DF: Short chapter this week! I had a lot of studying to do this weekend, so I kept this chapter short and making the next chapter longer. Next chapter should come before Christmas!

Chapter 3

Leah was in her office seated at her desk, nose deep in another email. Her fingers tapped at the computer keys as her eyes scanned the screen. She was eager to finish responding to all of her emails before going to bed. Yet every time she would finish one email, another would appear to take its place.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Did she address the email's sender by her last name or by her husband's last name now that she was married? Leah was too tired to remember.

Leah had been busier as of late. Bran's pack meeting had carried the side effect of causing rumors to spread about the mystery wolf hiding in the Cabinets. Not just in Aspen Creek but also among the rest of the country's packs. Leah was constantly bombarded by questions about this female; whether it was true that she was capable of having werewolf offspring, how soon they could expect her to be available in Aspen Creek, if she had any siblings who were single. One of the emailers had been brazen enough to ask if Bran could order the female wolf produce offspring for him. Leah had been more than happy to tell him off in a strongly worded email.

Leah growled when she responded to the latest email only to find another one waiting in her inbox. This issue was becoming a real inconvenience for Leah. The least Bran could have done was discuss the matter with her before announcing it to the rest of the pack. But as usual, Bran chose to leave her in the dark then have her manage the fallout after the fact. How typical.

Leah's eyes scanned the heading of the next email.

PACK TRANSFER REQUEST

Ah. Finally, something that didn't have to do with the broodmare in the Cabinets. Just when Leah was about to tear her own hair out.

"Let's see what you have here," Leah murmured as she scanned the email.

The Cumberland Plateau pack was looking to send one of their wolves to the Marrok for some re-education. Apparently, the problem wolf was harassing the female members of the pack, and the Alpha was losing his patience. Nothing too crazy. Troubled wolves were regularly sent to Aspen Creek to be rehabilitated. Most wolves straightened out their behavior very quickly after meeting Bran. Leah typed up a short response to the email, then pulled out her pen and scribbled down a note to inform Bran of the new wolf coming to Aspen Creek.

When she was done writing the note, she set down the pen and rubbed her eyes tiredly. Time for a break. She got up and went to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of tea. On a whim, she grabbed her running jacket and went out for a jog. Aspen Creek was in a decently wooded part of Montana, so she did not have to go far to find a good trail to start her jog.

She jogged down the trail in silence, letting her wolf soak in the peace of the woods. Leah had lived in Aspen Creek for many decades. She had run these trails so many times that she recognized every stone, every tree and every bump she passed by. It was one of the few things that pleased her about Aspen Creek. She knew every bit of the territory as if it was attached to the back of her hand. Every bit of the land belonged to her husband and was thus hers by extension. They had defended Aspen Creek from countless threats throughout the years, and every invader had failed to challenge their rule. This new arrival would not change that.

This rogue female had been a fool to come to Aspen Creek of all places. Werewolf children or not, Leah would not hesitate to destroy the female if she continued trespassing. She felt her wolf shift uneasily, remembering Bran's rigid order to not harm the rogue.

Leah snorted with disgust. She thought that Bran's reasoning was foolish. The rogue had nearly ripped Charles to pieces, but her mate was looking to bring in the rogue rather than eliminate a potential threat. The mystery surrounding the female did not justify her assault on their territory.

And now she was thinking about the rogue again. Leah scolded herself for letting the sense of peace from her jog slip away so easily. She would have to take another walk later today to make up for it. Maybe even run in her wolf form instead.

Regardless, the rogue would have to be a matter dealt with later. She would allow her husband to deal with the strange creature for now. But when he failed, Leah would be right there by his side. She would make sure he knew that she was right in the end.

Raina was on the verge of tears.

The twins had been fussy all morning. They woke up crying, no doubt hungry. So, Raina had fed and burped them. But even after their meal, they continued to cry. She tried everything. She checked their diapers, rocked them and played with them, but nothing would work. In the end, she felt like crawling into their crib and crying with them.

Why am I here? She thought miserably. Why did I get myself into this mess? She'd thought being a single parent would be hard. Yes. It was hard. But somehow, she had still managed to underestimate how trying it would be.

Her daughter suddenly stopped crying and made a strange face. Her dark eyes flashed a faint blue and the little infant transformed into a wolf. The pup waddled around the crib on unsteady legs. Her diaper slid off with a wet splat.

Raina pressed her forehead against the side of the crib with a groan. She had just changed that diaper. She covered her nose as the smell wafted towards her.

