Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 336 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 336

Chapter 336 The Watcher Outside

Lady Flourish’s POV

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I tightened my grip on Damian’s hand and looked toward the dark stretch beyond the estate war.

Amara stood beside us, her face turned toward the trees, listening to something the rest of usronot hear.

“Can you tell where they are?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “I felt someone watching. When I tried to follow the feeling, it stopped.”

Damian released my hand only long enough to reach for the mind link. His voice entered the channel, carrying the authority of Dartwood’s Alpha.

“Perimeter team, report to the east grounds. Two teams take the outer fence. Nobody crosses the wards. alone.”

Replies came at once. I heard boots moving outside the house, followed by the calls of warriors checking in with one another. Damian stayed close while I guided Amara toward the main hall, where the wards

were strongest.

“I’m not going to sit here while everyone searches for me.” Amara said.

“You aren’t the only person they may be watching.” I replied. “If someone has been tracking you. I won’t give them an easy chance to get close.”

Her mouth tightened, but she did not argue. I stayed near the entrance while Damian listened to the

reports.

Through the open doorway, I could see two warriors crossing the courtyard with their heads turned toward the fence.

They moved in pairs, checking each other’s blind spots and keeping their weapons ready.

It was a routine they had practiced many times, but the fact that no one had found a real intruder did not

ease my concern.

“Could the scent belong to someone who was here earlier?” I asked.

“The team will check how fresh it is,” Damian replied. “Scent can linger, but these traces should tell us more once they compare them.”

Amara rubbed her forearms. “I don’t want everyone treating me as if I’m the reason this is happening.”

She looked at me, then nodded, though her eyes soon returned to the dark windows.

The first report came through Damian’s mind link less than five minutes later. The east team had found

no one.

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Chapter 336 The Watcher Outside

The second team had checked the fence and the narrow service road beyond it.

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There were no fresh footprints leading away from the estate, no broken branches, and no sign that anyone had crossed the boundary.

“Check the ground near the old drainage channel,” Damian ordered. “And have the scent team emine the ward line.”

Amara looked toward the windows again. “The feeling is gone now.”

“Did it feel like a wolf?” I asked.

“I can’t say. There was a presence, but it didn’t come close enough for me to identify a scent.” She paused “It felt as if someone wanted me to notice.”

That possibility made me look at Damian. He had heard her, and I could tell he was considering the same thing.

If the watcher had wanted to enter the estate, the lack of tracks made little sense.

If the watcher had wanted to frighten us, Amara’s warning would have been enough.

The next message arrived from the southern boundary. One of the warriors had detected a scent near the outer fence, but it was faint and seemed to stop without leading anywhere.

A second trace had been found beside the service road, on the opposite side of the grounds. Both carried wolf scent, though neither matched anyone in the patrol.

Damian asked for the team leader to describe the traces in detail. I listened as the warrior explained that the scent near the fence was strongest on a low stone, while the other had been rubbed onto the bark of a tree at shoulder height. Neither was connected to a clear set of tracks.

“Could it be someone who crossed the grounds and left by another route?” I asked.

“It’s possible,” Damian said. “But they would have left more evidence if they moved through the wet ground by the channel.”

I felt the tension in my shoulders grow. Whoever had done this had taken the time to leave evidence where our warriors would find it, while avoiding the signs that would tell us how they had arrived or departed.

“Bring the scent team to both locations,” Damian ordered. “Photograph the sites, take samples, and don’t touch anything more than necessary. I want comparisons against the pack records before anyone calls it a known scent.”

I moved closer to Amara. “You said the presence stopped when you tried to follow it. Did it disappear all at once?” 

“Yes. It was there, and then it wasn’t.” She glanced at the windows. “I don’t think it was trying to get inside.”

“Why?”

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Chapter 337 A Familiar Scent

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“Not until we have more than a partial scent match. He should hear about it, but I won’t send him an

usation disguised as a report.”

She accepted that, though her gaze stayed on the screen. “What if the watcher knows we’ll find the

“Then the person wanted this exact reaction.” I closed the file. “They may be testing what we remember, or trying to make us distrust our own records.”

The specialist also checked the sample against the current Dartwood roster, then the records of known visitors who had passed through the estate during the previous week.

Neither comparison produced a stronger result. That ruled out an easy explanation, but it did not establish whose scent we had found.

The specialist sealed the samples again. I ordered him to preserve the remaining material and run the second comparison with a different method.

If the scent had been copied from an old sample, we needed to know. If it belonged to the operative, we needed evidence that could stand up to more than instinct.

A low growl rose in my throat before I could stop it. I forced it down and looked at the warriors waiting for orders.

“Keep the estate guarded, but don’t increase patrols in a way that tells the watcher we’ve found something.” 1 said. “No one follows a scent trail alone. If another trace appears, mark the location and call it in.

They answered together and left to carry out the orders. Flourish remained beside me after the door shut.

“You think the operative could still be alive,” she said.

“I think someone wants me to think about that possibility.” I took one last look at the partial match. “Until we have proof, the death report stands.”

My wolf did not agree. It remembered the scent, and it was not willing to dismiss it.

The reply came back.

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