Chapter 43 – Whispers Beyond the Border
The wind howled off the cliff's edge, carrying with it the scent of salt, stone, and something else—something wrong.
Rowan crouched low at the craggy drop-off ten miles beyond the southern border, his fingers grazing the dirt where Giselle’s scent had gone cold days ago. His wolf snarled inside him, restless, pacing, furious. This was where she’d vanished. No blood. No broken branches. No trail. It was as if she’d been lifted from the earth itself.
“She didn’t go over,” Kalen said behind him, arms crossed and voice low. “If she had, we’d have found her body.”
Rowan stood slowly, scanning the tree line where their warrior, Tamric, had reported signs of warding—old magic, laced into bark and stone.
“No body. No blood. No trace,” Rowan muttered. “But Tamric was right. I can feel something here. Something cloaked.”
Kalen stepped closer, brows furrowed. “The witch?”
“That’s the lead,” Rowan said. “Lives near here. Keeps to herself. Doesn’t answer to any coven. Has a reputation for cloaking spells… and disappearing things.”
Kalen’s lips curled. “Convenient.”
“Too convenient,” Rowan said darkly. He moved toward a narrow deer path veiled by overgrowth. The scent of smoke and herbs reached him first—subtle, but recent. “She’s nearby.”
They followed the path in silence, senses sharp. The trees grew thicker, and the light dimmed unnaturally, the kind of gloom that had nothing to do with the weather. Rowan’s wolf growled low.
Then they saw it.
A cabin nestled between twisted pines, wrapped in ivy and shadow. Wind chimes made from bone rattled in the breeze. The door opened before they could knock.
“Alpha Rowan,” came a soft, silvery voice. “I wondered how long it would take for you to show up on my doorstep.”
The witch was young—at least in appearance. Barefoot, robed in mossy green, with eyes the color of tarnished gold. She smiled like someone who knew too much.
“You know why we’re here,” Rowan said without preamble.
She tilted her head. “The rogue mate… the one the earth has swallowed?” The witch stepped back, motioning them inside.
The door creaked shut behind them, the interior of the cabin dimly lit by flickering candles and a single hearth fire. The scent of dried herbs, wax, and ash hung heavy in the air.
Rowan didn’t sit.
The witch moved gracefully around the room, her bare feet making no sound against the wooden floor. She picked up a mortar and pestle, began grinding something with methodical precision. Not a word spoken—until Rowan broke the silence.
“Your scent was found near the clearing where my mate vanished.”
The grinding stopped. Slowly, the witch raised her head, gold-flecked eyes meeting his.
“You’re sure?”
“I know what I smelled,” Rowan said. His voice was calm, but beneath it, the weight of restrained fury coiled like a spring. “The same forest floor and wild sage scent that clings to you now. Faint, but present. Right at the edge of the cliff.”
She didn’t deny it.
Rowan stepped closer. “That clearing isn’t on any path. You would have had to climb through dense terrain to reach it. That night, no storm, no animal passed through—and yet you were there.”
She set down the mortar gently and folded her hands in front of her. “I was drawn to it.”
“Drawn?” Kalen repeated, incredulous. “That’s your explanation?”
The witch’s voice remained level. “There was a surge. A pull in the ley lines. I followed the magic to its source—just as you did. But by the time I reached the cliff, the spell had already been cast.”
Rowan narrowed his eyes. “Convenient. Especially for someone who dabbles in cloaking magic.”
She met his stare unflinchingly. “If I’d cloaked her, Alpha, you wouldn’t even know a trail existed.”
Rowan let that sit for a breath before he continued.
“There were symbols on the trees,” he said. “Old, twisted sigils. Blood-marked and burned into the bark. Not from any witch I’ve known.”
That made her expression change—slightly. Her gaze flicked toward the window, toward the forest beyond.
“I saw them too,” she admitted. “They don’t belong to any coven on this side of the valley. They’re older. Tainted. The kind of runes used in blood-binding rituals. Used to hide someone… or to mark them.”
“Mark them?” Rowan’s tone was ice.
She nodded slowly. “For tracking. Or claiming.”
His wolf growled at the suggestion, instincts roaring to the surface. Giselle wasn’t someone’s prey. She was his.
Rowan stepped forward, the distance between them shrinking.
“Then tell me who uses them. Who could’ve cast that kind of spell and erased her trail from every wolf nose and witch circle in a hundred-mile radius.”
The witch studied him for a long moment. “Someone powerful. Someone with shifter blood—and dark magic. You want a name, but I don’t have one. What I can tell you is this: whoever took your mate is working with someone on your side of the border.”
Rowan clenched his fists. “You sure of that?”
The witch nodded her head. “Blood tells no lies. Whoever took your mate had help from within your walls. The markings, the precision, the silence—it wasn’t the rogues alone. This was an orchestrated disappearance, not an ambush.”
Kalen cursed under his breath. Rowan said nothing. The firelight danced across Rowan’s face as his thoughts raced. Elia. Elder Malric. The altered patrols. The silence from the Elders. All of it… leading to this.
“Can you track her?” Beta Kalen asked.
The witch looked between them. “Not easily. But I can break the spell cloaking her trail—if you’re willing to pay the price.” The witch turned back to her work, adding dried petals to the bowl.
“What kind of price?” Rowan asked warily.
“If you truly want to find her,” she said quietly, “you’ll need more than warriors and bloodhounds. You’ll need to go where wolves can’t tread—and see what most fear to look at.”
Rowan’s jaw ticked. He swallowed hard. “Then we start with the truth,” he said. “Cast the spell. Break whatever’s hiding her from me.”
The witch nodded, already turning to gather her tools.
As Rowan watched the spellwork begin, firelight flickering in her palms, he felt something shift. The path ahead was still cloaked in danger and lies, but now—now he had direction.
And someone would burn for what they’d done.
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