Page 134 of A Wolfe in the Woods

The owl swooped low again, gliding silently across my path before landing on a crooked branch ahead. Its pale eyes watched me with unsettling focus.

Owls didn’t wait for people, and they certainly didn’t lead them through the forest. But maybe they did in Juniper Woods. For a strange reason, it was helping me.

A shout echoed somewhere behind me that made my stomach drop. “She went this way!”

Fang.

The owl took off again, disappearing through a gap in the trees and I followed. It dropped onto a branch above a densepatch of brush and stared down at me. I didn’t understand why until I heard the voices.

Fang and his men were close now.Veryclose.

I hid behind the thick bush just as the first of them broke through the trees. The owl followed me down silently and landed on my shoulder. I froze when I felt the soft press of feathers against my lips. The owl had stretched one wing across my mouth, silencing me.

That’s definitely not normal,I thought.

The owl’s head tilted toward me again, its eyes catching the thin moonlight. They were strangely clouded, the colors within swirling faintly like mist behind glass.

My breath hitched. I recognized them!

May?

Boots crushed through the undergrowth just a few yards away. Fang’s voice cut through the trees. “Spread out,” he growled. “She can’t have gotten far.”

Then another voice called from deeper in the fog before the Lycans could move: “Fang!”

I held my breath and carefully parted a few thin branches in front of my face, peering through the tangled brush. I could just make out the clearing beyond. Several Lycans emerged out of the darkness, their eyes glowed faintly in the mist as they approached the clearing.

“Erik sent us to check on the girl,” one of them said.

Fang’s tone turned irritated. “She slipped her leash,” he said flatly. “Split up,” Fang ordered. He pointed into the fog. “You three head east and check the ridge. If she’s running blind, she’ll head for the drop.”

The Lycans exchanged quick glances before turning and disappearing into the trees.

Fang looked back toward my direction. “The rest of you come with me,” he said coldly.

The owl’s wing remained pressed firmly over my mouth until the sounds of movement faded deeper into the forest. Only then did it lift away, and I stayed perfectly still while minutes passed before I dared to breathe normally again.

Somewhere off to my left, a group of Lycans crashed through the woods following what must have been my trail. Their voices grew louder as they pushed farther into the fog until suddenly…

A crack split the air—branches snapping, the ground giving way beneath heavy bodies. A chorus of startled shouts turned into screaming as the sound dropped sharply in the distance before cutting off completely.

My heart boomed in my chest, and I was rendered frozen into place.

Suddenly, the forest was silent again.

I blinked into the darkness.What was that?I thought, hysterical.

But I didn’t have time to dwell on it because the owl had already taken flight again.

I scrambled out of the bushes and followed. The terrain changed quickly as we ran, until the forest opened into a narrow clearing hemmed in by a towering wall of granite that rose straight up into the night.

My breath caught.

I hadseenthis place before.

Not in real life. But in a dream.

The nightmares I’d been having in Graymore slammed into my mind with sudden clarity—the endless forest, the chase, the looming wall of stone closing in around me. The same wall that stood before me now. A cold wave of dread rolled through my chest.