HECTOR BAYES

The squelch of wet underbrush behind us had me barreling to an immediate stop in between the leaning towers of white birch trees.

I turned to the side slowly, my wolf eyes scanning for movement between the trees and in the canopy foliage.

“Stop.” I barked harshly, and the handful of footmen that had followed on our security check whipped to a stop immediately, the bulbous head of one werewolf tipping forward so that it looked like there was nothing, save for a lone branch, stopping him from plunging head-first into the bramble-covered rock of the forest floor.

”Did you hear that?” I whispered, craning my neck in...