hapter 1

Sable
The fluorescent lightsin the ceiling emit a faint, incessant buzzing that hurts my
battered head almost as much as the harsh illumination does. I stare down at Doctor
Patil’s shiny black hair as his capable fingers, clad in sapphire blue surgical gloves,
prod at my ankle.

He’s already x-rayed my arm and shined his light in my eyes to check my pupils for
signs of concussion. He declared me safe from brain damage, but he let out a long,
low whistle at the other parts of me that weren’t so lucky.

The doctor presses on a particularly sore spot, and I hiss through my teeth, gripping
the paper-covered table beneath me.

“This area hurts?” Doctor Patil asks, pressing the nodule again like a damn sadist.

My jaw tightens as I try to restrain the impulse to yank my leg out of his grasp. “Yes.
That area hurts.”

I notice his gaze pause over the crescent-shaped scars above my knee, but he doesn’t
say anything. The same suspicious look crossed his face when he saw the scars on my
arms. And again when he lifted my shirt to press on my stomach to check for any
internal abnormalities, only to find more scars—some of them old and faded, some a
fresh, shiny pink.

Doctor Patil steps back and settles onto his little rolling stool. Scooting away from me
a little, he dips his head to catch my gaze, his words measured and careful. “Tell me
again how it happened. Can you do that, Sable?”

Uncle Clint shifts, the movement so minute that I bet the doctor doesn’t even notice.
My uncle is standing against the wall by the door with his blue flannel shirt tucked
into his Wranglers, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He has the darkly tanned skin of a
man who’s spent his life beneath the Montana sun—and that particular planetary body
has done little to preserve any of the good looks he might have once had. Now, north
of fifty with a balding head, he looks like a dried, wrinkled potato with a beer belly.

He glares at me over Doctor Patil’s head, dark eyes promising retribution if I so much
as put a toe out of line.
My stomach seems to turn in on itself, an all-too-familiar heaviness settling over me
as I look back at the doctor.

“I fell,” I say around the lump in my throat. “Down the stairs. Carrying the laundry to
the basement.”

“Are you often clumsy?” Doctor Patil glances down at my chart then back up at me.
He has startling gray eyes that seem to be at odds with his dark skin and hair. They
also seem to see a lot more than my usual doctor.

I shrug, goosebumps breaking out on my skin as my nerves prickle. The ruthless

fluorescents shine too much light on the scars that cover my body. Each thin line of
knotted white skin tells a story that my uncle doesn’t want told. After years of visits,
years of injuries and bruises and strange ailments, Doctor Jones only sees the dollar
signs each of those things ticks off on his final bill. He doesn’t ask questions. But
Doctor Jones is out this week, so we got Doctor Patil instead.

Uncle Clint doesn’t bring me to the hospital for every little injury. Only the bad ones,
the ones that clearly need extra care. Unfortunately for him, he pushed me too hard
tonight.

And unfortunately for us both, Doctor Patil asks questions.

“I have an inner ear abnormality,” I say, parroting the same excuse I’ve used for
years. “My balance is awful. Uncle Clint tells me to use the laundry chute, but I’m
stubborn.”

I smile, trying to add a bit of warmth behind my last statement, but I’m absolutely
certain it looks more pained than affectionate.

Doctor Patil narrows his eyes, then swivels on his stool. “Mr. Maddock? Could you
give me and Sable a moment alone?”

Uncle Clint straightens up from the wall but leaves his arms crossed over his barrel
chest. “No, sir. You ain’t our usual doctor. I won’t be leaving my precious girl alone
with no stranger.”

God, Doctor Patil would have to be a moron to not hear the syrupy false note in my
uncle’s voice.

Precious girl. Right. More like punching bag.

Doctor Patil, to his credit, doesn’t seem the least bit intimidated by Clint’s brutish
warning. “You understand that at eighteen years old, she’s a grown adult, and she
would be well within her right to ask you to leave the room.”

My skin goes cold as I understand what he’s telling me. Say the word, Sable, and I’ll
have security remove him from the room so we can really chat. His clipped Indian
accent and his deep, melodious voice is a balm to all the aches I’ve ever walked into
this building with—even the ones on the inside.

But I can’t do what he’s suggesting. I can’t tell Uncle Clint to leave so that I can
confide in this sweet doctor who knows something isn’t right.

“No, that’s okay. I’d prefer that my uncle stay with me.” My voice comes out small.
Dejected. I’m sure Doctor Patil can hear that too. Clint and I are putting on a soap
opera, and this man sees right through it. Too bad there’s not a damn thing he can do
to save me.

Doctor Patil swivels on his stool again, his long white coat swishing. He purses his
lips as he looks at me, like he’s trying to solve a puzzle that’s missing key pieces.
There’s pity in his gaze, concern etched into the lines that frame his mouth.

“Sable, are you okay?” He speaks slowly, as if willing me to answer with the truth.

Uncle Clint’s gaze is like fire searing my face, and my stomach twists into an even
tighter knot.

“Well, doc, I fell down the stairs and broke my arm, so I’d say I’ve had better days,” I
joke, forcing levity into my tone. I want to signal to this man—this good man—that I
need help. I want to admit to him that my uncle beats me and keeps me locked up in
the house like an animal.

But I can’t. I know too well what will happen to me if I even hint at the truth.

I plaster a smile on my face. “Other than the bumps and bruises, I’m fine.”

Doctor Patil gives me a hard look. Acid burns up my throat as nausea bubbles up
inside me. I pray that he’ll give up. The harder he fights to get the truth out of me, the
worse it will be for me later. Please, please let it go, I urge him silently, keeping that
damn lunatic smile on my face.

“Excuse me. Doctor?”

We’re interrupted by the nurse arriving with my x-rays, and my muscles unclench a
little as Doctor Patil stands to take them from her. Uncle Clint keeps his glare on me
as the doctor strides to the viewing box and shoves them into place, hitting a switch to
illuminate the images.

My arm fills the white screen. I remember reading once that there are sixty-four bones
in the arm, and they’re all just right there on display. A bunch of shades of gray that
make up my insides. I wonder if Doctor Patil can see the bones that have been broken
before.

Do they grow back harder? More crooked? Like my heart does?

“Ah. Well. Good news, Sable.” Doctor Patil turns around, shoving his hands into the
deep pockets of his coat. “No broken bones after all. I’d venture to guess we’ve got a
sprained wrist, like I suggested before.”

My smile turns a bit more genuine at that news. I wasn’t looking forward to healing
another broken bone. Not that sprained wrists hurt any less, but the downtime for
fractures is hell. Plus, my bones have been through enough over the years. I consider
this a win.

Doctor Patil finishes up, equipping me with a wrist brace and instructions to give it a
rest for the next few weeks. He tells me to rest my ankle too, if possible, and I nod
dutifully at his instructions.

And that’s it.

He can’t do anything for all the bruises, and he can’t do anything to save me from a
situation he knows in his gut is wrong, so when all is said and done, he sends me on
my way.

This is how it will always be. The words slip through my mind like poison as I walk
away from Doctor Patil’s kind, concerned gaze. I’ll always live in fear. I’ll always be
a prisoner. And no one can help me.

Fear follows me through the maze of hallways as I walk through the medical center in
Uncle Clint’s shadow. He grips the keys to his Silverado as if they’re a weapon and
anyone who stands in his way might get a key to the eye. There’s mud on his boots,
and he leaves a trail of dried flakes on the clean hospital floor.

Electric doors slide open with a whoosh before we step out into the dry, cool evening
air. Night fell sometime while Doctor Patil was trying to save my life, and I close my
eyes, breathing in the scent of pine and distant snow. The hospital Clint took me to is
a good twenty miles away from our small town, but no matter where I go, I can
always smell the mountains. The mountains steady me. They stand over my little
piece of Montana like sentinels in the distance, proof that the wind can scream and
storms can rage, but they will never bend.

The alarm chirps on Uncle Clint’s maroon Chevy Silverado. He’s already in the cab
behind the wheel by the time I manage to haul myself into the passenger seat. My
limbs are ready to give in, my body ready to crumple into a ball and sleep. Climbing
into his ridiculously jacked up truck hurts almost as much as the fall did.

He jams his key in the ignition and turns on the car. Classic country blares from the
speakers, and Uncle Clint turns the music down enough for me to hear him say, “You
did good, girl.”

My stomach turns. I don’t respond, turning away from him and tucking myself against
the passenger side door to put as much distance between us as possible.

I stay that way as he turns the music back up and begins to drive. It’s back roads all
the way home, twenty miles but thirty minutes accounting for stop signs and wildlife.
Neither of us speak, but I can’t get Doctor Patil’s knowing gray eyes out of my head. I
keep going over the entire visit with a fine-toothed comb, wondering if I could have
done something differently this time.

If I’d been braver or smarter, maybe I could have ended this nightmare. Instead, I’m
barreling back toward my prison without an end in sight.

Hot tears prick my eyes.

Dammit. I hate feeling so fucking helpless.

I’m watching the trees pass like ghosts in the darkness along the side of the road when
my uncle suddenly slams on the brakes. The truck’s tires lock up as it skids to a stop,
the lighter bed fishtailing sideways so that we come to a rest across both lanes of the
empty road.

A deer is standing outside the arc of the headlights. The angle we’ve come to rest at
puts him just beyond my door. He’s massive, all muscle and antlers, more regal than
anything I’ve ever seen. His eyes glint in the moonlight as he stares at the truck, still
as a statue.

Then he turns and bolts off into the night.

“Son of a fucking bitch!” Uncle Clint roars, slamming a hand to the steering wheel.
“These goddamn deer! Almost ruined my fucking truck.”

His blow and raised voice send terror shooting through me, and I press closer to the
door, making as much space between us as I can.

My uncle grumbles something else about his precious Silverado, but I don’t hear him.
Adrenaline rushes through my veins as I watch the deer disappear into the trees, and a
strange feeling washes over me.

Mr. Maddock? Could you give me and Sable a moment alone?

He tried to help me.

Doctor Patil tried to help, and I didn’t even take the chance that he might be able to.

When will my next chance be? How many more chances will I get before my uncle
kills me?

I’m eighteen. What will my life look like when I’m twenty? Twenty-five?

Uncle Clint will never let me go. He hates me too much, and he’s too fucking sadistic
to ever let me leave his house in one piece.

But I’m not in his house right now.

In this moment, the only thing standing between me and freedom is this car door.

A wave of absolute clarity washes over me, making all the blood in my body turn to
ice. It’s now or never.

So I throw myself out the door and take my chance, sprinting off after the deer.

hapter 2
Sable
I sprintlike I don’t have a twisted ankle and a sprained wrist. I sprint like I’m not
covered in painful bruises with the energy level of a factory in nuclear meltdown.
Because this is it—this is my only chance to get away from him once and for all, and I
will not fail.

Because if I do, he’ll kill me. I know that with dead certainty.

Uncle Clint shouts, his snarl a whip cracking after me. I can’t make out his words
through the adrenaline rushing in my ears, and honestly, I don’t even want to try. The
coward I was before would have frozen at that tone. I would have turned around and
returned to him with my tail between my legs, closing my eyes against whatever
punishment he deemed fit.

But I’m not that girl. I refuse to continue to be that girl anymore. I stopped being her
the second I opened that car door.

Doctor Patil tried to save me. He wanted to give me the out I needed, and I didn’t take
him up on his offer.

So it’s up to me now.

Uncle Clint will chase me. But I’m smaller, quicker, lighter. And my life depends on
this. I’ll run until my legs collapse before I let him catch up to me.

The sound of the deer leaping ahead of me is like a beacon in the pitch dark night. I
follow that sound beyond the flat plain and into the woods, giving myself over to the
wilderness. Uncle Clint’s curses follow me, but they grow weaker as I fly over the
thick undergrowth.

My ankle should hurt. I think it does hurt, but there’s too much adrenaline and panic
flooding my body for me to feel anything but the desperate burn in my lungs.

Low-hanging branches slap at my arms and face, and I know they’re leaving more
marks on my body to add to the ones I already have, but I don’t care. I keep moving,
focusing on the sharp inhalations and exhalations of my breath, because if I stop to
think, my throbbing injuries will overtake me. I can’t afford to stumble.

Not now. Not so close to freedom.

Before long, my uncle’s string of obscenities peters out. The man’s out of shape and
has no business running through the woods. His heavy footfalls fade little by little,
until I can’t hear him anymore at all.
A giddy laugh escapes my lips, disappearing into the broad expanse of woods around
me.

Jesus. Am I doing this? Really?

My old terror rises when I realize I’ve reached the point of no return. If he finds me
now, I’ll pay for it in ways I can’t even imagine. I’ve just done the most terrifying
thing I could possibly do—run from my abuser. And if he finds me now, he’ll beat me
until I can’t run anymore.

Or worse, until I’m dead.

I can never go back.

A fresh surge of adrenaline pours through me, and I put on another burst of speed.
I’ve lost track of the deer, which isn’t too surprising. There’s no way I could run as
fast as the buck, and I don’t know the landscape of the forest like he does. But I’m
thankful he was there for a short time and helped give me the clarity I needed to run.

The deer was another Doctor Patil. Another sign from the universe. He saved my life
by doing what he does best, and showing me that I could too.

Even though I can no longer hear Uncle Clint pursuing me, I’m not dumb enough to
think he’s given up. It’s likely he’s hurrying back to his pickup, where he’ll slam into
the driver’s seat and take off to look for me. As long as I stay in the woods and far
away from the roads, I should be safe.

But as soon as I have the thought, the woods begin to thin out. I spill onto the narrow
shoulder of a road, my sneakers slapping on pavement before I even realize what’s
happened. In the same instant that I recognize the yellow lines beneath my feet,
headlights flash over me.

I freeze, panic turning me to stone.

The car bearing down on me is nothing but two bright circles of light as its headlights
blind me. My mind screams at me to run, to leap off the road, to get out of the
way. What if it’s Uncle Clint?

But fear has rendered me incapable of even lifting a finger or turning away so I don’t
have to see my death coming.
An ungodly screech emits from beneath the car, and it slings sideways. Not an
accidental save this time thanks to a light rear end, as it was for Uncle Clint. A
defense maneuver. I have a brief moment to think, Oh, thank God, it’s not a truck,
before I realize the car is still coming toward me, skidding sideways as momentum
drags it across the pavement.

As if I could somehow stop a moving vehicle, I throw my hands out. The car
screeches a moment longer and then halts. My palms slap uselessly against the door,
and pain shoots up my injured wrist.

But I’m alive.

My heart is somewhere beneath the car, still fluttering like a terrified bird. I lock
gazes with the driver, struck dumb by the fact I almost just died—that I finally made a
break for my freedom and nearly lost my life before I could even complete my escape.

The man is… beautiful. Almost inhumanly so. Sharp features, strong jaw, messy
black hair, and a five o’clock shadow that’s seen the darker side of midnight.

He looks like some kind of ancient god who rose up out of the darkness and will
return there as soon as I blink.

We’re frozen, both of us, gaping at each other for several long seconds as if time has
stopped.

I’m not sure who moves first, but in the same instant that he reaches for his seatbelt, I
take off toward the other side of the road and the shelter of the woods. My ankle
throbs as I crash through the undergrowth and dart around trees.

But I don’t stop.

I run and run, until all hint of civilization is far behind me, until I’m crossing shallow
streams instead of roads, until I’m climbing steeply pitched slopes into the foothills. I
lose all sense of time and direction. I could be racing headlong into the pits of hell,
and I wouldn’t care—I’ll keep going until Clint can’t find me, even if the devil can.

The moon is high, a sliver of light barely breaking through the canopy overhead when
I pause and lean against a thick tree trunk to catch my breath. My chest burns as if my
lungs are on fire, and my muscles are shaky and weak. I lean over, pressing my hands
into my knees, and focus on taking deep breaths. As the adrenaline wears off and the
sharp pain of each breath begins to fade, heat rises in my injured ankle. I’ve probably
turned the “twist” into a sprain.
Great, I think, straightening and laying my head back against the cool bark. A
sprained ankle to match my sprained wrist. I’m stylish as fuck.

I almost laugh again into the darkness, and I have a fleeting worry that I’m losing my
mind. I don’t feel like… myself.

My life has been an unending monotony of boredom, fear, and pain for so long that
the number of new things that’ve happened tonight leaves me reeling. My mind can’t
quite comprehend all of it, and when I try to comprehend the enormity of what I’ve
done, something powerful and overwhelming rises up in my chest.

If I let that thing grow too big, I know it will crush me. It will dwarf me, leaving me
curled up in a ball on the ground.

So I push thoughts of any future beyond the next few minutes away. That’s all I can
handle right now. A minute at a time.

Pressing a hand to the lingering stitch in my side, I scan the dark forest around me.

I’m not sure what my plan is from here, but I don’t want to stay still for too long. I
know chances are slim Uncle Clint will find me this deep in the wilderness, but why
tempt fate? I can find somewhere to shelter overnight—a cave, or a tree, maybe, so I
don’t get eaten by bears.

As I shove away from the tree to get moving, a wave of dizziness crashes over me. I
stumble, catching myself against the trunk before I can keel over into the
undergrowth. The run took a lot out of me. More than I realized, which is stupid
really, considering I’m fresh off a hospital visit.

I lift my head, focusing on the tree as I try to blink away the fog that clouds my
vision. There are strange dark lines etched into the bark beneath my palm, and I lift
my hand, swaying as I let all my weight settle back on my legs. The trunk is marked
with some kind of odd pattern.

Bears, I think, scraping my fingertips down the claw marks. It’s just bears. Not that
the idea of bears being nearby gave me any kind of comfort. And what kind of bears
make marks that look so stylized?

My feet are infinitely heavy as I turn and stumble away from the marked-up tree. I
couldn’t run now if I tried, but I keep my pace as quick as I can. I trip over my own
feet several times, barely able to stay upright, but I manage to move several more
yards through the trees. Those strange marks are on a bunch of these trunks, but I’m
too tired and strung out to wonder what they are anymore.

The farther I walk, the more my vision tunnels and the woozier I feel. When the
ground ahead of me dips downward sharply, I’m not prepared for it. My steps falter,
and I stumble, falling forward. I flail, arms thrashing out to my sides for anything I
can grab to keep me from hitting the ground.

But the trees have grown farther apart, and I have nothing to hold on to.

I tumble down the side of a ravine, a pained grunt forcing its way out of my lungs as
my body rolls over the rough rocks and dirt.

When I come to a stop at the bottom of the ravine, darkness overtakes me.

***

It’s still darkwhen my eyes open again.

My mind is only half-alert, and I have no idea how much time has passed since I
blacked out. It could have been minutes or maybe hours.

I can’t seem to move my limbs. I’m on my stomach, my cheek pressed into the dry
dirt and my arms tangled beneath me. It’s colder here, and my extremities ache from
the chill. My blonde hair is draped over my face, partially obscuring my vision.

But I can see enough to know that I’m not alone.

A shadow prowls toward me on four paws, a glistening snout sniffing at the air. Not a
bear, as I expected, but a wolf. It takes a few tentative steps toward me, its giant paws
silent on the ground.

Fear prickles at the edges of my consciousness. I’m too hurt, too exhausted to move. I
can’t even seem to get an open line of communication between my brain and my
arms, even with the fight-or-flight response currently pumping through my body.

So I just close my eyes and hope death comes quickly.

***

I must have passedout again.

In my next brief moment of consciousness, which is barely more than a flicker of

awareness, I feel strong, warm arms slide around my broken body.

Then I’m lifted, and we’re moving, my head resting against a broad chest and a
stranger’s heartbeat.

hapter 3
Ridge
When I leftthe cabin and shifted into wolf form to patrol the borders of my pack’s
land, I had no idea my trip back home would include carrying a beautiful, unconscious
woman against my naked body.

Granted, most men wouldn’t hate this particular situation. The girl is stunning, even
with all the cuts and bruises. Golden hair that falls in a thick curtain around her
shoulders. Petite, but with perfect curves beneath her tight blue jeans and gray
sweatshirt. The kind of heart-shaped face poets dedicate entire stanzas to in the throes
of their passion.

But this sure as shit wasn’t how I expected to spend my night. Not to mention, I feel
like a fucking perv holding her while my cock dangles freely beneath her ass. Shifting
into a wolf is great as long as you don’t need clothes when you shift back.

Still barely conscious, the girl moves restlessly in my arms, wincing as she draws her
injured wrist to her chest. The limb is wrapped in a hard brace, which I take to mean it
was hurt before she took a tumble down Devil’s Ditch and landed at my pack’s
doorstep.

Something that tastes a lot like pity wells up inside me as I glance down at her
sleeping face. She looks like a princess in the moonlight, small and fragile and beat all
to hell. She deserves a white knight to carry her off into the sunrise on his noble steed.

Instead, she got the fucking big bad wolf.

What the fuck was she doing all the way out here? Devil’s Ditch isn’t even accessible
by road. It’s miles from any civilization that doesn’t belong to my pack. Humans can’t
just stumble onto our land like they’re out for a hike in the national park or some shit.
We’ve made sure of that.

Jesus, she’s lucky I even found her.

I almost took a different route tonight. The protected boundary stretches atop the cliff,
and I came out this way prepared to climb up and check on our sigils to make sure
they were still firmly intact. Some vague instinct kept me from climbing to the top of
the cliff—wolf’s intuition or some shit—and coaxed me into the ravine instead. If not
for that, the girl might have laid out there and died as the temperature dropped
overnight, then became vulture food tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately, her presence means my patrol got cut off early. Not a good night for a
distraction.

We've heard rumors of dark witch activity scented in the area, which is exactly why I
wanted to check out the boundaries to begin with. Typically, where we smell a witch,
there’s a witch to be found, and having to lug this injured lamb back to my cabin is
gonna keep me from doing my duties as alpha. My pack’s protection comes first and
foremost.

It’s supposed to, anyway.

So why the actual fuck am I carrying this chick back to my cabin? Why do I even care
that she looks like she’s been torn to pieces and tossed out like trash? She’s not a
shifter, and she’s not my responsibility. I should drop her in a soft spot away from
anywhere she could be exposed to danger and leave her there. Not my problem.

And yet… I won’t.

For one thing, I’m not that fucking heartless. She’s young and fragile-looking, and I
guarantee she wouldn’t know how to survive out here even in broad daylight. I’m not
a monster, even on days when I feel like I am.

So I readjust her weight in my arms and press on.

I keep my steps light as I stride into the quiet village my pack has built for itself. Most
of us are night owls, but it’s late even for wolves, so the majority of the pack is
sleeping. We’re sometime in the darkness before dawn is my best guess. I was on foot
for a couple hours before I came across the girl, and I started my patrol pretty late.
Moving quickly and silently, I make my way through the small village. My gaze
roams the shadows surrounding my pack members’ homes, searching for any sign of
life. Nobody here would be happy that I’ve brought an outsider in. Sure, I could growl
and grunt and pull rank, but the path of least resistance seems best in the current
moment.

And that path is stealth.

I’ll get her cleaned up, wait for her to wake up and figure out her story, then decide
what happens from there. Maybe she just needs a ride somewhere. Maybe she was
taking a hike and lost her way. Wouldn’t be the first time some idiot hiker nearly died
in the wilderness for biting off more than they could chew.

I shift her weight into one arm so I can open the door to my cabin. My hand is
dangerously close to the girl’s nicely rounded ass, and a tingle of warmth shoots
through me. I rein in the beast with a stern, for fuck’s sake, man, she’s unconscious
and beaten, and shove the door open with my bare foot.

The house still smells like the dinner I cooked earlier, a medley of lamb and rosemary.
I add the scent of her body to the mix—the thick, cloying smell of dirt, the tang of a
mountain stream, and something a little more feminine underneath it all. Flowery.

This cabin isn’t acquainted with flowery.

I carry her to my bedroom and gently lay her on top of the covers. She’s soaked
through, which is the source of the mountain stream smell, I’m sure. I peel off her
torn, filthy sweatshirt and discard it on the floor, then reach for the button on her
jeans. I’m trying desperately not to notice the perfect mounds of flesh cupped by a
delicate pink bra, but it’s hard not to.

Studiously avoiding her tits, I tug on the waistband of her jeans, struggling to get them
over her ass. When they finally begin to peel away, they expose a pair of soft cotton
panties. They’re not anything special, not fancy lingerie made of lace, but my heart
skips a damn beat at the way they hug the curves of her hip bones.

Jesus fucking Christ. Gritting my teeth, I avert my eyes and head for the closet. I need
to cover her, and even more than that, I need to cover me.

How did I end up in this situation?

I yank on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, then find an old, worn pair of pajama
pants that might not fall off her gorgeous ass. They’ll have to be rolled eighty times to
keep from tripping her up, but they’ll do.

I toss the pants over her hips, hiding those infernal panties so that I can take stock of
the situation without distraction, and lean over her, running my gaze over her wounds.
Whatever she did, she got torn up anywhere she had bare skin—the kinds of small
scratches that might come from sharp tree limbs and a full speed chase.

But the scratches aren’t the only thing I notice, and my eyes narrow as my gaze moves
over her small form.

The girl’s covered in scars.

They’re everywhere. On her smooth, pale abdomen. Above her round breasts, across
her clavicle. Down her arms, her legs, even her fucking feet. Small scars, round scars,
cuts so thin they look like they were carved intentionally. Some old, some new, and
some nearly as fresh as the wrist brace on her arm. The worst of them appear to be
situated on parts of her body easily hidden by clothes.

As if they were put on her intentionally.

Pure rage envelops me, and I grip the t-shirt I’m holding so hard I feel my nails dig
into my palms through the fabric. She’s so fucking beautiful. So fragile, breakable,
soft… Who would hurt this woman? How could they live with themselves?

I’m surprised by the intensity of my anger. Uncurling my fingers from the t-shirt, I
breathe through the fury as I gently tug the shirt over her head.

With the most intimate of her injuries covered, I feel a little more level-headed. I
move on to the pants, pulling them up over her hips and keeping my eyes firmly on
her sleeping face instead of the panties.

Then I roll her gently beneath the covers, pulling them up over her shoulders. She
turns over in her sleep, curling into a fetal position beneath my quilt, her good hand
resting beneath her cheek. I tuck the blankets around her, marveling again at how
lovely she is. Despite the fact that my cock has a mind of its own and she’s got a body
like a goddess, this isn’t the kind of girl you fuck and run. I can smell the innocence
on her; smell the goodness in her.

Moving to the door, I extinguish the bedroom light and leave her to her rest.
As far as I’m concerned, no one will hurt this girl again.

I’ll make damn fucking sure of it.

hapter 4
Sable
I wake up slowly,as if my body and mind are resisting consciousness. My dreams
were surprisingly calm and comforting, and my eyes don’t seem to want to open. I
don’t want to leave this calm, peaceful space between sleep and waking.

And why would I? So much of my life has been pain and trauma that it’s only fair I
linger in the good moments as long as I can.

I’m beneath soft, warm blankets in a quiet room, and for a moment, I think I’m back
in my bed in Uncle Clint’s house. But then a comforting scent wafts over me. Not the
usual smell of Tide and my lavender body lotion.

Something more masculine.

Woodsy and spicy.

Unfamiliar yet achingly intoxicating.

I nestle farther into the pillow, breathing the soothing scent in deeply. I slide beneath
the covers, ignoring the pained protests of my body as I roll into the sheets and take
another deep breath. I spread out on my belly, blankets covering me from head to toe,
and smile as I’m completely surrounded by this woodsy smell. Even still, I want more
of it.

I’m rubbing against the sheets like a cat, like I can imprint myself with the smell,
when the events of last night suddenly rush back into my memories with a vengeance.

My heart seizes in my chest as I freeze, my breath catching.

The hospital visit.

The drive home.

I… I ran.

I remember shoving open the truck door and racing off into the woods to the sound of
Uncle Clint spitting mad and making chase. There was a deer leading me, and I was
almost hit by a car. Were there… bear claw marks on trees? I fell down a ravine…

And then there was a wolf.

Everything after that is a dark, unformed blur. But what I do remember is enough to
send panic spiking through my veins.

Shoving back the covers, I sit up in bed and glance frantically around the room. Four
unfamiliar walls surround me, constructed of wooden logs like some kind of rustic
cabin. There’s nothing in the room but a bed and a dresser, and two doors, both
closed. A small window is set into an exterior wall, covered by gauzy white curtains
that let in golden sunlight—afternoon sunlight, maybe.

Shit. How long was I asleep?

Then my gaze lands on a pile of dirty laundry resting in a basket in one corner. Men’s
blue jeans, white t-shirts…

I slide from the bed, staring at the pile as I move across the room toward it.

Right on top of the laundry is a blue flannel shirt.

No.

I stumble backward, arms wheeling as I put too much weight on my sore ankle and
lose my balance. My hip crash-lands on the bed, and the frame scrapes across the
floor. I cringe at how loud the sound is, gripping the mattress in total silence as I brace
myself for someone to come running.

Somewhere out in the house, a floorboard creaks, and my heart leaps into a gallop.

Shit. Shitshitshit.

My uncle must have found me before the wolf could eat me. And now Clint has
dragged me to some cabin in the woods, somewhere nobody will hear me scream.
He’s been waiting for me to wake up so he can punish me.
So he can teach me a lesson for trying to run away.

He’ll kill me this time. I just know it.

I leap to my feet and race toward the window, shoving aside the curtains. For a
terrifying minute, I think the damn thing is nailed shut, until I realize there’s a safety
catch on the rail that I have to unlatch in order to raise it. Footsteps are moving
through the house beyond the closed door, coming closer. Uncle Clint isn’t hurried,
obviously. He probably thinks I’m too injured to get away, especially after finding me
at the bottom of a ravine.

Jesus, I’m lucky to be alive.

The fleeting thought flits through my mind a second before something falls to the
floor in the other room with a jarring clang.

My luck is about to run out.

Every single thud of those unhurried steps makes my hands shake harder. It’s difficult
enough trying to maneuver my fingers above the wrist brace with pain lancing up my
arm, but the adrenaline pumping through me makes my hands shake so badly that it’s
almost impossible. I finally manage to slide my thumb up with enough force to unlock
the catch, then lean my shoulder in and jam the window open.

Cool mountain air gusts into the room, tickling my skin, and I take a deep breath of
the familiar scent of distant snow and evergreens, hoping it will calm me.

It doesn’t fucking work, but it hardly matters. The footsteps outside the room are
almost here, and I’m running on pure self-preservation instinct now, an almost
animalistic drive to just fucking survive.

The window isn’t set high on the wall, thank God, so I don’t have to haul myself up to
get through it. As soon as it’s open wide enough, I’ve got my torso out the window,
sliding to freedom on my belly with all the elegance of a hippo on a dry water slide.

I land awkwardly on the ground outside, landing on my arms and shoulders. My legs
flop out after me, the momentum sending me into a graceless barrel roll.

With a soft grunt, I come to rest on my side. The strange, oversized pajama pants I’m
wearing have unfolded at the bottoms. They’re too long—a man’s pair of thin flannels
that trail a foot past my feet. I consider rolling them back up and hoping they’ll stay in
place, but the reality is, they’re loose and thin and I’m out of time. So I shove the
damn things down my legs and kick them off.

My body protests as I use the thick logs on the outside of the cabin to pull myself to
my feet. I can put weight on my twisted ankle, thankfully, but it hurts like hell. I know
my race through the woods last night didn’t help the situation, but it’s not like I had a
choice then, any more than I have a choice now.

I have to get the hell out of here.

Fight, Sable. Run. Stay alive.

I shove away from the cabin, taking a few tentative steps to make sure my legs aren’t
going to collapse beneath me. Then I break into a run, trying not to think about the
fact that my ass is on display for God and everyone to see. At least the large t-shirt
hangs down low enough to cover most of it.

There are other cabins nearby, but I don’t dare knock on any of their doors begging
for help. Clint’s good at making friends, and I can’t count on any strangers taking my
side over his.

The tree line of a thick forest is only a hundred yards away to my left, and I run in that
direction, hoping to get lost in the trees like I did last night. The memory of my dark
flight to freedom sends a surge of anger and frustration through me that I channel into
my legs.

I can’t believe Clint found me. I must’ve run miles into deep wilderness, through
woods and up into the foothills. He never allowed me to have a cell phone; hell, I
couldn’t even wear a watch under his rules.

So did he have some kind of tracker implanted in me like a psychopath?

Sadly, I wouldn’t put something like that past him. I wouldn’t put anything past him,
and I’m reminded starkly of how foolish my unplanned flight was.

I didn’t think through any of this. I just ran.

And now I have no choice but to keep running.

There’s a rough dirt road beneath my bare feet—dry, dusty ground that hasn’t seen a
good rainfall in a few days. I know that probably means I’m leaving a billowing trail
of dust in my wake, but either side of the road is lined by small, rustic houses, so
there’s no other route I can take.

My arms and legs pump harder as I go for a bit more speed.

I don’t recognize this place. It’s not Big Creek, the town where I lived with Uncle
Clint—at least, I don’t think it is. I wasn’t exactly allowed out of the house to get to
know the area, but we drove through it every time we made the trip to the hospital or
the few other errands he took me on. I don’t recall a distinct lack of power lines, and
we definitely drove on asphalt roads, not dirt and gravel.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a few people. But I don’t let myself look
for more than a second, keeping my head down and praying none of them sound the
alarm.

