The suspicious trio and I trotted back to the pack together. When we approached the sleeping pack of wolves, all calmly sprawled out on the damp forest floor, I instantly steered towards one in particular. I tried to bury my anger and instead dug out a light mood that I intensified as I poured energy into the effort.

Kendra was just about to get up from her lying-position, berry-less. Before Shyla could voice her own suspicions, I addressed the fact Kendra wasn't with the berries I'd mentioned before Shyla could.

Kendra threw me a slightly confused glance when she noticed us all together. She surely suspected something was off, feeling it because she was my Maecena and knowing it because I would never willingly spend even a second with either Shyla or Tyler.

Seriously, Ken? Where are the berries? I said through the link, hoping to all the gods above that she picked up on the strained look I was giving and the nickname I never called her.

Kendra was my bonded Maecena for a reason.

Yeah, well... Sorry... I was hungry. You didn't really bring that many anyways, she answered as if we'd rehearsed it but perfectly natural. She added an annoyed tone at the end which made her performance that much more believable.

I pushed my utmost gratitude into her, concentrating on keeping the flow of the emotion strictly between us. If Shyla suddenly felt gratitude, she'd know it was from me and she wasn't completely daft. In truth, she wasn't half as dumb as I wished she were.

Holden, Shyla and Tyler turned their backs towards us, seemingly not interested, which I picked up as a good sign.

You could have saved at least a few, I answered irritatedly, nudging her side with my snout. You're getting fatter.

Her warm laugh flowed through the link while she physically made strange rumbling sounds. I'll scavenge some tomorrow and let you have them. Alright?

I was seriously amazed at how well we kept up the charade although Kendra didn't have the slightest clue as to what it was about.

It took about an hour until the rest of the pack awoke from their slumber and we could continue with our journey. Jarred and Reece took all the male members with them to find the place Jarred had mentioned earlier—'where dawn marks its end'.

Us females were, ironically, meant to scavenge for some more food.

The one time it would have been ideal to continue on with the journey as though nothing had happened... Reece obviously has to cross my plans.

I was glad to notice that the trio didn't seem to mind though. I caught Shyla staring at me one too many times, however the interactions between us were limited to strange stares.

Once nightfall slowly rolled in, the sky darkening more with each hour that passed, the men finally returned.

I heard their bellowing laughter from afar, glad that the endless boy talk Debrova had started with her sister came to an end. Kendra and I both glanced at each other when Debrova zipped her mouth shut so suddenly.

Thinking the same thing, we broke out in large smiles but remained silent.

"It sounds like they might have been successful," Cora said, flipping her mane of red hair over her shoulder.

"I wouldn't be so certain," Kendra muttered gloomily, popping a little red berry into her mouth and chewing it slowly. "Hm, these taste really good though."

I glanced at Shyla, who was always silent, never sharing opinions or making any suggestions. As if she'd felt my stare, her head turned into my direction and her cold eyes met mine. I detected no emotions in her, her signature as gray as usual. It was as intriguing as it was creepy. Having such a stale personality was dangerous. You couldn't calculate their next move.

"You think we can finally get out of Everett Valley territory?" Debrova asked into the round.

I shook my head, looking at Debrova instead of Shyla, put off by her emotional signature. Gray had been the first 'color' I'd ever seen someone's signature have.

Everything I could think of was wrong about her. The look in her eyes. The lack of color in her emotional signature, as if she had no emotions to bare at all. The secretive behavior, the conversation I'd heard...

The bad feeling I'd had in the pit of my stomach grew. I needed to find an opportunity to speak to Reece soon.

"I can't believe we're trusting some passages of a damn book," Cora muttered, her mood sour. I wondered what it was that made her feel that way.

"Why do you say that?" I asked, all eyes turning to me, since I seldom spoke aloud in the pack. Mostly my conversations, comments or thoughts were limited to Kendra and my brothers.

Cora's eyes reached mine, her onyx gaze boring into me with an intense fire behind them I'd never really seen them have. Something about her was different, now that I saw her. I refrained from spacing out and looking at her signature, tempted as I was. I couldn't risk anyone noticing.

She tilted her head, her facial expression remaining unreadable. Her eyes seemed to search mine for something. "Books in Everett Valley have never been reliable," she explained, making a solid point but not exactly building up any sort of hope.

