CHAPTER 72 – A Whisper in the Dark
Jace
Last night’s frost melted under boots that didn’t belong to patrol. The tracks cut across the hard ground to the storage sheds and vanish where the earth turns to pine needles. Same as yesterday. Same as the day before.
I rub the pad of my thumb against the faint impression of a heel and lift my head, letting the scents sift themselves.
Oil. Old smoke. The tang of oiled leather from the armory hinges. Under it, faint and sweet if you know what to look for, I detect Loran.
His scent’s a soft thing. Wildflower and clean rain with the sugar note Omegas carry whether they like it or not.
I check the ledger, and scrape a knuckle across the page where someone signed Reed’s name with Reed’s letters and not his hand.
He prints his e’s backwards when he’s rushing. This isn’t printed at all. This is neat script, rounded and precise.
I close the ledger. Mara’s right. Something’s rotting.
I step back into gray morning and make for the training yard. Hazel’s already there, breath clouding as she runs drills like the devil is on her heels.
“You look like you didn’t sleep,” she says.
“When did your patrol last run the east ridge?”
“Two nights ago. Why?”
“Roster says you were at the river crossing. And Reed had the long rifles out three days ago for ‘maintenance.’”
Hazel snorts. “Reed can’t field-strip those rifles without cussing loud enough to wake the dead.”
Her eyes narrow, all humor gone. Hazel’s a Delta, but sharper than almost any wolf I know. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking someone’s moving steel out the side door with a key that shouldn’t exist and signing names that aren’t theirs. I’m thinking our patrols don’t match the ink on the page. And I’m thinking I keep smelling Loran near places he’s got no reason to linger.”
She hesitates before asking, “You think he’d hurt Eli? He’s been sniffing around him.”
I don’t answer that. The answer lives behind my ribs, ugly. “Keep the pup busy,” I say instead. “Training. Errands. Don’t let him wander alone.”
I cross the camp to the record hut. It’s warmer inside, the stove ticking softly. Mara’s handwriting is all over the patrol log. No flourishes, precise blocks, numbers that line up with military neatness.
The pages from last week have been replaced. I pull the stack and hold them up to the light. I’m not a scribe, but I’ve chewed enough lies to know their taste.
The ink on the new pages is not our ink. We water ours down with boiled pine soot. This is darker. Bought ink. Clean. Expensive. Someone wanted these pages to look official without using our stores.
I tuck one page into my jacket and leave the rest where they are. If the snake thinks his hole’s undisturbed, he’ll crawl back.
By midday, I’ve retraced the missing knives to a crate that never left the yard. Someone checked them out, then moved them before the inventory count.
The perimeter alarm by the east trail has been tied off with clean twine, a neat little bow hidden under a stone.
Ronan’s in his office. I drop the torn twine on his desk. Then the roster page. Then the list of sign-outs with Reed’s forged name. “We have a traitor.”
His gaze flicks to the page, then to me. “Who?.”
“Loran.” I keep my voice flat. “His scent is where it shouldn’t be. I caught him last week taking a route that runs him past the sheds and out toward the unpatrolled ridge. And this-” I tap the roster. “This is his hand. The ink’s wrong. The timing is wrong. The patrols he ‘adjusted’ leave our border soft where Redmaw probes.”
“You’re accusing an Omega of traitor’s work in my house,” he says finally, voice soft enough to flay a man. “You better have more than a nose full of pretty scent and a complaint about ink.”
“He’s moving steel,” I say. “He’s shifting rosters. He’s near Eli when Eli’s alone.”
Ronan’s eyes flicker, wolf-gold pinning me. “Watch your words.”
“I am,” I snap, then rein it in because I’ve thrown my body between this man and a dozen knives and I’d do it again, but I’m not stupid.
“You told the pack the boy in your bed is yours. That paints him in blood for anyone who wants to hurt you.”
Ronan steps around the desk, close enough for heat to crawl up my neck. “You think I don’t know the cost of what I claim?”
“You think I don’t watch every shadow for a knife with my name on it? Loran isn’t stupid.”
“He’s not loyal either,” I say.
Ronan’s mouth does that lazy curve that isn’t a smile.
“You have proof, Jace? Or just the itch between your shoulders that says something’s wrong with the world and you need a throat to cut so it feels right again?”
“Not enough to hang him,” I admit. “Enough to watch him. Enough to keep him away from Eli until we know for sure.”
Ronan’s gaze flicks past me, to the door, like he can see through timber.
“Eli doesn’t leave the lodge alone,” he says. “Make sure of it. If Loran’s near him, you pull him away. I don’t need the pack seeing wolves at each other’s throats while Redmaw watches.”
Ronan’s eyes harden. “Bring me proof, Jace.”
I bare my teeth just enough to make it clear I’ve heard the order, not agreed to it. “Yes, Alpha.”
He turns away, ending the audience like the king he hates being called. I leave before I say something I can’t take back.
Loran is exactly where he shouldn’t be. Leaning against the shadowed side of the lodge under Eli’s window.
“Evening,” he says when he notices me.
“Get away from there,” I say.
His brows lift. “Why?”
“Because I said so.” I step close enough to let the message sink into his bones. “You want to watch the fire? Watch the fire. You want to stand under that window again, I break your legs.”
He laughs, soft and surprised, like I told him a joke he can’t help enjoying. “You were sweeter before the Omega came.”
I don’t blink. “Move.”
He slides along the wall with a little half-bow that reads as deference to everyone else and mockery to me.
“Good night, Jace,” he says, and saunters toward the firelight, harmless as a cat dusting its paws.
Hazel catches me by the water barrels. “Well?”
“Ronan wants proof.”
“Do we have any?”
“Not yet.”
We plan fast. Hazel puts two Deltas on the east ridge to watch the unpatrolled trail from the trees.
I take first watch by the sheds, crouched on a roof with my back to the cold and my breathing a slow metronome. If Loran slips out, he’ll pass under me.
When I spot him he’s moving on quiet feet, weight distributed, no wasted steps. He cuts between the sheds and aims for the same strip of ground where the prints always disappear.
Hazel’s low whistle threads the air from the tree line. Twice. Then silence. Our sign for not alone.
Loran pauses, glances toward the trees, and changes course, angling east.
I slide off the roof and land without a sound, shadow to shadow, until I’m behind the last shed. I could take him now. Pin him, haul him to Ronan.
It won’t stick. He’ll say he was walking. He’ll say the world makes better sense under the stars. Omegas say things like that and mean them.
So I let him go.
Hazel will trail him through the trees.
I stand in the cold until my fingers go numb. The urge crawls under my skin to fling the door open, to drag Ronan to the window and make him watch the black line of trees where his problem just vanished.
I don’t. That’s not how you win with Ronan. You win by giving him proof. A throat to cut that deserves it. Blood he can wash off without wondering whether he’s making a mistake.
By dawn, Hazel slips from the trees and ghosts to my side. Her mouth is a hard line.
“Well?” I ask.
“He didn’t go to the border,” she says. “He angled south, into the old quarry. Lost him there. The rock’s too clean for prints, and something’s masking scent.”
“You see him meet anyone?”
“No.” She hesitates. “But I heard stones. Like a door where we don’t have a door.”
I clap her shoulder. “Get some sleep. Eat. Then take two and find me the door.”
Ronan wants proof. I’ll bring him bones and a hole in the rock that smells like Redmaw, and I’ll tie Loran to it with his own pretty ribbon.
Before he can do more damage.
Before the rot eats through the heart.