If Uncle Clint brought me to this place, it means he has friends here. Friends who
don’t care what he gets up to in his own home, or how he abuses his niece. I can’t
trust any of these people to help me. I couldn’t before, and I definitely can’t now that
I’ve run away.

The full force of his anger is about to come down on me like a hammer falling, unless
I can get away a second time.

The dirt road ends abruptly at thick grass, and I cross the line with a surge of relief.
I’m almost there. Grass is springier than the packed dirt road, and I use it to my
advantage, running faster, my breaths coming quicker.

Dear God, please just let me get away. Please give me a chance to live a better life.

The trees, and what little protection they might offer, are only a few feet away.

But before I can reach them, two arms wrap tightly around my waist, hauling me off
the ground and pinning me against a solid chest.

hapter 5
Ridge
Goddammit.This isn’t how I wanted to get a half-naked girl in my arms.

Normal guys, they go to parties. Go to bars. They talk up the first hot woman who
shakes her ass in their direction, then fuck her senseless against a bathroom wall
covered in graffiti that probably includes her phone number.

Not me. No, my dumb ass has to find an unconscious woman in the wilderness and
bring her home, only for her to strip to her panties and race madly through the village
in an attempt to escape.

I mean, I know I’m not People’s Sexiest Man Alive, but damn.

The girl’s head slams back toward my face, and I have to crane my neck sideways to
keep from getting a busted nose.

“Hey! I’m not going to hurt you!” I snarl as she tries again, whipping my head back
the other way.

“Then put me down and let me go!” she gasps, struggling against my hold. She has a
light, bell-like voice, though the bite to her statement takes some of the melody away.
One bare foot catches me in the shin, and I grunt at the burst of pain. But so does she
—hitting bones with bare limbs is like kicking concrete.

On the third attempted headbutt, I lack any other option. Locking one arm around her
waist, I wrap her long hair around my other hand and tug her head back. Not enough
to hurt her, but enough to pin her firmly in place against my body. In any other
situation, I’d be following this move up with my lips on her earlobe, my tongue
sliding down her neck. In this situation, that would be highly inappropriate.

But fuck if a part of me doesn’t have a split second desire to do it.

“Calm down,” I say softly in her ear as her torso pumps with hysterical breaths
beneath my other arm. “You’re hurt. You’re going to make it worse.”

Bad choice. That’s when the screaming starts.

Jesus fucking Christ.

I thought I saved a sexy, blonde-haired princess last night, but this creature is a
fucking banshee with the balls of a tiger. I knew the girl had been abused when I
stripped her down and checked her injuries, but with her unconscious, I couldn’t
exactly ask after her mental state. It’s clear now that I should have tied her to the
bedposts for her own safety—and mine.

“Jesus, woman, I’m not going to hurt you!” I say, dragging her back the way we
came. Dust is still settling on the road from our run through the village, but it’s not
enough cover to hide the spectacle she’s making. Grady’s over in his front yard,
eyebrows chasing his receding hairline as he watches us with wide eyes. Cordelia
Raney is sitting with her sister on the front porch, both of them staring at me like I’m
killing the woman and dancing in her blood—though the two of them judge every
fucking thing in sight, so I can’t even care. Even more of my packmates are emerging
from their houses to check out what’s causing all the commotion.

Yeah. Not how I expected this day to go.

“Let me go!” The banshee punctuates the last word with a full body wave, clearly
intending to slither out of my arms like a snake. But she has no idea I’m stronger than
any man she’s ever known, and she just jerks uselessly against my grasp.
Unfortunately, that luscious ass I salivated over the night before slams right into my
dick.

I pause and grit my teeth against the pain and nausea rolling through my insides from
the blow. Damn it all to hell. We aren’t even past the first row of houses, and she’s
still screaming.

Fuck. So much for keeping this quiet from the pack until I figure out what to do with
her.

Since our current arrangement isn’t going to work out—for her or my dick—I drop
her to the ground. She’s so startled, she immediately stops screaming. Gripping her
waist, I whirl her around, catching sight of wide, tearful blue eyes that make a pit
yawn open inside me. Then I lean over and jam my shoulder into her abdomen,
hauling her up onto my shoulder.

Sometimes, you just gotta Neanderthal shit up.

I can move quicker now, ignoring the ever-growing curious stares from my pack as I
head straight for my cabin. They aren’t used to me having shit to do with women to
begin with, and now they probably think I’m some kind of closet serial killer.

The girl’s shock at being slung over my shoulder gives me a blessed moment of
silence and stillness before she starts bucking like a fucking bronco and screaming
like I’m ripping her skin off one strip at a time.
Shit. Putting her next to my head probably wasn’t a great idea.

I lock my arm firmly around her thighs so that all she can move are her arms. It works
—barely. I’ll have some bruises and scratches on my back later, but if that’s all I walk
away from this alley cat with, I’ll count myself fucking lucky.

Yanking open the screen door, I cross the threshold into my cabin and then slam the
front door behind me. I stop myself short of turning the lock.

Yeah, I don’t want this mess of a woman launching headlong into the woods where
another pack—or hell, one of those fucking witches—might not show her mercy. But
I don’t want her to think she’s a prisoner either. I feel like I’m walking a tightrope,
bringing a wild animal into my house and having to figure out the best way to
navigate the situation.

Good thing I have experience with wild animals.

Sunlight spills through the large front window onto the smooth hardwood in my living
room. I bend down, letting the woman flop out of my arms and onto the well-worn
brown corduroy couch that’s probably older than she is.

She’s no longer screaming, not since we passed through the door into the house, but
she’s breathing like she just finished the Boston Marathon. Her fair skin looks even
paler than it did in the dark of my bedroom last night, and with every breath she sucks
in, she appears to have a harder time breathing.

Fuck. It hits me in a rush as I gaze at her. She’s having a panic attack. I’m such an
asshole.

I kneel on the ground before her and reach for her hands, being as gentle as possible.
The girl’s a deer, wide-eyed and terrified, and I’m the big bad wolf. I just have to
convince her I’m not going to eat her.

She jolts away from me, but I manage to clasp her small hands. Her skin is soft and
smooth.

“Hey. Hey, you’re safe,” I say, pitching my voice in the most soothing tone I can
muster. Considering I have a deep baritone that sounds like I’m talking through
gravel, it’s a far reach for “soothing.” I’ve got the kind of voice that leads a pack of
feral wolves, not a namby-pamby motherly tone.

She sucks in breath after breath, but her fingers cling to mine. That’s progress, right?
“I’m Ridge,” I say when she doesn’t reply. “You’re in my cabin in the mountains. I
found you last night. You were hurt, and I brought you home to take care of you. I’m
not going to hurt you.”

“H-how d-do I kn-know?” Every word comes out breathy, and on the heels of her
statement, a crystalline tear crests over her lower eyelid and spills down her cheek.

My heart twinges in my chest. She’s fucking terrified, so full of abject fear that she’s
desperate to escape. I can see in her gorgeous blue eyes that she fully expects I’m
going to hurt her.

Just like the monster who marred her beautiful body.

“I can’t prove it,” I tell her truthfully, rubbing my thumbs over her fingers in what I
hope is a calming gesture. “But I promise, I won’t hurt you. I only want to help you.”

We stare at one another for several moments. I keep rubbing the bend of her fingers
and maintain a polite distance from her body so that I don’t overstep and make her
even more frightened than she already is. She’s fucking beautiful, even with fear in
her eyes and the pain etched on her face.

I want to destroy the person who turned her into this pitiful creature.

Finally, her shoulders slump forward, the tension in her body lessening by a fraction.
She takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out slowly.

I did it—I got through the panic.

“I’m sorry you woke up in a strange place. That was probably scary as fuck,” I say,
trying to get on her level, to show with my apology that I get it. “Especially after
whatever happened to you last night. How’d you end up in Devil’s Ditch? In the
ravine?”

She blinks at me as if she’s trying to relearn English. As if my words don’t quite make
sense, and she has to take an extra few seconds to sort through them as her brain
comes back from whatever place it went to during her panic attack.

I don’t move. Don’t even blink. I just keep holding her hands, giving her the time and
space she needs to answer.

Finally, her tongue darts out to lick her lips. She swallows once, then opens her mouth
to speak.
But before she can say a word, several loud voices rise up outside the cabin. The girl’s
face changes instantly, and she recoils into the couch cushions, her gaze darting
toward the front door.

I sigh, the sound a mixture of irritation and disgust. I recognize the voice clamoring
loudest over the dull uproar.

The front door bangs open, and my brother, Lawson, barrels into the house as big as a
mountain and wearing his fury like a cloak. A handful of his cronies rush in behind
him, until my living room is nothing but pissed-off shifter energy.

“What the fuck, Ridge?” Lawson snarls, pointing at the girl.

Too late, I realize I should have locked that fucking door.

hapter 6
Sable
For a moment,I got lost in Ridge’s honey-colored eyes. I woke up expecting to come
face-to-face with Uncle Clint, but what I ended up getting instead was pretty much the
complete opposite of the man who raised me.

When the dark-haired man caught me near the trees, I was so certain I was about to
die that I fought with everything I had in me. But inside his house, something shifted
in his demeanor.

His gruff voice managed to block out the fear, to shove away the rising panic so that I
could focus on him and his calming words.

I started to calm down.

I started to feel… safe.

But I don’t feel safe now.

Nearly a half-dozen of the biggest people I’ve ever seen crowd into his living room,
voices raised as angry, violent energy pours out of them. My terror returns full force,
and I cower into the cushions, wishing I could sink right through them and disappear
to the other side of the planet.

Ridge meets my eyes, a look of resignation passing through his amber irises. Then he
pushes to his feet.

He’s just as big as any of the men who’ve barged into the house, if not bigger. He
wears a plain white t-shirt and Wranglers, but beneath those working man clothes, he
has a body like I’ve never seen before: lean, muscular, broad shoulders and powerful
legs. His ash-brown hair has a messy, unbrushed look that happens accidentally, and
the close-cut beard gracing his jaw only heightens the scruffy wildness of his
appearance.

He turns to face the newcomers, his boots shoulder-width apart and his hands
dangling at his sides as he addresses the crowd. “Lawson. You ever heard of fuckin’
knocking?”

Something about his pose tells me he’s not casual—Ridge looks as if he could jerk
into motion at any moment and put his fist through the big guy’s face.

Lawson, the apparent leader of the group, puffs up his chest, his scowl deepening.
“You brought an outsider into our village.”

“What the fuck were you thinking?” another guy snaps. His question raises a rumble
of agreement from the others.

“The pack wants answers.” Lawson opens his palms up as if to indicate the mob
behind him. He’s a little taller than Ridge, but he doesn’t take up the room with just
his presence like Ridge does. I have a feeling this guy is all show.

The thought doesn’t really help me breathe past the looming panic attack though. He’s
still massive, with fists like ham hocks and an expression so full of loathing, I can’t
tell if he wants to get rid of me or Ridge. Possibly both.

“We’re already facing a threat from the witches!” the only woman in the group snaps,
raising her voice over the dull roar of the crowd. She’s tall and formidable, muscles
rippling in her golden brown arms. “And you drag this fucking carcass into our pack?
You don’t know that she isn’t one of those wolf-hating assholes!”

I can’t keep up with what they’re saying. Panic has turned my heart into a fluttering
bird in my chest, and their faces and voices are starting to blur together.
The pack? Witches? Wolf-hating?

None of this makes sense, and it’s only exacerbating the fear I’d barely gotten past
before they arrived. My panic is clawing its way back full force, stronger than it was
before.

I try to hold it in, to control it and contain it. Ridge doesn’t have any plans to hurt me
—I’m sure of it. I saw something in his mesmerizing amber eyes before the mob
arrived, a kind of protective warmth that barely made sense at the time. We don’t
know each other, but he wants to help me.

I believe him.

But voices are rising in anger. Six large people shouting at Ridge about putting the
pack in danger, and Ridge facing them down with a stoic, expressionless face and low
tones. He looks formidable, more dangerous than any of them could ever hope to be.
But it’s still six on one, and I don’t want to be hurt anymore. I don’t want anyone to
be hurt.

I can’t take more fucking violence. More anger.

My chest feels like it’s being squeezed by a massive rubber band. I can’t breathe.

As they continue screaming, I clutch at the couch cushions, trying not to fall into the
panic attack I know is coming.

Everything that’s happened to me in the last twenty-four hours is catching up to me—

the fall down the stairs, seeing Doctor Patil, escaping my uncle, plunging into the
ravine, waking up here in this strange cabin, and now this, these raised voices and the
obvious animosity dangling in the air between my rescuer and Lawson.

What if Ridge isn’t a nice guy? What if this is all a ruse by my uncle to hurt me? What
if these people are going to tear me apart and scatter my pieces in the mountains?

My breaths come faster, ever more painful as I gasp for air. My gaze darts between
the people yelling and back to Ridge. I want him to make them go away. I want a
chance to catch my breath, to figure out what the hell is going on.

Instead, I feel like I’m on the verge of a heart attack. My body is going to murder me
before Clint or anyone else gets the chance.
Tensions soar higher, voices growing deeper and angrier, and suddenly, one of the
men in the mob does something… strange. His body begins to morph, to change
shape.

It only takes a second, but in my current state of mind, it feels like it takes a lifetime.
When it’s over, where he stood on two legs before, a wolf stands in his place.

A large, growling wolf.

And I finally lose it.

The scream that comes from my lips is like nothing I’ve ever emitted in my entire life.
Not even in the heat of Uncle Clint’s punishments. Not even when I was little and
hadn’t taught myself to bear the pain, to go to another place inside my mind.

I scramble up onto the couch, still screaming, my legs tangling beneath me as I try to
get my knees to work so I can run away. My heart pounds against my chest, frantic
and demanding, trying to escape the terror inside me.

I see Ridge move. He reaches for me, but I can’t hear his words. Then his face goes
hard and he whips back around toward the waiting group, his hands clenching into
fists at his side.

The wolf takes a few steps forward, snarling.

What the hell is happening? Why can’t I wake up from this?

“Get the fuck out!” Ridge yells, his words the first sound to cut through my panic.

At his voice, I stop screaming, perched on the headrest of the couch, my fingernails
digging into the corduroy. I gulp for breath, clinging to the sound of his deep baritone.

“Out!” Ridge snarls, shoving Lawson toward the door. The bigger man is thrown
backward as if Ridge punched him, and he hits the wall hard, shaking the entire house.
The wolf backs away with a yip as the other four people all cower a bit too. “And
don’t ever fucking question my authority again!”

The entire group scrambles away into the daylight, and Ridge leans out behind them,
snarling, “Next time, fucking knock!” before he slams the door on their exit.
Then he looks back at me, and the fury on his face melts away as he strides across the
room. He comes around the back of the couch, cupping my face in his hands. “Hey,
shh. Shh, it’s okay. They’re gone. You’re okay.”

I’m still sucking in air like a drowning victim. I have tunnel-vision now, black edges
sneaking in around my eyesight. Even his voice can’t cut through this. I’m going to
die of a heart attack, right here on the back of his couch like I’m a damn cat.

“Look at me.” Ridge says gruffly, breaking through the rush of noise in my head. I
obey, clutching at his hands which still hold my face. “You’re having a panic attack.
What helps you through this?”

What helps?

A part of me recognizes that he knows this is normal for me. He knows I’ve done this
before, again and again, my mind attempting to deal with the abuse that’s become a
normal part of my existence. And his perceptive gaze lays bare all of my secrets. It
strikes me to my core. Someone knows the depth of my scars, and he wants to know
what helps me deal with them.

My teeth chatter as I struggle to reply. “W-w-wat-ter.”

He doesn’t say anything else. Suddenly, I’m being lifted in his arms as if I’m just a
child. I wrap my own arms around his neck, burying my face in his skin. There’s that
scent, the same woodsy pine scent I woke up to. I breathe it in, my tears soaking his t-
shirt as he carries me through the house.

I keep my eyes closed and my face against the warmth of his skin, focusing on his
scent because somehow it helps with the panic. So I only realize we’re in the
bathroom when I hear the snick of a shower curtain being opened. Then Ridge sets me
down on my feet on a soft rug.

But I can’t step away.

The thought of moving away from him sends another rush of panic through me, so I
cling tighter. I don’t even know quite why, but he’s become my anchor in this storm,
and I’m certain that if I lose my hold on him, I’ll drown.

Ridge doesn’t push me away. He doesn’t mock me for my weakness or leave me to

face the demons howling in my head on my own. Instead, he wraps an arm around my
waist to hold me in place as he leans forward and turns on the water.
I know I’m going to have to let him go to get beneath the water. As he stands there
testing the warmth of it with one hand, I brace myself for the impossible prospect of
standing on my own.

But then his other arm comes around my waist, and I’m being lifted into the bathtub.
Only… Ridge comes with me.

He managed to kick off his boots, I realize, without me even noticing. He sets me
gently down on top of his bare feet, holding me tight to his body. We’re both still
fully clothed as the water cascades over us, and I don’t loosen my grip on his neck.

Standing with him like this, I realize just how big he is compared to me. I’m leaning
against him, my cheek resting against his broad chest. He drops his head so that his
beard tickles my forehead, and his hands smooth gently over the back of my wet t-
shirt, keeping me on my feet.

After a few moments, the panic begins to subside. Quicker than usual, even. Back
home, in the aftermath of Clint’s rage, I’d stand beneath the water for an hour, until
all the warmth was gone and only cold remained, and still feel the effects of my panic
attack.

But here, clinging to this stranger who smells like the mountains, this stranger who
wants to help me, I find what might be the last scrap of peace inside myself.

My mind goes blank, and I just let the water fall around me, listening to the sound of
his heartbeat beneath my ear.

hapter 7
Sable
I wake from sleep groggily,my eyelids blinking into clear, early morning light. The
curtains on the window are drawn open, and I can see that Ridge closed the window
back up sometime while I was asleep. His presence in the room while I slept sends a
little shiver down my spine, despite the fact that he’s done nothing but take care of me
from the moment he brought me here.

Sleeping is such a vulnerable time.

And I’m terrified of being vulnerable with anyone.

I shove back the covers and gently sit up. My body is stiff and unwieldy, my limbs as
heavy as my eyelids, and I scoot back to rest against the headboard and get my
bearings. I don’t remember getting out of the shower or falling asleep, but that’s not
abnormal for my panic attacks. When my mind goes blank at the tail end of an attack,
I operate on autopilot.

I’m wearing some of Ridge’s clothes again. A soft, worn pair of cotton shorts and a t-
shirt three times too big for me. I realize I’m not wearing a bra or underwear, and I
hope to God I took them off myself in the moments after my fully-clothed shower. I
hope I changed my own clothes last night, because Ridge already did it once—and
that time, he at least kept my underwear on. If I didn’t change myself last night, then
he certainly got an eyeful of my body.

The thought sends a new wave of panic skittering through me, but on the heels of that,
there’s something else. Something warm. A tingle that travels through my belly,
making my breath hitch a little. I can’t quite identify the feeling, but it floods my
cheeks with heat.

Regardless of who changed me after the shower, I feel weirdly safe here in Ridge’s
bed, wearing his clothes. But I don’t want to hold on to the feeling.

As far as I’m concerned, nowhere is safe. Not here, not the hospital, not back home
with my uncle. Life with Clint taught me that people are fundamentally bad and want
to hurt me. It’s just human nature to want to hurt each other.

If I expect anything else, I put myself right back in danger.

The cobwebs of sleep continue to slowly recede from my mind, and as they do, I
realize something else is different. I’m no longer wearing my wrist brace.

My arm, which ached like a son of a bitch yesterday, barely hurts. My ankle feels
better too. Some of the bruises and scrapes I gathered during my flight through the
woods are barely visible anymore, although the scars my uncle left on me are still
there.

I blink, my throat tightening convulsively.

How long was I asleep for?

There’s a brief knock at the door, then Ridge calls through the thick wood, “Are you
awake? I brought breakfast.”

My heart skips a beat, and for a moment, I think I’m about to have yet another damn
panic attack. But then I realize that’s not it at all. It’s his voice making my heart skip,
and in a way I’m not accustomed to.

“I’m awake,” I call out, my voice scratchy and rough.

“May I come in?”

I’m floored by the question. Uncle Clint would have just barged in—it’s my fucking
house, kid. Ridge is giving me the option to turn him away, something I was never
allowed back home.

All I can manage is a strangled, “Yes!” that comes out a little too high-pitched as a
strange mix of emotions flood my chest.

The door opens, and Ridge walks in holding a small tray that bears a steaming mug
and a plate. His ash-brown hair is rumpled and the black t-shirt he’s wearing molds to
his muscles, giving him a strong, dangerous air that makes my heart rate ratchet. I
have to remind myself he’s a friend who has no intention of hurting me.

Even so, when he gives me a tentative smile, his honeyed eyes on mine as he sets the
tray over my legs, panic rears its ugly head.

“I hope you like eggs and bacon,” he says, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “It’s
all I had.”

His closeness strikes a chord of leftover terror in me. Coupled with the panic, it sends
me into a spiral, and I scoot away, sloshing coffee over the edge of the mug as I jar
the tray with my legs.

Ridge’s eyes soften, and he gets up, walking to the pile of laundry in the corner where
he extracts a dirty shirt. He keeps his movements slow and both of his hands in my
field of vision as he mops up the spilled coffee.

“I didn’t know if you liked milk and sugar in your coffee,” he says, carefully dabbing
up the last of the liquid. “So I brought you both.”
I swallow hard as he moves away. He tosses the shirt back into the laundry pile, then
moves to the very bottom of the bed, choosing the side that puts him as far away from
me as possible.

A lump rises in my throat at his generosity, and at the way he seems to understand
what I need just from my crazy reactions. The rapid thudding of my heart slows, and
as it does, my stomach lets out an unholy growl.

Jesus. How long has it actually been since I last ate? I’ve lost track of time almost
completely, but this is the second day I’ve woken up in this man’s bed. He must’ve
gotten me to at least drink some water after my panic attack yesterday, because my
mouth doesn’t feel too dry and cottony.

Ridge gives me a gentle, somewhat amused smile as I press a hand over my stomach.
The way one corner of his lips tilts a little higher than the other makes him look
rugged and slightly rough around the edges, just like everything else about him.

Dragging my gaze away from his full lips, I reach out and tentatively pick up a piece
of bacon. The plate is a plain turquoise with a darker bottom and looks handmade,
while the small coffee mug declares MONTANA in bold lettering, with an artistic
rendering of the state’s natural features below that. Neither dish goes together
aesthetically, yet somehow, they work.

“What’s your name?” Ridge asks softly, drawing my attention back to him.

I hesitate, then bite into the bacon, tearing off half the strip. I take my time chewing,
my gaze fixed on the steam rising from my mug. I’m not sure I should tell him my
name, although I can’t exactly pinpoint where that worry comes from.

What kind of power would he have over me if I did? What if Clint has missing person
posters up and Ridge turns me over?

But some tiny part of me that goes against my own sense of self-preservation wants to
trust this man. Something inside me is drawn to him, feels safe with him—almost as if
I’ve known him for years instead of less than forty-eight hours.

I swallow my bacon past a throat that’s gone dry as the desert, then flick my gaze up
to meet his as I say, “I’m Sable.”

Ridge’s eyes darken as he hears my name, the amber color shifting to a hue like
burnished gold, and the change sends another tingle over me. Exactly how I felt when
I thought of him seeing me naked when he changed my clothes. Something warm and
intoxicating deep in my body.

I know what it is, I think. It’s just not something I’ve ever really felt before.

And I still have no idea what it means. So I deflect with the most burning question
I’ve had since yesterday afternoon.

“Was it real?” I ask, reaching for another strip of bacon. “The wolf in your living
room? He was a man… and then he was a wolf.”

Ridge narrows his eyes at me, not in anger like Uncle Clint used to, but as if he’s
carefully constructing his next statement. I can’t really blame him for seeming to walk
on eggshells around me—I haven’t proven to be the most stable of individuals since
he opened his home to me. Even now, balancing on this precarious ledge where he’s
about to tell me whether I hallucinated that or not, I’m on the borderline of losing my
nerve again.

“What you saw really happened,” he finally says, clearly deciding not to try to
sugarcoat or dance around the truth.

I suck in a breath, putting the bacon back down quickly before my shaking fingers
drop it on the clean sheets. “Jesus.”

“I need you to understand that you’re safe here,” he rushes to add. He places a palm
on the mattress between us, as if he wishes he could place it on my arm in comfort. I
manage to keep myself from shrinking away again, although maybe that’s just
because my brain is too busy trying to wrap its head around what he just told me.

“Are you… a wolf too?”

The words come out strangled. The first revelation already threatened to overwhelm
me, but if the answer to this is yes…

I have an itch to run. Again. How can I be safer in the hands of weird man-wolf
hybrids than I would be alone in the wilderness?

“Yes, I’m a wolf shifter. But we’re not a threat to you.” Ridge’s deep voice is calm
and measured. “We pose no threat to human communities. My pack is peaceful. We
keep to ourselves mostly, and we keep our existence secret from ordinary humans. It’s
safer for everybody that way.”
Threatened with an overload of emotion, I focus on the one thing that really sticks out.
“Your pack. There’s more than one pack?”

“There used to be four. But we’re down to three after—” He breaks off, shaking his
head. “There are only three now.”

I don’t know what he was about to say, but questions are crowding my mind, clogging
my brain as they pile up on top of each other. It’s hard for me to keep hold of a single
train of thought for too long as I try to process everything that’s happened to me.

Holding up my left hand, I wiggle the fingers, surprised all over again that I can do it
without pain. “What happened to my wrist? It was… it was hurt. Sprained. And my
ankle…”

“Yeah.” Ridge’s eyes harden, but I don’t think the anger in them is directed at me. “I
had our healer come take a look at your injuries. She was able to patch up the worst of
them, including your arm and your ankle.” His brows pull together, and he scans my
body quickly. “Are you hurt anywhere else? I can bring her back if you are.”

“No. No, I’m okay.”

I really don’t feel pain anywhere else, and I’m relieved to hear that the healer is a
woman. But I don’t think I could handle being touched or examined by another
stranger right now.

“All right.” Ridge leans back a little, a look of relief crossing his face. “Well, just tell
me if—”

He cuts off, turning away from me and craning his ear toward the window. The glass
is closed, and I don’t hear anything for several seconds.

Then a chorus of howls pierce the silence, faint in the distance but loud enough for me
to pick up on.

“Fuck me,” Ridge growls, standing abruptly. He shoves a hand through his messy
brown hair, then drags his palm down his face, closing his eyes as if to brace himself.
When he opens his eyes, he levels that honey gaze on me, grimacing slightly. “I have
to go.”

I nod, though I feel a twinge of regret that he’s leaving when we’ve only just begun
talking. If I learn more about his pack, and about the life they lead, I think maybe I
won’t feel the need to run so fast and far.
Life with Clint was one long unknown. Would I get a day’s respite before he raised a
hand to me again? Would he feed me? Would he let me read a book so that I could
have an escape from the horror that was my life?

The answers to those questions varied daily, and it kept me in a permanent state of
high alert, my nervous system braced for whatever might come.

Here in Ridge’s secluded cabin, I’m still facing an unknown, and maybe that’s why I
can’t calm down. I’m tired of the unknown. I want a plan, I want certainty, and I want
to feel like I’m in control of my life.

He’s already crossing the room and opening the door, moving quickly. But he stops
with his hand on the doorknob and turns back, his dark brow furrowed.

“You’re not a prisoner, Sable,” he says. “You aren’t my captive in any way, and I
have no intention of keeping you here against your will.”

“O-okay.”

I nod my head a few shakes too many before I finally get it to stop, and a flush creeps
up my cheeks.

Way to go, Sable. Just keep proving how insane you are to the beautiful man who’s
doing his best to help you.

Ridge opens the door more and takes another step, but he’s still looking at me as he
adds, “But if you stay here, you’ll be safe. I promise.”

Then he disappears through the door, leaving it open behind him.

hapter 8
Ridge
It takesa lot of fucking willpower to leave that door open.

What I really want to do is slam it shut and barricade it closed so that the woman in
my bedroom can’t leave. Just because I told her she was free to go doesn’t mean I
want her to. I want to keep her right here with me, where I know some jackass isn’t
putting out cigarettes on her perfect skin.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

The front door slams shut behind me as I step out of the cabin, and I shove my hands
in my pockets as I stride down the front walk to the packed-dirt road. I don’t know
why I want so fucking much for Sable to stay with me. She’s nobody to me. Some
chick I found half-dead in a ravine, and to hear my brother bitch about it, I should
have left her there.

But as I walk away from my cabin, the thought that she might actually leave while
I’m gone makes me sick to my stomach.

For now, though, this council meeting is a lot more pressing than keeping Sable in my
bed. If Lawson caught a whiff of me putting a woman before my duties to the pack,
he’d use it as a reason to wrest the pack out from under my control.

Not that he’d need a lot of reason to want to try.

Since I won out over him in the fight for alpha status, he’s been waiting for his chance
to prove he’s smarter, stronger, and better. To prove that my winning was some kind
of fluke.

The escalation of witch violence in recent weeks has left all three packs in a constant
state of vigilance and worry. Just last week, the East Pack lost three wolves in a
coordinated attack that decimated a couple acres of their territory and left them
nothing to bury but pieces. It’s more imperative than ever that we band together to
defeat the witch threat, which means I’ve got to get my head in the game and forget
about Sable. For the next hour, at least.

Beyond that? I’m not sure it’ll be possible.

I hear a crunch of feet behind me before Grady O’Connell steps into view beside me,
falling into step with my long strides. Grady reminds me of Mr. Clean, with a bald
head that reflects the sunlight and deeply tanned skin. He’s as big as the cleaning
mascot, too, six-foot-four at least with muscles that are at odds with his beer habit. He
has one hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, and the other wrapped around a Coors
Light that’s condensing in the late morning warmth.

“Ridge.” He grins at me, a knowing smirk that lets me know he probably saw the
entire fucking debacle with Sable earlier. “You wanna talk about it?”
“Fuck off,” I growl, but I smile anyway. Grady’s a nice guy—two decades older than
me and once a good friend of my father’s. He’s a little on the eccentric side, but he’s a
good man who’s never once questioned my authority since I won alpha status after my
father’s death five years ago.

“Never figured you for the kinda man who’d have to drag a woman home. She’s cute
though,” Grady goes on, clucking his teeth as if to punctuate his statement. “Nice
ass.”

I shoot a glare in his direction, my head turning toward him sharply. I know he’s
kidding. He’s a happily mated man, and he’s more interested in giving me shit than in
checking out a girl’s ass.

Still, it doesn’t change the warning in my tone. “Keep your paws off her.”

He laughs. “Oh, I plan to. You know we’ve got some eligible bachelorettes of our
own though, right? You don’t have to go pickin’ up strange women and bringin’ them
back—”

I pause and kick a cloud of dirt in his direction, earning a laugh in return. “Thought I
told you to fuck off?”

“All right, all right,” he says, holding up both hands in surrender. Then his smile
fades. “But in all seriousness, I wanted to let you know I found evidence of campfires
out on the Rim this morning during patrol.”

“Shit.” I stop, gravel shifting beneath my boots as I turn to face him. “New?”

“Fresh,” Grady says grimly. “Still smoking.”

“They’re getting braver.”

“Or stupider,” he points out.

“Either way, that’s the closest they’ve come on our lands in a while.” I stare off at the
trees, at the sun riding high over the mountains. What would my father have done if
he’d lived long enough to see the witches grow this bold in their war on us? “What are
our options here?” I say under my breath, avoiding Grady’s concerned gaze. “We’re
fighting an entire race of supernatural beings that wants to eradicate us because we’re
‘aberrations’ of magic.”

“In their opinion,” the older man grumbles.

“In their opinion alone,” I agree. “So what do we do? Wipe them out before they can
wipe us out? Try to bridge the gap? Prove to them that the fact we use magic to shift
doesn’t make us anything less than them?”

Grady knocks back a swig of his Coors before he says, “You can’t use logic with
people who’re talking genocide. The only thing you can do is fight fire with fire.”

“Magic with magic.” I sigh and look back at the old man. “Nice talk. Now fuck off.”

“You’ve always been so eloquent. You didn’t get that from your dad,” Grady
chuckles. Then he gives me a clap on the shoulder and heads off toward home.

The council meets in the largest building in town—a long, low, corrugated metal barn
that’s blisteringly hot in summer and icy in winter.

Several members of the East Pack are milling around outside the barn with a few of
my own wolves, and they all greet me with brief nods before continuing their
conversations. Each of the packs send their alpha plus a handful of council members
to each meeting, and they’re typically familiar faces—like Archer, the quiet golden
boy of the East Pack who’s been standing in for his ailing father, the alpha. Our gazes
meet, and I acknowledge him with a polite nod but keep walking.

I’m barely through the door into the dim interior before Amora appears from the
shadows and latches on to my arm, dragging me right back outside. You wouldn’t
know it by looking at her long, lean figure, but the woman’s got a grip like a fucking
vise.

The sunlight reflects off a hard glint in her vivid green eyes as she releases me and
hisses quietly, “All right, what the fuck is going on? Lawson damn near busted down
your door, and now he’s telling anybody who’ll listen that you have a witch holed up
in your house.”

Amora’s been my closest friend and confidante since we were kids, and even more so
since I took over the pack. She balances the rage inside of me, dishing out her no-
nonsense logic when I need it most.

