Lunar Rising

A Mouse to Cheese

Luka's Pov:

Her scent hit me like a ton of bricks. It was her. It had been so long since I had last smelt the comfort of her soft skin, that the faintest smell had my heart racing. 

I slumped down to my knee, planting my fist alongside it in the snow to ground myself for the moment. 

"Aura..." I whispered to the wind. 

Even though Damon had assured me she was alive, it was like a brand-new realization that she was really, truly okay. It was as if my mind didn't truly let me believe she was still here with me. Since that moment I felt the connection to our bond break, I had been carrying this heavy weight of fear that she wasn't really alive anymore. 

This scent...Her scent...Has breathed life back into me. 

The weight is gone now and, in its place, an unbreakable determination to get her back has rooted itself deep in my resolve. 

Damon crouched low next to me, raising his nose to the air to scent her too. 

His brow furrowed with concern that had me uneasy. 

"What is it? What's got you worried?" I asked, almost too nervous to hear what he was going to say. 

Damon sniffed again and sucked in a breath before letting it out slowly into a sigh. 

"If we can scent her, that means they took her outside..." Damon stated hesitantly. 

"And they don't normally do that I'm taking it?" I pressed.

A hard line set heavy on his face.

"No. Not ever. Which is precisely what makes me worried as to why they decided to bring her out now." He stated a matter of fact.

I studied his expression for a moment before returning my gaze to the camp. 

"Then it's time to move in... If they are moving her, they might be planning to do something sooner than we had anticipated." I said leaving no room for objection. 

Damon nodded in agreement.

Pine needles rustled gently as a scrawny brown wolf creped through them, coming to sit next to the two of us. 

Daniel nudged me with his cold nose, and I quickly realized what he was after. I reached into the backpack I had on me and pulled out a roll of clothes for him to change back into. He grabbed the roll with his teeth and disappeared back into the bushes. 

When Danny returned, he planted himself between the two of us once again. He had a goofy grin plastered on his face, making me raise an eyebrow in question. 

"Well? You clearly can't wait to tell us something. What did you find out?" I waived my hands, waiting for him to spit it out already. 

"I saw Lily. She's alive and okay." He gleamed brightly before continuing. 

"She was being escorted around by two men and another woman was with her too. She looked just as miserable as Lily, so I suspect she isn't one of them and they are both being kept under watch together. Just two men, that's all they got keeping an eye on them!" 

Danny could barely contain his excitement. He had been desperate to know what had become of his sister since the passing of his younger sister Hannah. He was beyond sick with worry, so this sighting meant just as much to him as scenting Aura had to me. I'd let him have his excitement for a few more moments before making him reign it in.   

"Alright, alright, keep it down. We don't want to blow our cover man." I said in a mock sternness, smiling while sharing in his excitement. 

"The other woman. Did she have silver hair?" I asked hopeful. 

Daniel's expression softened in sympathy. 

"Nah man sorry, she had long brown hair. It wasn't Aura with her." He spoke. 

Although he thought he was delivering news that would break my hope, it didn't. A small glimmer of hope blossomed that the long brown hair woman might just be another important person to me being held prisoner here. I didn't want to get my hopes too high, but the real possibility was there. 

Could Vivian really still be alive? I thought back to the tinny box I'd received containing my sister's mutilated ear. I didn't even want to think about what condition she might be in if she were. 

I couldn't get my hopes up, but I also couldn't give up on the possibility that she is down there too, waiting for me.  

In the few days we had been staked out on the ridge, we had move in closer to the camp and managed to remain undetected, despite the constant roving patrols of enemy wolves.

Since this spot was located in the middle of Damon's designated patrol zone, we hadn't had any close calls. We really had to thank our lucky stars that Damon showed up when he did. If we didn't have an inside man on our team, we would have been screwed a long time ago. 

The breeze on the air took a chilly turn and I looked up to the heavy overcast in the sky. 

The glittering white snow that had begun to fall was getting heavier, providing us the perfect cover.

Snow dampens the sound and helps conceal our scents. If it starts falling heavy enough, it will even help us move around easier without being seen. The dancing snowfall had come in the nick of time for us and our luck was looking up. 

"Time to move in." 

In our shifted skins, we moved slowly through the brush and trees, careful not to disturb the vegetation or leave obvious tracks. The closer we got to the camp site, the more careful we needed to be to stay concealed.  But the closer we encroached in, the more things started to seem off. 

I couldn't put my finger on it, but everything just felt way too easy to get in here. For how many wolves they had here, we should have had to avoid at least one or two roaming wolves, but everything was silent. Everything was eerily still. 

The scent of Aura was just oddly stronger where we stopped, distracting me from my uneasy feeling for a moment. The snow was great at throwing off our scent for our enemies, but it was affecting ours as well. 

A wadded-up ball of fabric was laying on the ground with a thin layer of snow covering it. I pushed the garment around with my nose, her scent filling my senses. 

She had been wearing this! What the hell is it doing here?

I concentrated hard on the scent to determine how fresh it was, but immediately snapped back to my surroundings when the putrid smell of wet mutt stuffed my nose. My hackles rose up as my eyes widened in realization. 

Damon and Daniel must have sensed them too, because we all spun around simultaneously to our hind ends, catching sight of six or seven scraggly wolves stalking in. To our flanks, another handful of wolves approached us, circling. Their low growls were dampened by the increasing snowfall, but I could hear enough of them to know we were sorely outnumbered.

Fuck... They knew we were here. 

They waited for us to come in closer, down from the ridge, so they could trap us in. How long had they realized we were here? That had to be the reason they let Aura outside. They were moving her, or hoping it would draw us in. Damon would have no clue where she was now. 

He detailed the layout of the building she was being held in. Told me which halls to go down and which ones to avoid while getting to her room. If they realized Damon had been compromised, that has to be why they moved her, so he would have no idea where she was, and we would be going to the wrong area. 

This place would be a maze trying to find her, and her scent is scattering with every moment the snow falls. I wouldn't be able to scent her out now. They had laid out pieces of her clothing to distract us. To trap us...

Our quick, "in and out" plan just became a chaotic disaster.