As they ventured deeper into the ancient woods, James's senses were overwhelmed by a sudden influx of information.
He could see it now—the natural ebb and flow of what could only be magic. It was like watching the wind; an impossible feat under normal circumstances. One might feel a breeze or see the debris it carried, but the air itself remained a ghost.
Yet here, in the heart of the wild, the atmosphere shimmered with a rhythmic, ethereal pulse.
His mind flashed back to the day before, to the moment Talia had blitzed him. He recognized that same presence now. He'd been analyzing her movement ever since, trying to decipher how she'd moved so fast without leaving a trail.
By his logic, a body moving at that speed should have displaced the air, sending a gust toward him. Instead, there had been nothing—as if she had created a vacuum or ridden the slipstream of the world itself.
He was so lost in his "engineer-brain" that he failed to notice Rowan watching him. While only Luna had the right to truly read James's mind—a bond that wouldn't be fully forged until the Drinking Ceremony—his face was an open book.
Rowan deduced the truth easily: the cub was seeing the threads. James's eyes were glinting, tracing the invisible ley lines that saturated the forest. It was an impressive feat for a newcomer. This forest was a reservoir of raw power, second only to the Spirit Realm or the most ancient holy sites.
In this world, magic was synonymous with life—pure, unadulterated nature. It didn't thrive in the crowded, stale air of cities; it lived in the cycle of the hunt, the decay of the forest floor, and the thriving pulse of an untouched ecosystem.
The pack made sure it stayed that way, ruthlessly purging anyone who dared to threaten the balance.
Only those with the sharpest instincts could see magic in its primal form, and James was already crossing that threshold.
How many more surprises does this cub have? Rowan wondered silently.
"Why so tense?"
A "light" pat slammed into James's back. To Mira, it was a friendly gesture; to any normal human, it would have been a medical emergency.
"Ow!" James winced, rubbing his shoulder as he turned to find Mira grinning at him, her sharp canines catching the filtered sunlight.
"Just thinking," James answered honestly, earning a skeptical, raised eyebrow from the brawler.
"Oh, don't bother asking him details. You wouldn't understand the half of it anyway," Talia teased, drifting up beside them.
Mira's expression soured instantly. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like. You're too much of a meathead for deep thought," Talia countered, her voice dancing with mischief.
"You bitch!" Mira cocked a bandaged fist, her indignation flare-up. "I can think just fine!"
"Are you sure about that?" Talia's tone was pure bait.
"Damn right I am!" Mira puffed out her chest, looking immensely proud of her own intellect.
"If I'm stupid, then say 'what'!"
"What?" Talia asked innocently.
Talia burst into a fit of laughter as the realization slowly dawned on Mira's face.
"Oh, you little—" Mira started, but she was cut off by a sharp, sidelong glance from Caius.
"No infighting before we reach the objective," he commanded. It wasn't a suggestion; it was a law.
Mira crossed her arms and potted, looking like a disgruntled teenager. "I'm not an idiot…" she muttered under her breath.
She looked almost adorable—or she would have, if James hadn't watched her powerbomb a rival werewolf into the dirt only yesterday. He wasn't falling for the "cute" act.
Now was as good a time as any to seek answers.
"Talia, I have a question."
Talia, still basking in the glow of her verbal victory over Mira, spun toward him. She looked entirely too innocent—wide-eyed and curious—but James's nose told a different story. She radiated a cocktail of pride and smugness, topped with a sharp, sugary scent he couldn't quite identify.
"Ask away!"
"When you intercepted me yesterday... did you glide on the wind, or did you create a vacuum to negate drag before moving?"
If James had been less focused on the physics, he would have noticed the sharp twitch of Caius's ears. Talia froze for a heartbeat, her grin transforming into something predatory and delighted.
"Oh? You actually saw it!" Before James could blink, she was in his face. Not just near him—she was occupying his literal oxygen.
She was so close he could feel the warmth of her breath, her eyes shimmering with glee.
The fact that she was casually carrying a hundred-pound slab of steel on her back didn't help the intimidation factor.