I shake my arm free of her clutches and snort. “A witch? Really?”

Her long, dark ponytail swishes as she shrugs. “That’s what he’s saying. Most of us
don’t believe him, but you know he has his fanboys.”
“She’s not a witch.” A growl rumbles in my chest, my gaze darting around the lawn as
if Lawson might be standing close enough for me to shove my fist through his face.
“We’d smell it.”

“Would we?” Amora asks simply. “We don’t really have a precedent for that, do we?
If we could scent the magic in them, it would make defending against them a hell of a
lot easier.”

“She’s not,” I insist.

Amora crosses her arms and peers down her nose at me in a look so reminiscent of
our childhood it almost makes me laugh. “How about you just tell me where she came
from, and we’ll go from there?”

“I found her at the bottom of Devil’s Ditch. Unconscious.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “What’s her story?”

“I don’t know!” I snap, throwing my hands in the air. “I can’t get a fucking moment
alone with her to ask!”

Some of the East Pack members are staring at me, their attention drawn by my
outburst. Amora glances at them, then latches on to my elbow and drags me around
the edge of the barn, out of sight. She lets me go with a little shove of irritation.
“Would you chill? You’re acting like a crazy person.”

I open my mouth, ready to go on the defensive, then snap my jaws shut with an
audible click of my teeth and rub away the bruising she’s left on my arm. Amora’s
right. And to be honest, I feel like a fucking crazy person too. Ever since I dragged
Sable home, I don’t know what’s been going on with me. Maybe I’m hiding it well
from everyone else—even from myself—but I’ve never been able to hide anything
from Amora.

“Ridge, listen to me.” My friend steeples her fingers in front of her face as if she’s
praying and waits until I’ve given her my undivided attention. “You’re violating the
packs’ treaty by allowing an unsanctioned being to reside in your house.”

I clench my jaw at the unwelcome reminder and nod once. I’m lucky Grady’s an
easygoing old fart, or he would’ve been on my ass for letting in an outsider instead of
just giving me shit about my skills with women.
“Our treaty declares that all three packs have agreed to close ourselves off from
newcomers,” Amora goes on.

“Like I don’t fucking know?” I grunt.

“Well, clearly, you don’t.” Amora arches a brow, pointing in the direction of my
cabin. “Because there’s an unsanctioned female on your couch.”

I almost correct her with, In my bed, actually, but that seems like it would open a
whole new can of fucking worms. I’ve had enough drama in the last twenty-four
hours to last me for the rest of my damn life.

“Trust is in short supply lately,” Amora says, oblivious to my inner thoughts. Thank
God. “Half the pack already thinks you’ve gone off the deep end and put us in danger.
What happens when the other packs find out? You think Trystan is gonna stand for
this? Or even Archer?”

I know she’s right, but the reminder is frustrating as fuck. Treaty be damned. I can’t
just kick Sable out of my house. Not in the state she’s in. But even more than that—I
have no fucking clue why, but I can’t let her go.

“I just… need a minute,” I growl in a low voice. “A day, some time to figure out why
she was abandoned, beat to shit, in the middle of our territory.”

“Maybe because she’s a plant?” Amora suggests. “Put there by the witches to
infiltrate our pack?”

My jaw clenches, and so do my fists.

“She’s not. We don’t have time to stand here and argue. We have a meeting.”

I stalk away before Amora can say anything else. I hate how often our conversations
end in me walking away because I don’t like what her logic has to say. She’s never
sugarcoated her opinions for me or been anything but blunt and honest—and the truth
is, I’m a better man because of the times I listened to her.

But this…

What if she’s right?

Yes, Sable has clearly been the victim of abuse. Nobody can fake all those scars that
look as if they span at least a decade’s worth of time. But that doesn’t mean she
wasn’t chosen explicitly by the witches to infiltrate our pack. My gut knows it’s not
true—I can look in the girl’s haunted gray-blue eyes and know there’s no malice
there, and there’s definitely no magic.

Regardless, Amora has planted a worry I wish I didn’t have to carry.

Then again, maybe it won’t even have a chance to be an issue. I told the golden-
haired angel she wasn’t my prisoner. That she was free to leave if she chose.

As I walk into the dark interior of the council building, I rub the ache in my chest and
wonder if Sable’s already gone.

hapter 9
Sable
The cabin iscalm and silent after Ridge leaves. I finish the bacon before moving on to
the scrambled eggs, and even though the meal is as simple as it can get, it’s delicious
—the bacon just the right amount of crispy, the eggs fluffy and moist. It hits the spot
for me in a way no food has in a very long time.

From what I’ve been able to tell, Ridge definitely lives alone in this small cabin. I’m
touched that he went out of his way to cook me breakfast and to bring it to me in bed.
He also wasn’t half bad at trying to be as non-threatening as possible. And I
appreciate that too.

That doesn’t mean you should stay, I think as I finish off my cooling coffee and put
the empty mug back on the tray.

But I’m torn. On the one hand, my fight-or-flight impulse has taken up what feels like
permanent residence in my gut, and every nerve-ending in my body is screaming at
me to run. Ignoring that self-preservation instinct that’s become so ingrained in me
after life with my uncle feels like the stupidest thing I could possibly do right now.

But on the other hand… I’d be safe here. Safer than anywhere else. I truly believe that
now, at least.

After I finish, I carry the tray into the kitchen and spend a few minutes washing and
drying the dishes, before I open every cabinet and drawer in the room to put them
away in the right place. I figure if Ridge is going to cook for me, the proper thing for
me to do is at least clean up after myself.

His kitchen is small, tucked in a corner adjacent to the living room with one small
window over the metal sink and a back door that opens out over a small empty plot of
grass. The cabinets are mostly empty—just a handful of plates, bowls, cups, and
mugs, which tells me he doesn’t have company over often. The fridge is sparse too. A
gallon of milk, eggs, bacon, and lunch meat with a few generic condiments. Because
I’m nosy, I also open the freezer and find it packed full with different kinds of meat,
which I guess shouldn’t be surprising given he’s a wolf.

A wolf.

Holy fuck, I still can’t quite believe that.

Closing the freezer, I walk through the living room and poke around a bit. There are
three magazines on the solid wooden coffee table—two copies of Men’s Health and a
single copy of Popular Mechanics that advertises “How to Survive the Next Great
Disaster.”

Funny. I could use some advice in that regard in my own life.

Other than the couch and coffee table, the living room area is sparse, but with a clean,
masculine feel. The hardwood floors look freshly varnished and shine beneath the
rays of sunlight slanting through the double picture window. I pass back into the
hallway where a coat rack holds several jackets.

I hesitate for a second before pressing my face into a blue jean jacket lined with
flannel and taking a deep breath of Ridge’s unique woodsy scent.

Then a flush creeps up my neck, and I glance guiltily toward the door as if expecting
him to come bursting through demanding to know why I’m sniffing his clothes like
some kind of creepy stalker.

I wouldn’t have an answer for him. Not one that makes sense anyway. I just know that
I can’t get enough of the way he smells. The way his voice sounds. The way his
amber eyes burn like two steady, reassuring flames.

Even just the lingering scent of his jacket in my nostrils brings me a kind of calm I
never knew existed.
I take one more surreptitious sniff, promising myself this is the last one, before
continuing on in my exploration of the house.

A woven throw rug in shades of brown and tan rests by the front door, and I pause, the
soft weave plush beneath my bare toes as I tiptoe to peek out the high decorative
window in the door.

At first glance, the street outside looks empty. The bedroom is on the opposite side of
the house, and I ran down a small dirt road lined by other houses when I ran for the
woods yesterday. On this side, a larger gravel road runs just beyond the small front
yard, and other similar cabins sit on the other side of the street.

I’m tempted to slip on shoes and step outside to get a better look at this little
settlement. It looks like a miniature version of Big Creek, which is a small town in its
own right, and I wonder how it functions so far from civilization.

But before I can make a move, I notice a group of big, burly men striding through the
village.

I duck, my heart rate jumping. I saw no indication they were coming here—the five or
six men looked as if they were deep in conversation, faces and movements relaxed as
they navigated up the road. But something about them pokes the fear that’s lain right
beneath the surface in me since the moment I awoke in Ridge’s house, never entirely
fading away no matter what I do.

Those men passing by the cabin are huge, powerful, dominant. Just like the ones who
burst into the house yesterday.

Just like all of these people.

These wolves.

These shifters.

I don’t quite understand what it means for someone to be a shifter, besides the fact
that they can change from human to animal and back. I don’t know what it all means.

But I recognize strength, power, and dominance when I see it.

And all I can think of is Uncle Clint.

For so long, I was kept captive in his house. I had no identity or autonomy. Even as
fearful as I’ve been during my time here, I’ve never felt as scared as I was living
under Clint’s roof. I’ve tasted the possibility of freedom and the possibility of finally
being my own person, and I absolutely refuse to give that up. I refuse to be my uncle’s
captive any longer.

But I refuse to be a captive here either.

I can’t stay.

I jam my feet into my shoes—which Ridge has left by the door—and then race toward
the kitchen, my laces trailing on the ground. I slam through the back door and out into
the tiny backyard, veering away from the garden shed and toward the dark line of
forest beyond the dead end road. The same escape route I tried and failed to take last
time.

The men out front are speaking in loud voices, and I cringe as I halt by the edge of the
road and look around for anybody who might see me sneaking away.

A small part of me knows this is asinine. Ridge doesn’t want to hurt me. He promised
he’d keep me safe, and his cabin is definitely preferable to a cave in the wild.

But I think of that group of furious people barreling into his living room and the new
men I saw striding past his cabin. I think of the way that wolf’s teeth glinted as it
growled. I think of how fucking out of my depth I am in all of this, how outnumbered
and vulnerable I am here, and my fear ramps into unnatural, uncontrollable,
completely illogical territory.

I see nobody, so I fall into a sprint, one hand wrapped around the waistband of
Ridge’s shorts to keep them from falling off as I hurry toward the forest. Too late now
to go back and find my own clothes, which are likely clean in Ridge’s laundry room
because he’s just so damn kind.

I don’t have time for going back. I have to move forward. I have to be free.

The woods beckon like a shadow beacon of hope. I’m nearing the edge of the road,
about to leap off the flat dirt and into the grass, when a hand like iron wraps around
my bicep and yanks me back.

I let out a squeaky yelpas my body comes to a vicious halt before I’m jerked back
onto the road. Everything whirls around me as I’m yanked around, and then suddenly,
the man called Lawson is looming over me, his fingers cutting off circulation in my
arm.

Terror makes my legs weak, and I collapse to the dirt on my knees, dangling from his
grip.

He glares at me, looking every bit as intimidating as when he challenged Ridge

yesterday.

“I knew you couldn’t be trusted, you fucking liar,” he spits, giving me a shake that
rattles the fillings in my teeth. “You spying on us? About to run back to your little
coven and tell them our secrets?”

“P-please. Please let me go.” My words come out small and shaky, wobbly from the
force of his shaking, and I try to pull away from his rock-hard grip.

His eyes narrow. This man is the complete opposite of Ridge, with dusky blond hair
and blue eyes. He has a face that would be attractive if it weren’t filled with so much
vicious anger, and he’s the size of a small house. I swear he’s channeling the strength
of ten men in his grasp on my arm.

“No, I don’t think I will.” He scowls. “I think the council needs to meet you. I think
you need to be made an example of to all your bitch, wolf-hating friends.”

“Please.” My voice is hardly more than a breath, and I feel a rush of shame at how
terrified and tearful I sound. “I don’t want any trouble. I’m leaving. I just want to go.”

He sneers. “Yeah? Tell that to your executioners.”

Without another word, Lawson literally drags me through the village by my arm as
my legs scrape uselessly against the ground. Thank God the roads aren’t concrete, and
only dust and gravel grates on my bare skin, but the pain still brings tears to my eyes.
He’s moving too fast for me to get my feet beneath me, and my heart beats wildly in
my chest as I struggle against his hold.

By the time we reach a metal barn on the outskirts of the village, I’m sobbing. His
grip has made my arm numb, and I’m almost certain he’s wrenched it hard enough to
pull muscles and ligaments. I’m wishing I never left Ridge’s house, that I’d been
smart enough to stay put and keep out of sight.

If Lawson has his way, I’ll be lynched on sight.

He slams open the door to the barn with more force than necessary, and I yank against
his hold in a last-ditch, desperate effort to get away. His other hand sinks into my hair
and he grabs a handful, dragging me by the roots into a large open space rimmed by
astonished faces.

We reach the central area, and Lawson throws me onto the concrete floor. I slam into
the ground, barely keeping my head from making contact with the concrete as a
hoarse cry falls from my lips.

The room is silent. Dozens of faces stare at me, just as surprised at my arrival as I am.

Shifters, I realize with another wave of terror. I’m surrounded by shifters.

Nobody moves, nobody even seems to breathe, and all I can hear is the rushing in my
ears and the unnatural pounding in my chest.

Today is the day I die. After everything Uncle Clint did to me, I never thought it
would end like this.

hapter 10
Trystan
These council meetingsare a waste of my goddamned time.

But I come to them because that’s what I’m supposed to do. The alpha plays nice with
the other packs. The alpha builds bridges and shakes hands and kisses rancid ass to
ensure cooperation between them and us. Inter-pack cooperation and all that stupid
bullshit.

That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I hate this drafty barn the North Pack has built out of recycled materials and spit, and I
especially hate listening to fucking Ridge Harcourt droning on about trespassers on
their land, or Archer from the East Pack talking about his sick father.

Their problems are real, and they have my sympathies—but their problems
aren’t my problems. My pack is doing fine. We’re handling the witch threat, beefing
up our own security, and not for the first time, I’m spending every boring second of
this meeting wondering what the fuck I’m doing here.

The West Pack has never been stronger. My pack hasn’t lost a wolf yet, and those
goddamned witches haven’t trampled the slightest blade of grass on our lands. These
two are the ones who can’t protect their packs. I’d rather be back home taking care of
my people than standing here watching Ridge’s expressionless face drone on about
recently lit campfires near the boundary.

So I’m catatonic as if I’ve been drugged, holding up the wall as if it’s my mission in
life and trying desperately not to fall asleep.

One of my advisors elbows me every time I nod off, and irritation burns in my chest
every time he does, but he’s got a point. I need to play nice unless I want to make
enemies of the other packs. I may be a cocky asshole—hell, I’d be the first to admit
that’s exactly what I am—but I take the protection of my people seriously. And
maintaining good relations is part of that, as boring as it may be.

But my boredom is quickly shoved away when the door bursts open, slamming into
the wall so hard the whole rickety shack quivers.

Lawson appears in the doorway, all bulk and no brains with a shadowy figure
dangling from his hand.

The edges of my lips curl up, and I fight the inherent urge to snarl at the North Pack
alpha’s younger brother. Lawson is as cocky as I am, but he’s got no fucking class,
the kind of giant tornado that can do damage to a city but can’t wipe his own ass.

Even my people know he’s been trying to steal the pack out from under Ridge since
their father died. I’m not a big fan of Ridge with his serious, holier-than-thou attitude,
but I really don’t like Lawson. He’s a sociopath in wolf’s skin, and that ticking time
bomb is set to blow at the worst possible time.

The blond man storms into the barn and throws the second figure onto the floor. He
crosses his arms over his broad chest before turning to address his brother with a
smirk.

“Found your whore trying to sneak away,” Lawson says, his deep voice booming
through the room like a gunshot. “Did it ever occur to you when you brought her onto
pack land that she might run away to her friends and tell them all our secrets? Since
you’re here and I found her trying to run off into the woods a few minutes ago, I
assume that means you left this witch alone in your damn house.”
The entire council reacts to that bomb, people surging to their feet as a ripple goes
through the gathered crowd. Loud voices rise around me, every face turning to Ridge
for answers.

But I exchange glances with Archer, the East Pack’s acting alpha. I may not like
Lawson, but I doubt the ass-hat would walk into a council meeting and accuse his
alpha—and his brother—of bringing an unsanctioned visitor onto pack lands if he
didn’t have proof to back it up. Not to mention the inflammatory implication she’s a
witch.

If all this is true, that means Ridge broke the treaty, and now Archer and myself have
to clean up the mess.

Fuck, as if having to come to these meetings isn’t bullshit enough, now I have to do
damage control?

The grumblings get louder, nearly all of it directed at Ridge, who’s staring stone-faced
at his brother. Instead of joining the growing number of dissenters, I level my gaze on
the girl.

She’s small and petite, probably a few years younger than I am—all wide eyes and
delicate limbs with so much fear rolling off her, you’d think Lawson had jammed a
knife against her throat. Not that he’s been anything but a raging asshole since he
dragged her in here, but her level of fear makes it seem like she thinks she’s about to
die.

The woman looks like she wants to curl into a ball small enough to disappear into the
floor. My jaw clenches as Lawson grabs her once more and yanks her to her feet,
yelling at his brother about breaking the treaty.

The woman doesn’t just let him manhandle her again though. She gets her feet
underneath her and yanks away from Lawson’s iron grip with a low, breathy shout.

“Let go of me, asshole!”

My eyebrows twitch upward in surprise, and even Lawson looks a little shocked.

Huh. Little thing’s got a backbone under all that fear.

Her wide blue eyes are feral, her gaze darting around as if she’s cataloguing every
person in the room while also seeking out the nearest exit. I watch her clock the door
Lawson left wide open behind them, and how the crowd of council members isn’t
blocking her route of escape. She searches the crowd on either side, and I can almost
taste the way she’s weighing her odds of getting past us. Can she outrun us? Can she
reach the forest and disappear?

Sorry, hot stuff. There’s not a chance in hell you can outrun and outsmart wolves.

I think she knows it too. But before she comes to any kind of decision on whether to
try anyway, her gaze meets mine.

The weight of that gaze hits me like a falling boulder off a ravine.

Something pulls hard and almost painfully inside me, and my wolf growls. Beneath
the protective snarl, I feel something so raw and visceral that I can’t even believe it’s
happening.

Mine.

I shove away from the wall, my eyes widening as my wolf howls inside me.

She’s mine.

“You know the rules. You signed the treaty yourself. She doesn’t belong here, Ridge,”
one of the North Pack’s advisors is saying, trying to maintain some semblance of
orderly discourse. “She can’t stay here, regardless of what state you found her in.”

“She’s not a witch,” Ridge growls. “She needs help. Are we to just turn our backs on
anybody who stumbles onto our land beaten and bloody?”

“We are when there’s an entire race of beings trying to destroy us.”

“The witch needs to be locked up,” another voice chimes in. “We need to make sure
we’re safe from her. Then we’ll discuss what to do with her.”

The blonde woman’s gaze is still locked on mine, her expression a little dazed. Then
she shakes her head as if to clear it, dragging her focus away from me. She darts a
wild-eyed glance at the door again as the council argues with Ridge.

How has no one felt that ocean of terror rolling off her? How can they not see how
frightened and vulnerable she is?

The wolf inside me is raging to get to her, to wrap his body around her and protect her
from these assholes.
Before I even realize what I’m doing, I take two strides forward. This isn’t normal—
Trystan, alpha of the West Pack, having fuck-all to say during a council meeting. I
certainly don’t put myself on display like this, and that’s evident in the way people
abruptly stop talking and look at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“That woman is a wolf,” I say, pitching my voice loud enough to be heard over the
low grumble of unease still filling the room. “I know it as sure as I know my own
name.”

Ridge cocks his head at me, though his face doesn’t change. I can see the thoughts
working in his head—he’s trying to figure out my endgame, what I get out of saying
such a thing and fighting for this strange woman.

Before I can speak again and declare her my mate, Archer comes forward, joining me
in the center of the room.

“It’s true,” he says, and his quiet voice is stronger than I’ve ever heard it. He’s a pretty
boy with gold hair and green eyes, and if his father wasn’t back home dying, he
wouldn’t even be here. But he motions to the woman and says again, “Trystan’s right.
I know she’s a wolf, because my wolf has claimed her as its mate.”

Shock thrums through me, making the back of my neck prickle as hackles try to rise
even in my human form. What the fuck? How is that possible?

My wolf has claimed her.

She’smine.

But Archer clearly doesn’t think so.

Across the room, Ridge lets out a long, low growl that leaves no room for
interpretation.

hapter 11
Sable
Ridge’s growl finally fades,but I swear I can hear an echo of it bouncing off the stark
walls of the large building.
The room has grown so silent, I feel as if I can hear every breath being taken. Beyond
the breathing, I can also feel the weight of every gaze latched on to me, made heavier
by the thick tension that clogs the air.

I don’t like being the center of attention like this. I don’t like all these eyes on me—
not Ridge’s concerned gaze or Lawson’s pissed off one or any of the different levels
of emotion in between.

My heart pounds with such force that I’m sure every predator here can hear it or sense
the blood pumping overtime through my veins. I stand with my feet shoulder width
apart, ready to run at the first glimpse of violence, even as fear threatens to turn my
knees to jelly. Lawson left the door open, and I will absolutely make my escape if it
looks like my only option.

Two nights ago, I decided to live life on my terms for once.

If it comes to it, I’ll die on my terms too.

The beautiful blond man with the soft voice stands closer to me than most, and his
expression is calm even as he stares down the rest of the crowd. He looks gentle and
not at all like the hard, angry shifters around us.

But of all the people in the barn, he’s the one I’m most afraid of right now.

My wolf has claimed her as its mate.

What does that mean?

What kind of crazy cult have I walked into?

“You’re wrong.” Ridge’s voice is like gunfire in the silence. He steps forward,
irritation flashing across his face. He looks even more intense than he did in the
moment when he kicked the mob out of his living room. “She cannot be your mate.
My wolf has already claimed her.”

My heart lurches in my chest, and if it weren’t for the fact that my feet are rooted to
the floor, I might fall over.

Ridge’s amber gaze seeks mine, and I can sense him trying to calm me. He must know
I’m about three breaths away from another panic attack.
Despite everything, despite my fear and confusion and rising hysteria, my body
responds to him like it has every other time. I drink in that soothing look, my mind
going back to last night and the scent of his skin, his wet shirt beneath my cheek, his
heartbeat steady in my ear.

Buoyed by the reminder, I set a firmer stance and shove away the fear that tightens
my throat.

The first man who spoke inches farther into the open circle in the middle of the barn-
like structure. He has chocolate brown hair and vivid blue eyes tinted green like the
ocean. I recognize him by sight—he was one of the big shifters walking down the
street that frightened me so much I ran. He carries himself with a kind of lazy,
predatory lean that says he’s highly comfortable in his own skin.

Turning those blue-green eyes on Ridge, he shakes his head. “That’s not possible. My
wolf has claimed her.”

“Then it’s equally not possible for your wolf to do so when mine already has.” Ridge
glances around the room as if to check that everyone’s attention is on him before he
says, “I found this woman two nights ago, half-dead in Devil’s Ditch. I was compelled
to help her, though I didn’t understand at first why.” His expression softens as he
turns to look at me, something I can’t even name burning behind his amber irises.
“But it makes sense. My wolf knew before I did that she belongs to me.”

His words are like a match to dry tinder, setting off a flurry of emotions inside my
chest.

Panic.

Confusion.

Anger.

And a strange sort of thrill.

I don’t understand what the hell is going on here, and I have to fight down the urge to
scream my frustration to the heavens. To lash out recklessly like an animal trapped in
a net.

I’m not so stupid as to be unaware of how tenuous my position is right now. Any one
of these creatures could rip me limb from limb, and the unfortunate truth is several of
them look ready to do just that. I don’t know what the hell is going on with Ridge and
these two strange men all arguing that they have some kind of claim on me, but at the
moment, it’s the only thing keeping teeth away from my skin.

So despite the fact that I’m still terrified and confused, I stay silent and wait it out.

The rest of the group isn’t so startled into silence, however, and a steady rumble of
low voices starts up amidst the crowd.

Ridge and the other two men attempting to “claim” me face off against one another.
Their faces grow thunderous as they stare one another down, and I know without a
doubt they’re ready to fight at any moment, if it comes down to it.

Because of me.

I’m the touchstone, the pivot point between them, and dammit, I just want to run far
away from this madness.

Another figure steps forward from the circle, and my breath chokes in my
throat. Jesus, am I about to be claimed by yet another wolf?

But this is an older man with thick gray hair and an even grayer beard, the lines by his
eyes thick and deep. He claps his hands and the murmuring falls silent.

“It is not possible for a mate to be claimed by three different wolves,” he says in a
deep, scratchy voice. “The bond is formed between one male wolf and one female
wolf, as it has been since time immemorial.”

“Then how do you explain this, Elder Barton?” the turquoise-eyed shifter asks
haughtily, motioning to Ridge and the golden-haired man.

“Two of you are mistaken, Trystan,” the elder intones, then his gaze shifts to Ridge.
“Or lying.”

“No one is lying,” Ridge says through gritted teeth. “Despite our somewhat colorful
pasts, I know neither of these men are liars. And I’m certainly not either.”

The man named Trystan huffs but gives a sharp nod. “I’m not accusing anyone of
lying. Although those two could be mistaken,” he adds pointedly, jerking his chin
toward Ridge and the blond man.
There’s another small burst of muttering among the crowd, but the elder holds up his
hand again, effectively silencing them all. He crosses his arms over his flannel shirt
and levels his calculating gaze on Ridge.

“You are sure your wolf has claimed this woman?”

Ridge looks at me, his gaze fierce and protective. It’s like his amber eyes are made of
fire, sparks dancing in their depths. “As sure as I am of my own name.”

Warmth blooms inside me as his words settle over me, and against my better
judgment, I take a single step toward him. When he sees me move his way, his face
softens, shifting his expression back to the man who held me beneath the shower last
night as I pieced my mind back together.

“Trystan?” the elder says, turning to the blue-eyed man.

The shifter with chocolate brown hair and confident demeanor nods. “She is mine.”

Mine…

Even as I’m straining to fight the urge to reach Ridge, I sway toward this other man,
this Trystan. I’m floored by the sudden and immediate response in my body at the
sound of his voice.

Ridge growls under his breath, and there’s an echoing growl from the golden-haired
man behind me.

Oh, fuck.If all three of them are so certain their wolves have claimed me, are they
going to have to do something crazy like fight over me? Just the idea sends terror
piercing through my heart. I reevaluate the open door, my gaze darting in that
direction as I try to decide whether or not I should run.

The elder gives both men a stern glare, but then nods at the blond man and asks,
“Archer? Are you positive?”

“Yes, Elder. My wolf is certain this woman is mine.”

Mine…

As if in a daze, I swivel on my heel to look at Archer, drawn to meet his eyes. While
Ridge and Trystan are both darkly handsome in their own separate ways, Archer is a
boy-next-door type, with shimmering blond hair and moss-green eyes. When our
gazes meet, he gives me a soft smile that sends a little thrill through me, and I whip
around, latching back on to Ridge’s gaze as if I’ve done something wrong.

Through the niggle of panic that’s still trying to burst free, I recognize that I’m
reacting unconsciously to each man. None of them are willing to back down. They’re
all certain I’m their “mate,” whatever that means. And weirdly enough, I’m drawn to
all three of them too.

I can’t even pretend to know what’s going on here. Obviously, I know the textbook
definition of a mate, and I know that for most animals, basic biology drives them to
find a good match and propagate their species. I was kept away from the world, but
not kept from books. Uncle Clint taught me to read before his treatment of me
devolved into nothing but cruelty and neglect, and books became my lifeline in the
midst of despair. I even watched some movies on the old TV he kept in the basement
until it broke, so I’m not totally ignorant of the world.

But what does it mean for a shifter to mate?

I refuse to let myself explore that thought too deeply. So much has been thrown at me
in the past two days that I’m confused and in borderline panic mode as it is. The last
thing I need to do is add strong emotions to this circus.

The elder catches Ridge’s eye, drawing his attention away from me. “I think, Alpha,
that in light of recent events, it would be best for us to postpone the rest of this
meeting. Do you agree?”

Ridge shakes his head as if to clear it. As if he’s reminding himself who he is and
where he is. He looks a little dazed, and I’m comforted a bit by the thought that I’m
not the only one who’s been thrown by this new development.

“Yes.” The rugged man makes a circle where he stands, addressing the crowd. “You
are all dismissed. Keep lines of communication open and stay vigilant against the
witch threat. We will reconvene this summit soon.”

Though there’s a general air of agreement among the few dozen gathered shifters, I
can tell many people aren’t amused by the turn. Lawson in particular stands beside me
looking as if he’s about to make the terrifying transformation into a wolf so he can go
for someone’s jugular.

“So we’re going to ignore the fact that Ridge brought a stranger into our midst?” he
snaps at the elder.
The elder looks down his patrician nose at Lawson. “Calm down, cub. This is none of
your concern. The mate bond is a sacred thing, and if that is truly what this is, it
overrides our other laws and customs. Even the treaty.”

“And the next time you burst into a council meeting where you are not invited,
brother, I won’t be lenient.”

Ridge’s words are full of so much controlled fury and power that nearly every shifter
in the building backs up a half-step, as if Ridge is the epicenter of a bomb and they’ve
all been hit by the blast.

Lawson growls, but he stalks away without a backward glance, shoving past the
people gathered near the door before disappearing from the barn. Only after he’s gone
do I realize how much his chaotic, aggressive presence was affecting me. My knees
go a little weak as a rush of relief floods my body.

I barely move, but Ridge notices the change in me anyway. His gaze snaps back to
mine, and he strides toward me, one strong hand wrapping around my good elbow.

“Are you all right?” he asks gently, his strangely-hued eyes searching me as if
checking for visible injuries—or new ones, anyway.

His gaze lingers on the arm Lawson nearly yanked from its socket, and a little of the
pure fury from earlier ignites in his eyes again. I know he saw how roughly the other
man treated me, and I get the feeling it’s a testament to Ridge’s self-control that
Lawson is still alive.

I nod, too exhausted and strung out to catalogue all of my injuries. But my knees still
feel wobbly. I’m coming down from the adrenaline rush.

“What’s going on?” I ask him, my voice barely a whisper. “What are you all talking
about? I’m… I’m not a wolf.”

hapter 12
Sable
Ridge glancesat Trystan and Archer, who are both watching us with intense
expressions.
“I honestly don’t know,” he murmurs, squeezing my hand as he turns back to me.
“But there’s something in you that speaks to my wolf. And theirs as well, I guess. We
need to find out why.”

The elder finishes ushering everyone out and returns to us, his gaze sweeping over me
for what seems like the first time. He purses his lips, pity filling his face as he takes in
my bedraggled appearance. But I notice a careful sort of distance in his expression
too, and I wonder if part of him believes what Lawson said. Does he think I’m a
witch?

“I think it’s best if we go see Elder Jihoon,” he says finally. “Perhaps he can help.”

I look to Ridge for an explanation, but he’s exchanging glances with Trystan and
Archer. Something unspoken passes between all of them, and I bite down hard on my
bottom lip as I attempt to decipher some shred of its meaning.

Dammit. I hate this feeling of being outside my depth, or not knowing what the hell is
happening.

The panic still simmering beneath my skin wants me to scream and shout and demand
answers, but I know, logically, that doing so will just make even more of a case
against Ridge for bringing a crazy person into their village. I’ve been trouble enough
for him since the moment he brought me home. I don’t want to make his life any
harder.

We leave the barn, Ridge still gripping my elbow lightly as if he’s laying physical
claim to me, and silently head through the village. The barn was already on the
outskirts, far from Ridge’s little cabin, but we walk farther into the wilderness instead
of heading back into the village proper. We pass a few final houses, stretched farther
apart than the rest, before the elder veers off from the dirt road and up a weed-covered
path to a tiny, corrugated metal cabin that looks as if a stiff wind might knock it over.

The elder’s knock makes the whole structure shiver, and we wait in skin-crawling
silence for an answer. A cool breeze shifts my hair around my face, and I shudder,
pressing tighter to Ridge’s side. On my right, Trystan’s gaze shifts to us; he presses
his lips together, looking angry.

I don’t know if he’s mad at Ridge or me or this entire situation, but what am I
supposed to do? Does he want me to be leaning against him like this? I don’t know
Trystan at all. Or Archer, for that matter. It’s weird enough to feel like Ridge is my
ally and friend, when all I’ve done is get his clothes wet in the midst of a panic attack
and sleep in his bed.
The door swings open with an audible screech that echoes off the mountains behind
the structure. A little old man peers out at us from dark, almond-shaped eyes that I
doubt miss anything at all. He’s small and wizened with long gray hair bound in a
loose bun at the back of his head.

He lifts one graying brow, taking us all in with a sweep of his gaze. “Yes?” His focus
lands on me last, and his eyes narrow. “Who is this?”

“This is Sable, Elder Jihoon. Sable…” Ridge turns to me, trailing off with a question
in his gaze.

“Sable Maddock,” I supply. I can’t see any benefit to trying to keep my identity a
secret from these people. The situation has spiraled so far out of my control that
questions of whether they’ll call the cops or alert my uncle seem almost like the least
of my worries now.

“We need your help determining whether Sable is a shifter,” Ridge continues. “We
believe she is, but it would be helpful to know for certain.”

“Well, nothing in life is ever certain, Alpha.” The little man chuckles. “You know
that. But I’ll do what I can. Come in, come in.”

By the time we’ve gained entrance to Elder Jihoon’s hut and are scattered around the
living room, the first elder—Elder Barton, I deduce from conversation—has caught
the older man up on the high drama we seem to have built on the council floor.

