#Chapter 125: Side by Side

Ember The border camp is six canvas tents between pines, all damp earth, wood smoke, and men pretending they are not nervous. We arrive at dusk after a full day's ride, and Jake has the perimeter secured before Kaine finishes reading the first report. "Something's out there," she says, her voice tight with the same restless warning that's been humming through her since we crossed the eastern ridge. "I can taste it." I ask her what kind of something, already knowing the answer before she gives it: "Wolves. Not ours." At the command tent, Jake gives us the shape of the problem: Ronan, former Ashford alpha, challenged and exiled, now gathering forty to fifty displaced wolves along the ridge. No infrastructure, light weapons, hungry mouths. "Numbers?" I ask, joining them at the map table. "Forty to fifty, lightly armed, no real infrastructure," Jake says, and then he looks at Kaine with the measured honesty that makes Jake invaluable in moments like this. "They're not invaders.