James recoiled instinctively, his face heating up. Only a week ago, his biggest social hurdle was talking to a TA about a lab report; now, he was being physically crowded by a supernaturally beautiful warrior who smelled like mint and violence.
"Talia, cease your encroachment," Caius's voice drifted over, calm and authoritative. "His transition is still in its infancy. Do not monopolize his proxemics."
Talia pouted, though she didn't move an inch. "Why? It's not like he's complaining."
"He is unaccustomed to such unfiltered proximity," Caius added, his eyes remaining on the trail. "You risk triggering a visceral physiological response."
Talia blinked, looking genuinely confused. She leaned in even closer, her nose twitching as she sniffed the air around James's neck.
"You mean like him getting hard?" she asked with the clinical detachment of someone discussing the weather. "Why would he? We're just talking."
James felt his soul attempting to leave his body.
"He is a paragon of abstinence, Talia," Caius remarked, using a tone so sophisticated it made the insult feel like a compliment. "His scent is clear. He lacks the carnal experience to remain composed under your… aggressive charms."
James felt the urge to bury himself in the forest floor. He wasn't a "man-whore" like his friend Michael; he'd spent his youth focused on hunting, gaming, and the grueling demands of a STEM degree. He had self-control, sure, but being called out as a "paragon of abstinence" by a stoic scout was a new level of emasculation.
Talia sniffed again, then beamed at James. "He's fine! He's just embarrassed. Look at his heart rate—it's like a little drum!"
She patted his cheek with a hand that could likely crush a boulder. "Don't worry, Newbie. We'll make a wolf out of you yet."
"Enough!" James snapped, his face burning with embarrassment. He reached out to give Talia a firm push—the kind of "get away from me" shove he'd given his friends back home a hundred times.
But James wasn't a "regular dude" anymore.
Talia didn't just stumble; she was launched. Her feet left the ground instantly as she became a blurred streak of dark leather and steel.
CRACK.
Her body slammed into a massive oak tree, snapped it like a dry twig, and kept going.
CRACK.
SNAP.
THUD.
She plowed through four trees in total, the sound echoing through the forest like a string of small explosions, before the fifth oak finally halted her momentum.
James stood frozen, his hand still extended, his eyes wide with horror. "I... oh god. Is she dead?"
"That looked like it would smart," Rowan noted bluntly, standing beside James with the emotional range of a stone gargoyle.
"Ha! That'll teach her to be a pest!" Mira cheered, her eyes sparkling with a dark, twisted joy as she watched the dust settle around the fallen timber.
Caius didn't cheer. He didn't even move. He simply stared at the path of destruction James had carved into the woods. His mind began to work, stripped of emotion, calculating the physics of the "shove."
He looked at the shattered remains of the first tree. It was an oak—not a young sapling, but a solid, seasoned trunk. Oak was dense; it was heavy. It didn't snap easily.
To shear a single oak of that diameter requires roughly thirty thousand pounds of force per square inch. James had gone through four. That wasn't just a push; that was a focused kinetic blast.
To move a body of Talia's weight—plus the hundred-pound slab of steel on her back—and keep that momentum through four layers of solid hardwood…
James hadn't even been trying. He hadn't even shifted. He had done that with a casual flick of his human-form wrist.
Caius turned his gaze back to James. If a "newbie" could throw that much weight around while flustered, the potential for disaster was astronomical.
"The trees," Caius said, his voice flat and heavy. "They were oak."
James blinked, still panicking. "Is... is that a protected species? Am I in trouble for the trees?"
"No," Caius replied, stepping over a fallen branch. "But you just used enough force to flip a tank. Next time you feel 'embarrassed,' keep your hands to yourself."
From the pile of leaves and splintered wood in the distance, a muffled groan emerged. Talia's hand reached out, waving weakly.
"That... actually stung a bit," Talia groaned, hauling herself out of the splintered debris.
"I am so sorry! Are you okay?" James's voice was thick with genuine panic. He hadn't meant to launch her; he had barely leaned into the shove. In his mind, it had been a "light" gesture.