Elder Jihoon stares at me for a very long, very uncomfortable moment, his fingers
stroking his short, scruffy beard.

“Quite interesting. You know nothing of any of this?” He directs the question at me,
leaning forward as if he wants to hear me better.

I jolt, unprepared to be put on the spot like this. Then I swallow and shrug helplessly.
“No, sir. I grew up in a small town. I’m not a shifter or a witch. There’s nothing
special about me.”

“I’d hardly say that,” Ridge offers with a little smile.

Elder Jihoon stares at me for a long moment, barely seeming to notice that Ridge has
spoken. Finally, he gets to his feet and shuffles away, disappearing through the only
other open door in the shack. He reappears a moment later carrying two metal rods.
“Stand, please,” he says, motioning at me with one of the rods.

I do as he asks, though I’m wary of the tools in his hands. Elder Jihoon is so calm and
unassuming, just being in his presence has calmed me after the spectacle in the barn.
His peaceful demeanor doesn’t exactly make me amenable to being within reach of
those metal rods though. I stiffen and keep my hands loose, ready to bat the things
away if they get too close.

Both metal rods are thin and taper to sharp points. Elder Jihoon holds them by wooden
handles that are separate from that actual metal and curve downward at a ninety-
degree angle. When I glance at Ridge, he just gives me an encouraging nod that isn’t
really helpful against the terror I’m struggling to hold back.

Elder Jihoon walks around me with the rods pointing straight at my body. He moves
slowly, gently lowering and raising the rods from my head to my abdomen as he
walks. I watch with a sense of odd detachment as the rods dangle and shift seemingly
on their own.

How the hell did I come to be here? Standing in this musty shed, smothered by the
scent of a strong, heady incense as a strange old man waves sticks at me and three
wolf shifters declare I belong to each of them.

How is this even real life?

But if I’m truly honest with myself, I’d rather be here amidst this chaos and insanity
than back at Uncle Clint’s house worried about whether I’d end the day in blood and
pain. This isn’t at all what I expected when I threw myself out of his car that night—
hell, I’m not sure I expected anything; I certainly had no solid plan—but at least I’m
still alive.

I stand stock still for so long in the drifting incense smoke that I lose all track of time
or self. Is this really happening? Or is it happening to someone else and I’m already
dead? Maybe I died at the bottom of the ravine and everything else has been some
weird fever dream in the afterlife.

Finally, the old man steps away and lowers his metal sticks.

“The dowsing rods do not lie,” he intones. “Though we cannot be sure until she
manifests, I do believe there is a wolf inside this woman.”
hapter 13
Sable
The elder’swords send a rush of surprise through me, and I blink away some of the
daze.

There’s a wolf in me?

Looking around at the men who are watching me, I try to work through the
detachment I feel. Ridge, Trystan, Archer, even the two elders, these men are
all wolves.

Wolf shifters, specifically.

Part man, part animal.

I was able to work through the initial shock when Ridge revealed the truth to me while
we sat on his bed this morning. It still sounded bat shit crazy, but I saw that man in his
living room shift into a wolf. Seeing is believing, right?

But… me? I can’t even process the possibility. I’m just a girl. A girl with an uncle
who’s been vicious, cruel… and inhuman.

The thought jogs my brain and shakes away the last of the cobwebs. Could Clint be a
shifter, too? Were my parents? They must’ve been, if I am.

“How?” The word comes out choked and almost too low to be decipherable.
“Wouldn’t I know? I’ve… I’ve never shifted in my life.”

Elder Jihoon places his metal rods on the table and sits on the couch with the stiff
movements of a man with aching joints. He taps his chest with a single arthritic
finger. “That’s not surprising. Your wolf lives inside you. If a shifter is not raised to
embrace the wolf from the beginning, the beast will wait until you are ready before
emerging.”

Maybe his words are meant to be reassuring, but if they are, they miss the mark. Then
again, I’m not sure there’s much that could reassure me right now.

I sink down to the scratchy couch cushions beside the elder, my head feeling light and
airy.
“Why wouldn’t my uncle have told me?” I ask, horrified to find my voice still isn’t
cooperating. The detachment is trying to creep back in, and I’m fighting the urge to
rip Elder Jihoon’s incense burner off the wall and chuck it out the window. I’m
suffocating under the thick smoke as yet another panic attack tries to manifest inside
me.

But Ridge is apparently getting a handle on the “Sable is on the verge of

disintegrating” mumble. He puts a soft hand on my shoulder, letting its weight rest
there without holding on to me. His expression softens as he murmurs, “It’s not
outside the realm of possibility that your uncle has no pack. Even your parents might
not have had a pack.”

Archer, who’s leaning against the arm of the couch, nods his agreement. “With the
way packs have splintered in recent years, we’ve seen an uptick in lone wolves.
Shifters who think they’ll be safer alone. So there are plenty of solitary wolves out
there.”

Trystan scoffs and rolls his eyes. He’s the farthest from the couch, standing near the
wall by the front door as if he’s wary about stepping farther into the elder’s house.
Despite his obvious disregard for what Archer said, he doesn’t elaborate on his
disagreement. Whatever history the two have, and whatever the backstory there is to
the “lone wolves” they’re talking about, I honestly can’t fathom adding either to my
current list of things to deal with.

“So where do we go from here?” Elder Barton asks, his brow wrinkling. “The girl is a
shifter, so obviously she’s welcome on our lands. But the mating situation is…
problematic.”

“Perhaps two of you are mistaken?” Elder Jihoon asks, squinting at the three men.

Too late, he realizes what a Pandora’s box he’s opened. Arguments and insistences
start flying at a volume level way too high for such a small house. I collapse back
against the couch cushions and do my best to shut out the sound, closing my eyes. I
don’t want to sit here and listen to them argue yet again, no matter how “strongly”
they “feel the bond.” I don’t want to watch them hurl insults at one another because
they don’t believe they can all be mated to one woman.

I didn’t ask for any of this. All I wanted to do was find a way to be free of Uncle
Clint. Somehow, I managed to get myself caught up in a different kind of prison.
“Gentlemen!” Elder Jihoon booms in a voice much stronger than I ever expected out
of his mouth. The man is small and lithe, so withered a brisk wind could probably
knock him off balance. Yet his boom nearly shakes the walls.

My eyes blink open and I gape at the old man in the sudden silence. He hasn’t moved
—hasn’t even lifted a hand—but all three shifters have stopped speaking over one
another. This man is an elder for a reason more than just his age, apparently. All the
men seem to have great respect for both elders, and so did the people back at the barn.
They must carry a special status amongst the pack.

“Ultimately,” Elder Jihoon says firmly, “Sable’s wolf will be the one to decide which
of you she forms her bond with. When her wolf is ready to come out, she will make
her choice.”

“Is there a way to bring her wolf out?” Trystan asks.

“No, we cannot force her out.” Elder Jihoon shakes his head, looking a bit scandalized
by the idea. “She will emerge in her own due time. However, putting her somewhere
safe and secure with her possible mates could help coax her out. Being alone with you
would help the wolf decide.”

I’m too tired and my nerves are too frayed to complain, though I’m tired of being
talked about as if I’m not even in the room. Do I get a say in this? The Sable
that isn’t a wolf—doesn’t her opinion matter?

Because right now, I just want to go curl back up beneath the covers on Ridge’s bed
and pretend none of this is happening. And I definitely don’t want any of them trying
to force out a wolf I’m not entirely ready to face. One I’m not sure I even believe
exists.

I’ve spent enough of my life having no say in my fate. I don’t want to be at the mercy
of any man, no matter how sweet he is.

None of those thoughts make it past my numb lips though, so the conversation
continues unabated around me.

“Not to mention,” Elder Barton says, “it’s safer for a new wolf on the verge of
bonding to be separated from the rest of the pack. Is there a safe way to achieve that?”

“The mating cabin.” Ridge glances around the room. “It’s empty right now.”
Elder Barton lets out a long, low whistle and shakes his head. “You know I respect
your authority as alpha, but I’m not so sure going to a remote mountain cabin is safe
for any of us right now. Not given the recent witch activity in the area.”

“We wouldn’t be alone,” Ridge points out, tilting his head in Archer and Trystan’s
direction. “The three of us can handle trouble.”

Elder Jihoon chuckles. “The three of you together, alone, would be trouble. You
would need a chaperone.”

Ridge shrugs. “If we’re all three committed to pursuing a bond with Sable, it’s our
only option.”

Straightening from his position on the couch’s arm, Archer nods. “Then it’s agreed.
We’ll take her to the cabin and spend time with her there until her wolf emerges and
chooses its mate.”

“We’ll keep her safe,” Trystan agrees, though he doesn’t make a move to step away
from the wall.

Then every gaze in the room turns to me.

I freeze, still slouching in the corner of the couch as if I could sink beneath the
cushions and hide. They’re looking at me expectantly.

“Um. What?” I ask, my voice small and tinny.

Ridge touches my knee, dipping his head a little to catch my darting gaze. “Do you
agree?”

“About going to a remote location with three strange men?” I clarify, hoping they’re
all smart enough to hear the madness of that statement. If the words don’t get them,
maybe the note of hysteria in my voice will.

But nobody even blinks.

They’re serious.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what any of this means.

I can’t deny I’m drawn to them. The way my body reacted of its own accord back in
the council’s barn shocked the hell out of me. And to be honest, the strange pull I feel
toward each of them is the only reason I haven’t leapt to my feet and made another
run for it.

Something is there inside me. Something that senses them. That knows them.

But my self-preservation instinct currently has the floor. The longer they stare,
unblinking, unmoving, the more the panic finally presses through.

My heart kicks up its pace, and I’m on my feet before I even realize I’ve thought
about standing. I back away from them, even as it occurs to me that I’m backing in the
opposite direction from the door.

“Sable?” Ridge’s voice is soothing. The same gravelly voice he used last night to
soothe my fears, to ask me what makes it stop?

It’s all too much. Too overwhelming. There’s nothing to make it stop.

“No.” As my breaths come faster, I shake my head wildly, the whole world seeming
to spin out of control around me. “No. I don’t want to go.”

hapter 14
Archer
The last thingI expected to find when I came to the council meeting today was a mate.
Yet, here I am, watching the woman my wolf has claimed tremble like a leaf in a
strong wind and aching to go to her.

I don’t though. Not yet.

She’s so terrified.

Vulnerable.

I’ve seen fear like that before. I know fear like that.

And I wish like hell I wasn’t part of the cause of it.

“I can’t do this,” she says in a light, soft voice, wrapping her arms around her chest.
She’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts that are far too big for her—a man’s clothes,
probably Ridge’s, and fuck if that doesn’t send a hot wave of jealousy rippling
through my wolf. “I don’t want to do this. I can’t be a shifter.”

Ridge stands and holds both of his hands out toward her, palms down like she’s a wild
pup who needs calming. “Sable, you are a wolf. It isn’t something you can decide not
to be.”

She shakes her head, her mussed golden hair flinging about. I can see the whites of
her eyes as her gaze darts around the too-small living room. “I’m not a wolf. Just…
please. No.”

And then she’s running. Her sneakers slap against the elder’s clean hardwood floors
as she launches across the room and through the front door. Trystan doesn’t even have
a chance to jolt, still holding up the fucking wall as the door slams into him for being
in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A surge of emotion flows over me, and I tamp it down, forcing my feet to remain
firmly planted. Everything in me wants to follow her and ease her fears. The girl
is terrified, more so than seems logical, but I’m well aware that fear doesn’t always
follow logic. Been there, done that.

Ridge moves first, taking two steps toward the door. In the same breath, Trystan
straightens and makes a move to follow her outside.

But I throw an arm out, stopping them both. “No.”

Both men tense and glare at me, and Ridge snarls, “I’m going after her.”

“Somebody has to,” Trystan adds, his tone scathing.

“Neither of you are capable of understanding her right now,” I say firmly. “Not like
me.”

I’ve known Ridge and Trystan for a long time. Almost my entire life, really. That
happens when your fathers are the alphas of packs who exist peacefully within a
treatise. We grew up together—sort of. I’ve seen them both do a lot of hot-headed
things, and they’re both reactionary. They can kindle a temper in two seconds flat.
They don’t have the experience I have. They weren’t captured and imprisoned by
witches as a kid; they weren’t mentally and emotionally destroyed by the enemy and
then left to figure out how to live again.

I have a unique perspective on trauma they’ll never understand.

“Sable needs someone who can understand her,” I point out. “I know neither of you
want to take your mate by force. Right?”

Ridge looks stricken at the thought, and the tension in his shoulders eases slightly.
“No. No, never.”

“Of course not,” Trystan says, crossing his arms. I can tell he’s furious at this whole
situation, but I know he means it. All of us take the bond seriously, and an important
part of the mate bond is the willingness of both parties to enter into it.

Wolves don’t mate by force. It’s not our way.

I glance at the door then hold up both palms toward them. “I have the best chance at
talking to her. Just give me a few minutes. All right?”

I don’t wait for an answer. The fact that neither of them have kicked into a light jog
yet tells me they’re picking up what I’m putting down. They may be jackasses, but
they’re not dumb.

As I pass over the threshold, Ridge calls my name and stops me on the elder’s front
path. “You should know Sable’s had trauma in her past. She’s been abused.”

There’s an intense level of rage in his voice, and my own rage rises up to meet it. I
kinda thought so. You don’t end up with a heavy amount of innate terror like Sable
seems to struggle with without something pushing you there. But I hate to have
confirmation. I don’t know her yet, and I’m not the kind of narcissist to pretend I do,
but this means we stand on equal ground, she and I.

I nod at Ridge. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be careful with her.”

Then I leave him standing by the shack, watching me sprint away.

Sable isn’t running. I can still scent her on the wind up ahead, and I follow that liquid
sunshine smell until I find her standing outside the cabin I know belongs to Ridge.
She’s on the sidewalk, shifting her weight back and forth from left foot to right foot,
teeth digging into her bottom lip. As I get closer, she doesn’t notice me, but she whips
around and walks away as if she’s come to the realization that Ridge’s house is not
her home.

I give her space as I follow behind her. It’s obvious she didn’t grow up with her wolf
close to the surface—if she had, I wouldn’t be able to tail her like this, unnoticed. She
would smell me the minute the breeze took a turn or sense me with that deeply innate
predator’s intuition.

She stops at the edge of the road where the gravel meets the empty grass that stretches
between the village and the forest. Funnily enough, she’s facing east. Ten miles that
way, and she’d run right onto my father’s lands. I’m struck by the thought of her
there, standing in my home, taking part in my pack and in my life, and something
warm and sweet spreads through my chest.

Longing, I realize.

If my wolf is correct and Sable is my mate, that daydream might be a possibility soon
enough.

If she doesn’t run away first.

But she’s hesitating, doing that shift, left foot, shift, right foot thing again. It doesn’t
take a genius to see she’s unsure about leaving. That gives me hope—and the nudge I
need to go to her side.

I don’t say anything as I halt at the edge of the gravel next to her. There’s a half-foot-
deep drop to the grass, and the toes of her sneakers peek over that ledge.

My gaze moves up her legs a little, and my jaw clenches. Her knees are dusty and a
little scraped up, probably from the way Lawson was dragging her when he hauled her
into the council meeting. But there are other, older wounds on her legs too, scars that
curve up and around her calves and thighs.

Who the fuck did this to her?

I want to ask, and if I were Trystan, I might. But the whole reason I volunteered to
come after her is because I didn’t want her to be traumatized any further. I’m sure
poking into her past isn’t the way to ease her panic.
So I just allow the silence to lengthen between us for a few moments, letting her
breathing even out a little more before I speak.

“Pack life is intense,” I say. I don’t try to pull my tone or use that ridiculous slow and
low, I’m-talking-to-a-crazy-person voice Ridge used with her. I use my regular tone,
regular pitch, because I’m ninety-nine percent certain she’s more likely to respond to
a voice that isn’t making her feel worse than she already feels.

Sable tucks her hair behind her ear and tosses me a glance that’s supposed to look
unconcerned, but the deep line between her eyebrows gives away her anxiety. “Yeah,
no kidding. Forcible mating isn’t on my bucket list.”

I rock back on my heels and turn my face into the breeze. “Nah, nobody’s going to
force you to be their mate. Hell, I won’t even keep you from leaving if that’s what you
want.”

She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t leave, either.

“I get it, though,” I go on, taking her silence as an invitation. “I know what it’s like to
feel like you have no control. Like your entire life is spinning out of control, and you
have no way to grab the wheel.”

“How would you know?” She finally looks at me—really looks at me with those gray-
blue eyes. Something’s different about them, a bit more open. There’s a spark there
that I didn’t notice back at the elder’s house. Like she shut down a part of herself to
deal with the situation.

Fuck. I know what that’s like a little too well. I feel a fresh wave of anger as I try to
imagine what she might’ve been through. If the culprit was in front of me right now,
I’d rip his damn heart out and eat it.

I go for candor. What do I have to lose? “Have you heard about the never-ending
battle between witches and shifters?”

She makes a little noise in her throat that’s almost a laugh. “A little. I don’t really
understand it. I didn’t even know shifters were real two days ago. Or witches either.
And I don’t know why witches hate shifters.”

“Well, that puts you in good company.” I chuckle humorlessly. “We don’t really get it
either. Basically, witches believe only witches should have access to magic. But
magic is what allows shifters to shift. We’re physically powered by the same
phenomena that gives them their powers.”
Sable’s brow wrinkles as she processes that bit of intel. She’s adorable, almost child-
like in the way she takes in information. I can almost see her working out the pieces of
the puzzle, thinking back over recent conversations until she has a bigger picture.
“Seems like you should be allies then.”

I laugh. “You would think. Almost like we’re family.”

A sharp pang tugs in my chest at the thought, and I rub it away. I’ve had control of my
anxiety for years, but baring old wounds threatens my tenuous hold. I don’t want to
scare her off with the full details of what the witches did to me. But more than that, I
don’t want to re-open the deep wounds in myself by dredging up all those old
emotions, either. It’s a dangerous tightrope to walk.

“But you’re not?” Sable regards me with serious eyes.

“No. We aren’t.” I shake my head. “They hate us. For years, they’ve attacked our kind
any way they can. We have protections in place, but when they manage to slip past
them, they have only one goal—to destroy shifters. They… hurt me. When I was
young. For the longest time, I couldn’t sleep without fear. I couldn’t walk down the
street without worrying they’d come back for me. I couldn’t roam the woods or hunt.
They took a piece of myself away from me.”

“That’s horrible.”

She’s watching me, her expression enigmatic, but despite the lack of visible emotion,
I can tell she’s really listening.

“It’s hard to know who to trust,” I say, looking away from her and out over the
darkening forest. I knew that eye contact, and people who appear to be looking much
too deeply into your soul, can inspire panic. “In a world where people you thought
you could count on are the ones who hurt you, trust is hard to come by.”

Sable makes a humming noise, almost as if she’s trying to convince herself to believe
me, to trust me, but she can’t quite do it.

I get that.

“I can guarantee you something,” I add carefully, and her eyelids flicker slightly.

“What?”
I turn toward her so that our gazes can meet. Then I put my hands out, palms up,
showing her I’m holding nothing.

Hiding nothing.

That I’m not a threat.

“There’s nowhere in this world where you’ll be safer than with me, Trystan, and
Ridge. We’ll keep you safe, Sable. We’ll protect you with our lives from whoever
hurt you in the past. And we’ll guide you until your wolf comes out.”

hapter 15
Sable
Archer’s golden,boy-next-door good looks are even more devastating in the oranges
and purples of sunset. I have to work hard to focus on his words and not get lost in his
brilliant green eyes that remind me of fresh cut grass. He’s taller than Ridge, though
not by much, but his presence isn’t as imposing. He doesn’t loom like the other
wolves. He doesn’t wear his beast as close to the surface.

Despite everything that’s happened, I’m drawn to him. It’s a stupid thing, really. I
shouldn’t be drawn to him. I should be drawn to those damn woods and getting the
hell away from this mess before I’m too deep to get out. But something about the
weight in his voice tells me he’s not lying. He’s not feigning empathy just to keep me
from leaping off this ledge and racing away into the sunset.

Archer’s been through some things. Some really heavy things. The same kinds of
things I have.

They… hurt me. When I was young.

I can’t help but wonder at his story. What did the witches do to him that made it so
easy for him to relate to what I’ve been through? How is it he really seems to
understand how I feel? I hate to think someone took this kind, beautiful man as a child
and hurt him the way I’ve been hurt. I hate to think of anybody going through the
things I’ve gone through.
Even so, I want to know Archer’s story. I want to know all about him, and I almost
ask him to keep talking. I’ll stand on this ledge for as many hours as it takes to learn
about him.

You don’t have the luxury of getting to know someone, I remind myself, reaching for
the protective walls around my heart. I pull them close and shove them into place to
keep him out. Allowing someone into my heart—or even into my head—isn’t an
option. When you let people in, that’s when they can hurt you the most.

“Sable?”

My name on his lips jolts me from my dark thoughts. I’m already looking at his face,
but my vision went unfocused while he spoke. I realize now he must have finished
talking without me even noticing, and I was left staring at him like a freaking weirdo.
I lock gazes with him and make a sound that I hope indicates I was, in fact, hanging
onto his every word.

“I hope you’ll come with us,” he says. “Let us help you.”

There’s nothing in his tone to indicate I’ve irritated him with my inattention, which is
a relief. I don’t know him, and I know that means I obviously shouldn’t care what he
thinks, but I still don’t want to hurt his feelings. I didn’t ignore what he was saying on
purpose.

My mind just hasn’t stopped reeling. It’s hard to collect my thoughts and keep them in
any kind of order for more than a few minutes.

I’m determined to no longer be a doormat. If I said no right here, right now, he’d take
it for the final answer and let me go. Something about him promises me he would. I
have the power and the ability to say no, more than I ever have in my entire life.
But… I don’t want to say it.

I kind of want to say yes.

So I convince myself I’m doing it for his benefit. I don’t want him to think I hate him.
I don’t want to walk away from Ridge without telling him thank you. What kind of
person would that make me?

And honestly, I don’t know where on earth I would go if I don’t stay here. The path of
least resistance is to stick around and see where this circus leads me.

“Okay,” I agree. “I’ll stay.”

Archer’s smile transforms his face, making him even more handsome, as if the sun
itself is shining from behind his eyes. “Great. I’m glad, Sable. I promise you won’t
regret it.”

My heart does a confused little flip. Partly because I’m not certain I won’t regret this
decision. But also because his smile is affecting me in ways I don’t really understand.
I’m not used to men drawing out this kind of reaction in me. Nobody has ever had this
effect on me, and it scares me.

The panic rears up like it always does, but I breathe through it.

I will not shut down.

We walk silently back down the road. Archer stays at my side, but he gives me an
excessive amount of personal space that helps keep the panic at bay. He shoves his
hands in his pockets, and he doesn’t try to make small talk. I appreciate that, too,
considering Ridge and Trystan are watching us come toward them.

Both men are standing on the lawn behind Ridge’s house. I hate to think they stood
there and watched me and Archer talking, but I’m sure that’s what they did. Their
gazes all seem to have some kind of magnetic pull toward me, finding me unerringly
anytime I’m near them.

I don’t know if I believe in this “mate bond” thing they’re all talking about, but it’s
hard to deny that there’s something between us. Something that crackles in the air like
an invisible electric charge.

Oh my God. This is insane.

These three men each feel they have a claim to me, and I’ve agreed to give them a
chance to prove it. Jesus. What the hell am I thinking?

Trystan watches me approach with a hint of desire in his gaze, but Ridge is staring at
me as if searching for any new injuries. He waits until I meet his gaze before he asks,
“You okay?”

I nod. “As good as I can be.”

Ridge nods in return. He probably didn’t expect anything less from the crazy girl he
dragged in from the woods like a half-drowned kitten. Turning to Archer, he says,
“Barton will alert the council of our imminent absence, and the reason why.”
When he tosses a subtle glance at me, I flush. All this focus on me makes me want to
sink into the ground and disappear.

“And rescheduling the meeting?” Archer asks.

Ridge shakes his head. “We’ll discuss a more cohesive defense against the witches at
the next summit. In the meantime, the packs will continue to defend themselves as
they have been.”

Trystan claps Ridge on the shoulder. “Well then. Let me go talk to my pack mates
before they head back.”

“I should do the same,” Archer says as the brown-haired wolf brushes past him.
“We’ll meet you back here in fifteen.”

As the two stride off back in the direction of the council house, where I can see a
group of people still milling about outside, Ridge offers me his hand. I’m too
distracted to decline, and I slide my smaller hand into his. His palm is warm and
calloused, and the feel of his skin against mine sends little tingles all the way up my
arm to my heart. Without a word, he leads me through the back door into the house.

“Will you be all right on your own for a few minutes?” he asks. “I’ve got to pack up.”

“Yeah.”

The word comes out with more strength than I expected, but it still takes great force of
will to make myself let go of his hand. My skin feels too cold immediately, and I
clasp my own hands together to try to combat the feeling of emptiness.

Maybe Ridge notices my reaction, or maybe it’s because he feels something similar.
But he seems reluctant to leave, hesitating for a long moment before nodding and
moving across the room.

I sit on the edge of the couch as Ridge disappears into the bedroom. I can hear him
rifling through drawers and shoving hangers around in his closet. When he returns a
few minutes later, he’s hauling two large satchels and a smaller one, and he tosses
them down by the front door. I remain where I am, out of his way and feeling as if I
don’t belong here. He gathers more supplies—flashlights, tools, and some
nonperishable items from the kitchen, depositing them in the bags.

What the hell am I doing?The mantra repeats over and over in my head.
The situation seems too real now as I watch him pack basic necessities for the group
of us. I’ve agreed to go to a cabin in a remote location with three men I don’t know.
On what planet is that a safe or smart idea?

Maybe the planet where men can be wolves and witches exist? The small voice in my
head sounds almost amused, and I bite my lip to stifle the slightly crazed smile that
threatens.

As he zips up the two large packs, Ridge remarks, “This smaller bag is yours. My
friend Amora donated some clothes and necessities for you. She’s probably a bit
bigger than you, but they should work.”

I nod, wondering who Amora is. Is “friend” just a euphemism? Is Amora his
girlfriend?

The idea that he might belong to someone else makes me crazy with an unreasonable
sort of jealousy, and I bite back any desire to question him about her. I’m fragile
enough without adding excess fuel to the fire.

Leaving the bags by the door, Ridge leaves the room one more time. When he comes
back, he’s got a small bottle and a few white pieces of gauze in his hands. He
approaches me with smooth, even steps, as if wanting to make sure he doesn’t scare
me.

He doesn’t though.

He’s broad and imposing, but for some reason I’m not afraid of him, even if his
presence always seems to take up the whole room.

When he reaches me, he kneels on the hardwood floor in front of me, grimacing
slightly as he takes in the sight of my scraped and dirty knees. His gaze flicks up to
meet mine. “I’ll clean and disinfect these, okay?”

I nod, unable to look away from the sight of this massive man kneeling before me.

Working quickly, he dabs some disinfectant on one of the gauze pads before brushing
the pad over my knee. I hiss at the sting, and he freezes immediately, clenching his
jaw as if it hurts him too.

He looks up at me again. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” I swallow. “It just stings a little. I’ve felt worse.”

I shouldn’t have said that. His gaze drops to the scars crisscrossing my bare legs
beneath the oversized shorts, and he clenches the gauze pad so tightly that little drops
of disinfectant drip from the bottom of his closed fist.

His tension makes my skin prickle, so to distract him, I ask, “Is he really your
brother? Lawson?”

The anger in his expression doesn’t go away, but it morphs into a new kind as he
shakes his head with a grunt. “Yes. Really. Unfortunately.”

“He’s kind of an asshole.”

I feel safe saying this, considering I’m pretty sure Ridge already knows it. And he
proves me right when he laughs humorlessly.

“Yes. That he is.” His features soften a little as he starts swiping gently at my skin
with the wet pad again. “I’m sorry for what he did. He’ll pay for it, I promise you that.
And I won’t let him touch you ever again.”

The truth in his words sends a little shiver up my spine—a mixture of fear and
something else I can’t quite name. He means it.

I don’t know how to respond to that, so I let silence fall between us as he continues
cleaning up the little scrapes on my knees. His big hands are surprisingly careful as he
dabs the disinfectant over each little tear in my skin.

When he’s done, he sets everything on the coffee table beside the couch before
looking up at me, his big palms resting on my thighs just above the knee. He gives a
soft squeeze, and I feel one corner of my lips tilt up into a smile.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

“Of course.”

He gazes up at me for another long moment before he finally moves. Sitting beside
me on the cushions, he slides a finger beneath my chin and tilts my face up toward
his.

“You don’t have to do this.” His gruff voice is gentle, and his gaze sweeps my face as
if he can see right through me.
Hell, maybe he can. From the moment I woke up here, he’s been able to sense my
fear, my panic, and calm me down. Now, I’m sure he can clearly sense my thoughts
and just how stressed I am over this extremely odd situation. Like every other action
he’s taken in my presence, his statement is one more way in which he seems
determined to protect me.

Warmth unfurls inside me, and I lean into his touch. His protection feels like a force-
field, cutting me off from the storm brewing inside me. I focus on the heat of his
finger on my chin, way too aware of his closeness and his breath not far from my lips.

I could take him up on this offer. Back out now. But there’s something in me that
can’t do it. Instead of my usual instinctual need to flee, I want to stay right here
forever with his finger on my skin and his warmth radiating over me. As long as he’s
there to comfort me, I’ll be all right.

“Thank you. But I’m going,” I say resolutely. “I—I want to.”

The tension in his forehead melts away, and the corners of his lips turn up, making his
ruggedly handsome face even more beautiful. “Good. I’m glad.”

We stare at one another for so long that I feel like I’m going to drown in his eyes.
When his gaze drops to my lips, my stomach flutters, and the warmth inside me
unfurls further.

He brushes his thumb over the line of my jaw, making every nerve ending in my body
sing. A sound escapes me, and I sway toward him a fraction of an inch, lost in him.

Entranced by him.

Drowning in the strange connection I can neither understand nor deny.

“I’m so glad I found you that night, Sable,” Ridge murmurs. “I wish I’d found you
long before then.”

I think I know what he means, even without him saying it. He wishes he’d known me
long enough to keep the bad things in my life from hurting me. To keep me safe.

I could tell him that he would’ve had to have met me when I was a child for that to be
possible, but I don’t want to ruin the sweetness of this moment. I don’t want him to
stop looking at me the way he is, with hunger and tenderness all rolled into one.
My body shifts toward him a little more, and Ridge mirrors the movement, closing the
space between us…

The front door bangs open.

I jolt, leaping nearly half a foot off the couch as I flash back to the day Lawson and
his cronies burst into this same room. Luckily, no raging bullies enter. Just Trystan
and Archer, who I think aren’t bullies. At least, I hope they don’t turn out to be,
though I guess right now anything is possible.

Trystan pauses just inside the door, his gaze hardening as he surveys the scene they
just walked in on—Ridge and me sitting so close together we’re sharing the same air,
with his hand still touching my face.

“Are we interrupting?” Trystan drawls, his voice dark. Archer peers over his shoulder
at us, and a muscle tenses in his jaw.

I quickly scoot away from Ridge before this turns into a dog fight. I’ve built a kind
of… friendship, I guess, with Ridge. But I can’t forget that these other two shifters are
absolutely certain I’m their mate. I really don’t want to have to referee three territorial
men. I’m not equipped for that level of violence.

Ridge unfolds from the couch, turning back into the imposing shifter I’ve come to
recognize.

“No. You aren’t interrupting.” He snatches a pack off the floor near Trystan’s feet.
“Grab a bag,” he adds, then shoves past the two wolves on his way out the front door.

Trystan glares after him while Archer grabs the other bag. Then they both turn to me
and wait, watching as I pick up the smaller pack with my hand-me-downs from
Ridge’s maybe girlfriend. I hike it higher on my shoulder and skirt past them out the
door, giving myself a wide berth from their imposing presences.

Ridge is in the front yard waiting in just his boxer shorts, jamming his shirt and pants
into his satchel as I appear. My steps falter on the front walk as my gaze roams over
the play of muscles across his back.

He glances over his shoulder, giving me a view of his profile in the evening sunlight.
“It’s a hike to the cabin. We’ll have to shift and run to make it by nightfall. Since you
can’t shift yet, you’re going to have to ride me.”

“R-ride you?” I gape at him. Surely that’s not what he just said.

Ridge grins wolfishly and turns around to face me. His front is even more delicious
than his back, and my mouth goes dry as I try to swallow. “Don’t worry. It’s like
riding a bike.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

He laughs, seeming amused by my sassy reply. I blink, caught off guard a little. Uncle
Clint never found it the least bit amusing when I talked back to him.

As Trystan and Archer join us, shedding their own clothes, Ridge’s body begins to
shudder and change. I see it now that Archer has told me—how the shift is powered
by magic. For a moment, Ridge’s body seems to be swallowed up by blackness, and
then in the next moment, he’s standing on four furry legs with his boxer shorts in
pieces at his feet.

The change steals over my other two companions next. I clutch the strap of my
satchel, gripping the leather tightly as I try to resist the urge to rub my eyes in
cartoonish disbelief. I’ve seen this once before, in Ridge’s living room, but I was
caught so off-guard then that I barely processed it. Observing the change when I’m in
a more coherent state of mind leaves me nearly breathless with wonder.

