The journey to the Stone Circle was a seventy-mile silence broken only by the thrum of engines and the hiss of tires on wet asphalt. James led in his matte-black Shogun, a rolling shadow. Eleanor followed in her Keswick Green Discovery, a streak of muted resolve in his mirrors. They did not travel as a convoy, but as two separate entities bound by the same grim coordinates, the space between them a gulf of years and unsaid words.
Inside the Shogun, the scent of old coffee and gun oil was now laced with something else—the faint, herbal-chemical trace of Wolfsbane-722 from the sample bags in his locked case. It was a smell that conjured not the forest, but the lab. It conjured her.
A flashback, unwelcome and vivid, sliced through his focus. Not of the drunken night that ended it, but of the summer before. Eleanor, sixteen, kneeling by a stream on pack land, her hands full of wet clay. "Look," she'd said, her face alight with a curiosity that was entirely her own. "The different strata. This grey layer is ash. From the Great Fire the elders talk about. It's not just a story, James. It's right here in the dirt." He'd teased her for being a bore, but he'd watched, captivated, as she read the earth like a book. That was her gift: the relentless, illuminating truth of evidence.
Now, the evidence in his case was pointing toward his home.
In the Discovery, Eleanor's world was one of controlled climate and the soft hum of her vehicle's premium sound system, currently off. The silence was heavier. Her kit was in the boot, her samples logged and secured. Her mind, however, was in the passenger seat of the Shogun five car lengths ahead.
Another memory, this one cold and sterile. The morgue, five years ago. Him standing in the doorway, still smelling of rain and regret, asking for a professional consult on a border skirmish victim. Her, in her lab coat, not meeting his eyes, her voice like polished steel as she detailed the wound patterns. She had built a fortress of professionalism that day, brick by brick, and she had lived within it ever since. Yet here she was, following him back to the very heart of the world that fortress was built to keep out.
Her phone buzzed on the dashboard mount—a secure message from her Rogue Pack Council liaison. > Confirm ETA. Silvervein sentinels report your approach. Advise caution. Their ground, their rules. She typed a one-word reply: > Understood.
The landscape began to shift. The neat farmland and hedgerows gave way to rising moorland, dotted with gorse and ancient, wind-bent hawthorns. The road narrowed, becoming a single-track lane with passing places. They were crossing into the penumbra of recognized pack territory, where human maps grew vague and older laws of trespass held sway.
James's brake lights flared. He'd pulled into a passing place overlooking a deep, peat-brown river. Eleanor pulled in behind him, the two vehicles perched on the gravel verge. He got out, not looking at her, and walked to the edge, staring down at the water.
After a moment, she joined him. The sound of the river was a low, constant roar.
"This is where the hiker's photo was taken," James said, his voice almost lost in the noise. "The 'water leaper.' The Wyrm."
Eleanor followed his gaze. The water was fast, dark, and frothing around slick black rocks. "A juvenile amphibious shifter would need a lair nearby. Somewhere warm, sheltered, and wet. A cave system with thermal activity."
"The Weeping Caves are three miles north of here," James said. "Part of the contested land in that lawsuit."
The connection was a tangible thread between them. Corporate law, toxicology, and now mythical biology, all knotting together over this patch of map.
"Show me the mineral sample from the first victim again," Eleanor said. It was not a request from a subordinate, but a command from a fellow investigator.
James went to his Shogun, unlocked the case, and returned with a small evidence bag. The stone inside, even in the overcast daylight, glimmered with its sickly, internal rainbow.
Eleanor took it, holding it up. "Iridescence like this in sedimentary rock usually requires a specific, rare combination of metals and consistent geothermal pressure. It's a fingerprint." She looked from the stone to the river, then north towards the unseen caves. "Your father's pack guards those caves. Who has access?"
James's jaw tightened. "The Alpha bloodline. The Beta family. Senior sentinels on rotation. And, by ancient treaty, any pack member undergoing the Rite of Solitude."
"Which is?"
"A three-day vigil. For adolescents coming into their strength. It's a test of spirit. They're left alone in the sacred zones to… commune with the pack's essence." He said it like a recitation, but a new unease was in his eyes.
"Alone? Unsupervised?" Eleanor's forensic mind pounced on the vulnerability. "For three days, anyone could approach them. Talk to them. Offer a different kind of… communion."
The implication hung between them. The Werewolf Club. The lost, the lonely, the adolescents desperate for power and belonging. A recruiter wouldn't need to breach the territory; they could just wait at the finish line of a sacred rite, preying on the spiritually exhausted and impressionable.
"We need to know which adolescents have completed the Rite in the last year," Eleanor said, handing the stone back. "And if any have since gone missing, or shown… changes in behavior."
James took the sample, his fingers brushing hers. This time, the contact wasn't an accident. It was a silent acknowledgment. Her expertise had just illuminated a dark corner of his own world. The trust was not given, but it was being earned, molecule by molecule, deduction by deduction.
"We'll need the pack records," he said. "My father won't release them easily. He sees secrecy as strength."
"Then we find another way," Eleanor said, turning back towards her car. "The Summit is full of gossip and old grievances. Someone will talk."
The final approach was along a track that was little more than a deer path. The vehicles lurched and groaned over roots and stones. The forest here was primordial, a cathedral of oak and pine that blocked out the sky. The air grew cold and thick with the scent of moss and decaying wood.
They emerged into a clearing that stole the breath.
The Stone Circle was just that—a perfect ring of towering, lichen-crusted megaliths on a hilltop, older than any pack. Around it, however, was a temporary encampment of stark modernity. Solar-powered lamps on poles cast pools of white light. Several large, armored 4x4s were parked in a precise row—the vehicles of the old, established packs. Among them, looking both professional and provocatively out of place, were Eleanor's two white vans: the Ford Transit lab and the Mercedes Sprinter morgue. Her Rogue Pack had arrived first, planting their standard of clinical science in the heart of mystical tradition.
As James and Eleanor parked at the edge of the clearing, figures emerged from between the vehicles and standing stones. James saw his father, Alistair Wilson, the Silvervein Alpha. He was a taller, older, harder version of James, his hair steel-grey, his gaze like a physical weight. It swept over James, then settled on Eleanor with a displeasure so profound it was like a drop in temperature.
Other Alphas and their Betas watched. Eleanor saw suspicion in their eyes, and outright hostility in a few. She was the prodigal daughter who had not just left, but had excelled outside their structure. She was a walking challenge to their authority.
James came to stand beside her, not quite at her shoulder, but not apart either. It was a subtle, significant alignment.
His father strode forward, stopping a few feet away. "James," he said, his voice gravel. Then his eyes cut to Eleanor. "Dr. Thompson. Your vehicles are an intrusion."
"The evidence is an intrusion, Alpha," Eleanor replied, her voice clear and carrying in the quiet clearing. "We brought it where it could be seen by all. To prevent misunderstandings."
"The only misunderstanding," Alistair said, his words aimed at James but meant for her, "is that external scrutiny solves internal problems. You bring a complication into our midst when we require unity." He turned his back on her, a deliberate, brutal dismissal. "James. Walk with me."
James hesitated for a fraction of a second, his eyes meeting Eleanor's. In them, she saw not apology, but a shared recognition of the battlefield. He followed his father into the shadows of the standing stones.
Eleanor stood alone in the circle of light from her own vans, the gathered leaders of the hidden world looking on. She was the complication. She was the outsider. And she was the only one with the key to the poison in their veins. The tense journey was over. The summit had begun, and she was at the center of the storm.