Malcolm didn't answer. Both hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on something ahead of us through the windshield.

I followed his gaze, still struggling to catch my breath. The road stretched out before us, quiet and ordinary, the late afternoon sun slanting gold across the asphalt. For a heartbeat, I didn't see anything. Then the shape moved—something low and dark, darting across the road and vanishing into the brush on the other side.

A deer. No, smaller than that. Whatever it was, it had come out of nowhere.

"Everyone okay?" Malcolm's voice was clipped, his Alpha composure slamming back into place even as I watched his...