The shift only lasts a few seconds before I’m facing three of the largest creatures I’ve
ever seen.

Ridge’s fur is a light brown, almost auburn in the dying sunlight, with his belly and
legs a lighter tan. His eyes are still the same honey color, and I recognize a
sharp, human intelligence behind them—which means they don’t fully lose
themselves in the transformation. Trystan is slightly taller than Ridge with deep
chocolate brown fur all over and turquoise eyes, while Archer’s wolf has golden fur
on his back and a white underside. Like the others, his green eyes are still the same,
and they even look compassionate as he cocks his head at me, sensing my roiling
emotions.

As Trystan and Archer nudge through the straps on their packs and manipulate the
bags onto their backs, I cross to Ridge and try not to give in to my fear.

When I stand before him, his head reaches past my shoulders, even with him on four
legs and me on two. He’s the size of a small pony, powerfully built and rippling with
muscle beneath his thick fur. I put a hand on his side and trail my fingers over him,
surprised by how wiry and scruffy his fur is, when he looks so soft.
It takes a couple tries, and some kneeling on his part, for me to scramble onto his
broad shoulders. My own bag on my back throws me off until I get it settled directly
behind me and find my balance on Ridge’s body. He snuffs at me, tossing me a gaze
over his shoulder. Apparently, we won’t be able to talk while he’s in wolf form.

“I’m ready,” I tell him, my heart thudding hard in my chest.

He sets into motion, and I dig the fingers of both hands into his fur, clinging to him
for dear life. God, how embarrassing would it be if I fell off like a six-year-old at a
sideshow pony ride?

After a few steps, I’m able to catch up with the rhythm of his trot. I keep my hands
fisted in his fur and my legs tucked around his barrel chest. I’m even kind of enjoying
it with the wind picking up through my hair and that snow-and-pine scent drifting
from the mountains ahead.

But my good mood is soured when I realize we aren’t leaving without an audience.

Lawson stands beneath the shadows of a front porch as we pass through the outskirts
of the village, watching us leave with hard, narrowed eyes.

hapter 16
Ridge
It’s beena while since I last ran—the full-out sprint of a wolf with a mission or a wolf
at play, sprinting through the mountains as if every hill is a racetrack.

It’s a freeing kind of run, cosmic and powerful.

When I’m on patrol, I keep my steps measured and even. It’s too easy to let the
landscape slide by without seeing potential threats if you don’t stop and smell the
fucking roses, as my father used to say.

My paws thud against the ground and the cool mountain wind whips past my ears.
Archer and Trystan flank me, their keen gazes aware of our surroundings even as the
trees and rock flash by at lightning speed. If I had to be alone in the wilderness for any
indefinite period of time, I have to admit, these two men aren’t the worst backup a
wolf could ask for. They’re both strong and smart. Trystan’s attitude problem makes
me want to gut him with my bare claws sometimes, and Archer bears more pain than I
think he realizes he lets on to the world. Between his abduction as a cub and his
father’s drawn-out march toward death, he’s had a hell of a lot to deal with.

But they’re good wolves.

I worried at first that Sable wouldn’t be able to handle the speed, but once she found
her balance on my back, she was a natural. Her hands are wrapped firmly in my thick
fur, and her legs are clamped hard around my body. She’s so small and light I think I
could carry her forever. I can feel every inch of her gorgeous, supple body pressed
against me, but it’s her breath on my neck, ruffling my fur, that drives me crazy.

Amora surprised me when she found me outside the elder’s house after Sable rushed
off and shoved a backpack into my arms. “For your girl,” she said with a shrug. “She
can’t wear your clothes forever.”

“I like her in my clothes,” I pointed out.

Amora bared her teeth at me. “Women like their own clothes. It’s a gift. Say thank
you and take it.”

“Thank you,” I said honestly, then I raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re surprisingly
nonchalant about all of this.”

“Why not? You’re crazy enough for the both of us.” She grinned at me before
growing serious. “We don’t have any control over the mating bond. You know it as
well as I do.”

She was right—we’re both well aware.

For the longest time, the pack expected the two of us to imprint on one another and
form a mating bond. When it never happened, we settled into our friendship
comfortably and moved on with our lives, even as the elders bemoaned the situation.
Amora is well-respected among the pack, and a mate-bond between us would’ve
made perfect sense on paper. Plus, an alpha without a mate is a loose cannon, if you
listen to all the old guys bitch.

“Anything I should do while you’re gone?” Amora asked. “I know the elders will run
things in your stead, but anything they can’t handle?”

“Yeah. Keep an eye on Lawson,” I told her. “I don’t trust him.”

She gave me a perfunctory nod, her green eyes darkening. “You and me both.”

Even now with the wind in my fur and Sable on my back, I can’t stop thinking that
leaving the pack right now is a huge fucking mistake. Lawson’s been waiting for his
moment, and if he decides to do something stupid the elders won’t stand in his way.
And they shouldn’t have to. It’s not their job to quell unruly members of the pack.

It’s mine.

I can only hope Amora will keep a sharp eye out for any threat he poses. Because I
have no choice. The mating bond is our most sacred tradition, and we have to honor it.
All of us—me, Trystan, and Archer. We have to figure out who belongs with Sable
and let that bond forge. For the good of our packs and the continuation of our race.

God, what a fucking nightmare.Three of us and one of her. Regardless of tradition and
honor and what’s good for the pack, the thought of one of them touching her makes
my blood boil.

Having her this close to me is like pouring gasoline on a dying fire. Nothing separates
us but my fur and the thin shorts and t-shirt of mine that still cover her body. The
powerful way her thighs grip my shoulders inflame every instinct in me, and I’m
fucking mindless with the need to shift back and claim her. Press her into the dirt right
here on the side of the goddamned mountain and fill every inch of the sweetness
between her legs with my cock.

But I don’t.

Because I shouldn’t.

Because when—if—Sable ever truly becomes mine, she’ll deserve the best I can give
her. Not some desperate fuck by the side of the road.

Because as badly as I want her body, I want her soul more. I want her heart.

And it will take time to earn that.

So I focus on our surroundings like the damn alpha I’m supposed to be. We need to
stay alert and on guard so we don’t get caught unawares by witches. Trystan and
Archer are doing a damn fine job of it, while I’m in the middle with a raging
metaphorical hard-on, imagining Sable naked in the dust.

Way to prove yourself fucking worthy of her,I admonish myself.

We follow the branded trees along our route, knowing that we’re somewhat safer if
we remain within their boundaries. All three packs worked together on these routes of
safe passage—the sigils burned into the trees keep the witches away and make it safer
for us to travel over land. Though, to be fair, the last few violent deaths had happened
well within our marked boundaries.

The witches were getting craftier, and that reminder fills me with guilt. Our meeting
today should have been the first step in ensuring further safety for our people. But it
was completely fucked by Lawson dragging Sable in like he had some kind of
personal vendetta against her.

That fucking ass-hat. The moment I saw him manhandle her into the center of the
room, every cell in my body cried for his total annihilation. The only thing that held
me back was the look in Sable’s eyes.

I didn’t want her to ever look at me like that. With such fear. With such pure, abject
terror.

And she would have, if I’d ripped my brother limb from limb right in front of her.

The sun is fully gone when we come to a steady halt outside the mating cabin. We’re
about thirty miles from the North Pack village but still within shifter territory. We’re
at the base of a mountain, deep within a thickly wooded area so far off the beaten path
that there’s not a chance in hell anything could find us here, human or otherwise.

Safe. For now.

Sable slips off my back, her body sliding over mine like silk. I shudder as she rubs
over me, her fingers trailing in my fur, and I know she feels the shiver wrack my
body. I can smell arousal in her body too. Faint, but there. She knows—without
knowing how she knows—exactly what I’m feeling. She hits the ground, knees nearly
buckling, and digs her fingers into my fur to hold herself upright.

I call on my magic to shift back before she can let go of me. I want to feel her fingers
on my bare skin. I want it so fucking bad it’s all I can think about, and I’m damn
lucky I don’t shift back to human with a rock hard dick.

The magic fades, and Sable’s hands are on my bare chest, her satin fingers resting
near my nipples.

Her eyes widen and her gaze drops between us to my nakedness. I realize too late that
I probably should have warned her. All of us are so used to seeing our pack mates
naked, it’s just a regular part of life. Something tells me Sable’s never seen a man’s
cock before.

And her gaze on mine pulses blood directly to that body part.

She backs away quickly, clutching at the straps on her backpack as her eyes dart
away. But Trystan and Archer have shifted back too, so when she turns her head she
gets an eyeful of them instead.

She lets out a small squeak and a red hot flush rises up her pale neck, painting her
cheeks. Then she whirls on her heel and sprints toward the cabin, racing inside as if
she can’t get away from the three naked dudes fast enough.

I’m not entirely comfortable with her running into the cabin alone before one of us
checks it for wild animals or interlopers, but she doesn’t immediately scream bloody
murder, so I consider that proof the cabin is safe. I’ll do a more thorough check in a
second, but first…

I step ahead of Trystan and Archer to stop them before they go inside.

“We need to make something clear,” I say, pitching my voice low so Sable doesn’t
accidentally hear me.

Trystan crosses his arms, his face turning to stone. “What? You trying to make some
kind of ‘I found her first’ claim? Tell that to my wolf. We each have an equal chance
here, fuckface.”

I clench my fists against the urge to break his stupid nose. “No, jackass. About Sable’s
state of mind.”

“She’s been hurt badly before. Physically and emotionally. I can tell.” Archer speaks
up, adjusting his pack on his shoulders.

“She has. Anyone with eyes can see she’s traumatized.” I glance toward the cabin,
seeing the network of scars on Sable’s pale flesh in my mind’s eye. “I don’t know the
details, but we gotta be gentle with her. She’s not used to this. Any of it. Nobody push
her beyond what she can handle.”

Archer nods. “It’s more important that we respect her trauma than it is to urge her
wolf to come out. We have to let her do this at her own pace.”

Trystan scoffs. “Thank you, Doctor Phil.”

I jam a finger into the man’s broad chest. “Play. Fucking. Nice. This is your only
warning. If you so much as give her a nightmare, I’ll eat your entrails and feed the rest
to the vultures. Got it?”

Trystan’s jaw clenches so tight I think he might break a few teeth off. But he finally
nods, taking a step away from my finger. His eyes burn with annoyance as he glares at
me, but his expression softens as he glances toward the small cabin. A hint of worry
crosses his face, and he nods.

“Yeah. I got it.”

hapter 17
Sable
I pressmy forehead to the wall just inside the front door, letting all the weight of my
body ooze against the cool wooden planks. My knees damn sure can’t hold me up
anymore.

The cabin is dim and musty, as if the windows haven’t been opened for months. I’m
in what seems to be a living room area, although I didn’t take much time to look at it
when I walked in.

My skin is flushed and hot as if I have a fever, and I consider going to see if there’s a
freezer I can shove my head in. Pressing my hands to my cheeks, I focus on taking a
couple of deep breaths and calming the fluttering in my stomach.

I can’t seem to catch my breath, and I feel hot and achy all over in a way I’ve never
experienced before. I can’t get the sight of Ridge’s body out of my mind. Every single
part of him is etched in my memory, and the feeling curling between my legs begs me
to keep replaying that memory over and over.

Even when I tried to look away, to drag my gaze away from him… there were
Trystan and Archer, both just as magnificent and just as damn naked.

The one true string of luck I had in my miserable life was that my uncle never abused
me sexually. Clint liked the power of hurting me physically—lording his strength over
me with pain, keeping me quiet and pliant with threats of knives and lashes and
“accidents.” Even his gross friends who came over every once in a while never hurt
me like that. There was one man who got creepy with me a few times, and I lived in
absolute terror that he might one day lose control and try to…

But he didn’t.

I know about sex, but I’ve never done it before. I’ve never even kissed anyone, and
everything I know about the subject was gleaned from books and movies and
unpleasant conversations between my uncle and his buddies that I wish I hadn’t heard.

But this?

I don’t know anything about this. I’m not familiar with the kind of need that seeps
through my bones and makes every nerve-ending seem to come alive. So this aching,
throbbing heat between my legs is as newly bizarre as it is decadent.

Jesus, the three of them were as perfect as pictures I’ve seen of Greek god statues.
Every muscle might as well have been chiseled out of stone with an eye for
perfection. Every curve of their bodies was powerful and strong, the way their waists
tapered into their hips and their muscular legs…

Just recalling the image of the three of them standing together completely naked is
turning me into a puddle of raw, sparking lust.

Okay. Breathe,I tell myself, dragging in two long, steady breaths and letting them out
with the same care. Get a grip, Sable. You’re acting ridiculous. It’s just men’s bodies.
Obviously, nudity isn’t a big deal to shifters.

Before I can get a handle on my emotions, the door opens and all three shifters pile
into the small living room. I straighten and clutch my pack against my chest as if it
might provide a real barrier between us.

Ridge reaches past Archer and finds the light switch on the wall. A bare bulb
illuminates high over my head, casting light onto the three still naked men in front of
me. I gape at them, too astonished to even recognize that a cabin in the middle of
nowhere is clearly equipped with electricity. I guess mating pairs wanted to be able to
see each other.

Naked.

Obviously.

Jesus, take the wheel.

Trystan steps ahead of the other two and comes closer to me. A cocky grin settles over
his face and he gently takes my pack from my numb hands, tossing it over his own
shoulder. It takes every ounce of my willpower to not look down. He’s so close I can
smell his skin—something earthy, like incense, something darker than Ridge’s clear
pine scent.

He’s the most arrogant of them, I think. The way he continues to stand there, holding
my bag as if he’s doing me a favor, that crooked grin on his face like he knows I want
to look at his body. Like he knows he’s a damn fine sight to see, and he wants me to
partake.

I refuse to give in. No matter how badly I want to.

A hand clamps down onto Trystan’s shoulder, and Ridge rounds on him with a glare.
“Did you forget already? Come on. Let’s get dressed.”

As the three men move off down the hallway, I sink against the wooden wall and
struggle to get air back into my lungs. Their presence is insanely strong, as if I can
drink in their essence just by being in the same room with them.

When I finally get my wits back, and I’ve given them ample time to cover up, I follow
them down the hall. Since Trystan took my bag, I need to retrieve it from him in order
to change out of Ridge’s dirty clothes. I’m covered in the dirt and dust that was kicked
up during our run.

As luck would have it, all three men are dressed when I find them in the bedroom.

The only bedroom.

This cabin is a lot smaller than Ridge’s house, and although it looks like there’s a
small kitchen as well as the living room, there are definitely no more bedrooms.

“Um, one bed?” I ask, tentatively moving into the room. Trystan has laid my bag on
the bed atop the colorful quilt, and I squeeze around Archer to get to it.

Ridge tugs the hem of his shirt down and replies, “We’ll sleep in the living room. You
can have the bed.”

Thank goodness for small mercies. I can’t even imagine trying to sleep next to all
that… man.
Trystan makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like distaste, but Ridge shoves him
toward the door. “Let’s make sure the cabin is stocked.”

As Archer passes me, he offers me a small, shy smile. “Take your time. We’ll be
waiting for you when you’re ready.”

I spend an inordinately long time beneath a cold shower, wondering where the water
came from this deep in the wild, and if the water could go even colder to wash away
the desire that still burns through me with a vengeance.

Ridge’s friend Amora gave me a bag full of clothes, including comfy sweats and
nightshirts. Right now, baggy cotton pants thick enough to hide all my curves seem
like the safest bet, and I top them off with a long-sleeved nightshirt that hangs off me
like a potato sack. I know I probably look ridiculous, but the less skin I have showing
in their presence, the better.

For all of us.

The more I have to take off, the more likely I won’t give in to the insane desire to
press my bare skin against theirs the way my palms pressed against Ridge’s chest.

When I walk into the small kitchen at the back of the house, my three companions are
seated at a wooden table barely large enough for them with an array of food waiting.
It’s more than I saw Ridge pack in one of the bags, which I guess isn’t that surprising.
I recall him saying something about the cabin being stocked.

It appears to be a do-it-yourself sandwich assembly line. Though each man has an

open soda sitting before them, none of them have helped themselves to the food yet. I
can’t help but feel a little touched that they waited for me.

“Ladies first,” Trystan teases, motioning to the only empty chair.

After I pile my bread with cold cuts, cheese, and condiments, the guys dive in with
gusto. My sandwich looks like a single bite compared to the towering monstrosities
they make, and it occurs to me it probably takes a lot of fuel to power a shifter’s
metabolism.

Spurred by the thought, I ask, “Do you guys have to eat more than regular people?”

It doesn’t occur to me until after the question is out of my mouth that it might be a
little too intimate. Though we are in what amounts to a private sex cabin in the woods,
so no question is likely off the table.
“We do.” Archer teeth flash white as he smiles. “Our bodies run hotter and faster, so
we need more fuel than the average human.”

Their bodies certainly do run hotter, I can’t deny that. My cheeks flush again as I try
desperately not to conjure up images of them without any clothes. It’s not really
working, so I blurt out another question to distract myself.

“I never knew shifters even existed, but to be honest, my life was kinda… Well, I was
shielded from a lot. Does the world know about you at all?”

Ridge sets his soda can down on the table with a clank. “No. They can’t know. For
good reason.”

“What reason is that?”

Trystan shoves his hand into the bag of chips in the center of the table as he replies.
“Shifters have existed for thousands of years. We learned early on that if humans find
out about us, they inevitably try to hunt us to extinction.”

I gasp, horrified. “Hunt you?”

Ridge shoots a look of irritation at Trystan before turning to me. “Humans have a
tendency to be fearful of things they can’t explain. Magic, shifters, the lot of it.”

“And where humans are fearful, there follows destruction,” Archer murmurs with a
shake of his head.

Trystan snorts. “Ha. Humans are nothing compared to witches. Humans may hunt us
because they fear us. Witches hunt us because they hate us.”

That statement brings forth a whole new slew of questions. I have a million to ask—if
I’m stuck with these men for an indefinite amount of time, I would do well to learn
about them and their culture. The good news is, they seem to like hearing me talk.
Already, Ridge is looking at me expectantly, as if waiting for my next query.

“Archer told me a little bit about the witch problem. But could you tell me more?” I
ask. “Why do they hate you so much?”

Trystan slouches in his chair, cradling his soda against his abdomen. “Don’t let the
word fool you. Witches can be women and men. They use magic. To them, we’re an
aberration.”
“Because you use magic to shift,” I say to clarify what I gleaned from Archer.

“Right.” Trystan nods, a grin touching his lips. “We’re using something that belongs
to them—that they believe should only belong to them. So in their minds, we’re
something wrong or worthless that shouldn’t exist.”

His words hit me harder than I was prepared for, and I freeze, playing them over in
my head.

We’re something wrong or worthless that shouldn’t exist.

I realize with heart-wrenching clarity that this kind of belief—viewing someone as

inherently worthless—was exactly what my uncle did to me.

My heart clutches, and it feels like my whole chest has seized up. I can’t breathe. I
can’t speak.

As if a cold hand has reached out from my past and dragged me back, I feel myself
falling away from the small, comfortable kitchen, hurtling into dark memories of a
place I know all too well.

Clint’s house.

My childhood house.

The house of my nightmares.

Uncle Clint stands over me, a cigarette in his hand and a sneer on his ugly, twisted
face. I’m cowering against the wall, a glass of water spilled on the floor at my feet.
He kicked me in the back as I passed him. I was carrying a glass of water, and I
spilled it, and he backhanded me into the wall.

Clint puts his cigarette to his lips and sucks in a lungful of smoke that won’t kill him
nearly fast enough to save my life. Then his hand darts out and he puts the butt out on
my neck. Hot, searing pain lashes over my nerve-endings, and I think I smell burning
flesh. On top of the throbbing in my back and head.

“You’re a waste of fucking space. A waste of the goddamn food I feed you,” he
growls, tossing the spent cigarette in my face. “Stupid, worthless girl.”

I flinch backward, and as I do, I fall into another memory.

Uncle Clint slips his pocketknife from his jeans and flicks the blade open in a
practiced snick. He’s holding a short glass of straight whiskey in his other hand, and
his eyes have the shiny, distanced look I recognize as the early stages of drunkenness.

I came into the living room to fill his glass because he told me to. Now I’m standing
here beside his recliner, staring at the glint of steel in the flickering blue light of the
television.

He slashes out at me, the blade cutting into my arm. I recoil, my heart hammering
against my rib cage as blood wells on my skin.

“Fucking waste of oxygen,” he mutters. “You’ll never amount to shit.”

The memories keep coming like a bad movie playing in my head, an overwhelming,
never-ending horror story that I lived day in and day out for far too long. If my uncle
hated me this much, and the witches hate shifters enough to systematically annihilate
their kind… what other kinds of hate exist in the world?

Is there anything good at all?

Is anything worth saving?

Warm hands gently press against mine, and I fall out of the panic-induced flashbacks.
Suddenly, I’m back in the cabin, only I’m on the floor now. I must have slipped from
the chair during my attack.

Archer kneels in front of me, concern touching his green eyes and his face smooth
with kindness. “Sable? Can you hear me?”

I nod, but I keep nodding. Nodding like a crazy person. I can’t stop the damn nodding,
like the bones holding my head in place have given up.

Archer’s hands move from my fists to my face. His fingers are strong but gentle as he
slows the frantic nodding. Reaching up, I cling to his wrists, my weight resting almost
entirely against his hold on my head. He grounds me, an anchor in the storm.

Our eyes lock together as he says, “Breathe with me.” He makes an

exaggerated O with his lips, pulling in air loudly.

I mimic his movements, exaggerated and all. Keeping my eyes on his face, I follow
his deep breaths in and out while the warmth in his hands soothes the ice flooding
through my veins. It’s only me and Archer, and there’s no room left for the panic. A
soothing calm rolls over me, grounding me.

I feel like I could fall into the depths of his eyes.

Like I could fall and keep falling.

And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

hapter 18
Sable
For the next week,the four of us spend nearly every waking moment together, falling
into a comfortable routine. After that first evening when Archer had to pull me out of
my panic-fueled flashback, all three men treat me with gentle compassion—even
Trystan, who I doubt such empathy comes easy to.

And thanks to their awareness, I don’t have another panic attack.

Plus, exactly as Ridge promised me, they leave me alone at night to sleep in the one
bed by myself, while they curl up in wolf form on the living room floor. I’m so
thankful for their attentiveness to my feelings, but I can’t help the guilt that twinges
my chest. The floor isn’t nearly as comfortable and warm as the bed, and to be honest,
when we say good night, I feel an emptiness that carries me through the night and
isn’t filled until I wake up to the sounds and smells of them making breakfast every
morning.

Something inside me feels like it’s trapped. Locked away and desperate to reach out
and touch these three men.

My body just won’t obey.

It’s like I’m broken—like maybe that part of me will never work again. Never had a
chance to work in the first place, even. My uncle beat the capacity to love someone, to
truly connect with someone, right out of me.

Maybe that was his plan from the start.

On our eighth day in the cabin, I lounge on the front steps, watching as my three
companions split firewood in the yard. They’re passing an axe around between them,
and they’ve stripped off their shirts. Despite the brisk chill in the air, their torsos are
shiny with exertion as they take turns chopping logs on a sawed-off tree stump.

I’m having a hard time not staring, and an even harder time not drooling. It’s clear
they’re showing off for me.

The cabin is fairly rustic—we’re cooking our meals over the fire in the fireplace, and
much of our dinners have come from the men shifting and hunting. The running water
for the shower comes from a rain basin, while the electricity comes from a generator
that’s typically off all day and only used for a small portion of the evening.
Regardless, there’s already a giant pile of cut firewood against the side of the cabin,
yet here we are.

Trystan shoves Ridge out of the way with his elbow and raises the axe, casting a
glance my way as if to make sure I’m watching before he brings it down on the log.
Then Ridge steps around Trystan, giving me another telling look before he sets up a
log and does the same.

Biting my lip to hide an amused smile, I dig my toe into the dirt by the front steps.

Truthfully, I can’t help but like the way they’re showing off for me.

The attention is a balm to my broken heart, and it balances out all the years I lay alone
in my bed in my uncle’s house, wondering if I’d ever have a friend or a reason to even
live.

But beyond the friendly competition, I can sense real tension between the men—all of
them, even Archer, the sweetest and most level-headed of the three.

I hate that tension. Things they’ve said, jabs they’ve taken at each other, all of it adds
up to my impression that despite their treaty, their three packs are at odds with each
other and have been for some time. Adding me to the mix as a potential mate for all
three of them has only fueled the already smoldering fire.

“Sable,” Archer calls, jarring me from my thoughts.

“Hm?” I look at him, standing in a patch of sunlight that spills through the trees. His
tanned skin shines like it's illuminated from within, and the way he’s resting the axe
handle on his shoulder displays the muscles in his chest.
“You’re up. Come give it a try,” he says, holding up another—smaller—axe with a
smile. “You might feel better if you take some of your anger out on firewood.”

I can’t exactly argue that point. I broke a few things in my time living with Clint when
everything got to be too much, although I usually paid for it later or took great pains
to clean up and hide the mess.

Still…

“I don’t know,” I say, eyeing the weapon. “It looks hard. And dangerous.”

Ridge stretches out his shoulders, grinning at me as he jerks his chin in invitation.
“We’ll teach you.”

His voice warms my insides and chases away the lingering misgivings I have. I hop to
my feet and join them in the patchy sunlight, taking the offered axe from Archer. It’s
lighter than I expected but still has heft to it. A few swings will probably work out
muscles I didn’t even know I had.

Ridge steps up behind me, reaching around to place my hands in position. “You’ll
have better control if you keep your hands separate,” he advises, his breath tickling
my ear. A tingle starts low in my body, and I have to fight the urge to sink back
against his bare chest, to nuzzle into his skin and breathe deeply of his familiar pine
scent.

Archer places a round log atop the stump and then backs away, well out of range of
the crazy girl with the axe.

Smart man.

“Ready?” Ridge asks, and I nod. “Place the axe on the log as a starting point. It’ll help
with muscle memory.”

I do what he says, resting the blade in the center of the log. He disappears from my
back, and when I’m sure he’s at a safe distance, I heave the axe up and let it fly.

I miss the log completely, metal sinking into the tree stump.

“Good form.” Archer steps in and yanks the axe from the wood, whirling it around to
hand it to me, handle first. “The first try is always a swing and a miss. Let’s do it
again.”
They take turns showing me their methods, giving me advice while giving each other
shit. After a few more misses, I finally hit the log, and a few more swings after that,
I’ve really got the hang of it.

But cutting the firewood isn’t the true stress reliever, I realize. Yeah, sure,
it’s really nice to imagine the log is my uncle’s face. And I do that a few times.

As tension evaporates from my body and the knot in my stomach starts to unwind, I
finally realize what it really is.

It’s these men.

Their attention. Their friendly, easy-going banter. The way they look out for me and
take care of me.

I’ve never had anything like that in my life, and try as I might to resist, I feel myself
being drawn toward them like a flower toward sunlight.

***

That night,I slip into an easy sleep, though my arm muscles do their best to protest.

At first my dreams are benign and nonsensical.

I’m racing through the forest with the cold mountain wind ruffling my hair. I see
wolves around me and the moon high overhead, and my body feels lighter than air, as
if I’m flying rather than running. I reach the edge of a ravine, and rocks shift and fall
beneath my feet.

Then Ridge is beside me in human form—naked and magnificent, even in my dreams.

He takes my hand and we jump right over the edge of the canyon. Instead of falling,
we soar.

But then it isn’t Ridge beside me anymore.

His hand becomes a vise grip, and I’m lying on my uncle’s work bench with my hand
in an actual vise grip. Both hands are pinned between unforgiving metal planks on
either side of my body. I can’t struggle. It only makes the pain worse to try.
Uncle Clint towers over me, smoke curling up over his balding head from the
cigarette perched between his lips. He lifts a hand, and I see he’s holding a cutting
knife—a small one from our kitchen set, meant for chopping vegetables, not for
slicing up your niece.

But that’s what he uses it for.

This is one of his calculated torture sessions, I realize in horror. Not his drunken
rages or his power-hungry man tantrums that cause him to push me down stairs or
punch me in soft places on my body.

This is war.

This is tactical.

His knife slices up the front of my shirt, and he uses the sharp tip to throw the edges
of my shirt out of his way. He eyes my stomach like a painter planning his next move,
before he sets the blade to my skin and starts to carve.

Even in my dream, the ghost of the pain feels almost as horrible as it did in real life.
He carves so lightly, not deep enough that it won’t properly heal. In his calculated
attacks, my uncle scratches some kind of itch I’ve never understood. He wants me to
feel maximum pain. He wants to cause me excruciating agony. And he knows how to
cover his tracks well enough to get away with it.

Blood runs down my sides in warm little rivulets, soaking through the crumpled fabric
of my destroyed t-shirt. The cuts keep going until I’m screaming, screaming for
anybody to help me. Screaming for something to take me away from this pain.

I wake up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding like a jackhammer against my ribcage.

The blankets are heavy on my body, more confining than they should be, and I
frantically shove them off me with all four limbs until they slip off the bed to pool on
the floor.

My breaths come faster as I glance around the dark room. I can hear that the generator
is off beyond the cabin wall, so I can’t even turn on a light to dispel the gloom.

The small bedroom feels like a tomb, and all logic flees in the face of my panic.

I’m trapped.

I can’t be here anymore.

So I slip out of bed and rush out of the back door of the cabin, where the moon shines
brightly on the forest and I don’t have to be in the dark with my nightmares.

hapter 19
Dare
It’sthe kind of night made for stealth.

The kind of night made for tracking down witches and destroying each and every one
of them before they can find a way to penetrate pack lands.

The landscape flashes by at warp speed, and my paws thunder against the ground. I
live for this shit—this freedom, the wild air, the heady scent of dirt.

The chase.

I skid to a stop in a small clearing just beyond the barrier line and lift my nose to the
air. I can smell her—the witch that’s been testing the boundaries of our sigils. She has
a cold scent, calculating and authoritarian, like she’s an alpha in her own right.

The good news is, alphas are born to be tested.

And beaten.

I duck between the trees and put my nose to the ground just beyond the barrier. A
tentative scent pattern tells me the witch was here, and recently. She zig-zagged just
outside the boundary, getting closer and closer with every fucking step. I’ve been
tracking this bitch for weeks, and as always, it seems I’m still one step behind her.

No matter. She can’t evade me forever.

As I pass back through the boundary, I catch a hint of something different. Not the
witch’s scent, but something sweeter and more alluring.

I follow the marker to a nearby tree and jump up onto my hind legs to sniff at the tree.
A female. Not any pack member that I know, but still somehow familiar.
I consider following it, but I haven’t finished my patrols. The East, West, and North
Packs aren’t handling the witch threat as aggressively as they should, which leaves me
to pick up the slack and do their dirty work.

Without a pack of my own to protect, I figure what else is there to do but protect the
rest of the packs from their own inadequacies?

Heading west, I follow the narrow corridor of empty land between the West and North
Packs, focusing on the witch’s scent. I run for several miles before I’m satisfied by the
fact she hasn’t yet come this way. The boundaries are still strong, humming with
power and untouched by her magic.

That’s good—it means she’s sticking to the farthest boundaries, closest to the more
populated human lands. Whether that’s because she hasn’t found the empty lands
between the pack territories, or because she hasn’t tried, I don’t know.

I’m not going to give her a chance to try.

Every night, I complete my patrol. I start on the farthest western boundaries and make
the circuit all the way around, then through the empty lands between each of the three
packs’ territories. Without fail, I spend my nights protecting the dumbasses who can’t
protect themselves.

What the fuck are they even doing all day?

I slow my pace and veer off the path to take a break and get some water, letting that
thought mull in my head and stoke the anger that seems to have taken up permanent
residence in my chest.

They could be planning and prepping to add more protections, to do more for the
shifters. Instead, I caught wind recently that they’d had more executions. More wolves
dead. They let the witches get close enough to kill their people.

Fucking idiots.

I sink to my haunches on the bank of my usual stream and drink. This deep in the
mountains, the water tastes wild and untamed, so crisp it sends shivers through me.

Then I scent something that doesn’t belong here.

Raising my nose to the breeze, I sniff the wind. It’s that same stranger’s smell—the
female, something not quite shifter, but familiar. I stand and turn into the oncoming
wind, realizing it’s bringing that intoxicating smell from farther upstream.

I can’t help myself. I follow it.

A half-moon shines down through the trees as I take my time walking the banks of the
stream. It’s the darkest depths of night, when the sky is full of stars and the moon
transforms the land into something unearthly. I feel most myself during these hours,
as if my wolf is so fully connected to the land that I’ve lost track of the human inside
me.

I’m a decent distance from any of the three packs’ settlements. I never see anyone out
this way except wildlife.

So I’m shocked as hell to come across a woman.

She’s sitting on the edge of the stream with her feet in the water, watching with the
hint of a smile on her face as the current races over her skin. The moonlight turns her
hair almost white and her pale skin nearly translucent, as if she’s glowing from the
inside.

She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Another light breeze races past me, and that strange scent hits my nose again.

Mine.

The thought comes from nowhere and everywhere, and a force inside me rises up so
strongly I stagger on my paws. This woman is mine, I realize, instantly shifting back
to human form. There’s nothing in the world right now that could stop me from
having her.