"Ick! All I gave you is milk. How do you make it smell so bad on the way out?"

Her daughter whimpered unapologetically.

Raina slid a fresh diaper onto the pup before picking up the soiled cloth and taking it outside to wash it. The cold bit at her skin as she stepped out of the protection of the cabin. She pulled her jacket tight around her body. It was starting to get a lot colder in the valley. Her worn jacket wasn't doing as good of a job keeping out the cold as before. Even the inside of the cabin was starting to feel a little cold. She would need to find a way to patch the hole in the roof and collect some firewood. Maybe see if she could get her hands on a new jacket. Even though she didn't have money. She frowned.

Heating aside, the one other downside to living in a rundown cabin in the middle of the woods was that there was no plumbing. That meant that every time Raina needed to wash something or get a drink of water, she had to go find a stream. Ah. The joys of camping.

Raina kept her eyes peeled as she made her way towards one of the streams even though she had already scouted the area multiple times. She had already been wary before moving into the area. Now that she knew she wasn't the only unusual creature out here, she needed to be more careful. The last thing she needed was to run into more werewolves when she was by herself.

She bit her lip when she recalled the moment when she had discovered that one of her babies had disappeared. She had tucked him away in a nicely hidden spot only to find him missing when she had returned for him. Her heart began to race with anxiety. She knew that if anyone had looked at her face at that moment, they would have seen inhuman eyes peering out from her pale features.

Raina paused and took several deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. She had to stay calm so her magic wouldn't leak out. She had to keep that part of her hidden until she needed it. Until then, she couldn't risk letting her magic take over. Not when someone dangerous might be watching. Someone like him.

She found a small stream. It was tiny and pitiful, but the flow of water was sufficient to be useful. She bent down and rinsed off the soiled cloth while thoughts raced through her head. She would have to start scouting for new places to hide. Preferably ones that would allow her to hide her children somewhere safe and quiet. They would need to stay hidden while she went out looking for this place she was meant to find.

Despite her best efforts, this town or whatever this place was she was told to find was not shown on any of the maps she had Googled. It was as if this place didn't even exist. She cursed her stupidity for not thinking things through before running off into the wilderness. Granted, she didn't really have any other alternatives, but she should have at least tried to gather more information before leaving the only safe place she'd known.

Her stomach growled loudly, interrupting her thoughts. She was getting hungry. How inconvenient. The last thing she wanted was to leave her two babies alone in the cabin to find food. But she had to do so if they were going to survive.

She hung the wet rag on a tree branch so that it could dry. Then she carefully stripped out of her clothing and left them folded underneath a tree. It would be really unfortunate if she accidentally destroyed one of the few pieces of clothing she had left. Best to take them off first to be safe.

Once her clothes were tucked away in a dry spot, Raina reached into the back of her mind for the Otherness she had become more familiar with as she grew older. The Otherness stretched like a stiff muscle before spreading across her mind. It spread until it felt like it was pressing against her skull. Then tiny tendrils slipped out and creeped across her body until they reached her fingertips. The transformation was quick and painless as if she was slipping into a new set of clothes.

She fell onto all fours. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth, the scent of ozone slipping out of her muzzle. Her white fur prickled like needles. Her senses had changed with her form. Her sapphire eyes could perceive the little supernatural creatures that hid in the streams and flew in the wind. Her nose could smell the animals that had stopped to drink at the stream before her arrival. Her ears picked up the tiniest of noises.

She sniffed the ground carefully. She only needed a small meal. Something to hold her over until night fell. Something like... a rabbit. She loped through the woods letting her nose be her guide. There was a rabbit nearby, and she wanted to find it.

As she trailed the rabbit, tiny creatures whispered strange words in her ears and brushed against her fur. Raina had been able to perceive them since she was a child. Spirits, she had started calling them though she wasn't entirely sure what they were. They took great interest in her when she used her magic. However, she couldn't see them once she locked her magic away. It appeared that the spirits were satisfied with fiddling with her fur for the time being.

There was a rustle in the grass up ahead followed by the quiet grinding of long teeth. Without hesitation, Raina flexed her paws and lunged forward. Her body shot across the ground like a bullet as she sailed towards the rabbit. It was dead before it had a chance to react.

Raina picked up the rabbit, happy to have dinner taken care of, when a howl made her freeze. She lowered herself so that the grass better concealed her and listened carefully. The howl sounded again at the other end of the valley.

They've found me.

Terror flooded Raina's paws and caused her to start racing back in the direction of the cabin. Halfway through the journey, her brain kicked in and she slid to a stop.

