The Sunstone Pack territory began not with a fortified wall, but with the omnipresent scent of Coastal Cypress and a heavy atmospheric weight the signature of powerful Lycan boundary magic.
The Pack was huge, rich, and relied on sophisticated, silent defenses.
Kael found a dense thicket overlooking a quiet, overgrown beach, perfect for observation.
He pulled out the salvaged silver tracking wafer.
He didn't use it to find the guards
he used it to find the gaps in the security net
Lycan security was always designed to catch two things
Mass trespass and rouge lycans
The Sunstone defense was built on a web of magically attuned wards that pulsed rhythmically, checking for foreign Lycan Musk.
Kael's tracker, being a scrap of specialized Lycan tech himself, detected these pulses as faint, measurable energy spikes.
"They're looking for my scent," Kael muttered to the salt wind.
"They're not looking for my lack of scent."
Kael knew he couldn't mask his Lycan scent completely that would immediately flag the wards as an unnatural suppression.
Instead, he needed to camouflage it.
He crawled down to the waterline.
The beach was strewn with washed-up kelp, decaying fish, and oil left by passing human tankers.
Kael spent the next hour rolling through the most noxious parts of the tide line, meticulously rubbing the decay, oil, and wet sand deep into his clothes and skin.
He then smeared a thick paste of salt marsh mud onto the silver tracker and fixed it inside his cheek.
The Lycan musk was still there, but it was now overwhelmed by the stench of the sea—a scent signature that was constantly present, and thus, ignored by the wards as "local environmental noise."
Kael began his infiltration just after the midnight tide, moving inland through the coastal marshes.
He ignored his instincts, relying entirely on the humming silver wafer inside his cheek.
The tracker was essential because it showed him the timing of the wards.
The Sunstone security wasn't a constant barrier; it was a rhythmic pulse a split-second magical sweep every seven minutes.
He reached the first fence a simple chain-link barrier backed by a minor magical ward meant to deter humans and minor shifters.
The tracker vibrated sharply against his jaw, signaling the momentary activation of the ward's detection magic.
Silence: Six minutes, forty-five seconds of black time.
Kael waited until the pulse finished, then slipped under the fence in the dead silence that followed, his movements slow and agonizingly precise.
He moved 50 feet inland, then dropped into a ditch of stagnant water to wait for the next pulse.
The Pack patrols were the next challenge. Lycans moved with powerful strides, their scent sharp and confident.
Kael didn't try to outrun them. He listened to the tracker.
He noticed a subtle correlation the magical ward pulses coincided exactly with the moment the foot patrols turned corners or moved into designated "blind spots."
The Sunstone Pack used the magic to check the ground while the Lycan guards checked the air a classic double-layer security.
He tracked the scent of three guards approaching his hiding place, their dialogue muffled.
Pulse! The tracker vibrated its warning.
The magical sweep just happened.
The guards slowed, pausing at a corner, secure in the knowledge that the ground had just been checked.
Kael used their moment of confident pause, darting across the open lane and diving under a parked utility truck.
He smelled like a toxic waste dump, not a rogue Lycan, and his movement was timed to the security cycle.
The guards walked right past the truck, their scents sharp and fading, never pausing.
He had bypassed the perimeter.
He was inside Sunstone territory.
The Final Approach
The tracker now led him toward the heart of the territory, where the magic was dense and constant Elder Lysandra's seaside fortress. The scent of Coastal Cypress was overwhelming here.
Kael didn't need the tracker to know his next objective was the most difficult: convincing Lysandra's guards to let him, the infamous Alpha-Slayer, speak to their Elder.
He pulled the tracker out, the silent aid having served its purpose. He now smelled vile, was physically exhausted, and had only the truth of the ledger and the cold iron dagger left.
He was prepared to fight his way in, but fighting would waste precious time.
He needed a distraction a vulnerability in the tightly controlled environment of the Sunstone Alpha's inner circle.
He needs a weakness to exploit.
"If you want to help Kael expose the Agenda faster, please give this book a Power Stone and add it to your Library!
Thank you for reading!"🌸