My feet are silent on the grass as I stride toward her, drawn as if by a magnetic pull.
I’m surrounded by that intoxicating scent, and my wolf snarls inside me, urging me to
move faster. So I do.

I’m so aware of her every movement that I notice the exact second she senses my
approach. Her head pops up, and she looks down the bank at me, blue eyes luminous
and wide. Her fear rises on the air, adding to her natural scent, and I growl under my
breath. I don’t like that she’s afraid. She has no reason to be.
I would kill for her and die for her, but I would never fucking hurt her.

Before she can react, I’m standing over her. I grip her by both arms and haul her to
her feet until we’re chest to chest. God, this close, she smells like every delicious
thing I’ve ever wanted and didn’t know I could have.

I dip my head and brush my nose along her neck, breathing in her scent like a drug.

I’ve found her.

The woman I never knew I’ve always been looking for.

My mate.

hapter 20
Sable
This can’t be real.

It’s the only thought my stunned mind can form as a torrent of emotions rage through
me.

My heart crashes against my ribs as the man’s fingers dig into my arms, holding me
tight against his body. His naked body, flush to mine from thigh to chest. There’s
something hot and hard pressed against my belly that sends waves of fire through me
—because I know what it is, and it’s as alluring as it is terrifying.

I don’t know how this happened. I just wanted some fresh air.

The water felt so good on my feet, and the moonlight made the forest and everything
around me glow with the light I needed so badly after my nightmares.

But then I wasn’t alone anymore. Suddenly, this man came out of nowhere, pulling
me up and hauling me against his body.

Jesus, it’s glorious. He’s glorious.

I’m swelling with a mixture of shock and fear at his bruising grip and the way he
dragged me to my feet. He’s aggressive, much more so in his movements than Ridge,
Trystan, or Archer, and I know this entire situation should terrify me beyond anything
I’ve experienced so far. I’m alone, in the middle of the night, with a strange, aroused
man touching my body.

But the heavy dose of my own desire is keeping me from dipping over the edge into
panic. He calls to something wild in me. This isn’t like when my uncle used to
manhandle me or hurt me. This is something altogether different, and the warmth
between my legs responds with a delicious ache.

His nose brushes the sensitive skin just above my collarbone, and he breathes deeply,
sliding his face up my neck and into my hair. I know innately that he’s a shifter,
because no normal human man would breathe my skin like that, as if he’s learning all
the secrets of my soul in just one sniff.

He pulls away, just enough for our gazes to meet. My hands are bunched up between
us, but still free. I think, if I could get my traitorous body to listen, I could break out
of his grip. If I wanted to.

But I don’t want to.

God fucking help me, I don’t.

For a long moment, we just stare at each other, taking each other in. He’s
devastatingly handsome. Big and strong, with spiky black hair that’s windswept and
messy, brown eyes flecked with gold, and a strong jaw on a sharp-angled face.

I… I recognize him.

“It’s you,” I whisper, my eyes flaring wide. The man who nearly hit me the night I ran
away from my uncle. I recall vividly the way his car skidded sideways before my
hands slapped the metal, our eyes locking in mutual shock.

Now his eyes widen too, and his gaze sweeps over my face again as if he’s trying to
put the pieces together himself. One hand releases my arm and his fingers slide up to
brush against my face.

He cocks his head, the movement so animalistic he might as well still be in wolf form.

“You hit my car.” His voice is a deep rumble.

“Sorry about that,” I murmur, even though if anybody should be sorry, it’s him. He
could have killed me. But I’m too distracted by the tingles his fingers are sending
along my nerve endings. Some part of me recognizes that he’s released me. He’s not
holding me against him anymore.

I could back away. I could run. I could scream for Ridge and the others.

Then the man’s fingers slip into my hair. A fresh jolt of electric sensation skitters
through me as he fists the strands lightly, holding them close to the roots. It’s not
painful, but there’s something so commanding, so dominant in the gesture, that it
makes a flush of liquid heat fill my core.

“What’s your name?”

“Sable.” The whisper comes out hoarse, and even I can hear the desire underlying it. I
want this man. Something within me wants this man, and she’s roaring to have him. I
struggle to clamp down on that crazy sensation, on the overwhelming need to crawl
into his arms. “You?”

“Dare.”

A thrill tickles along my spine. Even though I know he’s telling me his name, it
almost sounds like a command on its own.

Dare you.

I’ve never considered myself brave or reckless or daring. I’ve lived a great deal of my
life in fear, tiptoeing around my uncle and measuring days in degrees of awfulness.
Before running away from Clint, I rarely thought about what I did want, focusing
instead on what I didn’t.

But right now, as I stare up into this beautiful stranger’s eyes, all I can think about is
the one thing I want most in the entire world. The thing that calls to me like the moon
calls to a wolf, begging me to reach out and take it.

Dare you.

Before I know what’s happening, before I can register whether he moved first or I did,
I’m on my tiptoes, my body pressed against his.

And I’m kissing him.

His grip on my hair tightens a little, angling my head as he kisses me back, and the
small bite of pain sends another shock of arousal through me. His other hand wraps
around me, his palm cupping my ass to tug me tighter against his erection. As I wrap
my arms around his neck, he opens his mouth, his tongue licking along my lips. The
motion sends heat spiraling through me, and I move against him, the hard length of
him sliding between us.

Our kiss deepens, tongues dancing. My nightgown bunches beneath his hand, and his
fingers dip deeper, brushing the outer boundaries of territory that no man has ever
touched. I don’t even know him, but that doesn’t make a single difference to me in
this moment as I open my legs wider, practically begging for him to keep searching,
to go farther.

The kiss deepens until I’m drowning in him, in his taste, in the wild scent of him. His
hand moves from my hair to my chest, and he palms my breast, his thumb brushing
over the peak of my nipple in a slow movement that sets my body on fire. I arch into
his hand, my fingers tangling in his hair.

I want more.

So much more.

I feel like I’m outside myself as I lift a leg and wrap it around his hips. Nothing
separates us now but the thin cotton of my underwear, and it’s still too damn much. I
rub against him, reveling in his gasp against my lips. He grabs my thigh, hauling my
leg higher, opening me wider. My body has a mind of its own, and the feeling of his
hard length rubbing against my core outside my panties turns me even more mindless
with need.

“Jesus. You taste like fucking sunshine,” he growls, dragging his mouth from mine
before moving his lips downward to press against the curve of my jaw.

A shiver runs down my spine, and I hold on to him for dear life as he devours the skin
of my throat, scraping his teeth over the sensitive flesh. I didn’t know it could feel like
this, to have a man’s lips on that part of my body. I’m growing a little more familiar
with the way a kiss can spread heat all the way through my limbs, warming me up
from the inside out.

But this?

I can hardly catch my breath as he nips and sucks at my skin, sending bursts of
sensation skittering through me. When he draws my earlobe into his mouth and bites
down on it, I let out a soft cry, digging my fingernails into his shoulders as I grind
against him.

How is this possible? How can one body contain all the feelings tearing through me
right now?

“Dare!”

I gasp the word, whimpering this stranger’s name as if I’ve known him my whole life.
As if I’ve called out his name like this hundreds of times before.

He pulls back from me a little, wrapping one arm around my lower back while the
other catches my chin, tilting my face up toward his. My fingers have been in his hair,
making the dark spiky locks even wilder than they were before, and his eyes look
almost black in the shadowy light.

“Say it again,” he murmurs. “Say my name.”

He’s not even kissing me anymore, but the low rumble of his voice sends a tremor of
pleasure through me. My breath catches, and I bite my bottom lip as my chest rises
and falls fast.

“Dare.”

“Sable.”

Wolves don’t purr. I know they don’t. But that’s the only way to describe the way he
says my name.

My core clenches, goose bumps breaking out on my skin. His lower half is still
pressed right up against me, his arm around my back keeping our bodies pinned
together. My panties are slick, the fabric absorbing the wetness that’s seeping from
me, and I wonder dazedly if he can tell. Can he feel it? Can he feel it against his naked
skin?

As if he can read my thoughts, Dare’s nostrils flare. He drags in a deep breath, then
drops his head again, his fingers gripping my jaw tighter as he brings his lips to mine
once more.

Before the kiss can go any deeper, three distinct growls erupt from the silence of the
night around us.
hapter 21
Sable
I breakaway from Dare’s lips, shock flooding me.

What… what just happened?

Ridge, Trystan, and Archer in their wolf forms race over the ground from the cabin. I
can feel their energies from here—their protective, animal instincts are turned on full
blast, and they’re ready to rip Dare limb from limb.

I know what it probably looks like. Me, alone by the stream in just my short
nightgown, and a naked wolf shifter with his hands on my body and his lips on mine,
while the other three men have done their damnedest to get to know me, to ease me
into a relationship without the benefit of persuading me with touch.

None of them have given in to their wolves. They’ve respected my boundaries and
refused to let their beasts just take me like they own me.

Like Dare did.

Like I let him.

My three companions race toward us, snapping and growling in a show of aggression
that sets my heart pumping and makes me want to flee into the woods. Panic rears up
swiftly inside me, dousing my desire like a bucket of cold water on a flame.

Dare releases me, his own growl rumbling up from deep within his chest. He puts
himself between me and the other men as if trying to protect me, and then the now-
familiar mirage of magic shimmers over his body as he shifts to wolf form. Dare is
massive, with midnight black fur that almost seems to camouflage into the night.

The four wolves come together in a violent clash of teeth and claws, their snarls
breaking the peace of the night.

It’s three against one. For the first time since this all began, Ridge, Trystan, and
Archer are completely united against something they see as a common enemy—Dare.
The horrifying realization that he doesn’t have a chance against their ferocity sends
my heart into palpitations.
Ridge’s pale brown wolf gets hold of Dare’s neck, and though he’s smaller than the
latter wolf, Ridge takes Dare down to the dirt. The black wolf hits the ground hard on
his side, Ridge’s teeth latched onto his neck, but manages to buck out of his grasp and
roll away—back on his feet so fast, it’s almost like it never happened.

Trystan and Archer leap in, jaws snapping at Dare’s legs. Ridge bares his teeth before
leaping onto Dare’s back again, and a pained yelp tears through the night.

Something snaps inside me.

This fight isn’t fair.

Whatever force is connecting me to Ridge, Trystan, and Archer, it’s identical to

whatever connected me to Dare. He acted on that connection, and I allowed him to.

I race forward, barely cognizant of the rough ground beneath my bare feet. I don’t
even think twice before I throw myself bodily between the wolves, putting Dare at my
back. Trystan, who just lunged at the black wolf, has to redirect at the last minute so
he doesn't hit me, and Archer immediately sits down on his haunches, his head cocked
in surprise.

I hold my hands up between them all, my face hard and fear pumping through my
veins.

Jumping into the middle of a wolf fight wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done—in
fact, it has to make the list of top five stupidest things I’ve ever done—but at least no
one accidentally ripped me to shreds before they realized what was happening.

Archer is the first to shift back to human form, crouching on the ground naked just as
he was as a wolf. His transformation sets off a domino effect, with Ridge turning back
next, then Dare, and finally Trystan.

None of them look happy about the situation. They all look furious—except maybe
Archer, whose enigmatic expression remains neutral.

I keep my gaze firmly above everyone’s shoulder-level as I lower my hands. My heart

feels like it’s on the verge of exploding inside me, and I suck in a deep breath, then
another, trying to calm the damn thing so I can speak with more authority than I feel.

“I won’t let you fight,” I say. My voice sounds thin and weak at first, but it gains
strength as I find my footing. “I don’t know what this thing is between us. Or between
me and Dare either,” I add, motioning to the quiet, brooding man behind me. “But I
refuse to let you hurt each other because of it.”

hapter 22
Archer
Holy fuck. She’s magnificent.Single-handedly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,
standing between us with her hair wild and a hard glint in her eyes.

I can scent her fear. There’s a tension in her body that speaks of a deep urge to run,
the way a deer would bolt at the crack of a twig in the night. But she doesn’t. She
stands there, chin in the air, stance wide and unmoving, despite the four powerful,
intimidating shifters staring her down.

Sable, my beautiful mate, refuses to bend, and this glimpse of the warrior inside her—
the wolf inside her—sends a wave of warmth and respect through me.

Back in the council’s meeting house, I felt an instant and undeniable connection to her
because of the mate bond. Not exactly a bond a shifter can ignore, or have any control
over at all, really. But every day we’ve spent together since, I’ve learned more about
her, gotten to know what makes her tick. It’s only made me care for her more.

She’s an amazing woman. Stronger than she even knows. Soft but unbreakable,
vulnerable but with a spine of steel. Now it’s more evident than ever what a
firecracker she really is. I don’t know her whole back story, though I’ve pieced some
clues together and built my own theory. But if her previous life is as bad as I suspect, I
know how much strength it takes for her to stand up in the face of violence.

And she just threw herself in the middle of serious violence.

Her voice wobbles as she goes on. “Just stop this. Now. You’re not monsters.”

It’s the crack on the last word that makes my protective hackles raise. She’s losing
that initial steam, and her past trauma is overtaking her resolve and anger. From my
own experience, I know she’s about to crumble.

So I go to her.
I hear a low growl from Trystan’s direction, like that fucker has any business trying to
calm a broken woman. I don’t give a rat’s ass if he’s pissed I’m taking control. I don’t
care if any of them are pissed about it.

Sable barely moves as I gather her into my arms. She’s stiff, her entire body shivering,
not from the cool air but from her emotions. It takes her a few seconds to relax into
my embrace and sink against me. Her arms finally wrap around my waist, and she
presses her face into my chest just before tears crest over her cheeks.

I cup the back of her head, letting my fingers play over the satin strands of her hair.
“Shh. It’s okay. Breathe through it. Like we did before, you remember?”

She immediately follows my order, her chest rising and falling with deep, even
breaths against my torso. The press of her breasts against me and the rest of her soft
form flush against mine, separated only by the thin cloth of her nightgown, makes my
body react immediately.

I can still smell her arousal, still sense hints of the way her body responded to Dare. I
fight not to get hard, but it’s almost impossible with her this close. Between the mix of
her lingering scent and her curves against me, it’s not an easy battle.

I don’t want to scare her. I want to be there for her.

So I focus my gaze on Trystan’s dumb ass as a means to deflate.

Nobody moves for several long moments. Sable is crying silently, her tears wet on my
skin. The good news is she’s not lost in her panic like she was the first night we
arrived. So I keep petting her hair and tell her, “You’re okay. Everything’s going to be
okay,” over and over as the moon rides higher in the sky.

Eventually, even the tension from our companions dies away. The alpha anger fades
from the air, and they stand down as concern for Sable replaces the fury. Gotta hand it
to them—they adapt fast and put her first.

As mates should.

Is it really possible that we’re all connected to her by a mate bond? It’s a surreal
concept. We’re not the only shifter packs in the world, so I know there are more
wolves out there who might have seen multiple mates that we wouldn’t know of.

But in our circles, one wolf mates with one wolf. Period.
These men—even Dare, whose dark presence stands just to my left, bleeding concern
for Sable—are alphas in their own right. They’re born and bred to take whatever the
hell they want, whenever they want it. And yet, they put her needs first.

It speaks volumes. Volumes I really don’t fucking understand.

Her tears and sniffles have slowed. I pull back just enough to tilt her chin up with a
finger so that our gazes meet. Moonlight washes over her face, turning her into a
silver ray of light with big, sad eyes that touch me to my core.

“None of us want to hurt you,” I murmur softly, sliding my other hand between us so
that I can entwine our fingers. I lift her knuckles to my lips. “We’ll figure this out.
Without fighting.”

Someone growls. Probably fucking Trystan again, though to be fair, Ridge isn’t
looking at Dare with any level of respect right now either.

I get it. We’re all suspicious, all angry with each other for being in the way of what
feels like the most natural thing in the world to us—our bond with Sable.

Regardless, I know they’re capable of putting her first, and I’m not going to let them
forget it.

Sable’s fingers open inside mine so that she can touch the side of my face. It’s such a
sweet gesture, and her wide-eyed gaze is completely innocent of the effect she has on
me, but she’s so damn beautiful it makes me wish I was more feral like Dare. More
willing to close the space between us and take her lips as if they belong to me.

Because I’m certain they do.

I let my gaze drop to that perfect, red cupid’s bow of her mouth, and I imagine what
she would taste like. Bad idea though, as desire shoots straight down between my legs
before I can look at Trystan and wash away the heated thoughts with how much he
irritates me.

Sable’s breath hitches, and she releases my hand before pushing away from me. She’s
just realized she’s hugging a naked man, because the naked man couldn’t keep it
down in her presence.

Goddammit.
I do my fucking best to be the bigger man, to be the better man, and in the end, I’m
ruled by my dick no more or less than any of these other shifters.

I glance at Dare. “Come on, man. You better come inside. We should get dressed.”

hapter 23
Sable
The five ofus troop into the cabin, Ridge at the head of our little group. I hang back in
the living room while the men go to the bedroom to dig clothes out of the packs.
Thank God for that—I’m on naked man overload.

My fingers are still shaking as I locate a box of wood matches and light the few
candles scattered around the living room. Ridge will probably protest and say we can
afford to turn on the generator for this, but I don’t want the harsh overhead light right
now. I want to hide in the flickering shadows and come down from whatever the hell
that was.

I’m on edge, my mind whirling and trying to come to grips with what just happened.
The sudden emotional crashes back to back, from desire to fear to anger to despair,
left me an emotional pile of hormones. I want to go crawl back into bed and pretend
none of this ever happened.

But the way Dare kissed me…

Jesus, it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. The whole thing should have
terrified me, sent me running for the cabin or screaming for help. I should have hated
it, hated his hands on me, hated the way he dominated me.

Instead, I’m still craving him. Craving more of him, while simultaneously wondering
what Ridge’s skin would feel like under my fingers. How Trystan’s mouth would
taste, hot and wet on my lips. How agonizingly torturous Archer’s hands would be on
the most secret parts of my body…

Dare has cracked open something inside me, some kind of deep need I can’t quite
come to terms with.
The men all return together, trooping from the bedroom with comically identical looks
on their faces. Ridge and Archer have covered up completely with shirts and sweats,
but Trystan and Dare have left their chests bare and I’m pretty certain they’re having
some kind of manly, my muscles are prettier than yours face off.

I can’t even pretend to understand men. Especially not when I’ve lost all
comprehension of myself.

My three companions take positions around me on the couch and matching armchair,
while Dare stands near the door as if preparing to run, should the need arise.
Considering the way Ridge, Trystan, and Archer banded together to destroy him in the
yard, I can hardly blame him. He’s the new guy, the new competition, and as far as
they’re concerned he doesn’t belong.

I know otherwise.

When I lock gazes with Dare, he’s looking at me with intense, hungry eyes,
broadcasting how much he wishes we could have finished what we started. He
certainly doesn’t seem regretful or sorry about what happened.

Honestly, I can’t say that I am either.

Looking away from his dark eyes, I take a couple more breaths. If I have to breathe
any deeper or harder to ground myself, I’m going to pass out.

Ridge leans on the arm of the couch and levels his calculating gaze on Dare. “What
were you doing out this way?”

“Patrolling,” Dare says shortly. Inside the cabin, his voice booms, even deeper than I
realized outside. “Hunting for a witch who’s been sniffing around the boundaries.”
His gaze cut to me. “I was nearby when I caught Sable’s scent. I followed it to her,
and my wolf felt the mate bond.”

Trystan groans, laying his head back on the edge of the couch, but Ridge says, “It’s
not your job to patrol the boundaries.”

“No, it’s not,” Archer adds, his brow wrinkled with annoyance. “What happens when
you get yourself killed?”

Fury rises on Dare’s face, and he crosses his arms, glaring at each man in turn. “If the
packs were doing a better job of fighting the witch threat, I wouldn’t feel the need to
patrol.”
“We’re doing all we can,” Ridge argues.

“Then why are your wolves dying?”

Four voices rise in anger as they start arguing and talking over one another.

“You’re all completely unaware of how bad things are!” Dare roars, pointing at them.
“Your sheltered fucking pack life, completely out of touch with how bad things are
getting—”

“Hey, fuck you,” Trystan snaps, leaping up from the couch with his hands balled into
fists.

The yelling gets louder.

There was a time when Trystan’s looming show of brute force would have sent me
spiraling into a panic attack. And for a moment, his giant hands curled into weapons
do raise a hint of terror in me. But I do what Archer always tells me—deep breaths, in
and out, until the sight of Trystan’s fists don’t alarm me anymore.

I don’t get why they’re all so worked up over this. Clearly, the witches are a threat,
and they all already work together for the good of the entire local shifter nation. Why
is it such a bad thing that Dare was patrolling?

There’s too much energy in this room. Too much “alpha” and not enough logical
thought.

“Hey!” I blurt, my voice almost falling flat under the rise in volume. I raise my tone
that much more and shout, “Knock it off!”

The cabin goes silent. All four men look at me as if they’re surprised to learn my
voice can get that loud.

“What on earth is going on?” I say, looking around at them all and trying not to blush
under their combined gazes. “You’re all on the same team here. Why are you ganging
up on Dare?”

Trystan, still looming over the couch with dislike twisting his facial expression, sighs.
“Dare was the alpha of the South Pack—before it was splintered and destroyed by
witches.”

“What?” My voice drops to a whisper.

“It happened a few years ago. They must’ve planned it for months. It wiped out most
of the pack and sent the survivors fleeing into the mountains.” Ridge speaks evenly,
but his controlled tone only serves to highlight the awfulness of his words.

I blink several times, absorbing this new—and alarming—information.

Dare’s entire pack was destroyed by witches?

I look at the black-haired man for confirmation, hoping he’ll tell me that Trystan’s
just being an asshole. That Ridge is just exaggerating or making things sound worse
than they really are. But for the first time in the short time Dare has been around me,
he doesn’t have that wild, cocky confidence in his expression.

He looks haunted.

Pained.

It’s true. Witches eliminated his entire pack, leaving him all alone.

I cover my mouth, tears pricking my eyes. That horrible expression on his face makes
my heart ache. I want to go to him, to fix him, to heal him somehow from that level of
hurt. He’s all alone in the world, and clearly carrying an insane amount of guilt and
heartache.

Before I can make a decision to get up and cross to him, he turns away from us all. I
watch, heartbroken, as he shakes his head and appears to be gathering himself from
the depths of his emotions.

“The reason I patrol,” he says, voice soft and dangerous as he speaks over his
shoulder, “is because what happened to my pack could happen again. It is
my privilege to hunt the witches and protect my race.”

My heart twists at the raw tone of his voice. I know I’m in the dark on a lot of things
regarding the history of the packs and the witch threat, but Dare’s situation brings the
horrifying truth to light. An entire pack destroyed…

How is that even possible?

And are the other packs in danger of the same thing?

Ridge and Archer exchange glances that are weighed down with concern. Even
Trystan, who clearly doesn’t like Dare, looks like he wishes he hadn’t said anything.
They’re either concerned about Dare being out there on his own hunting the witches,
or they’re concerned he’s carrying the weight of it all too heavily. Maybe both.

I have those same thoughts. Dare, come what may, is still my possible mate, and the
five of us are now like a strange little family. I can’t stand aside and let him go back
out there. What if he truly is my mate? And I just let him go get killed without giving
our bond a proper chance?

“You can stay with us,” I say, before anyone has a chance to speak.

Trystan growls. “I hardly think that’s—”

“Dare can stay here.” My voice gains a little strength, and I square my shoulders.
“He’s no different than any of you. His wolf sees me as his mate too.”

Trystan’s face is thunderous, and he remains looming over the couch, fists clenched,
though he doesn’t make a move anywhere. Ridge casts a wary look at Dare, but then
sinks back against the couch cushions with a sigh.

Archer seems to be the only man who’s truly accepting of this turn of events. I’m glad
to have at least one logical shifter on my side.

Dare meets my gaze, and I can tell he’s torn. As he told us, he feels a duty to hunt the
witches, and I totally get that. Especially since he said he was in the middle of
tracking one when he caught scent of me. But the longer our gazes hold, the more
heated and intense his expression grows.

He’s remembering what happened on the bank of the stream. Just like I am.

“All right,” he says stiffly. “I’ll stay.”

A flood of relief makes my stomach flutter, the reaction stronger than I expected. I
didn’t realize how nervous I was that Dare might not stay until he agreed not to leave.

Now he’s staring at me with a look so intense it feels like my clothes might actually
catch fire, and an overwhelming heat flushes through me. This night has been too
much. Too many intense emotions, new revelations, and unanswered questions
crammed into just a few hours have left me reeling.

Casting a look around the room, I stand up and stretch. “Um… it’s late. We should all
get some sleep. Do you think you guys can handle sharing a room?”
“We’ll be fine,” Ridge assures me. I believe him—he’ll do what’s best for all of us,
even if he hates every minute along the way.

The bedroom is cool and dark as I slip beneath the covers again. I wasn’t lying when I
said I needed sleep, but as I lie awake staring up at the dark ceiling, I don’t feel tired
at all. Too many thoughts are whirling around in my mind.

What would have happened if I hadn’t left the cabin tonight? If I hadn’t had the
nightmare that forced me to get some fresh air? We never would have known Dare
was close by—and I never would have known I had yet another shifter vying for my
bond.

God, that’s so confusing.

Instead of three possible mates, I now have to choose between four. Even worse, the
feeling inside me that I think might be my own wolf slowly waking from her slumber
doesn’t favor any of them over the other. She sees them all as hers.

I don’t understand how I’m supposed to do this. It’s going to be an impossible choice.

The men must not be tired either, because I can hear them speaking in low, soft voices
in the living room. I recognize who’s speaking by pitch, happy to hear that even Dare
and Trystan are making an effort to be civil. I can’t make out the words, but the
rumble is comforting.

After a while, I fall asleep to the sound and drift into better dreams.

***

When I wakeup to late morning sunlight, all four men are already up. I can hear the
low murmur of their voices conversing from the back of the cabin. I slide out of bed
and fish out one of Amora’s loaned T-shirts and a pair of shorts from my pack, get
dressed, then run my fingers through my hair before padding out to join them in the
kitchen.

Archer is standing over the wood stove as something delicious sizzles in the cast-iron
skillet. He looks up as I enter and offers me a brilliant smile. “Good morning. Sleep
well?”
“After the late night interlude, yeah,” I reply, passing him to join the others at the
table.

There are already dishes waiting—a plate piled high with pancakes, a pitcher of
warmed syrup, a dish of sausage patties, and a smaller bowl of scrambled eggs.

“We’re having a feast,” I observe as I sit between Dare and Trystan. I try to keep my
tone teasing and flippant, but I’m dying to eat every last thing on this table. Breakfast
at my uncle’s usually ended at cereal or oatmeal—a full-course meal like this is
something I’d only ever seen on television.

Archer dumps a few more sausage patties into the bowl. “I felt like we all deserved a
nice breakfast.”

After he takes his seat, we all fill our plates and set to work. For a while, I’m too
involved in eating—and in enjoying every single bite—to pay attention to the
conversation around me. Despite the tension that filled the room last night, the men
seem to have settled into a more comfortable arrangement in the light of morning.

I have a mouth full of syrupy, sweet pancakes when there’s a lull in the conversation,
and Dare looks right at me and says, “What happened to you the night I almost hit you
with my car?”

The kitchen falls silent. As one, the other three men turn to look at me, their gazes just
as questioning as Dare’s.

Ridge speaks up first, cocking his head to one side. “You two have met before?”

I finish chewing my bite of pancakes and wash it down with a slurp of coffee, buying
me some time. I’ve refrained from telling the shifters much about my past beyond
what they’ve already deduced—it’s impossible to hide the scars on my skin, and I
know Ridge got an eyeful of them when he changed my clothes.

I definitely haven’t brought up the night I fled from Uncle Clint’s truck though. It
isn’t even because I want to keep it from them, exactly. Talking about it just feels…
hard.

But I don’t get a sense of pity from Dare when he asks me. In his position, I’d
probably want to know why a frightened, wild-eyed woman nearly made me drive off
the road in the dark too.

“You were running,” Dare adds, glancing around at the other shifters.
At that, Archer says quickly, “We don’t ask about Sable’s past.”

Trystan shoots Dare a murderous look, and Ridge’s shoulders tense as he grips his
fork tightly, like he’s considering whether he’ll need to use it as a weapon or not.

Their protectiveness is sweet, truly. But I can’t keep the pain of my past a secret any
longer. I remember vividly Dare’s haunted eyes last night. He knows pain, just like
Archer does. Just like they all probably do, to some degree. None of these men will
judge me for the things I’ve survived. But maybe knowing those things will help them
understand me better.

Help us connect more.

And no matter how unsure I was about all of this in the beginning, I’m coming to
realize that I truly do want that.

I want to know these men, in every way possible.

“I was running,” I admit, putting down my fork. Even if I’ve worked up the bravery to
sit here and tell them my story, I’ve completely lost my appetite. “My parents both
died a long time ago. I hardly remember them. I was raised by my uncle, who beat and
abused me. Most of you have seen the scars.”

The fury on Ridge’s face is frightening in its intensity, while Archer is looking at me
like he wants to take me in his arms and kiss each and every one of my wounds. Both
Trystan and Dare are watching me intently, waiting to hear more with expressionless
faces.

I clear my throat around the lump rising in it. “He kept me locked away most of my
life. I really only got to leave the house when he hurt me enough to require medical
care. Couldn’t even play outside as a kid. I barely even knew where we lived beyond
that it’s a big white farmhouse on the outskirts of Big Creek.”

It’s talking about the isolation that finally makes me cry.

Crazy that I can easily tell four strangers how my uncle abused me with a completely
straight face, but remembering all those days locked in my room, all those years
without a comforting touch…

That’s what breaks me.

Tears burn the backs of my eyes, stinging painfully with the effort it takes to hold
them back.

“My parents died when I was really little; I don’t even remember them. Uncle Clint
raised me. He was all I had for so long, and I guess in some ways he did take care of
me. He taught me to read, gave me a basic education, and kept me fed and sheltered.”
I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself. “He told me for a long time that the reason
he wouldn’t let me go out, the reason he was so controlling and cruel, was because he
cared about me too much. I used to believe him. But when I finally saw through the
lie, it was like the entire illusion came crumbling down. I was ten the first time he hurt
me. And then…”

I trail off. I don’t want to go into the specifics of everything Clint did, of the
emotional and physical pain I’ve endured at his hands. I’m not sure I can talk about it
without breaking down entirely, and I really don’t want to do that.

“I never felt safe enough to run away,” I say, self-conscious about the way the words
come out weak and strangled. “If I tried and he caught me, I knew he would kill me. I
never felt like it would be… I didn’t even try. I was weak.”

All four men are tense now, staring at me with a mixture of sympathy and rage. The
rage, I know, isn’t directed at me. But the sympathy washes over me like a cool
breeze on a hot day, calming the rapid pounding of my heart a little.

“We were coming home from the hospital that night,” I say, finally getting around to
Dare’s question as I meet his gaze. “He… pushed me down the stairs and thought he
had broken my arm. The doctor tried to help me; he was suspicious of Clint and
wanted to ask me questions alone. But I was too scared, even then. I threw away the
lifeline he offered me.”

My throat tightens as I swallow, remembering the pity in Doctor Patil’s eyes.

“Then on the way back, a deer ran out in front of my uncle’s truck. He slammed on
the brakes and we came to a stop just in time. We were angled half across the road. I
looked out and saw the deer we almost hit and realized it was freer than I was. I had
this moment of absolute clarity, and I just—I just threw the door open and ran. Right
in front of your car,” I add with a shaky smile.

Silence falls over the room as I finish speaking.

I hate that I’ve brought down the mood. It was a nice breakfast, somewhat
lighthearted and full of energy. A vast improvement over last night. And I’ve ruined
that. Although my life story couldn’t do anything but bring the mood down, even if it
isn’t my fault.

“I should have run sooner,” I murmur, wrapping my fingers around the warm coffee
mug in front of me. I finally lose my battle against the burning tears, and they spill
over the corners of my eyes. “I should have been stronger.”

To my left, Trystan shifts forward. He reaches out with one finger and brushes away
the tear sliding toward my jaw line. My breath catches in my throat, my body reacting
to his touch as if an electric current flows between us.

I look at him, our eyes meeting. He’s such a proud, cocksure kind of guy, so hard to
read, but his face is an open book right now.

Then, before I can fully process what he’s doing, he leans in and kisses me.

It isn’t hard or demanding, not like I would have expected from him. His lips lock
with mine, warm and firm, sending a tingle up my spine, but he releases me without
taking it further.

“You’re not weak,” he says gruffly, tucking his fingers into my hair and cupping my
face gently. “You did whatever it took to survive. That’s strength, Sable. The greatest
kind of strength there is.”

hapter 24
Sable
Trystan’s eyesare the most beautiful blue-green. They look like I imagine the ocean
would look, and I feel like I’m drowning in them as he draws back a little, still
holding my gaze.

He’s such a confusing mix of conflicting pieces, this man. More of a mystery to me
than any of the other three—even Dare, who I just met. Trystan often seems to look
down at the rest of the world from on high, as if he’s got everything figured out and is
just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

But then he does things like this, and it’s like a whole other side of him emerges.
A softer side.

A kinder side.

I want to know this side of him better. I want to understand him, to get inside his
head.

