Our caravan rolled to a stop on neutral ground, a stretch of country road shaded by forest that marked the eastern border of the Chandler pack lands, in time for a cricket serenade. I exited the vehicle and checked the coordinates Graeson had rattled off to Isaac after he’d finished buttering up Aunt Dot, but our welcome party consisted of a turkey vulture and the picked-over remains of what might once have been a beaver.

Great. I had been stood up. Twice in one day.

Isaac laid on the horn, and my middle finger itched to rise. The blame for this visit sat squarely at Aunt Dot’s feet, not mine. She had accepted Graeson’s invitation without consulting me, not the other way around. Choosing that moment to stick her head out her window, Aunt Dot winked at me like this was all part of some grand adventure, and I made a fist instead.

“Well?” she hollered as she craned to see around my trailer. “Where does Cord want us?”

“He’s not here,” I called back. “I guess we wait.”

Arms crossed, I leaned against my truck’s front bumper. A forest of pines, hickories, oaks and the occasional dogwood tree created a natural barrier to protect the wargs’ privacy. I kicked at one of the clumps of grass responsible for the bumpy drive and watched the clod go sailing. It landed with a dull thud, and a heartbeat later twin specks of gold winked into existence deep in the velvet-dark heart of the forest.

“Maybe I spoke too soon,” I murmured, straightening.

One blink. Two. The apparition vanished, and the woods went silent. Chills swept down my arms in a prickling cascade. Eerie quiet lured me nearer to the leaf-strewn line separating the single-lane road from the encroaching wilderness.

Wind swirled blond strands of hair into my eyes and kicked up dust at my feet. Leaves rustled over my head as if the hickories were shooing me away, warning me to climb back in the cab to safety. I rocked back on my heels, prepared to heed their warning, until a pitiful whine from the underbrush played on my heartstrings. “Graeson?”

A door opened behind me. “Pumpkin?”

“It’s fine.” I flung out my arm to keep her and Isaac corralled at their vehicles. “Get back in the truck.”