Kieran

The snow is wrong near the eastern ridge.

Not dangerous. Not yet. Just wrong.

I lower my head and breathe against the wind, sorting through the forest one scent at a time. Pine. Ice. Hare beneath the crust. Old blood where something small died two nights ago. Fox farther north. Nothing near the deep paths. Nothing near the cave.

Good.

I move on.

Snow parts around my legs as I follow the ridge, heavy body built for this in a way the shape beneath it never was. The cold barely reaches me through my coat. My paws find buried ground without thought. Every fallen branch, every new track, every place where the wind has disturbed yesterday's snow is another piece of the forest accounting for itself.

The Beast has been quiet.

I checked before dawn.

Breathing slow. No fresh warmth in the cavern. No change in scent. No stone displaced near the lower chamber. Sleeping.

It needs to stay that way.

I turn toward the western patrol. Then I smell smoke. Not fire. Humans.

I stop. For several breaths, I simply stand there.

Incense. Wool. Sweat. Lamp oil. Too many feet packed together along one familiar route, their scent already thinning beneath fresh snow.

My ears flatten. Again. A low sound rolls from my chest. They are doing it again.

I know the trail before I follow it. They use nearly the same path every time, generation after generation, as if repetition can make stupidity sacred. A procession into the trees. Too many humans going in.

I turn immediately.

The old ritual site lies south of here, far enough from the deeper forest that most of the ones they abandon have a chance if they listen when I drive them away. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they panic. Sometimes winter reaches them before I can. Humans remember those deaths differently.

I run.

The trees blur around me, snow breaking beneath my weight in dull bursts. Their trail grows stronger as I close the distance. The group has already gone. I smell where they stopped, where bodies gathered, where incense burned against the cold.

And underneath it—

Something catches.

I stop so hard snow sprays past my forelegs.

My head lifts. There. One scent. Everything inside me goes still. Then everything wakes at once.

Heat snaps through my spine despite the cold. My heartbeat slams hard enough that I feel it in my throat. Every hair along my body rises. My mouth opens around a breath that suddenly will not come correctly.

No.

I breathe again. The scent hits harder.

Mine.

The thought does not arrive like a decision. It is already there.

Old as bone. Certain as hunger.

Mate.

For one disorienting second, the forest disappears beneath it. Not the patrol. Not the Beast. Not the humans who have once again marched someone into my territory and left them here expecting death.

Only that scent. Alive. Cold. Afraid. Alone.

A growl tears out of me before I can stop it, deeper and harsher than the irritation from before.

They left my mate here. They brought them into this forest, placed them in the snow, and walked away.

My body moves before the thought finishes.

I follow. Fast.

The trail cuts between familiar pines toward the old clearing, every breath sharpening the scent until it overwhelms everything else. Human fear. Cold skin. Cloth. The lingering stink of the village clinging to them.

And beneath all of it, unmistakable.

Mate.

I break through the final line of trees. The ritual clearing opens ahead. And there you are.

Exactly where they always leave them.