His hand is still cupping my cheek, and we’re gazing into each other’s eyes as if we’re
the only two people in the world. But then Dare shifts slightly on one side of me, and
Trystan’s body gives a little jerk as he seems to remember we’re not alone.

The veneer of casual, languid confidence falls back over his face, although softness
still lingers in his eyes as he presses up to stand.

Ridge grips my hand gently. “He’s right, Sable. I knew it as soon as I found you that
night. You were all banged up, looking like a boxer who’d just gone eight rounds.
Looking like a fighter.”

I certainly didn’t feel like a fighter that night. I was still nursing injuries from the man
who abused me for most of my life as I fled through the woods like a frightened deer.
What part of that does he suppose is representative of a fighter?

Maybe there are more ways to fight than just one, a quiet voice murmurs in my
head. Maybe sometimes running is fighting. Fighting to stay alive, just like Trystan
said.

“Thanks,” I mutter quietly.

I’m fucking terrible at taking compliments, maybe because I haven’t received many of
them in my life. Clint was great at hurling insults, and I got pretty good at letting the
harshest ones rebound off the armor I built around my heart.

But compliments?

My fortifications aren’t meant to withstand those, and I don’t quite know what to do
with the warm feeling that floods my chest.

Archer leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek, his lips lingering for a second. When
he pulls back, he gives me a little smile.
“I think today should be Sable Day,” he says, glancing at the men gathered around me
as he speaks. “It should be dedicated to doing something fun. Whatever Sable wants.
What do you think?”

There are nods all around, and the warm feeling in my chest expands until it seems to
fill my whole body. I’m positive I’m blushing a little as Archer looks back at me.

“Anything you’d like to do?”

“Um…” I chew on my lip, considering the question. “Could we go outside? I mean,

farther away from the cabin than just to chop wood?”

I don’t add that after spending so much of my life trapped in a single house, I’m
developing a craving for open spaces and sunlight—but I don’t need to. It seems like
they can all sense my unspoken words anyway, and my suggestion is met with an
enthusiastic response.

We clean up from breakfast, then head out the back door toward the stream where
Dare found me last night. We turn right, following the edge of the small stream
through the woods.

As the cabin disappears amidst the trees behind us, I slow my steps a little to fall in
beside Ridge, who’s bringing up the rear of the group.

“Is it safe for us to leave the cabin like this? I mean, I know you guys go out to hunt,
but…”

“It’s safe.” He nods, although I don’t miss the way his gaze stays alert as he takes in
our surroundings. “As safe as it’s possible to be with witches in the world anyway.
We burned sigils into trees in a boundary that encompasses all of the pack lands. It’s
possible for witches to get through, but it makes it harder for them to come en masse.
Harder for them to attack in numbers. And you’re with four alphas.” He glances down
at me with a reassuring smile. “We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

I ignore the tingle that runs down my spine at the way he looks at me, focusing on
what he just told me instead. “What do the sigils do? You’ve mentioned them before,
but I don’t really get it. Are they magic? I thought the only magic shifters had was…
well, shifting.”

“That is the only magic we have.” Archer drops back to join us, ending up on my
other side so I’m bookended by him and Ridge. “But sigils themselves hold power.
Witches infuse them with magic, which makes them far stronger than any we could
ever create. But anyone who knows how to form the proper sigils can wield the
inherent power in those runes.”

I blink, trying to process that new piece of information. It’s still sometimes hard to
believe I’m having conversations where the word “magic” is said in total seriousness.

“So you use magic against the witches?”

“We use every tool we have against the witches,” Ridge says, a hint of a growl
entering his voice as he scans the trees again. Then he nudges me gently. “We use
sigils for more than that though. Remember how your arm and ankle were nearly
healed after your second night at my house? Our elders use sigils for a variety of
purposes, including the creation of healing poultices and tinctures. And it’s also how
Elder Jihoon determined that there’s a wolf in you. His dowsing rods are powered by
sigils.”

It’s hard to believe that was just over a week ago. It feels like it might as well be
another lifetime, and the entirety of my upbringing in my uncle’s house sometimes
feels it must be just a very long, very horrible dream. Out here in the woods, with the
sun shining and the birds twittering in the trees, it’s hard to believe so much evil can
exist in the world.

Of course, it can.

And I’ll never be able to forget that.

I’ll always bear the scars of my past, both the ones on the outside and the ones on the
inside.

But right now, I can allow myself to believe that maybe—one day—they might fade.

We walk for several more minutes before the creek widens out into a small pond.
Dare and Trystan got ahead of us, deep in a conversation that’s the most civil I’ve
seen them manage so far. By the time we catch up to them, Dare is kicking off his
jeans. Trystan shoots me a wink before tugging his shirt over his head and shucking
his jeans too.

Then magic ripples over both of them as they shift.

They pad toward the shoreline and step in, letting the water ripple around their paws.
Beside me, Ridge gives one more scan of our surroundings before nodding to Archer.
The two of them strip too, quickly and perfunctorily. Archer told me once that a
shifter could make the transition fully clothed, but their clothes don’t tend to survive
the process. So to avoid wasting perfectly good clothing, they always undress first
unless it’s an emergency.

As I watch the two wolves join the others in the pond, a wave of unexpected longing
washes through me.

I wish I could join them.

And I don’t just mean in the water.

I wish I could shift too.

But I want Archer to get his wish. I want today to be a fun day, a lighthearted day, so I
push any melancholy feelings aside and step forward, kicking off my shoes and
rolling up my borrowed pants so I can wade in the shallows as the wolves splash
around.

The water is probably runoff from higher up in the mountains, so it’s just this side of
freezing despite the warmth in the early spring air. It’s crystal clear and has that crisp
scent I love though, so I hold out as long as I can before my numb toes force me back
onto land.

The men seem to take their cue from me, and as soon as I leave the water, they follow
after me.

Dare gives a mighty shake, sending water spraying in all directions as his damp fur
puffs out from his body. I laugh, holding up a hand to shield myself as the others all
shake off too. When magic shimmers over their bodies, I suddenly take a great interest
in the birds flitting among the branches above us—although I’d be lying if I said my
gaze didn’t slip back downward once or twice, catching on broad shoulders, thick
thighs, and perfectly sculpted muscles.

After the men are all dressed again, we walk a little farther around the pond.

I find myself hiking next to Dare, and I can’t stop myself from shooting little glances
his way. I’m so curious about him, and I have dozens of questions I’m dying to ask.
But even though I told the men my sad life story this morning, I’m hesitant to ask him
about his.

I know the basics already—witches attacked his entire pack and sent the survivors
scattering to the wind. Asking for more details feels a little like slowing down and
gawking at the scene of an accident or something. I don’t want to make him dredge up
horrible memories just to satisfy my own morbid curiosity.

So when he catches me glancing at him for the third time, I blurt out the first question
I can think of that doesn’t have to do with the decimation of his pack.

“Does it hurt?”

His brows furrow. “What?”

God, Sable. Be more awkward. Please.

I take a breath, then speak at a more normal speed. “The shift. When you turn from a
man into a wolf or back. Does it hurt?”

His dark brown eyes focus on me, and I remember what they looked like last night in
the moonlight, deep and mysterious. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to look at him and
not think of that moment. It feels like it’s still imprinted on my skin, on my soul.

“Nah, it doesn’t hurt.” His gruff voice drags me from my thoughts. “Most of us start
shifting when we’re just cubs, so it might be a bit different for you. But it’s not like
being ripped apart and reformed. The magic washes through you and then it’s done. It
feels good in a way, like meeting your other half. Your better half.”

His expression softens a little, and I wonder if he thinks his wolf is his better half. Do
all shifters feel that way?

“That sounds… nice,” I admit.

And it does. I was terrified by the idea that I might not be entirely human at first, but
the idea isn’t nearly as frightening as it once was.

What would I be like as a wolf? Would I be stronger than I am as a human? More

confident? Would I trust my instincts more?

Maybe Dare can see the wistfulness in my eyes, because he gives a soft snort. “I
said better, not perfect. Wolves have good instincts, but we can make mistakes just
like anyone.”

For a second, I think maybe he’s talking about the mate bond, and how four different
shifters have somehow claimed that bond with me. But when I look up at him again,
his features are hard, his gaze unfocused—and I realize he’s thinking of something
else entirely.

He’s thinking of the thing I promised myself I wouldn’t ask about.

“I’m sorry. About your pack.”

The words come out before I can stop them. I press my lips together like that’ll keep
me from blurting out anything else as Dare’s body goes stiff beside mine. We’re
walking close enough to each other that I can feel the change in him immediately, and
my own body reacts to the tension in his.

“Thank you.”

His voice is low and rough, and he doesn’t meet my eyes as he speaks. I can’t tell if I
made anything better or just made everything worse. The overwhelming urge to reach
out to him rises up in me, making my fingers itch to thread through his. I want to hold
his hand or wrap my arms around his waist, and this impulse has nothing to do with
the scorching heat that flared between us when he caged me in his embrace last night.

This urge is deeper and more complex than that.

I want to help him.

I want to heal him.

But I don’t know if I can, or whether I even have a right to try. I don’t know if he’d
welcome that kind of touch from me, or what it would mean if he did.

So I just shoot him a soft smile and then move away to give him space, quickening my
steps to join Archer and Trystan at the head of our little pack.

“Hey, Sable. You gettin’ your sunshine fix?” Archer greets me with a grin, draping an
arm over my shoulders.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

I let myself melt against his body a little, my own arm instinctively going around his
waist. It feels safe here. Comfortable.

When I glance over my shoulder, I find Dare watching me. The expression on his face
is no longer hard and stoic. Instead, there’s a softness in his features that makes me
think maybe, just maybe, if I’d reached out—he would’ve let me.
hapter 25
Sable
Over the next several days,things begin to shift between the five of us.

It’s hard to believe how quickly these men have become a huge part of my life. I can
barely remember when they weren’t in my life, even though it was barely two weeks
ago that Ridge found me in that ravine. There are still plenty of things I don’t know
about them and things they don’t know about me. But I’ve stopped holding myself
back as much, letting down little pieces of the barrier around my heart.

It meant more than I thought it would to tell my story out loud and have these four
beautiful, protective men look at me the same way they did before they knew how
fucked up my life has been.

I know they all hate my uncle, and I know they all hurt for me.

But they don’t look at me like I’m broken.

Damaged.

Ruined.

They look at me like they always have, since pretty much the first moment I met
them.

Like I’m special.

Like I’m perfect—just the way I am.

It’s a balm to my soul, and their acceptance of even my broken parts makes it easier to
trust them with more of myself. So I do.

We take more walks together, never venturing too far from the cabin and always as a
group. But I move between the men, finding time to talk to each of them, getting to
know them better in small increments. Thankfully, my newfound level of comfort
with them makes me a slightly less awkward conversationalist than before, and the
low-level panic that was my constant companion for so long bleeds away slowly.
Even my nightmares are growing less intense.

I’m not the only one who’s growing more relaxed either. The men seem to have
buried the hatchet, at least somewhat. They’re no longer always tense and glaring at
one another as if they’re in competition. They’ve come to a truce, with me at the
center of it.

On the sixth day after Dare’s addition to our little group, Ridge walks into the living
room after dinner. The sun is setting, its last rays filling the cabin with a soft orange
light, and it catches his silhouette perfectly as he stands near the couch, waggling
something in his hand.

“Look what I found.”

I have to force my attention away from his handsome face, and when I get a look at
what he’s holding, my brows scrunch up. “Cards?”

“Yup.” His gaze darts to the men who are gathered around me on the couch and chair.
“What do you say? Poker?”

“Fuck, yes.” Trystan gives a cocky smile, looking pleased.

Uncle Clint used to have his buddies over for poker sometimes, and I had a love/hate
relationship with those game nights. I liked them because they usually gave me an
evening of respite from my uncle. But most of his friends were creepy and gross, and
on nights when Clint drank too much or lost too much money, he’d take it out on me
after they left.

And it was only ever men he invited over to play, so for some reason I assume Ridge
is only talking to the guys—until all four of them turn to me expectantly.

“You in?” Archer asks.

Oh. Right. Of course.

These men aren’t my uncle or any of his friends. They actually want to spend time
with me, and they care about what I want.

That simple truth hits me in the chest like a ton of bricks, and for a moment, I’m too
overwhelmed by emotion to answer.
I really don’t want to start crying just because they asked me to play cards with them
though; they already know I’m an emotional mess, but at some point, they’re gonna
start thinking I’m straight-up crazy.

So I clear my throat to buy an extra second to collect myself, then glance at Ridge. “I
don’t know how to play.”

“Well, that’s easy enough to fix.” He smiles down at me, then jerks his head toward
the back of the cabin. “Come on. We can use the table in the kitchen.”

I get up and follow the guys into the little kitchen, a little thrill of excitement running
through me. Ridge and Trystan light a few candles to keep the gathering darkness at
bay while Dare and Archer give me a run-down on how poker works.

To be honest, nothing they say makes any sense to me. Archer tries to break it down
into manageable pieces, but Dare keeps throwing in his own two cents, and they’re
using words like “big blind,” “flop,” and “river,” none of which make any sense to
me.

When they finish their explanation and find me staring at them like I’m still waiting
for them to start, Archer chuckles. “Maybe we should play a few rounds open-handed.
We can guide you through it and you can see what we’re talking about.”

I blink. “You’d do that? You wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not.” He smiles, his blue eyes warm. “We can play that way all night. I
don’t think any of us really care.”

I half-expect Trystan to snort at that. I saw the competitive gleam in his eye when
Ridge first suggested poker, and I have a feeling he was looking forward to trying to
kick the other men’s asses at the game. But no objection comes, and when I glance his
way, he pats the seat next to him, inviting me over.

A new wave of feeling rises in my chest. These men are all so patient with me, about
big things and little things—and I know it’s not because they’re patient people in
general.

It’s because of me.

Because they care about me.

I still don’t quite know how to handle that, and the parts of me that my uncle left
battered and broken still don’t quite believe it. But these four shifter men prove it
through their actions day after day, and I hope someday I really can trust that this is all
real.

Ridge deals the first hand, and the guys talk me through the rules and strategy as we
begin to play open-handed. The things Archer and Dare were saying make a lot more
sense when I can see them with my own eyes, and I ask a lot of questions, absorbing
everything I can.

We play two rounds like that, and I think the men really would be content to play this
way all night. They seem to be getting as much enjoyment out of teaching me as they
do out of the game itself. Trystan grins widely as he explains what “tells” are and how
to look for them, and Dare flips him off when Trystan points out that he has a terrible
poker face.

It’s actually kind of true. Dare can be stoic and hard-edged, and I can’t always tell
what he’s thinking. But I rarely have a hard time guessing what he’s feeling. He wears
his emotions on his sleeve, and they radiate out from him like a palpable aura.

“Okay. I think I’m ready,” I say as Archer shuffles the deck. “We can play a real
round if you want.”

“You sure?” He glances up at me, candlelight warming his green eyes.

“Yeah.”

I grin, scooting my chair a little closer to the table. Truthfully, I’m still not sure I
understand everything about this game. There are a lot of bits I’m a little fuzzy on, but
I want to try playing a regular game.

“All right.” Archer grins at me, then deals the cards face down.

We start to play, and I immediately realize I’ve made a mistake. I thought I had a
handle on this game, but now that I’m trying to strategize on my own, I feel a little out
of my depth again.

So I focus on what Trystan told me about tells and study each of the men gathered
around the table with me, trying to guess whether they’ve got a good hand. I can at
least do that, even if I don’t quite remember whether my hand is good or bad.
They look back at me, their gazes just as penetrating as mine, and I realize with a start
that this is my favorite part of the game—having an excuse to stare at these men.

The candlelight casts their faces in shadow, making them look beautiful and almost
otherworldly. Archer’s blond hair gleams like gold as he runs a hand through it, and
Dare presses his full lips together as he contemplates whether to call or fold. Trystan’s
gaze slides to mine, and I can practically see the glee dancing behind his turquoise
eyes.

He’s having fun.

They all are. And so am I.

It’s a little thing in some ways, just like their willingness to take the time to teach me.
But in other ways, it’s everything. For entire years of my life, “fun” was something
foreign to me, so far outside the realm of my experience that it might as well be
another language.

But right now, sitting around a table with four burly men—four wolf shifters—it feels
easy.

It feels right.

I could happily spend months out here in this cabin, with nothing to do all day but
cook, eat, talk, and explore the woods. Part of me wishes we could stay here forever,
even though I know that’s not possible. I might not have responsibilities beyond these
four walls, but the men do. I can tell that all of them, even Dare, worry sometimes
about the duties they’re neglecting while they hole up here.

They have packs that rely on them, and once my wolf finally appears and makes her
choice, this blissful little bubble will burst and reality will come flooding back in.

It will happen sooner or later. I know it will.

Nothing this good can last forever.

But as I glance around the table at my four companions, narrowing my eyes in mock
suspicion as I hold my cards close to my face, I wonder how on earth my wolf will
ever choose.

How can she, when I can’t?

hapter 26
Sable
The sun is settingover the mountains, already casting a purple twilight over the cabin.

It’s hunting time.

Since Dare’s arrival at the cabin nine days ago, he’s joined the hunting party every
night. I get the sense that he likes spending time as a wolf, that he needs it, almost. A
break from the stresses and strains of being a human, I guess. I don’t know.

Archer gives me a sweet kiss on the cheek, and Trystan taps my nose with his finger,
grinning at the way I scrunch up my face at him. Dare’s gaze lingers on me before he
joins the other two in the yard.

“Don’t be gone too long,” I say.

“We’ll be back before you know it,” Trystan promises, before giving me a wicked
smile and shoving his shorts to his ankles.

A hot flush rises in my neck, and I fight the urge to fan myself as all three men
disrobe in the front yard. Before I can fall into the trap of looking at things I shouldn’t
be, they shimmer with the magic of the change. A moment later, three large wolves
dash off into the forest to find dinner.

I’ve started to love watching them shift, but in the same breath, I feel… envious.
Shifting is this beautiful, magical thing that seems incredibly out of my reach.

I find Ridge in the kitchen, chopping carrots on a beat-up cutting board while a pot of
water boils on the wood stove. I love watching him cook. Where Archer is lively and
talkative about cooking, Ridge goes silent and contemplative, working with an
impressive precision. The two of them have made every meal a delicious experience.

His posture shifts a little as soon as I walk into the room, the same way it always does.
These men are so attuned to me that it sometimes feels like they’re attached to me
somehow, like some kind of invisible cord connects us at all times.

He glances over his shoulder with an easy smile and points at the counter behind me.
“Want to cut potatoes?”
“Sure.” I grab the mesh bag he’s indicated and carry it across the kitchen to his side.
There’s only one cutting board, but luckily it’s a big one, so I grab another knife and
set to work halving the potatoes to throw in the pot. I don’t mind being so close to
him. In fact, I love it. I crave it.

The need to be near them has grown from a subtle impulse to an undeniable, constant
pull over the course of our time here, and I’ve given up fighting it.

They’re all careful to avoid pushing me too far—even Dare, although I feel the
memories of our first meeting hovering over nearly every interaction we have—so I
haven’t kissed any of them since the day Trystan pressed his lips to mine in this very
kitchen.

But they let me touch them all I like. They encourage it even, and I can practically
feel how it soothes them the same way it soothes me.

It awakens something in me too. A heat and a need that refuses to be satisfied with
little touches and chaste kisses.

That feeling still isn’t drawing me toward one of the men over the others though, and
it’s starting to make me question my willpower and my sanity.

They told me. These men and the elders—they all told me that my wolf would choose.

So why hasn’t she?

Where is she?

Those thoughts swirl through my head as I work beside Ridge. Our elbows touch as
we chop, and I can feel the warmth rolling off his skin.

We continue our dinner prep in silence for a few minutes, though he keeps shooting
glances at me, his brow furrowed. He always seems to know when something’s
weighing on me. I don’t know if I’m just that easy to read, or if Ridge has a stronger
intuition than anyone I’ve ever met.

Finally, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

“How do you know something’s wrong?” I toss two halves of a potato into the pot of
water with a soft splash.

He puts down his knife and turns to face me, one eyebrow lifting. “Is there not?”
Letting out a sigh, I put my own knife down and shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just
worried the elder was wrong.”

“About what exactly?” Ridge steps closer, reaching out to squeeze my hand.

“About me being a shifter. If I’ll ever shift. Maybe I’m not really one of you,” I say,
voice small. Until saying it out loud, I never really gave that particular fear too much
power in my mind. Now that I have, I realize I really am worried this is all a fluke.
Maybe it’s been nothing but a huge misunderstanding.

I’m not a shifter.

None of these men will ever belong to me.

All of this is just a brief moment of blissful peace and happiness, a short interlude
before I’ll have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

How to survive on my own.

But Ridge shakes his head adamantly, his other hand lifting to touch my chest, right
over my heart. “You’re wrong about that, sweetheart. She’s in there. I can feel her,
and I know she’ll come out soon.”

His smile is so gentle, so kind. Just as he’s been every step of the way with me.

There’s something else there too, beneath that comforting relationship we’ve formed.
The thing that always lingers between us, demanding more.

More.

Our fingers are still entwined, and his palm rests between my breasts. Amora was so
generous to give me clothes for this adventure, but she only gave me one bra. And it’s
hanging over the shower curtain rod to dry after I washed it in the sink this morning.

If he moved his hand just a couple inches…

Desire swirls inside me, and I blush at my own wantonness. Step away, I tell myself,
trying to force my feet to move, but it’s too late. I watch, mesmerized, as Ridge smells
the change in my body chemistry.

He stiffens, his hand hot on my chest. His pupils expand, and his lips part.
I’m too attracted to him to care that he knows my inner desires, too swept up in the
heat building strong and fast inside me. I can’t stop imagining his hand shifting to the
right, our bodies coming together, and dammit, I want him to make the first move
because I’m a coward.

But he won’t. I know he won’t, because he’s Ridge.

He’s a good man.

Too good.

It’s that thought that unsticks my feet from the floor. He is good, and that’s why I’m
coming to care for him so much. But right now I want him to let go of that goodness,
that protective worry he has for me, just a little bit.

I want to be bad. And I want him to join me.

I take a small step toward him, angling my body just enough that his hand slides over
my breast. The moment he realizes I’m braless, his expression darkens with unfiltered
desire.

“Sable…” He mutters gruffly, letting my name trail off. I love the sound of my name
on his lips.

Arching my back, I close my eyes against the way the fabric bunches around his
fingers, scraping over my nipple. Ridge hasn’t moved a muscle, even as my nipple
pebbles beneath his fingertips. There’s something in his expression that says he’s just
as surprised at my behavior as I am.

Suddenly, his fingers tighten over my swollen nipple, and I gasp at the way the pinch
goes straight to the wet heat between my legs. Ridge curses, his nostrils flaring.

And then his lips crash into mine.

This kiss isn’t as frantic as the one I shared with Dare on the bank of the stream, but
it’s just as consuming. I go hot in his arms as he shoves me back against the kitchen
counter, grinding his hips against mine. His hands move lower and then he lifts me
onto the counter, opening my legs around his hips.

My arms wrap around his neck as I clutch at him a little desperately, my legs hooking
around his waist like I’m trying to pin our bodies together. To bind us so closely
nothing can pull us apart.
I’ve been wanting to do this for longer than I could ever admit. I’ve needed this for
fucking days.

His lips part, and his tongue dances with mine as his hands slide beneath my shirt.
When he cups my bare breasts with his calloused hands, I moan into his kiss, my head
whirling from the rush of adrenaline and arousal in my veins.

After several moments, he pulls away, both his hands emerging from beneath my shirt
to cup my face. He looks into my eyes, breathing heavily, his own cheeks flushed.

God, I like him like this. I love the sight of him coming a little bit undone, and I love
knowing that I’m the one who made him that way.

This massive, powerful, controlled man wants me.

Needsme.

And I need him too.

“Ridge, I…” My tongue darts out to lick my lips, tasting the addictive flavor of him
on my skin. I don’t know quite what I want to say, what I want to ask for, but I hope
he can understand.

The wolf shifter’s amber eyes almost seem to glow in the fading light. He opens his
mouth to speak when a soft noise comes from behind the cabin.

He goes tense, his gaze darting to the back door.

“Do you think they’re already back?” I ask, confused by his reaction. If it were only
Trystan, Archer, and Dare outside, I don’t think he’d look so ready to fight. My skin
prickles with unease.

Ridge’s senses are on full alert. Even in human form, he looks like a wolf, with his
nose in the air and his eyes unfocused as he listens to sounds well outside my range of
hearing. “No. I don’t think so. That’s not anyone I know.”

Fear strikes a chord within me, and I fight the urge to run. “A stranger?”

Ridge catches my frightened gaze and briefly touches my face, then murmurs, “Stay
here.”

Before I can argue, he leaves me sitting on the counter and disappears through the
back door into the darkening night.
I clutch the counter beside my legs and feel that old hysteria rising up inside me. I
never fully realized how calm and normal my time here at the cabin has become, but
it’s obvious now. My panic attacks have become so few and far between that they
don’t feel real anymore. The cabin has turned into a safe place, somewhere I can be
me without fear of abuse or judgment.

But now there’s something here that doesn’t fit that narrative.

No sounds emerge from behind the cabin. Ridge closed the door behind him. I’m sure
he did it because he wanted to protect me, but I don’t like not being able to hear
what’s happening. What if he’s in danger? I glance at the counter where our two
knives are lying by the cutting board. If all else fails, at least I have a weapon. Of
sorts.

The clock on the wall ticks loudly in the silence, counting each second since Ridge
walked out. I strain to hear anything beyond the cabin walls, wishing I had the
preternatural senses of a shifter.

It’s okay, Sable. It’s probably nothing.

I repeat the comforting words to myself, trying to believe them. Trying not to let my
old fears run away with me.

Any moment, Ridge will probably walk back through the door with a grin, telling me
he found possums in the trash.

But I know that’s not the case. Ridge didn’t smell an animal outside. He smelled a
person. “That’s not anyone I know.”

A loud pop breaks the mountain silence, and I jump, toppling off the counter in my
shock. I’ve heard gunfire before, back when Clint and his friends would drink too
much and go out to shoot Coke bottles in the yard, and I’m almost positive that’s what
just came from behind the cabin.

My heart seizes in my chest.

Ridge.

A wave of fear and adrenaline like I’ve never known surges through me, so powerful
it feels like I got struck by lightning.

Not Ridge. No.

Nothing can happen to the large, serious man who’s my protector, my savior, since
the very first moment I met him. It can’t. I won’t let it.

I reach for the biggest of the two knives with trembling fingers, my heart racing as
though it’s trying to beat a hole in my sternum. Who knows how much good it will
do. It’s not like a knife could do any good in a gunfight, but the weight of it in my
hand steadies my nerves.

Could the witches have found us?

Maybe that sound wasn’t a gunshot at all, but the sound of something magical, some
kind of spell that knocked him out.

Or killed him, the terrified part of my mind suggests darkly.

My knife won’t do any good against magic either.

In this moment, that hardly matters though. The thought of Ridge out there, alone and
in trouble, is enough to send me darting toward the back door, spurred on by the
primal need to keep him safe.

I’m halfway down the hall when the door swings open. But instead of Ridge, another
familiar face appears in my vision as a man strides inside, blasting apart the safety and
comfort of this cabin.

Uncle Clint.

“Found you, you little shit,” he snarls, then stalks toward me.

Everything inside me screams at me to react, but terror has turned me to ice. For a
second, it’s as if the past two weeks never happened. It’s as if I never stepped foot
outside of Uncle Clint’s truck that night, never dared to step out of line.

For a second, I’m nothing but the scared little girl he beat and abused for years just
because he could.

It’s my fear for Ridge that brings me back from that place. Fear for the man I’ve come
to care for that reminds me these two weeks did happen—that I’m not the same girl I
was.

As Clint nears me, I lash out with the knife, slicing wildly toward him. My movement
is jerky, but I don’t think he was expecting it, because I manage to catch the edge of
his arm with the tip of the blade. The sharp knife tears through his flannel shirt before
biting into skin, and he hisses in pain, jerking back.

An ugly look crosses his face, and he charges forward, blood dripping from the gash
in his arm.

Before I can slash again, he grabs me by the arm, his fingers hard and bruising, and
bats the knife away from my hand with his gun. Sharp pain cracks across my knuckles
as the gun makes contact, and my only means of protecting myself skitters away over
the kitchen floor, little droplets of blood flying from the blade.

“You little cunt. Thought you got all tough out here in the fuckin’ woods, huh? Did
your boyfriend teach you that?” he snarls.

However deep I managed to cut his arm, it clearly wasn’t deep enough. His grip is
strong as he hauls me into a headlock, pinning my back to his chest. Then he drags me
toward the door, the barrel of the gun pressed to my temple.

I’ve lost the ability to move my feet, and I collapse against his grip on my arm, my
legs dragging uselessly on the floor. This is the culmination of every nightmare I’ve
had since running away from him, the thing I told myself would never
happen. Could never happen.

Maybe I should’ve known better.

I hold out hope that Ridge is outside, that Clint didn’t shoot him dead, and when we
emerge, he’ll be waiting to tear my uncle’s throat out.

But that hope is ripped to shreds when Clint drags me out over the cool grass and into
the night—past Ridge’s limp, still body.

hapter 27
Trystan
I never thoughtI’d enjoy hunting with shifters outside my pack, but these dumb fucks
actually make it enjoyable.
I’ve known Archer for most of my life, though not in any kind of familiar context.
Just as that dude who’s dad is the dying alpha of the East Pack and who probably isn’t
strong enough to take the mantle when the old man croaks.

But he surprises me when we’re on the hunt. I had little doubt before that Dare was
just as strong and skilled as me, but Archer is too. We work together like a well-oiled
machine, evenly matched and able to anticipate each other’s moves.

I fly over the undergrowth into position, forming a third point on our triangle around
the herd of grazing deer. There are five of them to choose from, all with their noses in
the grass in a small field, completely oblivious to the threat surrounding them.
Whoever can’t run fast enough is going to be dinner.

The wind carries me Dare’s scent, and I can see Archer just beyond the shadow of
fading sunlight. We’re in place. Excitement courses through my veins, and I let out a
barely audible yip. As one, the three of us leap forward.

The deer scatter on our approach. As we crash into the clearing, they panic and try to
find an opening to run, to escape us before we can take them down. We rush around
them, growling and snapping, and the stronger deer make their escape.

That’s okay, because we aren’t there for the strongest, fastest deer. Once they’re in
flight, the one we want is well behind and not capable of fleeing. The fastest deer get
to live another day; the slowest gets to feed a bunch of hungry shifters.

Dare reaches our prey first and takes her down with a well-placed leap and a snap of
his jaws. Within moments, her blood is cooling on the grass and her companions are
long gone.

The circle of fucking life.

If we were out here for funsies, we’d just rip into her as is and have ourselves a raw
feast. I love hunts like that, getting my snout bloody beneath the open sky, the meat
still warm as we tear into it. But we’re feeding Sable too, which means taking the deer
back to the cabin and tossing it on the grill. I’m not picky. I like it both ways.

We shift back and hover over the beast, eyeing our handiwork.

“Nice takedown,” I tell Dare as he wipes his mouth. And I mean it.

“No better than you would have done yourself,” he replies with a shrug. “Archer’s
strategy was the real MVP here.”
Archer grins, then leans over to grab the deer’s front legs. “It was a team effort. Come
on, let’s get this back.”

I pick up the back legs, and we heft the beast up before beginning to follow our own
scent trails back toward the cabin. Conversation between us comes a lot easier now
than it did a few days ago. I don’t know that I’d call them friends, exactly, but I feel a
lot less animosity toward them than I once did.

All because of a sexy little blonde who owns each and every one of my thoughts.

The generator is on in the cabin, so we see the lights from the windows through the
trees before we see the building itself. The steady thwump thwump of the generator
purring at the side of the structure is an out of place white noise on the silent night.
I’m not a fan of the thing, since it inhibits our ability to hear properly outside the
cabin. If witches were to find a way onto North Pack territory, they could sneak up on
us when that thing’s going, and we might not be the wiser until it was too late. It’s a
hazard, and I’ve said so.

But light is one of the few things that keeps Sable’s darkness at bay, so every night
without fail, we turn on the generator. Her comfort is paramount. To all of us.

We’re just beyond the tree line when alarm bells start ringing in my head. At the same
instant, Dare and Archer stiffen beside me, their noses turning to the air.

“Something’s wrong,” Dare growls.

“A stranger,” Archer adds, turning his wide eyes on me.

We both let go of the deer in the same instant, letting it drop to the ground behind us
as we break into a run.

Our footsteps pound over the undergrowth as we rush to the cabin. My heart’s
pounding wildly, a savage thing in my chest. All I can think of is Sable, getting to her
and finding her safe.

My stomach drops when we come across Ridge’s body lying prone in the backyard,
while the back door stands open to the night.

Archer kneels beside Ridge’s form and checks his pulse, then gently turns his head to
expose an oblong object poking from his neck. He tugs it out of Ridge’s skin and
holds it up to the light.
“Fuck. A tranquilizer.” His voice is stark with fear as he looks up at the house.

Dare and I both rush inside at once, nearly getting jammed in the goddamn doorway
as we race into the kitchen.

It’s empty.

He heads toward the front of the cabin while I sweep the bedroom and bathroom.
When he meets me back in the hallway, I can tell by the devastation on his face that
Sable is gone.