Stupid, she thought. She was carrying a dead rabbit that was still bleeding and she was just going to run straight back to her hiding spot? She was going to leave a scent trail leading straight there. The gears in her head churned, and an idea entered her mind.

She changed directions and instead headed towards a cluster of trees downhill from where she stood. Once she was inside the thickest part of the trees, she settled down and ate her rabbit hurriedly. She gathered up the leftover bones and scattered them around the thicket, some bones exposed, some of them half-buried. She scratched her back on the side of a tree until a couple tufts of fur came off and stuck to the bark, then scent-marked another nearby tree. When she was satisfied with her work, she trekked her way to a creek and washed herself off.

And now for the final part of her plan. Raina willed her magic to her body and felt it crackle underneath her skin. She quieted the magic and let it settle over her skin before she stepped away from the creek. To her eyes, she still looked and sounded the same. But to any creature that happened across her, all they would see is a faint blue blur.

In all honesty, it was a simple See-Me-Not spell that Raina had learned when she was young. It came to her almost reflexively and required minimal effort to cast, yet it had gotten her out of trouble numerous times.

She thought back to how she had used the same spell to fight off the rogue wolf from a few days ago. She shivered in anger at the memory of her darling child locked between the wolf's jaws. No. She needed to stay focused. Otherwise, her anger would dispel her magic. Her magic was of a wilder type, not too keen on sticking to simpler, subtler spells such as See-Me-Not. If she wanted it to hold, she needed to control her emotions.

"We found the female's den," explained the lower-ranked wolf. "It looks like she has been nesting here for some time. We found signs of her presence all over the place."

Tag followed the werewolf towards the den site. This new development was an improvement compared to the last few weeks, but Tag was choosing to not be too optimistic. All of their previous attempts to track this enigmatic wolf had led to dead ends. They ran into scent trails that led nowhere, sightings that went unproven, and kills that could have belonged to any animal. For all Tag knew, this would turn out to be another dead end.

The werewolf named Gregory led Tag along a creek, then ducked into the bushes. Gregory stopped by a small patch of blood and a set of pawprints.

Tag bent down to sniff the blood. It was fresh but it did not belong to a wolf. It belonged to something small and furry like a rabbit or squirrel. The pawprints carried a different scent. It was not quite like that of a wolf and had a fading edge to it that reminded Tag of the scent of bumper carts strangely enough.

They followed the scent trail away from the creek before it abruptly changed directions and disappeared into a cluster of trees. The cluster of trees revealed a spot trampled down by several pawprints and with bones and dried blood scattered everywhere. Some of the bones were half-buried while others were left out in the open.

Gregory gestured to the bones. "We think this is where she has been hiding for the last few weeks. It would explain why we haven't been able to find her. This den is very well hidden."

"Where does the rest of the scent trail go after leaving the den?" Tag asked.

"We were able to follow it all the way back to the creek. Then we lost track of it. That's when we called you."

Tag and Gregory followed the scent trail leading out of the den. Gregory had been correct. The rogue's scent trail led all the way to the creek then abruptly disappeared.

Tag frowned. It was difficult to make a scent trail vanish like that. Many people assumed that walking through water was a great way to cover up a scent trail, but they forgot that the exposed parts of their body would still leave a scent in the air. Besides, the water trick stopped working the moment they were no longer standing in water.

Tag went up and down the creek but still couldn't catch a scent. Even a more experienced wolf would have a hard time hiding their tracks from a werewolf. Tag was one of the best trackers in the pack, yet he still couldn't figure out where the female wolf had gone. That could only mean that she was using magic to hide her movements. That would also explain why they hadn't known she was here until Charles had run into her a couple weeks ago.

If she could use See-Me-Not spells to hide herself, why hadn't she done so this time? Vampires used similar spells to hide their homes and feeding spots from predators. Even werewolves were familiar with these types of spells. Yet the female wolf had left a trail straight back to her hiding spot. He thought back to the bones inside the thicket of trees. Initially, there appeared to be several separate piles of bones. But in hindsight, they clearly all belonged to the same animal. The blood had smelled fresh with no traces of older smells in the den. That meant that all of the bones had belonged to the rabbit she had killed today.

The wolf had set them up, Tag realized. She wanted them to think that this was her primary hiding spot so that they would search here rather than near her actual den. That explained why the scent of her pup was absent from this den. The pup was never here to begin with.

Clever girl, Tag thought. The wolf they were tracking was both intelligent and magically gifted. That was okay though. Tag enjoyed a good challenge.