Page 2 of Warded By His Wolf

He went still.

Not the stillness of a man being polite. The stillness of someone holding a great deal of strength very carefully in one hand. His jaw worked once, tight and controlled, and something in his stance shifted like he’d just talked himself out of moving. Whatever was underneath that stillness, it wasn’t boredom, and it wasn’t procedure.

“Maddox Reed.” Low voice. I felt it on my skin before I understood the words. “Pack Guard Agency.”

“Ivy Bennett.” I stepped back. An invitation. “You already knew that.”

“I did.” No apology in it. Just fact.

He stepped inside, and the apartment got smaller.

His eyes swept the room once (window latches, exits, the door I’d left unlocked like an idiot) and by the time they came back to me, he’d positioned himself between me and the window without appearing to move at all. I didn’t think he’d done it on purpose.

I didn’t think he could help it.

“Tell me what you saw.”

He pulled a notebook from his jacket. Paper, pen, worn edges. His full attention.

I started talking.

I gave him the face. The pale eyes. The patience that felt like a countdown. I told him the vision had landed in my chest like a physical impact, that I’d woken with blood in my mouth and certainty in my bones. I didn’t soften it. I didn’t qualify it.

His pen moved without hesitation. No skeptical tilt of the head. No measured pause that meant I’m deciding how much of this is reliable. Once, when I described the pale eyes in the vision, something low and rough moved under his voice when he said “go on”, not quite a growl, just close enough that I felt it more than heard it.

My words went onto the page as fact.

The wound Miriam built was old enough to know exactly where a key fit. Maddox Reed had just put one in without knowing the lock existed.

When I finished, he looked up.

“The man you’re describing is Elias Thorne. Arcane tracker. He works for a faction buried inside the Veil Council, the quiet tier that lists people with gifts as inventory.” A beat. “Your vision is the third confirmed sighting we’ve had of him in fourteen months.”

Third confirmed sighting. Other people had seen him. I wasn’t imagining things.

“Why is he in my vision?”

“Because you’re a seer.” No hesitation. No softening. “And seers are valuable to the people he works for. Valuable enough to track. Valuable enough to retrieve.”

Retrieve. The word sat between us like something with teeth.

“How long have you known about him?”

“Fourteen months, if you count the first sighting. Two years, if you count the pattern before we had a name for it.” He didn’t dress it up. “Thorne’s found three seers in four years. None of them ever reported a second sighting.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning nobody heard from them again.” He said it flatly, because that was the only honest way to say it. “That’s not a threat I’m making, Ms. Bennett. That’s the file.”

“Do you think he’s outside right now?”

“I think you should assume yes until I confirm otherwise.” No flinch in it. “That’s not me trying to scare you into moving faster. It’s the safest assumption to run on.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then we’ve lost nothing but a few minutes of caution.” He held my gaze. “If I’m wrong in the other direction, we lose you. I’d rather over-plan for a threat that isn’t there than under-plan for one that is.”

No performance of reassurance. Nothing softened. Nothing steered.