The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 217

Callum shot me a glance that I couldn’t read, not that I bothered to. I was too busy staring at the spot where her body had been. The coroner had taken her, but the ground was still disturbed there. I could tell that the puddle of blood was still slightly tacky just from looking at it.

“Aha.” Zane crouched, running his fingers across a spot near the blood, then sniffed them. His eyes flickered yellow for a moment as his wolf surged, scenting something. A rogue. He pointed off into the distance. “Think they went that way.”

Callum and I followed closely behind, still not speaking. Zane led the way for what felt like miles. We eventually reached the edge of the search party zone, where the yellow tape was still fluttering between the trees, partially tattered now from the elements.

There was a spot between two trees where the tape was broken entirely. As if something had run through the tape like a goddamn finish line.

We went that way.

We must have walked for over an hour. I lost track of time, too focused on one foot in front of the other, avoiding stepping on anything that might make a sound. Every little noise in the distance made me jump.

I hated how jumpy I had become since losing my wolf. Hated that I couldn’t just boldly walk up to these rogues and let my Alpha energy surge. But I supposed that this was how all of the wolfless felt. Afraid. Weak. Like the world was unfair.

Eventually, the smell of smoke reached my nostrils. I stopped walking and sniffed the air, wrinkling my nose.

“Is that a campfire?” I mouthed. Callum and Zane had already noticed it, and all three of us exchanged glances.

We dropped low, creeping toward the edge of a nearby dropoff that led to a very deep ravine. It had to have been at least a hundred feet down. There was a thin waterfall trickling down, although most of it had dried up or iced over by this time in the season.

Up ahead, I caught the faint flickering of orange light coming from an extremely narrow crack between two enormous boulders. Thin tendrils of smoke were spilling out.

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