Chapter 387: Vanishing Trails

The Same Time At The Testing Grounds

The forest had begun to feel wrong.

Not hostile exactly — not yet — but strained, like a held breath that refused to release. The canopy above filtered the fading light into fractured ribbons that slid across moss-covered trunks and twisted roots. Shadows stretched too long, too thin, as if they were listening.

Ethan felt it in the way his wolf paced, restless and agitated. Joren felt it too. Gale kept circling back on himself, nose pressed low to the ground, tail flicking sharply with irritation.

They had been tracking for a while now, and they had still gotten nothing.

Gale stopped abruptly near a cluster of flattened ferns and damp soil. His nostrils flared as he dragged in another deep breath. Again. Slower this time. Then he lifted his head, ears pricking — not in alert, but confusion.

Sophia’s scent was gone. It didn’t spread anywhere else. They couldn’t track it no matter how much they tried. They kept coming back to the last place it disappeared.

Joren shifted back into human form in a sharp ripple of bone and muscle, boots crunching softly against the forest floor. His chest rose and fell unevenly as frustration tightened his features.

"This makes no sense," he muttered.

Ethan slowed beside him and shifted as well, the familiar burn of transformation settling into his limbs before fading. He swept his gaze across the clearing.

There was not even a ghost trail at all, and they were back in the clearing where her scent disappeared. Ethan hated what he was feeling and seeing. He did not like what was happening right now.

"Let’s try again," Ethan suggested softly. "Maybe we can’t locate it because of the wind."

The snow fell fast and hard now, clouding their vision a bit, but they were not going to give up.

Joren obeyed, letting Gale take over. He circled wider this time, nose skimming everything, weaving between rocks. He doubled back once. Then twice.

Nothing.

Joren raked a hand through his hair as he shifted back. "She was here. I know she was. I smelled her before."

Ethan nodded. He had caught the same thing earlier, but it had been in one place only. After that, it just disappeared, like Sophia wasn’t there.

It was like she had been erased — or maybe something masked her scent? Ethan had searched the forest for anything that could do so, but he found none.

They stood in front of a rock now, Ethan’s gaze focused on the floor. Something was buried in the snow, and it was only now that he was noticing it.

"Hold up," he said to Joren, whose eyes now snagged on the same thing in the snow.

Joren crouched first, fingers brushing aside the snow.

Slowly, he lifted the object into the light. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

It was a charm.

Silver wire twisted delicately around a smooth, moon-polished crystal. Tiny etched runes glimmered faintly along its edges — old protection glyphs, worn but still active.

Joren’s breath hitched.

"That’s Sophia’s," he said instantly. "It’s the charm we were given before the test started. All trainees."

Ethan nodded. He knew that.

"Could... do you think this is why we could only smell her up to here? Was it this?" he asked Ethan.

Ethan shook his head. "I don’t know."

Joren swallowed hard, voice tightening as even more fear seeped into his bones. "It’s intact... perhaps it fell off her neck."

Ethan stepped closer, carefully taking the charm from Joren’s hand. The wood was cool against his skin. The charm had Sophia’s scent all over it.

A bad feeling settled deep in his gut.

They stood in silence for a moment, the forest pressing close around them.

Joren paced two tight steps and turned back sharply. "No. No, this doesn’t make sense. Scent doesn’t just vanish. Not like this. Not completely."

Ethan tucked the charm carefully into his pocket. "Unless something interfered."

Joren stared at him. "Like what?"

Ethan hesitated because he had no idea. He knew a Trihydra had been in the forest, but Trihydras don’t mask scents as far as he knew. It wasn’t possible... right?

"No, I can’t give up. I’m going to find—"

"Take a look around. We’ve been circling the same place for quite some time now. I think it’s time we returned to the pack," Ethan told him.

Joren shook his head. "No, sir. No, no. That can’t happen. We are not going back. No — rather, you can go back, but I’m not. There must be something we missed. Something that could tell us—"

"Maybe," Ethan agreed, cutting in. "Or maybe the trail truly stops here."

Joren shook his head sharply. "I’m not leaving her. She could still be out there. What if she’s hurt?"

Ethan’s chest tightened. He understood that fear — the helpless panic of not knowing where someone was when every second mattered.

"I’m not saying we abandon her," Ethan said firmly. "I’m saying we change strategy."

Joren opened his mouth to argue, already shaking his head.

Ethan caught his arm.

"Listen to me."

Joren froze, breathing hard, his eyes wide.

"I’m sure that whatever is happening right now... whatever it is, is beyond what you and I can handle, Joren," Ethan told him.

Joren’s lips parted, frustration flashing in his eyes. "I’m not giving up. I can’t—"

"I’m not telling you to give up," Ethan said immediately. "Instead, we need to get the one person who can track her no matter what."

Joren stilled.

Understanding crept in slowly.

"Alpha Orion."

"He’s her mate," Ethan continued. "Their bond is stronger than scent. He’ll feel her if she’s alive. He’ll find her faster than either of us ever could."

Joren’s shoulders sagged slightly, the fight draining from his posture.

Fear slipped through the cracks of his expression. "What if we’re already too late?"

The words came out small.

Ethan swallowed. He didn’t have a comforting word ready. Instead, he placed a steady hand on Joren’s shoulder.

"Then the only chance we have of saving her is getting Alpha Orion now," he said quietly. "Not burning time running blind in circles."

Joren stared at the forest, jaw clenched. His fists flexed at his sides, knuckles whitening. Every instinct in him screamed to keep searching, to tear through the trees until he found something — anything.

But logic was merciless.

They had nothing.

Slowly, Joren nodded.

"...Okay," he whispered.

Ethan released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. "We need to go now. We need to be fast."

Joren wiped a hand over his face and nodded again. How he was sweating in the cold weather, he didn’t understand. "Yeah."

They didn’t waste another second.

Bones cracked and shifted as they transformed simultaneously, wolves surging forward with powerful strides. The forest blurred as they sprinted through, paws striking the ground in rhythmic sounds.

Ethan knew that Orion was going to be mad at him for not protecting Sophia, but if he could get to Orion fast, they could find out where she was — and he hoped and prayed that she was safe.