I do not turn fast.
Fast is prey.
Fast is fear.
I turn smart.
Slow enough that it looks like curiosity instead of alarm, angling my body so the darker stretch of trees remains in my peripheral vision while I keep the messenger in sight, because I am not about to get trapped between two unknowns without understanding the shape of them.
Layla goes very still inside me, not bristling, not flaring, just alert in that deep, predatory way that listens for rhythm rather than noise.
Breath, she murmurs.
I focus past the rustle of leaves and the shifting branches, filtering out the wind and the creak of wood until I isolate the pattern beneath it.
There.
Not random.
Measured.
Pack-scent hits a fraction of a second later, faint but unmistakable, threaded with the familiar notes of territo
