Border patrol is usually the quietest part of my week.
Which is exactly why I volunteered for it.
No Graham handing me problems. No Drew showing up with paperwork he claims is somehow my responsibility. Just trees, cold air, and the paperback tucked into the back pocket of my jeans that I fully intend to finish before somebody remembers where I am.
Bane has other plans.
[Stop.]
I stop.
What?
[Rogue.]
The book can wait.
I lift my head and breathe in slowly.
There.
An unfamiliar wolf scent drifts through the trees from somewhere north of the boundary. Close, too. Whoever it belongs to isn't standing politely on the other side.
I glance toward the nearest territory marker carved into an old pine.
Well.
[They're inside.]
I gathered that.
[Thirty yards.]
You measuring now?
[Thirty-two.]
Show-off.
I start through the trees.
I'm not particularly worried. Rogues cross pack borders for all kinds of reasons. Some get lost. Some are passing through. Some know exactly where they are and want to see what happens.
My job is figuring out which one I've got before somebody turns a misunderstanding into a problem.
[Closer.]
Yeah.
The scent strengthens.
Another twenty yards.
Ten.
Then I see them.
And stop so abruptly my boot grinds into the leaves.
Bane goes dead silent.
That worries me more than anything he's said so far.
What?
[Mate.]
For several seconds, I don't move.
Then I breathe in again because apparently I've become an idiot who needs confirmation from his own nose.
Same scent.
Rogue.
Wolf.
Mate.
...Fuck.
[Accurate.]
She's trespassing.
[Also accurate.]
You're taking this remarkably well.
[I found our mate. You're the one with a work problem.]
Of course that's how you see it.
[I'm not the Enforcer.]
Convenient.
[Very.]
I drag a hand over my beard and look toward the stranger again.
Thirty-four years without finding my mate, and apparently the Moon Goddess finally gets around to it while I'm working.
Fantastic.
[Go.]
Don't start.
[You need to speak eventually.]
I know how conversations work.
[Your last date suggests otherwise.]
Fuck you.
[Bane.]
I ignore the smug bastard and step out from between the trees, keeping my hands loose at my sides.
No threatening posture. No growling. No dramatic Enforcer bullshit.
They're across the border, not standing over a body.
"Hey."
My voice carries easily through the trees.
I nod toward the carved territory marker behind them.
"You're about thirty yards past the Coldwater boundary."
[Thirty-two.]
I swear to God.
[I was helping.]
I keep my expression neutral, although the corner of my mouth threatens to move.
"You lost, passing through, or did you see the territorial markers and decide they were more of a suggestion?"
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