I felt quite a few moods drop at her words. Reece would not be pleased by this if I didn't turn it around, quickly. "Then our knowledge about everything would be in question," I replied, shrugging as though it didn't matter to me much what she thought. In reality, her words were as unsettling as they were true. "In theory you can question anything and everything." I paused. "Sometimes certain things require faith above all else." I tried to convince myself of that, too.

Before Cora could say anything, Leana, Debrova's sister, cut in. "We all came along knowing that not every step can be planned ahead of time. Even if we don't find whatever Beta Jarred read in that book, we'll find another way through those mountains."

Thankful for her perspective, I noticed a slight raise in the mood, though it was still heavy with nervousness.

"We've come too far to let our doubts stop us now. There will always be a way to get where we aim to go," I said, finishing the discussion.

Finally, the mood settled, though Cora's was one I struggled to place. She usually kept to herself or conversed lightly with Derran and Emmet. They'd been friends for a long time. Since no friends were allowed over to our house and never had been, I barely knew her. Something about her intrigued me.

The men broke through the clearing and said they'd found several caves alongside the mountain, but none of which looked inviting enough to check out. They decided to come back and have us all go up there again, stay there for the night if need be. But remaining down here was only a waste of time.

There were a number of things weighing me down that night. There were so many questions still unanswered—piling up like sand in the desert. Cora's foreboding made me think back to the man in the shop who'd said that a lot of books containing valuable information had been confiscated. That feeling of trepidation put me back to Everett Valley and the gray cloud that had loomed over us when we were there, seeming at the same time to be following us wherever we went. It was a dark, heavy weight that deepened the hole in my stomach. It reminded me of the shadow-man, too. The body in the cave. Who'd killed him? Was it the same wolf that had attacked us, if it had even been a wolf? And to top it off, did they murder an entire family? It made no sense. If they were all connected, how? They had nothing in common except brutality. Pain. There were no dots to connect, it seemed like they simply didn't exist. Coincidences? Simple happenings of fate, unexplainable events? It all happened in too short of a time span for them to be simple coincidences. The only thing I did know was that somehow, the Thrakos men had something to do with it. I didn't want to point my finger at them and accuse them of murder, especially since they'd been complacent about most things, but it would have been downright stupid to ignore the obvious. The attacks had happened after they'd arrived. Before that, Everett Valley had been as controlled and uneventful as usual.

Hundreds of kilometers away from Everett Valley—and the town still haunted me, clawing at my morals. Were the three outsiders, Holden, Shyla and Tyler connected to the attacks?

When that particular thought crossed my mind, a chill ran through my body like a current in the ocean. A cold sensation rippled through my blood.

Would either of them really be capable of murder? Or was it that Kintar person Holden had mentioned?

C, you need to concentrate. The Rukhs isn't stable, a voice cut through my mind like a razor sharp blade, forcing me out of my haunting thoughts.

I instantly looked up, Reece's long, dark-brown snout coming into view to my left. His tongue hung lazily out of his mouth. He looked like a lop-sided, grinning wolf and it nearly made me laugh.

I nodded, closing my eyes briefly and summoning the last bit of tranquility I had stored deep down inside. When I reopened my eyes, I felt a little more in control of myself again.

Banishing all the disturbing thoughts I'd had, I tried to keep my focus on the pack instead. We had another hour to go until we would reach the opening of the mountain we were supposed to get through.

The phrase that Jarred had said still lingered, swirling through my head like a melody that didn't want to be forgotten. 'Where dawn marks its end.'

Reece, Jarred and Emmet formed a triangle in the front while the rest of us followed suit behind them as we all broke into a run. With every step that we took, the speed of our movements gradually increased. All of us were in perfect sync with raw energy flowing through each of us. It felt good to relish in it—it felt like laying in a warm tub full of hot water after having been out in the cold. It was deep and soothing, regenerating. It felt good.

Only for a second did I look up into the sky—just to quickly glance at the beautiful sunset that poured a reddish glow over us. The sun was creeping out of sight but left a beautiful canvas behind it—made up of the most mesmerizing shades of red, orange and violet. Although I allowed myself to only glance up shortly, it was long enough to engrain the view into my memory.

And suddenly, I realized something.

What if dawn marking its end is meant in the literal sense? The first sun rays, could they point towards a specific location if looked at in the right place?