The wolf smelled Anaya's blood.
It was faint at first, a whisper on the night wind, carried across the river and through the trees like a secret the forest was trying to keep.
To a human, it would have been nothing, a trace, a memory, something that could not be identified or understood. But to the wolf, it was a beacon, a signal, a promise that burned brighter than the moon itself.
Wolves could smell blood from nearly two miles away under ideal conditions. Their sense of smell was estimated to be ten thousand times more sensitive than a human's, triggered by a specific chemical molecule in blood called E2D.
This molecule naturally attracted apex predators while causing prey animals, and humans, to recoil in fear. It was the scent of vulnerability, of weakness, of prey that could not fight back.