The very next second, Talia wasn't groaning in the dirt anymore. She was inches from his face, vibrating with restless energy. "You're strong," she noted.
James stared at her, bewildered. Who the hell reacts with a compliment after being shot through four oak trees?
"And don't you dare feel sorry for me," she added, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp annoyance. The idea that he thought he'd hurt her was a direct hit to her ego. She'd been hit by mountain ogres and felt the crushing strike of vampire lords; she wasn't about to let the
"new cub" think his clumsy push had done anything but ruffle her hair.
"Okay..." James said, holding up his hands in a wry gesture of surrender.
"Someone is going to have to mend this," Caius interrupted, pointing a gloved finger at the path of shattered timber.
"I'll help," James offered immediately. He knew nothing about forest restoration, but he figured as long as the roots were in the ground, there was a chance.
"Help me realign the trunks," Caius commanded.
James followed him back to the first fallen oak. Caius gestured toward the hundred-foot-tall behemoth lying in the dirt. "Place it back on the stump. I will handle the rest."
James nodded, bracing himself. He remembered his old gym habits—lift with the legs, not the back. He prepared to dump every ounce of his power into the lift, but Caius's hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Start small," Caius advised. "Calibrate as you go. We wouldn't want you to launch this tree into the troposphere."
Right. The super-strength thing.
James dialed his effort back to what felt like a five-percent effort. The tree didn't budge. He slowly increased the tension in his muscles, feeling the power coil in his thighs.
At twenty percent, the massive trunk groaned. At thirty, he was fully supporting the weight of the hundred-foot oak, hoisting it back into the air with a grunt of effort.
He guided the jagged wood back onto the stump, fitting it perfectly into the Talia-shaped crack running through the base.
Once it was steady, Caius placed his palm over the break. His expression remained a mask of calm as a soft, rhythmic glow emanated from his hand. James watched, mesmerized, as the splintered wood didn't just move—it reached. Fine, glowing threads of life-force wove themselves through the gap, stitching the trunk and the base back together in a supernatural lace.
The deep fracture vanished, replaced by a seamless ring of fresh, vibrant bark. The tree shivered once, its leaves rustling in a phantom wind as the sap began to flow freely again. James could sense the energy now—it was as if Caius had taken a process that should have lasted decades and condensed it into seconds.
They moved through the rest of the debris, resetting each tree with clinical precision. It was part of the code: leave no trace.
A werewolf brawl was a messy affair, and while they could ignore the damage deep in the wilderness, this was too close to home.
The scouts were ghosts; they didn't leave signatures.
Once the "repairs" were finished, the group moved deeper into the woods.
Caius, Rowan, Mira, and Talia glided through the forest like smoke, their feet barely disturbing the dead leaves and uneven terrain.
Well—everyone except James.
CRUNCH.
CRACK.
SNAP.
James winced as another branch exploded beneath his boot. He felt like an elephant trying to dance in a library.
Caius broke the silence of the trek, his voice cutting through the rustle of the leaves. "You should understand the nature of our engagement before we reach the bank."
Mira groaned, the sound echoing dramatically through the canopy. "Oh, gods above, not the lecture again."
"We already know what Merfolk are, Caius," she complained, lacing her fingers behind her head.
Rowan's voice drifted from the rear, quiet and steady. "The explanation isn't for us."
Mira paused mid-stride. She slowly turned her head toward James, her eyes blinking in
realization.
"…Oh."
Right. New guy.
Talia immediately flashed a wicked grin. "You forgot about the puppy."
"I did not forget," Mira snapped instantly.
"You absolutely did," Talia shot back.
Mira pointed a finger aggressively at the younger girl. "I remembered eventually!"
"After complaining."
"That still counts!"
"It doesn't count."
"It counts enough!"
James watched them trade barbs like two feral siblings sharing a single, exhausted brain cell.
"You're getting old," Talia smirked, a low blow intended to sting.
Mira gasped as if she'd been physically impaled.
At eighty-one years old, she was a literal child by werewolf standards—anything under a century and a half was considered 'youthful'—but the insult landed all the same.
