Chapter 60 Luca
I should’ve known the day was going to be cursed the moment I stepped out of first period and smelled metal. Most people can’t smell metal in the air unless they’re in a workshop or nosing around a toolbox, but wolves? Silver has a sting. A sharp bitter edge like chewing tinfoil but in your lungs.
The scent hit me the second I walked into the courtyard. Mason stood near the big pine tree, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, his expression way too serious for a Tuesday morning.
He flicked his eyes at me and I followed his gaze. A small strip of shiny metal hung from the branch by a black cord. It was a silver marker. My stomach plummeted. Of course, the hunter had been here. Great! Exactly what every teenage werewolf wants to find on school grounds before second period.
Mason kept his voice low. “That’s the third one in a week.”
“We’re supposed to be subtle,” I muttered. “Apparently he’s not.”
He looked around, checking for students, teachers, anyone who might notice two guys staring at something they absolutely shouldn’t touch. But the courtyard was filling up, and the bell wasn’t that far off.
“Get Rafe to stall the hallway,” I said quietly.
Mason smirked already calling Rafe in his head through the telepathic link. I stayed put acting like I was scrolling my phone while I breathed in tiny pieces of information. The silver was new—hours old at most and the hunter had passed through at dawn or maybe earlier.
When the crowd thinned enough, I reached up and plucked the marker from the branch using my sleeve so the silver wouldn’t burn through skin. The cord had a knot I recognized.
Same as the one near the trailhead, Mason said in my head. He’s mapping something.
Testing which areas were weak and seeing how we responded.
The bell rang and I shoved the marker into my backpack before students could notice. A couple freshman girls giggled at me and I rolled my eyes inwardly. I had bigger problems than my reputation. By lunch, I’d rounded up our not-so-little team: Mason, Rafe, Greta’s grandson Theo, and two other wolves where in the school too.
We met in the old workshop behind the gym supposedly condemned but actually our hideout.
Theo shut the door and clicked the makeshift lock. “Okay,” he said, tossing another marker on the table. “Found this near the bike racks.”
“That’s four,” Rafe said, tapping his fingers anxiously on the table. “Four in a week. He’s getting bold.”
“We’re missing a pattern,” Mason said. “There’s always a pattern with hunters.”
He took the markers—mine, Theo’s, the two from earlier and lined them up neatly like puzzle pieces. The silver glinted against the dead fluorescent light. I pulled out the map we’d started keeping hidden behind the old tool cabinet. Every time a marker appeared, we added a pin. Four pins made a faint curve around the school.
“What’s he circling?” Theo asked.
“Not what,” Mason said. “Who.”
“He’s trying to force you to shift,” Rafe said quietly. “Or slip and expose yourself.”
I hated that I knew. I scrubbed a hand over my face. “We need backup.”
“Greta?” Theo asked.
“She’s already watching from the shadows,” Mason said.
“Then who?” Rafe frowned. “We can’t exactly file a school incident report.”
I hesitated. “Ms. Thorne.”
Everyone stared.
“You mean the librarian?” Theo asked. “With the cardigans and the weird mugs?”
“She’s not weird,” I said defensively. “She just knows stuff.” Then I sighed. “Okay, fine, she’s weird but she’s also our informant. She’s helped the pack for years and knows how hunters think.”
“She’s human,” Rafe reminded me.
“And probably is the hunter,” Mason countered. “You got a problem? Then argue with Alpha Hale.”
A beat of silence stretched before I made the call. “We tell her.”
We waited until last period let out before slipping into the library. Ms. Thorne was shelving books near the back, humming to herself. She glanced over her shoulder when she sensed us.
“You boys look like you just found a body,” she said, not even surprised. “What now?”
Mason dropped the markers onto the desk. She stopped humming.
“Oh,” she said softly. “He’s back.”
“You knew him?” Theo asked.
She shook her head. “I know his type.”
Her fingers hovered over the silvers. “Hunters don’t leave warnings for fun. They leave them when they want someone to react. Either run or fight.”
Rafe shifted nervously. She’s too calm.
She’s always calm, Mason replied. Humans like her don’t scare easy.
Ms. Thorne moved to her computer, pulled up an old map of Silverpine, and started marking the places hunters used historically when tracking wolves.
“Here,” she said, circling one spot. “This is where he’ll strike next.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because I used to live near hunters,” she said. “There’s a rhythm to their paranoia.”
The spot was close to the creek where our younger wolves sometimes did shifts for training. A shiver worked its way down my spine. We could handle hunters. We always did but this one wasn’t acting like a typical one. He wasn’t storming in with guns or traps. He was playing a quiet patient game.
And the worst hunters weren’t the loud ones.
They were the ones who treated killing like chess.
“We’ll go tonight,” I said. “All of us.”
Theo’s eyes widened. “You want us all out there?”
“Yeah,” Mason said before I could answer. “This isn’t just Luca’s fight. If the hunter wants the pack, he gets the pack not one wolf alone.”
Ms. Thorne leaned her elbows on the desk. “Be careful,” she said. “He’s not just hunting but testing you.”
We’ll handle it, I promised through our mind-link, letting the others feel the certainty even if I didn’t feel it myself and they answered with steady fierce agreement.
Rafe smirked. “Let’s go scare a hunter.”
For the first time all day, I exhaled something that almost felt like relief not because it was over but because I wasn’t walking into this alone.
The hunter wanted to map us, know our weak points and what made us break but he forgot something very important about wolves. We run better in a pack. And if he wanted to draw us out? He was about to get exactly what he asked for.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Okay but WHY do the werewolves act like they’re in their own secret group chat??? 😭
This chapter low-key felt like plotting chaos with your best friends behind the gym lmao.
The hunter’s getting bold, the pack’s getting spicy, and Luca is so done with everyone’s nonsense.
Anyway, thank you for reading— drop a comment, scream at me, tell me your thoughts, you know I live for it🥺💜.