversations falter. Movement stutters. Wolves who have known me my entire life hesitate, their bodies angling away before their minds catch up.
I smell it first. The shift in their scent. Caution threaded with confusion. Instinct reacting faster than loyalty.
I stop just inside the treeline, boots sinking into familiar earth, and force myself not to flinch. This is home. These are my people. I tell myself that over and over as a young wolf I helped train takes one look at me and steps back, hackles lifting in an unconscious ripple.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say quietly.
He bli
