[Rhys’ POV]
The shape of her death slowly emerges from what I’ve observed—not enough to build an actual plan, but enough to know where to look.
The drink in my hand has gone warm. I haven't taken a sip—alcohol dulls edges, and right now I need every edge I have.
Nell's cabin sits third from the tree line—one door, two windows, neither locked when I checked the frames during the toast. The path between her door and the main hall is sixty paces. The tree line is forty.
Her boys are never more than arm's reach from someone—a rotation so seamless it looks accidental, but I've been watching for two hours and accidents don't run on a schedule. Someone trained these people to protect without performing it.
"You look like a man counting exits." The voice arrives warm and unhurried, attached to a woman with sharp eyes and a glass of wine she's actually drinking. "Maren—Oren's cousin, compound manager, and the person who notices when guests study cabin layouts instead of eating cake."
"Rhys Adler." I extend my hand and her grip is firm, brief, designed to take a measurement. "I promise the cake received my full attention. Outstanding frosting work."
"Sable made it—she'll be thrilled someone noticed." Her mouth curves, but her eyes stay busy. "So what brings an Adler to a Blackvale birthday? Your father isn't exactly known for sending his sons on social calls."
"Son,” I correct her with enough manufactured heaviness to convince her I’m still grieving. She inclines her head in a silent apology, and I continue. “I volunteered." My thumb traces the rim of my untouched glass. "Goodwill between packs—nothing formal, just a handshake and a pleasant evening."
"You volunteered." She repeats it with a deadly inflection. "Harlan Adler, who hasn't crossed a border for anything short of a treaty negotiation in fifteen years, and his son just felt like making the drive."
"Even Adlers enjoy a party, Maren." I let the corner of my mouth lift—an offering calculated to land light and leave no residue.
"We're a small pack, Rhys. Forty-three members, if you count Doris, who counts herself twice on principle." She leans against the fence post, posture relaxed in a way her eyes aren't. "Small packs notice things—like when someone walks the perimeter instead of joining the dancing."
"Habit." I shrug with one shoulder, easy, practised. "I run security for the Adler compound—reading ground is professional instinct, not surveillance."
"See, that's a very good answer—smooth, reasonable, impossible to argue with." She points her glass at me. "Oren doesn't ask questions when people arrive at his gate—that's his gift. I ask the questions for him. That's mine."
"Then ask." I spread one hand, palm up, the gesture of a man with nothing to conceal. "I'm not here to cause trouble."
"Nobody ever is." She tilts her head and something sharp catches in her expression. "Tell me—does your father know you're here?"
"He knows I'm travelling." The half-truth slides out with the ease of something rehearsed so long it's become muscle. "The specifics are my own."
"Mm." She lets the sound sit between us, heavy, deliberate. "Guest quarters are past the elder hall, second door on the left. Breakfast at seven—Doris takes punctuality personally and she is terrifying."
"Before you go—tell me about the compound." I shift the conversation's weight with the ease that I learned—first, how to redirect, then how to to fight. "Oren's built something remarkable here. How long has it stood in this configuration?"
It works—people proud of what they've built will talk about the building, and every answer is a room I walk through without them knowing they've handed me the key. She tells me about the expansion three years back, the well system, the patrol rotation Oren redesigned after a border dispute with the Carrick pack.
"The healer's quarters went up before his own cabin." Genuine pride threads through the tactical edge she's been wearing all evening. "That tells you everything about the man, if you're paying attention."
"I'm paying attention." The words come out quieter than planned, and she studies me for two beats too long before draining her glass.
"Welcome to Blackvale, Rhys Adler." She pushes off the fence post and straightens her coat. "Don't make me regret saying that."
I watch her walk back to the celebration without turning around to check if I'm following. Smart woman—she knew I'd notice if she looked back.
The guest quarters hold nothing personal—bed, desk, a lamp casting more shadow than light. I close the door behind me, pull the chair out, and remove the stationery from my coat.
The pen is heavy in my hand. Good weight, balanced—the kind of instrument that makes lying feel like calligraphy.
Father—I've followed a lead into the southern border territories, near the market towns past Greymoor. No confirmed sighting, but the trail is promising. Will report within the fortnight.
The ink dries while I read it back. Every word placed, every implication measured—a town that exists, a trail that doesn't, a dutiful son performing obedience from inside the very territory where the woman he was sent to destroy is laughing at a birthday party.
The first lie I've ever written to my father. My hand didn't shake—I should find that reassuring, and the fact that I don't is something I'll examine later, or never.
Through the window, the party exhales its final hour—street lights dimming, wolves drifting toward their cabins, voices thinning to murmurs and then nothing. Then her laugh crosses the yard. Not the words—just the sound—and my pen stops against the envelope.
The woman I remember didn't laugh. She moved through the Adler house like someone trying not to disturb the air—shoulders curved, voice barely there, eyes trained on whichever surface wouldn't look back.
This sound is different—warm, unguarded, carrying across the compound with a confidence that has no right to exist in someone who spent three years apologising for breathing too loudly.
Whatever Callum crushed flat has grown back. Grew back somewhere with unlocked doors and wolves at thresholds and an Alpha who carries one of the pack pups as if they were his own.
I fold the letter and seal it. The green scarf sits in my coat pocket pressed against the envelope—her scent threaded through wool and cedar and the warmth of something handmade by a woman who never stopped creating things for people who didn't deserve them.
The mission was clean when I left Father's study—find the woman, remove the complication, return what belongs to the bloodline. Simple and efficient, the mathematics of duty that requires no conscience. The kind of work a second son does well, because second sons are built for tasks no one else will touch.
Now I'm sitting in a borrowed room writing lies to the man who sent me, and outside a woman I came to destroy is laughing in the dark with a voice I've never heard her use. I tell myself the lie buys time, that time buys options, that options are what a man trained in perimeter work gathers before he acts.
I tell myself this is the only lie I'll need to write. My hand still doesn't shake, but my jaw locks tight enough to send a pulse through both temples—and that, I cannot explain away as strategy.