Primal Hunt

Sylvan, silent and stealthy, slipped through the shadows, her wolf within watchful, on full alert, and ready to rise between one breath and the next. The heartbeats of hundreds of wolfwares inside the compound walls resonated in her depths. The warriors standing post on the fortifications and the inner buildings or asleep in the barracks, the maternals overseeing the young in the nursery, and the P.A.C. members who had returned from their lives in the outside world to renew their connections with P.A.C. Even the distant sentries on perimeter duty miles away beyond the safety of the encampment shared a place in her consciousness and were never far from her protective reach. All appeared quiet to Eni without the heightened sensitivity of an alpha wolf intimately linked to their territory. She'd left the side of her mate well after the moon had reached its zenith, driven by the insistent pacing of her wolf within and the sense of impending danger. Weary of the false aura of peace that could shatter at any moment, Sylvan prowled the commons at the center of the compound. The gathering points around the fire pits and the training grounds were deserted in the deep hours between midnight and dawn, an unusual occurrence. The moon had crested an hour before, and ordinarily, with its call so strong, dozens of her P.A.C. would be outside the fortified walls, running in pelt or lingering on the commons in search of a tangle or a tussle, depending on their urge to couple or challenge. The perimeter patrols stationed throughout the thousands of acres of P.A.C. land secured their territory so the P.A.C. could run freely in safety along the many trails that threaded through the virgin forests. But not tonight. Tonight, by her order, no one passed outside the fortifications. Even her mate had left their den a mile from the compound and slept in one of the rooms adjoining Sylvan's office in the headquarters building. For the first time in Sylvan's memory, she was not certain her territory was secure. Not since a gate from the world beyond the Vale had opened a lance throw from her very walls and a royal fae contingent had stepped out into the heart of P.A.C. land. Not since border guards of the Snowcrest Wolves, whose P.A.C. adjoined hers on the northern border, had been attacked, killed or worse, at multiple locations by assassins who appeared and disappeared through breaks in the barrier between worlds. Not since Cecilia, the Queen of Faerie, had sought an alliance with the wares and vampires against an enemy none could name. War was coming. Sylvan did not know when, she did not know from where, and she did not know in what form her enemies might manifest. But without doubt, war was coming. What she had to decide was whether she would wait or gather her forces and strike first.