Page 6 of Hunted By the Wolves
He didn’t explain how he knew.Didn’t need to.Wolves read damage the way medics read vitals.
“She’s not going to last like this,” Dorian said.
Rafe nodded once.“No, she’s not.”
Rafe let his gaze linger a second longer than protocol allowed, committing her to memory—the tension in her shoulders, the way she curled inward without disappearing, the quiet defiance in how she stayed in public even when fear clung to her like a second skin.
Something old and dangerous settled into place inside him.
Soon.They would get her out of whatever the fuck this was, and make sure she was safe.
But not yet.
He eased back from the edge of the roof and finally let his wolf breathe.
“We keep eyes on her,” he said.“No contact.”
Dorian nodded.“Until?”
“Until we’re sure,” Rafe replied.
And once they were sure, once innocence was confirmed and the threat identified, restraint would no longer be an option.
The Wolves would hunt.
And once they were on your trail ...they never stopped.
Chapter Two
Dorian had learneda long time ago to trust his instincts—the subtle shift in a neighborhood’s pulse that came before violence, before chaos, before people who lived hard learned to get out of the way.It wasn’t fear, exactly.It was awareness.A collective tightening, like an animal sensing a change in the wind.
Tonight, Brooklyn was doing that thing.
It wasn’t dramatic.No screaming alarms or sudden flights.Just micro-adjustments—a shop owner locking his door ten minutes early, a woman crossing the street without looking back, a dealer melting into a doorway instead of holding his usual corner.People who lived on these blocks had learned the math of survival young.They didn’t need to understand the threat to respect it.
From the shadowed mouth of an alley across from the convenience store, on a fire escape landing two stories up, Dorian watched the street settle into a pattern that didn’t quite fit.Traffic slowed for no obvious reason.Conversations cut off too cleanly.A pair of regulars who usually loitered near the bodega down the block drifted away without being told.
