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GLEN
“I’ve never met a wolf who smelled that bad,” I said casually, glancing at Finn and Brand as we jogged away from the strange little campsite. If any shifter screamed runaway, it was that one.
“Can’t be nearly twenty. Too fucking small,” Brand grumbled, sounding pissed, as usual.
I liked to tease him about waking up on the wrong side of the bed every morning. I’d change that to the wrong side of the cave now, though. Bearman, ha! It wasn’t as bad as Glenda, but the look on his face when the stranger had said it was priceless.
Finnick mumbled something like, “Could have rolled in a latrine.”
“Mhmm.” I agreed with them both, wondering if that’s exactly what the little shifter had done.
It was possible. None of us had ever been to Southern before. For all we knew, they didn’t have bathrooms for most of the pack. They sure as hell didn’t have clean, clear lakes to swim in like my pack in Canada, or Brand’s. Their hunting grounds so far had been bogs, spindly forests, and streams drying up, though it was only late June.
But I’d never thought a bad smell would trick the noses of my best friends. I was going to have so much fun teasing them about this. “Brand, you’re always going on about how observant you are, living in the mountains.”
He shot me a dirty look. I winked back, knowing insults were his love language. According to him, I was practically a city wolf like Finnick. He’d teased me about my poor nose and minimal tracking abilities for years, even though he knew my parents had made sure I could handle myself in a forest. Hell, his own grandfather had taught me tracking and hunting one summer when I’d fostered at Mountain. I could hold my own.
Brand growled again. “I do live in the fucking mountains, Glenda. I have to be observant to survive. I hunt my food; I don’t call a damned Uber to bring it to me.”
By the moon, this was priceless. I couldn’t help prolonging the moment. “So, you didn’t notice anything particularly significant about our little runaway friend there?”
“What?” His glare turned suspicious. “What do you mean? Is he a rogue after all? Damnit, I could tell there was something about him. Let’s go back there and?—”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tampon I’d found in the backpack. “You didn’t notice that ‘Wills’ back there was a female shifter, did you?”
Brand tripped over a fallen branch. “F-female?”
I let loose a laugh. “Some tracker. I don’t know about you, but male wolves at Northern don’t get periods. Is that a Mountain pack thing?”
He picked himself up. “What the hell is a little girl doing out here alone?”
Finn had kept quiet until now, which was strange. He was more or less the most talkative of us there. “Wills, she said. Her name is Wills.”
“A fake name?” Brand mused, rubbing a hand over his beard in thought.
“Wait, no. Wills. Isn’t that the last name of the girl they said killed the old Enforcer Del? The girl that went rogue?” It was the first thing Alpha Callaway had greeted us with when we arrived the afternoon before. One of his pack, an unranked girl, had killed an ex-Enforcer in cold blood only yesterday morning, and he’d asked us to be on the lookout for her.
I turned on my heel. “Shit, we have to go back and bring her in.”
Finn stopped me with a hand on my arm. “No. Leave her.”
Brand looked as disturbed as I did. “What the hell, Finn? She’s a wanted criminal, worse than a rogue. A murderer. She has to be brought in, brought to justice.” I wasn’t surprised at the anger in his tone; Brand’s mother had been killed by rogues, years before.
Finn scowled. “Justice in this moon-forsaken pack? You know Callaway will just execute her.”
“If she’s a murderer, then…” Brand went silent. “Maybe we won’t turn her over to Callaway. We can wait until your parents arrive?—”
Finn cut him off. “Listen, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Brand was already up off the ground and heading back to the campsite. “Tell me after I catch the rogue.”
“She might be my mate,” Finn blurted out.
“Oh shit,” I muttered, wondering why my stomach had turned over at his announcement. Finding a true mate was a positive thing, right? I should be pleased for my friend. I shouldn’t want to rip his throat out. What the hell?
I tried to smile, but had a feeling I was baring my teeth.
Finn didn’t seem happy either. “I could be wrong,” he muttered. “I hope I’m wrong.”
