ENDURING {Sequel to Everlasting} ❗️EDITING ❗️

Chapter 80

Tracking in the dark isn't so bad, even if it's a little trickier. I'm just glad that I don't have to hike a shit ton of weight like I did on that island. My bag is small and light, a couple sandwiches, a bottle of water and a first aid kit.

With my compass in one hand and a flash light in the other, I track barefoot through the woods. I'm kind of glad Lucifer isn't with me, I feel like he makes a lot of noise and I don't want him to get hurt. Because of his absence, I've stocked up on weapons.

For tonight I travel to the edge of Maddox's border, and almost seven miles out. Their tracks become far less complicated to follow the further out I go, the flashlight and my keen sense of hunting allowing me to tell the difference between marks in the thick dirt.

There's always a rhythm, and like I said, wolves are creatures of habit.

I stay silent, and I move slow, knowing my hearing isn't the best. I keep the light strictly on the ground, staying on track as I follow the compass east. I'd started at the north border, but the tracks lead nowhere, they're muddled to distract Maddox and his men.

I get the impression these rogues aren't as wild as they're supposed to be. Not when they're planning. Rogues usually travel alone, or in very small groups, it makes it easier for them to move around, to avoid being found.

In large groups you can't exactly hide your location.

But I can. Being human means I can rub wolfsbane into my clothes and no wolf within a mile radius will be able to sniff me out.

I track the seemingly random tracks until dawn, before finally climbing high up into a tree. I stay there, watching the ground below, listening as I write down everything. My locations, my starting point, my theory's.

So far I've reached just past the eastern border, almost ten miles out from pack land.

"Ahhhwwooooo!"

The sound of wolves calling out in the early morning is typical for rogues, though stupid.

I may be human, but I track well enough to know they're about seventeen miles out from the border, closer to the south.

The thing about wolves, when one howls, the rest follow. From a distance three wolves can sound like ten.

And right now? It sounds like hundreds. All echoing one after the other, a chorus of music.

Maddox wasn't fucking around when he said there were too many for it to be considered normal. There's far too many rogues in one place for it to be considered coincidence.

No, this is war.

For the most part I sleep, although not very comfortably. Still, it's not the worst place I've slept. It's not exactly cold here, Maddox is further south than Hardin's pack.

No wolves pass under the entire day I remain high in the tree, so I eat my sandwich and wait for nightfall. I wait until it's almost black, before falling climbing down the tree. My bladder near bursting, forcing me to pee in a bush like a wild animal, grabbing the wolfsbane petals from my bag and rubbing them to dust as I cover my clothes again.

My compass in one hand and the flash light in the other, I track out another couple of miles, heading south. Remembering every detail that changes through the night.

Finally I spot it.

The sight fills me with satisfaction. Seeing the corpse of a fresh kill on the ground, I lift my flashlight through the woods. As I'd hoped, there's what looks to be around thirty dead animals, all of them now broken bone and a little fur.