"I will beat you black and blue for that," Mira hissed.
Talia looked entirely unbothered. "You said that last time. Right before I threw you."
"I powerbombed you through a table!"
"It didn't hurt."
"You cried!"
"I was laughing!"
"You were unconscious!"
Caius cleared his throat.
The silence was instantaneous. It was an impressive display of authority; Mira and Talia straightened their posture immediately, looking like children caught brawling in the pews of a church.
James was beginning to map out the hierarchy: Kaela was the physical terror, but
Caius was the emotional one. Different flavors of fear, both equally effective.
Caius continued walking, his eyes fixed forward. "Kaela will be nearby."
James blinked. "Nearby-nearby? Or 'somewhere in the forest' nearby?"
"Approximately three minutes behind us," Caius clarified.
So, this was supervised. The thought made James feel safer and significantly more nervous at the same time.
"If an emergency occurs," Caius continued, "she is tuned to our scent and our frequency."
Mira looked far too excited about that prospect. "She gets... vibrant when she hears a distress call. It's a bloodbath."
"That is not reassuring," James muttered.
"It isn't meant to be."
Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.
Caius shifted the conversation back to the mission, his tone returning to that of a clinical instructor. "Merfolk are not a singular species. They are a broad classification of aquatic predators."
James frowned. "Wait... so we're not talking about the Disney kind? The human-looking ones?"
Talia looked genuinely confused. "The what?"
"Fish-people. Human upper halves, beautiful faces," James clarified.
"Oh," Mira snorted. "Those exist. They're the worst ones."
"They do?" James asked, his heart sinking.
"Yes," Caius answered. "Some species are nearly indistinguishable from humans at a distance. As a rule: the closer a species lives to the shore, the more human they appear."
James shoved his hands into his pockets, his "engineer-brain" trying to find the evolutionary logic. "...Why?"
"Because humans are prey."
The answer was too fast. Too casual. It sent a chill down James's spine.
"If you are hunting humans," Caius continued, "it is advantageous to appear trustworthy. Familiar. Beautiful. Some species mimic human voices. Others imitate the cries of a lost infant."
James slowed his pace. "...That's nightmare fuel."
"It is effective," Caius stated.
"The ones in the deep ocean look like drowned goblins," Rowan added quietly. "The pressure changes their physiology. They don't need beauty when there's no light to see it."
"They're ugly as shit," Mira clarified.
"They are adapted," Caius corrected.
"Adapted to look like shit," Mira muttered.
James, meanwhile, was processing the fact that there were entire evolutionary trees dedicated to the art of murder-mermaids.
"They inhabit rivers, lakes, coastal regions, and flooded cave systems," Caius continued, laying out the facts.
"Different species possess different traits. Some rely on raw speed.
Some use mimicry. Some manipulate water pressure. Others produce hallucinogenic toxins."
James paused. "...Excuse me? Hallucinogens?"
"They are apex aquatic predators, James. They use every tool at their disposal."
"Fortunately," Caius added, "the colony we are tracking is relatively minor."
Mira cracked her knuckles, the sound like dry wood snapping. "Easy work."
Talia stretched her shoulders, the massive greatsword on her back shifting with a metallic clatter. "Hopefully quick work."
James wasn't convinced. In every story he'd ever read, the moment someone called a mission "easy," someone ended up folded like a lawn chair.
The sound of rushing water grew from a murmur to a roar.
The trees began to thin, the lush green of the forest giving way to the grey, mist-choked air of the riverbank.
Wet, slick earth replaced the dry soil beneath their boots.
Finally, the group emerged from the forest edge.
A massive river stretched before them—wide, deep, and menacing. The current rolled violently against jagged dark stones, sending plumes of cold mist into the air.
James stared at the churning water. For some reason, the place felt... wrong. His wolf instincts, usually so loud, had gone quiet and cold.
He felt like something underneath that grey surface was already staring back, counting his heartbeats.
A/N Last week was suppose to have 2 chapter but since my pc gave up on me, and had to get it fixed, today chapter is 2 chapter fused into one.
3k words long.