The flashlight in Logan's hand illuminated several meters of the cave stone, upon which hundreds of intricate drawings had been scrawled. Logan quickly closed his mouth as it had been hanging open in shock, and moved further inside the cave.

The sight that met his eyes was unbelievable. He truly had never seen them before. It wasn't really the fact that they were unique that intrigued Logan so much, but the fact that this cave had stood right in the middle of his pack's borders and he hadn't noticed it, not once.

Granted, the cave was hidden in the side of the mountain, but not once had a wolf from his pack ever stumbled upon the cave entrance. It was baffling and confusing to Logan.

Wow. This was so not what I was expecting, his inner wolf said in amazement.

He raised the flashlight high and looked around. The wall to his immediate right had more inscriptions than drawings. Logan moved closer to the smooth cave wall, trying to decipher the writings. The writings had been made with a pointed piece of stone, he guessed, or some other equally sharp object. Here and there the stone scrapings were intersected by charcoal, which means whoever wrote them had used any material that he could find.

The handwriting was almost childish and barely legible. It looked like it was written by an adult that was just learning how to write. Logan peered at the cave wall and read the first line out loud:

"This might be my last entry. War is nigh. King is almost here. Failed spy successfully captured." He said and frowned. The line made sense and yet was still very confusing. He guessed that whoever had written it was a rogue wolf too. The king must mean the Rogue King and their failed spy...

Logan stopped. Who exactly was the failed spy? Was it the rogue wolf they had captured some weeks ago? Had he been recaptured by the Rogue King? But if he had, Casper would definitely have told him—or not?

He walked further down the length of the cave and came upon another line of writing. Moving the flashlight closer, he read aloud again:

"No time to waste. alpha of the pack has hidden his mate. Look for her in the woods." Logan shook his head slowly. He was starting to doubt that this person was a rogue wolf at this point. The only rogue wolf they had captured had been the one in the dog kennels. There was no way he could have known that Logan was going to hide Aella in the forest. No way.

He continued to move further into the cave on the same right side and came upon another entry by whoever had scribbled it. He read aloud:

"Wolf spy in danger of being discovered. Word is out that rogue wolves have tattoos. Must hide tattoo more cleverly." 

Logan paused and frowned. This meant that there truly was a spy in their midst all along. Logan cursed silently. How in the world had he not noticed? He had been so caught up in suspecting Aella and wondering how she was linked to his own mother through the tattoos that he hadn't stopped to even think that perhaps the spy was someone else. Some alpha he was!

He directed the ray of the flashlight to the left wall and scanned it slowly. The first thing he noticed was a large drawing made with red paint. It was a drawing of a big crescent moon, quite similar to Aella and his mother's tattoos. On the curve of the crescent, like a chair, sat someone with a crudely drawn crown on his head. Logan guessed that the person depicted the Rogue King.

He moved the beam of the flashlight downward and saw that directly below the crescent moon and the king, the crude artist had drawn a handful of wolves of different colors with their snouts raised up in the direction of the crescent moon. They seemed to be paying homage to the Rogue Wolf King in some way

Logan frowned and nodded in understanding. This tied pretty well with what he had read in that journal by Alpha Tate from 1959. The wolves of different colors that were paying homage to the Rogue King meant wolves from different packs and territories.

"The sole aim of the Rogue King is to claim the territories of other packs in order to expand his followership," Logan whispered to himself, reading a line from his history book, and nodded again. It all made sense now.

He moved further forward and stepped on something that crunched under his feet. He pointed the beam of the flashlight downwards and he saw a mini hearth. It was not much: a couple of stones arranged in a circle to create a hearth. There was a couple of half-burned firewood and some coals inside the hearth. They were still hot; Logan could see that by the small trickle of smoke that was coming from the hearth.

He crouched low and picked up one of the hot coals, turning it around in his fingers, then dropped it quickly before it could do more than create minor burns. He could only heal fast when he was in wolf form. 

He sighed, wondering what to do next. What all of this meant was that whoever had been making this cave his hide-out and spying on the pack had used this place recently. The person could come back anytime soon. After a lot of internal deliberation, Logan decided to wait for the person to come back, then capture the person and demand information.

He pointed the flashlight back up and continued looking at the rest of the inscriptions and drawings. The rest of the writings looked ancient and foreign, like Sanskrit, Logan thought. On the other hand, the rest of the drawings were very easy to decipher. They depicted several battles between the rogue wolf pack and other packs, usually ending in the pack's surrender.

However, some drawings depicted a strange wolf. This wolf stood out from the others because it was drawn with white paint. The first few drawings of the white wolf showed it walking with two other wolves, followed by the wolf walking alone. 

Then the next set of drawings showed the white wolf with a black one. They seemed to be in love or mated. Logan squinted at the drawings as a thought occurred to him. 

Were the drawings about himself and Aella?

Suddenly he heard a sound coming from the mouth of the cave, like retreating footsteps. He quickly switched off the flashlight, but the person had obviously seen it.

"Shit!" Logan cursed, flinging the flashlight to the side, and took off after the person. When he got out, the person was already running down the slope of the mountain and into the woods.

He followed the person down the slope and went after the person in a hot chase. The person didn't seem to be tiring and neither did Logan. Just when he was wondering how long the chase would continue, he got close enough to the person to tackle him to the ground.

They rolled on the forest floor for a few moments while the person tried to throw Logan off, but Logan's grip was strong. They came to rest at the foot of a tree and Logan straddled the person, trying to catch his breath.

The person was hooded and definitely male. His hands were up in a surrender position and his eyes beneath the mask were darting about. Panting heavily, Logan roughly pulled the hooded mask off the person and the face behind the mask shocked him into a few seconds of stunned silence.

"Jesse?!"