The autumn wind carried the scent of pine and damp earth as our pack ran through the forest, a tradition Keith insisted on maintaining despite my reservations about bringing the pups so close to rogue territory. At six months old, Marcus and Maya were too young for the advanced trails, but Keith had dismissed my concerns with that Alpha tone he used whenever he didn't want discussion.
"They need to learn the borders," he'd said that morning, not looking at me as he checked his phone. "Stop coddling them."
Now I ran with the elders on the lower path while my babies practiced their agility on the ridge above, their small wolf forms bounding over rocks with the fearless joy that made my heart swell and break simultaneously. Through our pack mind-link, I felt their excitement, their pride at keeping up with the older wolves. Kaia, my wolf, stirred restlessly inside me, her instincts prickling.
Something's wrong, she whispered. The wind smells off.
I glanced up toward the ridge, counting the wolves. Keith led the advanced group, his massive Alpha form unmistakable. Beside him, smaller and sleeker, ran Skyla Moreno—the "promising young wolf" he'd been mentoring for months. Even from this distance, I noticed how close she stayed to him, how her movements mirrored his.
The pups, I reminded Kaia. Focus on the pups.
Marcus and Maya had reached a blind turn where the trail narrowed. Beta Marcus ran behind them, keeping watch, but he was focused on Keith ahead rather than the terrain. I saw Skyla's wolf suddenly veer left, her body language deliberately herding my babies toward the edge. It looked casual, playful even, but Kaia's hackles rose.
RACHEL! Kaia's mental scream came too late.
The wind shifted violently, carrying the acrid stench of disturbed earth and old metal—a rogue trap. The ground beneath Marcus and Maya's paws crumbled as a rockslide erupted from nowhere, triggered by mechanisms that shouldn't exist on pack land. I watched, frozen in a nightmare too fast to stop, as the ledge disintegrated and my babies tumbled into the ravine below.
Their terrified yelps through the mind-link cut off abruptly.
My wolf surged forward, but the distance was too great. By the time I reached the ravine's edge, other pack members were already climbing down, their movements frantic. I shifted into human form, not caring about my nakedness, and started down the rocks with my bare hands bleeding against the stone.
"Luna, wait for ropes—" someone called, but I was already halfway down.
I found them on a outcropping thirty feet below, their small bodies broken and still. Marcus's neck was twisted at an impossible angle. Maya's eyes were open, glazed, her last expression one of confusion rather than fear. I gathered them both against my chest, feeling their warmth fading, and Kaia howled inside me with such force that the sound tore from my human throat, echoing across the entire forest.
The pack felt it through the mind-link—a Luna's grief, raw and devastating.
But not everyone responded.
Hours later, I sat in the pack hospital's morgue, a sterile white room that smelled of antiseptic and death. They'd covered Marcus and Maya with sheets, but I'd pulled them back, needing to see their faces, to memorize every detail before they were gone forever. My hands shook as I stroked Maya's fur, still soft despite the dirt and blood.
I reached for Keith through the mate bond, desperate for his comfort, for shared grief, for anything that confirmed we'd lost our children together. But where I expected to find anguish, there was only a wall—deliberate, cold, shutting me out completely.
My phone buzzed. A notification from the pack's social media feed, the internal network we used to stay connected. My numb fingers opened it automatically.
The photo loaded slowly, each pixel another knife in my chest.
Keith stood in the pack mess hall, surrounded by younger wolves, his arm wrapped tightly around Skyla Moreno. She leaned into him, her face pressed against his shoulder, her body language speaking of intimate comfort rather than pack support. Keith's expression was solemn but composed—the face of an Alpha maintaining morale, not a father who'd just lost his children.
The caption read: "Strength in unity. Comforting our promising young wolves in this dark hour."
Posted forty-three minutes ago. Less than two hours after our pups died.
Kaia went absolutely still inside me, a predator's stillness that preceded attack. That's not grief, she growled. That's relief.
I stared at the photo until my vision blurred, studying every detail. The way Keith's fingers splayed possessively across Skyla's shoulder. The floral perfume I could almost smell through the screen—the same scent that had clung to him lately when he came home late. The absence of any tears, any devastation, any sign that this man had just watched his children fall to their deaths.
The morgue door opened. Keith entered, still in his running clothes, and the scent hit me before he spoke—cheap floral perfume mixed with arousal, not grief. Not the grief of a father. Not even close.
"Rachel," he said, his tone carrying that Alpha authority that expected obedience. "You need to come home. Staying here won't change anything."
He reached for my shoulder, probably intending some performative gesture of comfort for the cameras, for pack optics.
Kaia exploded to the surface.
I spun, snapping my teeth, my wolf so close to shifting that my eyes blazed gold and a growl rumbled from my human throat. Keith jerked back, genuine surprise flickering across his face.
The mate bond, usually a warm hum of connection, felt like rotting meat between us—spoiled, toxic, wrong.
"Don't," I said, my voice barely human. "Don't you dare touch me."
And in that moment, with my dead children cooling beside me and my mate reeking of another woman, I understood with chilling clarity: Keith wasn't mourning.
He was relieved.