“Nothing.” His voice sounds dead, blank almost, like he has to turn off every emotion
inside him just to get the damn word out.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

I could punch a hole through the wall. I could tear this cabin down with my bare
hands right now. But neither of those things would get us closer to getting Sable back,
and that’s the only thing that matters right now.

She’s the only thing that matters.

I jerk my chin toward the door, and the two of us rush back out into the night.

Outside, Archer is helping a woozy Ridge sit up. I’m surprised at the rush of relief I
feel that he’s okay. Although we’ve never been enemies, I wouldn’t have called us
friends either until recently. But I’m thankful as fuck that he’s not dead.

Ridge groans, rubbing the back of his neck where Archer yanked the dart out.
“Someone snuck up on me. I heard a noise out here, and I came to check it out…” He
trails off and looks up, his eyes so wide I can see the whites all the way around.
“Sable?”

“She’s gone,” I tell him, my voice rough as fucking gravel.

Ridge launches to his feet so fast he almost keels right back over, but Archer grabs
him and steadies him.

“We have to find her.” Ridge shakes his head, looking half-drunk as his body fights
off the tranquilizers in his system. “I didn’t like the smell of this guy. Fucking
sociopath.”

“You don’t think her uncle…” Archer lets the half-formed question die out.
Fury blooms through me, and I snarl.

Yes. I do think. Witches wouldn’t have used a fucking tranq gun, they would’ve used
magic. “We have to find her.”

As one, the four of us immediately shift back to our wolf forms. Ridge is unsteady on
his feet, but he gives himself a good shake and pushes Archer’s golden wolf away as
he tries to help.

You’re too drugged to go with us, I tell him. Don’t be an idiot. Go lie down.

I’m going, Ridge snaps back.

Dare puts his head down near the edge of the cabin’s clearing, sniffing the ground
erratically. Then he stiffens, his hackles rising and his nose turning into the wind. His
howl pierces the night, and then we’re all racing after him.

We fly through the shadowy forest, following Sable’s scent and the scent of the man
who took her. I can tell where she gave up walking and he picked her up to carry her
through the woods. Where there were once two scent trails, there's suddenly only one
on the ground, with Sable just a hint on the air, already dying away.

Just the thought of that man’s hands on her makes me see red. My jaws itch to rip his
throat out.

I’ll fucking destroy him.

The trail takes us out of the woods and onto a small, dirt service trail. These exist
throughout the mountains, placed here by the government or by thrill seekers looking
to have an adventure in the wilderness. The wolf packs typically avoid them—out of
sight, out of mind, and all that. The last thing we need is a thrill seeking hiker with a
GoPro on his helmet catching footage of a shifter transforming.

But the scent trail ends at fresh tire tracks. The fucker put Sable in a car and took off
with her.

Archer speaks up in my mind. A big white farmhouse on the outskirts of Big Creek.
That’s what she said.

Ridge nods once. It’s about twenty miles from here.

Dare shakes himself. You know where we’re going?

I do, Ridge says.

Then lead the way, I tell him, ready to follow him to the ends of the earth to save
her. We’ve got your back.

The moon is rising over the mountains as we settle into a full-on sprint, following
Ridge on a straight line for more populated areas.

Fear eats me alive. I never knew I could be so attached to someone, but Sable is one
of the fiercest, sweetest creatures I’ve ever met.

And there’s not a chance in hell I’ll let anything happen to her.

hapter 28
Sable
When I open my eyes,there’s a steady throbbing in my head that makes me think I
might explode.

I can place the origin for the pain too. I remember seeing my uncle’s jacked-up truck
sitting on a dirt road several miles beyond the cabin. At the sight of it, adrenaline
pumped through me and turned me crazy. I knew without a doubt if I let him put me
in that truck, I was as good as dead. So I kicked and punched and screamed as if my
life depended on it, which it likely did.

Unfortunately, my uncle’s never been one to be squeamish about silencing my

screams.

I saw his gun hurtling toward my temple, and that’s the last thing I remember beyond
flashes of a hard floor and the rumble of his truck as he drove me away from my only
means of protection.

They’ll never find me.

I fight back tears, because I refuse to give in to this situation. Clint won’t break me. I
won’t fucking let him. I’ll fight like he’s never seen before—I’ll scream and claw and
do whatever I can to hurt him before he kills me.
I recognize the four cold concrete walls around me. The antique metal Bud Light sign
hanging by a long, narrow window filled with thick glass. The work bench along the
wall covered in tools he rarely touched, and the paint canisters covered in a layer of
dust. I know this basement all too well, as the place where I was punished when he
felt like I needed an extra heavy hand.

I’m on my side, facing the work bench with the vises he’s used on me more than once.
My arms are tied in front of me with duct tape, but he didn’t bother with my legs. The
realization sends me reeling.

How many times have I just let him hurt me? How often did I just lie there and take it,
to make him think I don’t need to be fully tied up now?

How broken does he think I am?

A thick work boot stomps into view, followed by the second. His boots are looking a
bit worse for the wear, like he’s been too busy beating the shit out of me to care about
the state of his shoes.

“So this is the thanks I get?” Uncle Clint grunts.

I roll onto my back so that I can see his face. Not because I care to lock eyes with the
man who hurt me for so long, but because I can’t glare at him with the full extent of
hatred in my soul if I’m staring at his boots.

“This is the thanks I get for raising your useless ass,” he goes on, glaring down at me.
The arm I sliced is wrapped in a heavy white bandage, and the sight of it gives me a
grim sort of satisfaction. “You running away. Takin’ off in the middle of the road like
that, makin’ me chase after you. I just tore the countryside apart to find you, you
stupid bitch.”

I ignore his final slur and focus on the words that send a harsh laugh bursting up my
throat.

“Raising me?” The words don’t even feel real as they trip off my tongue. “If you
‘raised me,’ that would imply you did something good for my well-being. And you’ve
never been good to me a day in your life.”

Uncle Clint stares at me for a long moment, shock clear on his weathered face. I’ve
never talked back to him like this. Usually, his long rants are just met by silence from
me, because I know anything I say will only piss him off more.
But right now, I don’t care.

Clint’s lip curls, an ugly sneer contorting his features. Then he drops to his knees with
a lot more ease than a man his age and weight should have. He backhands me so hard
that stars fill my vision, and I struggle to suck in air around the pain. He grabs my
taped hands and pins them to my chest. With his other hand, he tugs the knife from his
pocket and flips it open.

No!

I refuse to let him hurt me anymore. I’m not the girl I once was. I’m not. I was able to
run away from him, to rise above my fear and get the hell out. I won’t be defaulting to
my old ways, where I just closed my eyes and took whatever punishment he meted
out.

Fuck. No.

I buck wildly, yanking my wrists out of his hand. He reaches for me again,
brandishing the knife, but I lean into his legs and nail him in the junk with an elbow.

Clint yowls, falling sideways and dropping the knife in the process. As he hits the
concrete, I roll over onto my knees and start crawling away, moving at a snail’s pace
thanks to my duct taped hands.

He recuperates too fast. One meaty fist reaches into my hair and drags me back
toward him.

But I won’t go down without a fight. I will shred him to pieces with every last breath
in my body, even if I still die in the end.

I refuse to cower in fear anymore.

Suddenly, a chorus of howls reach my ears. My stomach flips over at the haunting
noise, and relief surges through me in a rush. There’s no other sound in the world
right now that could bring me so much joy.

“What the fuck…”

Clint mutters a curse under his breath. He still has me by the hair, and I’m on my
knees clutching the hem of his shirt to try to take some of the pressure off my scalp. I
can’t see his face from my vantage point, but I wish I could.
I wish I could see his expression when four massive wolves burst into his basement.

My shifter companions are the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen as they hurtle down
the stairs and across the cement floor. They look magnificent and predatory, their
teeth bared and their sights set on my uncle.

Clint lets go of my hair with an almost feminine shriek, and I collapse onto the
concrete. I take the full force of my weight with my shoulder, grunting from the pain.
My scalp is on fire from the way he slung me around, which probably means I lost a
good chunk of hair. But I’ll take a few bald spots if it means I walk out of this alive.

Before Clint can reach for me again, I barrel roll away from him. The wolves are
charging toward him with jaws snapping, and I don’t want to get in their way as they
leap for him. My legs flail and my arms gain some new bruises as I roll across the
floor, everything spinning in my vision.

A gunshot ricochets through the basement, and my heart crashes against my ribs as I
come to a stop against the workbench.

Fuck. He’s shooting at them.

The shifters are powerful, but they’re not invincible. He could kill them if he gets in a
good shot.

Scrambling to my knees, I watch as Ridge’s light brown wolf latches onto Clint’s arm.
Clint cries out, his fingers jolting from the pain, and the gun slips from his grasp.
Archer darts in to bat it away, while Dare and Trystan lunge to take the old man
down.

Clint is undeterred. He tears away from Ridge’s teeth, taking a hunk of skin out of his
arm in the process, and then stumbles away. Black-furred Dare manages to grab
Clint’s blue jeans and take him to the floor, but Clint draws his knife and swipes out,
making all four wolves dart away.

He gets back to his feet and kicks out wildly, catching Ridge in the face. He shoves at
the growling, snapping wolves one more time before rushing across the basement
toward the empty room where he used to keep me for “time out.” He manages to slide
into the small, narrow stone room and jam the door shut.

My wolf companions throw themselves at the door. They’re monstrous, nothing but
strength and muscle, and I think if given the time, they’d crack the heavy door down
like it was made of plaster.
But they aren’t given a chance.

A moment after Clint walls up inside, a siren wails in the distance, and even I can tell
it’s steadily drawing closer.

“The cops are coming!” I shout, struggling against the duct tape on my wrists. “We
have to get out of here. They’re all dirty and friends with Clint.”

Not to mention, any cop—dirty or not—would be likely to shoot what they’d see as

feral wolves.

Archer’s golden wolf falls away from the door and lopes to my side. Magic shimmers
over him until he’s human again, and he quickly rips through the duct tape to free my
hands. His handsome, boy-next-door face is pained as he helps me to my feet.

“Did he hurt you?” He cups my cheeks, green eyes searching my face.

I shake my head. “No. Not like before.”

Pain flashes in his eyes, but he just leans forward and kisses me. “Let’s get out of
here. Climb on my back.”

Before I can respond, he shimmers with the change once again. He gives a short,
sharp bark, and the other three wolves finally leave the door behind which my uncle is
hiding.

Then we run from the house, the wolves dashing up the stairs single file as I cling
with all my might to Archer’s fur.

The sirens grow louder as we burst out into the cool night air, and the wolves wheel in
the opposite direction of the noise, paws thundering over the ground as they run flat-
out.

I don’t look back. Not once. I don’t want to see the white house that holds too many
of my nightmares.

I hope to God that was the last time I ever have to see that awful place.

hapter 29
Sable
Archer moves swiftlyand gracefully beneath me as we race out of town. I clutch his
fur and keep my head down, though I can’t help but steal glances at our surroundings
as we run.

I don’t know this place, even though I lived here my whole life. My whole world was
narrowed down to the house I was kept in, where each room might as well have been
its own continent and my only real connection to the outside world were the books
and movies I occasionally got my hands on.

We pass a barber shop, a movie theater, and a bank, the latter of which is obviously
closed for the night. The buildings are old but well kept, mostly stone and connected
by alleyways, and there are planters full of flowers everywhere. Everything is
so normal, like a quaint little movie set used for a romantic comedy.

How did I come to live my own personal horror in a town this cute?

I gasp as I see people coming out of a corner grocery, talking and laughing among
themselves in the light pouring from the windows. A group of teens carrying soda
bottles and cigarette packs. Every single one of their jaws drop at the sight of the four
giant wolves racing down Main Street.

Fuck.

Burying my face in Archer’s golden fur, I focus on taking a couple of deep breaths.
I’ve come this far without a panic attack; I refuse to give in now. It can’t be good that
people are seeing me and the men like this. Shifters have stayed hidden for so long on
purpose, to protect themselves from human fear.

But… my wolves came for me anyway.

It still doesn’t feel real. I don’t know how Clint found me in that remote cabin, but it
doesn’t matter. Because all four of the shifters came to save me. Thank God I opened
up to them about my life and told them about where I was raised. Regardless, I have a
feeling they would have found me even if they had to tear apart the countryside piece
by piece.

They came for me.

I recall standing on the edge of Ridge’s village, weighing my options after I raced
away from the elder’s shack. Archer promised me that if I stayed, if I went to the
cabin with them to give the mate bond a chance, I would be the safest I could possibly
be.

He obviously didn’t lie either.

Because they came for me.

The thought keeps repeating over and over in my head like a mantra. I grip Archer’s
fur tighter, pressing my face into his neck. I relish the power of his body beneath me,
and how his scent is wild and musky. He’s panting loud enough that I can hear him
over the thundering of his giant paws, but he doesn’t slow. None of the men slow
down as we leave the village behind and disappear into the wilderness.

These four men will protect me no matter what.

Time passes. We run so far and so long that my legs grow tired from clenching around
Archer’s ribcage, and my fingers get weak from gripping his fur. By the time we slow
to a stop, the moon is high in the sky and the inky blackness above is dotted with a
million pinpricks of light.

I raise my head from Archer’s neck to find the now-familiar mating cabin visible
between the trees ahead of us. It looks calm and serene in the dark night, like a place
of safety and solace.

God, I hope that’s what it is.

Would my uncle come back here? Would he try again to find me and drag me back
home after seeing what he just saw. I have to hope his sense of self-preservation is
strong enough that he won’t want to fuck with the four massive wolves who invaded
his home.

And if he does come looking for me again, I hope the men kill him.

I wish they’d killed him already.

Now that we’re no longer running, a chill sets into my bones. I came so close to dying
today. I had allowed myself to believe that I was free of my uncle for good. Every day
I spent in that cabin with these men healed me just that little bit, and in the blink of an
eye, my uncle sliced open the safety net.
Will I ever really be safe as long as he’s alive?

Wrapping my arms around myself, I focus on my breathing like Archer taught me.
The shock of ending up back at Clint’s, and the trauma of facing him again, aren’t
going to pass easily. I’m shaking like a leaf and colder than I should be. The
adrenaline dump, I guess.

The lights are off inside the cabin as we approach, and Dare fires up the generator. He
murmurs something to Ridge as we all head inside the cabin, and the amber-eyed
shifter answers in a low voice.

Oh, God. Ridge.

The reminder of the last time I saw him in human form tears through me like a bomb.
As soon as we’re inside the front door and Trystan turns on the light, I throw myself at
Ridge with tears pooling in my eyes.

His arms wrap around me automatically, and I bury my face in his chest. I can hardly
speak through the lump in my throat. “I thought you were dead.”

His voice is rough, and his thick arms tighten around me. “No, sweetheart, not dead.
Just got tranqued. I can’t believe that fucker got the drop on me.”

Our companions are still close by, but I can hear them murmuring to one another in
low voices—giving me and Ridge the moment we need. This man has saved my life
more than once now, and I’ll be forever indebted to him for that.

But more importantly…

I breathe in his pine scent and revel in the warmth of his bare skin against my own.
That delicious scent eases my panic. From the first day I awoke in his bed, his scent
felt like coming home, and that’s more true now than ever.

I wish I could comfort him the same way he’s comforting me. There’s still tension in
his body, and it turns his muscles hard and rigid even as his hands slide soothingly
over my back.

“Are you okay?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. I pull back and tilt my head up to
look into his eyes.
Ridge slides a hand around from my back to cup my face. His thumb plays across my
jaw as he stares down at me, his dark eyes full of emotion. “Fuck. No, little wolf. I’m
scared of losing you.”

“You didn’t lose me. You found me,” I point out with a small smile. But the look on
his face has set my heart into a dizzying pace. My own fear and emotions churning
inside me have been threatening to take me down since the moment Clint walked
through the cabin door.

I remember the way Ridge held me in the shower as the water washed over us both.
Just held me with no expectations of me, no irritation at how long it took me to learn
to breathe again. He’s been caring for me since the moment he picked me up off the
canyon floor, when he could have left me there.

He hasn’t had to do any of this. He’s chosen to. Again and again and again, he’s
chosen to protect me. Chosen to care for me.

Chosen me.

I move my hand up his chest, my fingers tracing over the muscles of his torso. His
breath hitches in his throat, and his gaze drops to my lips. With just those two small
things, need rises inside me.

Heat flashes over my skin and fills the air between us. Before I can second-guess it or
overthink it, I wrap my arms around him and rise up onto my tiptoes to kiss him.

It’s as if the last several hours never took place.

Or maybe it’s like this because of the last several hours. Because we both know what
we almost lost.

Suddenly, we’re kissing like we did earlier in the kitchen, with barely controlled
abandon.

Ridge grips my hips and pulls me against him, reminding me that he’s fully naked. As
our kiss deepens, he hardens against my belly, and the sensation sends a thrill of
reckless desire through me. I undulate against him and catch his surprised gasp with
my lips. He moves a hand lower, grabbing my ass and tugging me against him, while
his other hand slips beneath my shirt to palm my breast. His thumb lingers over my
nipple, and I feel a tug between my legs as if both parts of me are somehow
connected.
The flames burning through my blood rise higher and higher. I lose all sense of myself
and all sense of our surroundings as Ridge thoroughly explores my mouth with his
tongue. I can’t even think through the heat, through the need. My body is burning for
his touch to be everywhere all at once.

I break away, gasping. I’m lightheaded, so hot there’s nothing in the world that could
cool me down.

Something I’ve never felt before is rising up inside me.

Something is happening to me.

hapter 30
Dare
Jealousy burnslike fire inside me as I watch Sable kiss Ridge. It’s not a sweet, chaste
kiss—it’s the kind of carnal embrace that comes before a man buries himself to the
hilt inside a woman and relishes the moan he elicits when he bottoms out inside her.
The exact thing I’ve been imagining since the night I found Sable on the edge of the
creek looking like moonlight come to life.

I clench my fists at my side and glare, my wolf growling and protesting without
making a sound.

That should be me.

I wish like fuck it was me pressed against her, tasting her lips, my hands on her body.
I’m half-tempted to rip Ridge away from her and take his place.

She’s mine, my beast snarls, fighting to get loose. Mine.

But I remain standing just inside the front door to the cabin, my muscles locked and
rigid. I’m not here for a pissing contest. I’m here to take care of my mate—to take
care of Sable—and if this is what she needs, then I won’t let anything in the world
keep her from having this. Not even my own emotions or the chemical desire inside
me demanding I take what’s mine and fuck everybody else.
Suddenly, she pulls away, gasping for air. Her hands clutch at Ridge’s bare chest, and
she gulps in breath after breath, her eyes wild, her gaze darting around the room as if
she’s disoriented. Her lips are red and swollen from Ridge’s kisses.

“I feel—” She cuts off, shoving her mass of satin blonde hair away from her
shoulders. Her skin is pink and a sheen of perspiration lines her temple. She lets out a
low, helpless noise, still gulping air.

I can almost feel the heat rolling off her body from across the foyer.

“I feel… strange,” she says, the words coming out breathless and raw. “I need…
something.”

“What do you need?” Ridge asks in a low voice, cupping her shoulders. I’m surprised
at how calm he sounds. If I were in his place, I’d be nothing but wolf, shaking with
the need to complete the mating. Shit, I’m not even the one who just had my tongue
down her throat, and I am shaking with that need.

“I-I don’t know.” Sable closes her eyes and leans into him, breathing deeply. Then her
eyes flutter open and they’ve darkened, her pupils dilated as she focuses on Ridge’s
face.

The scent of her wraps around me. It’s something so familiar that I’ve come to love
and crave, even as I’ve kept my distance and respected her boundaries over our time
together at the cabin.

In the blink of an eye, that familiar scent changes.

It becomes darker, deeper, headier, swirling through the room like a tornado. My body
reacts instantly—warmth flashes over my skin and my cock stiffens as if she’s
touched it.

Fuck. She’s going into heat.

I know it as sure as I know I’d give anything to be in Ridge’s place right now.

Sable leans back into Ridge, kissing him with more wildness and abandon than
before. Their desire becomes a living thing, and I grab the wall as it makes me
lightheaded with need. I can’t stop watching her in his arms, the way she moves
against him, the little sounds that come from within her as she grinds against his body.

She’s strung out with arousal, delirious in her quest to mate with Ridge.
To mate with him.

To complete the bond.

Goddammit.

The full realization of what that means hits me like a blow to the gut. It’s done. She’s
chosen him.

The three of them all brought Sable up to this cabin to give her wolf space and time to
choose. And after I scented her in the woods and my wolf made the same claim theirs
had, I joined this little party, getting to know Sable as the five of us formed a strange,
motley little band.

But if I’m being fucking honest, it never once occurred to me that she might not
choose me in the end.

That’s how fucking sure I was of my feelings, of the truth of this bond.

I was wrong. Her wolf has chosen Ridge as her mate. And there’s not a damn thing I
can do about it.

I look at Archer and Trystan, both standing off to my left. They’re watching the scene
with the same kind of open, bleeding pain I’m sure shows clearly on my face. They’ve
come to the same conclusion I have.

Archer is the first to move, clenching his jaw as he blinks back what looks like honest
to fuck tears in his eyes. He grabs Trystan’s arm and motions with his head that we
should leave the cabin.

I know he’s right. Ridge has Sable pressed into the wall, one of her legs wrapped
around his bare ass, and I’m not a dumbass. What comes next isn’t for the three of us
to stand around and watch. Sable has made her choice. No matter how much it hurts,
we have to respect that.

But God-fucking-dammit, I don’t want to.

It doesn’t matter that her wolf hasn’t chosen me. Mine has chosen her, so fully and
completely that it feels like it might tear me apart. The wolf in me still howls brokenly
in my soul, torn between two competing impulses—to protect Sable, and to claim her.

I can’t do both. Protecting her heart means walking away.

Even if it fucking kills me to do it.

Archer’s hand is on the door handle when Sable cries, “No! Stop!”

All three of us turn around to find her a couple feet away from Ridge, who’s
collecting himself against the wall in her absence. She takes a tentative step forward,
those big blue eyes wide, her long lashes blinking away a cloud of unreserved lust.

I’ve never seen her look more beautiful or powerful than she is right now. I want to
bow down at her feet and fucking worship her.

“Don’t go,” she murmurs, still breathing hard. “I can’t let you go. I need you. All of
you. Please.”

The crack in her voice tears through me, and I take an involuntary step toward her in
response, drawn to her by a magnetic force. But I stop, hesitating for a long moment.

What she’s saying… what she’s asking for…

It never occurred to me that we could share her. Sharing isn’t something coded into
us. It’s not something shifters do, and it’s definitely not something I do with much
of anything in my life. I’m solitary for a reason. I’m a grouchy motherfucker who
doesn’t like sharing what’s his.

Behind me, Trystan and Archer seem to be warring with the same thoughts and
feelings. I don’t sense either of them moving, only the waves of confusion rolling off
them as we all take in the beautiful woman before us.

“Please stay,” Sable says, her voice husky. As she continues speaking, she meets my
gaze, then does the same with each of the shifters behind me. “Something is
happening to me. It’s—I need you. Not just one of you. All of you.”

And that does it.

That breaks me.

Just as there isn’t a chance in hell I’d ever stand in the way of something Sable
desires, I’d never deny her either. So I stride across the small expanse between us and
step up to her, reaching out to touch her face. Behind her, Ridge joins me, one of his
hands curling around her belly. Her need rises immediately, the scent of her desire
like a drug racing across my senses.
Trystan and Archer are right behind me, taking their places on either side of us until
the four of us surround her.

This is not at all how I imagined this would go, but as I gaze into Sable’s perfect gray-
blue eyes, I realize it doesn’t really matter. Because she needs this.

And I’d do anything I can to make her happy.

Cupping her chin, I tilt her head up a bit more as I drop my own, and when our lips
meet, I can taste the way her desire has changed her body chemistry. She tastes
sweeter, wilder than she did the first time we kissed, and it makes my hard cock pulse
with a fresh shock of arousal.

She groans into my mouth, sliding her tongue against mine as her breath picks up. I
can feel her moving, her ass grinding against Ridge behind her as our kiss deepens.
She undulates her hips, shifting between the two of us as she seeks more relief from
the heat building inside her.

Ridge lets out a choked grunt as her perfect ass rubs against his cock again, and the
sound stokes something inside me. He can feel her response to me in the urgency of
her movements, and it makes an unexpected swell of pride and lust rise up in me.
Good. I want him to feel it. I want all these men to know how badly Sable wants me.

I kiss her harder, plundering her mouth before drawing her sweet little tongue into my
own mouth and sucking on it. She whimpers softly, her breath coming in short gasps.

I’m breathing harder too, my head spinning like I’m drunk as I lose myself in the
sweet perfection of her body. Her spirit. Every fucking thing there is about this
beautiful, vulnerable goddess.

When our lips finally break apart, hers are even more full than usual, swollen from the
punishing attention from first Ridge, then me.

Her eyelashes flutter as her tongue darts out to taste me, but before I can kiss her
again, Trystan catches her chin with two fingertips and turns her head toward him,
claiming her lips for himself.

An instinctual jealousy rears in my chest, my wolf scratching at my rib cage as it

demands I fight him. Kill him. Destroy him.

But before I can make a move to do anything, Sable’s hand slides down between us
and finds my cock, her fingertips brushing over my shaft.
My eyelids droop, all thoughts of violence and killing evaporating from my head as
pleasure like I’ve never known surges through me.

Fuck. She’s so damn perfect.

Her touch is light and tentative at first, soft as a butterfly’s wings, but as Trystan’s
greedy tongue plunders her mouth, she lets out a desperate whimper. I can tell he’s
driving her wild with his kiss, and she takes it out on my dick, wrapping her delicate
fingers around me and stroking.

My hips jerk forward of their own accord, desire making my balls draw up tight.
Suddenly, I’m on the other end of what I was trying to do to Ridge. I was trying to
prove a point to him and the others with the way I kissed Sable, and I’ve got a feeling
Trystan is doing the exact same thing.

He wants me to feel her lose control. To feel her come apart from his kiss.

And as her small hand slides up and down my shaft, I have to admit, I don’t fuckin’
hate it.

If this is sharing, maybe it’s not all bad.

With a guttural noise, Sable finally breaks her lips from Trystan’s, and Archer is right
there. A gentle grip on her chin turns her face toward him, and this time, my wolf
doesn’t howl in protest as his lips seal over hers.

There’s nothing to fucking protest.

The movements of her hand are awkward and a little jerky, making me think she’s
never done this before, but it doesn’t matter. Hell, it makes it better. The sensation of
her warm palm and delicate fingers around my cock is the best goddamn thing I’ve
ever felt. There’s no shyness or hesitation on her part, nothing but need and desire as
she begins to explore Trystan with her other hand, her tongue still tangling with
Archer’s.

Behind her, Ridge sweeps her hair over one shoulder to give himself access as he
tastes the skin of her neck, and I can’t help myself. My hand comes up to cup one of
her breasts, squeezing and massaging it before rolling her pert nipple between my
thumb and forefinger.

Trystan’s hand finds the other, and the whimper that pours from Sable’s lips is like a
chorus of damn angels singing.
Fuck, I want to hear her make that sound over and over.

I want to go to sleep to that sound, wake up to that sound, live and fucking die by that
sound.

The fact that the woman of my dreams, the woman my wolf has claimed, is
surrounded by three other men who are as dead set on worshipping her body as I am
no longer seems quite as strange as it did a few minutes ago. Shifters have never been
shy about nudity, so it doesn’t bother me to be standing side by side with several other
fully naked men.

And honestly, even if I weren’t a shifter, I’m not sure I’d even notice or care.

Every bit of my focus is on Sable.

She’s the only thing that matters in this equation.

I pinch her nipple lightly again, and she lets out a moan, practically going up on her
tiptoes as she kisses Archer harder.

Ridge moves the hand that’s splayed over her belly lower, sliding a finger through her
folds, and she bucks in our hold, her entire body reacting as if she’s channeling an
electric current. She arches and undulates against all of us, pressing her breasts into
my hand and Trystan’s as she grinds against Ridge’s finger and kisses Archer like her
life depends on it.

The musky, alluring scent of her arousal saturates the air around us, and I’m so damn
hard, I swear I’m about to come in her fucking hand.

I’m not the only one who’s on edge either.

With a gasp, Sable wrenches her lips away from Archer’s. Her cheeks are flushed, her
blue eyes glassy, and the silken strands of her blonde hair are a mess.

She already looks thoroughly fucked, and we haven’t even gotten there yet.

“More!” The word comes out as something between a whimper and a cry. “I need
more. I need…”

“We know what you need, little wolf.” Ridge’s voice is thick with heat.

I catch her gaze, letting the promise ring through my voice. “We’ve got you.”
hapter 31
Sable
We’ve got you.

God, I hope that’s true. Because I feel like I’m on the verge of floating away, on the
precipice of bursting into a million sparks and dissipating in the air.

I have never felt anything like this, not even in the times when I’ve kissed or touched
these men before. This is something altogether different, and I wonder if it’s the wolf
inside me rising to the surface.

It definitely feels wild, whatever it is. Unrestrained. Uninhibited.

Powerful.

Dare’s brown eyes burn as he gazes at me, the flecks of gold in his irises glittering
like stars. He looks wild too, masculine and strong, and I can feel his cock pulse
against my hand. It’s so big I can’t even get my fingers all the way around it, but for
some reason, that doesn’t scare me. It’s like my body knows it can take him, knows it
was born to fit him.

I’ve never had sex before. I’ve barely even gotten to second base before, and if I were
with any other men, alarm bells would be ringing in my head, telling me that all of
this is too fast, too soon.

There’s nothing like that in my mind right now though.

The only mantra running through my head is a single word.

More.

Their hands on me, their mouths on mine, their calloused fingers exploring my body
—it’s incredible. The most overwhelming thing I’ve ever experienced.

But it’s still not enough.

There’s an ache deep in my belly, an emptiness, a yearning. A need for something I
can barely articulate but desperately crave.

“Please,” I whisper, trying to put everything I’m feeling into that one word. There’s
no way I manage it—I’m feeling too damn much for an entire novel’s worth of words
to convey—but I think I get across enough.

Trystan makes a noise low in his throat, and the next thing I know, I’m swept up into
his arms, cradled against his chest. I lose my contact with the other men, but it’s okay.
I can still feel them all around me, and when Trystan turns to stride down the hall
toward the bedroom, they’re right there with us.

They’re not leaving.

None of them.

Just like I asked.

The realization sends a wave of giddy happiness and desire through me, and I cling
tighter to Trystan’s neck, burying my face in the crook of his shoulder and biting
down lightly on the flesh there, tasting the salty warmth of his skin.

“Oh, fuck.”

His footsteps falter slightly, and his body goes rigid against mine as he reacts to my
touch.

I like it. I like it so much that I bite a little harder, sucking on the skin as if I’m trying
to draw out a little piece of his soul.

His breath hitches, a strangled noise resonating in the back of his throat, and he curses
again before laying me gently on the bed. His body drapes over mine for a second,
and when I finally release his skin with a wet pop, he drops his head and kisses me
hard and deep.

It’s like he’s trying to punish and praise me all at once, and I kiss him back just as
desperately, meeting every stroke of his tongue as our teeth bang together. When he
finally pulls away, I’m panting for breath again, my lungs struggling to get enough
oxygen.

He stands slowly, flanked by the other three as they all gather by the foot of the bed.
They’re all still naked, so gloriously naked, and I can’t stop looking at them. When we
arrived at the cabin on that first day and they shifted back to human form with no
clothes on, I dragged my gaze away from their nude bodies and ran inside like my hair
was on fire.

But that was an old version of Sable. One I’m not even sure exists anymore.

One I sort of hope won’t exist after tonight.

Instead of shying away, I let my gaze rove everywhere it wants to, soaking up the
sight of them and committing it to memory. They’re all big men, though Trystan is the
tallest of the group, and they’re all made of rippling muscle that’s highlighted by tan,
smooth skin.

And they’re all hard.

Their cocks jut out from their bodies, each a slightly different size and shape, and I
bite my lip as I study them, doing with my eyes what I did with my hand to Dare
earlier—exploring every inch of them.

“Fuck, Sable,” Archer murmurs, his normally smooth voice rough with strain. “When
you look at us like that…”

There’s such open longing in his voice that it makes my chest squeeze, an entirely
new kind of ache spreading through me to join the heat already flooding my veins.

I want to keep looking at them. But even more than that, I want to touch them.

I want them to touch me.

My skin is still uncomfortably hot, my nerve-endings so sensitive that my clothes feel

confining and scratchy. So I sit up on the bed, reaching down to grab the hem of my
shirt before tugging it over my head.

I’m still not wearing a bra, and my nipples tighten as cool air meets my skin. All four
of the men standing by the foot of the bed growl, and as I begin to shimmy out of my
slightly-too-big jeans, they finally move.

The mattress dips and the bed creaks slightly as they all crawl up beside me. The bed
isn’t big—it was only built with two occupants in mind, not five—but that just means
the men have to crowd closer around me as Dare and Trystan tug the pant legs over
my feet before tossing the jeans on the floor.
All that’s left is my panties now.

That’s the only stitch of clothing anyone in this room is wearing.

And it still feels like way too much.

Dare must think so too, because he grabs them and tears them from my body, flinging
them away like they’ve personally affronted him. The movement is so fast and
decisive that it draws a shocked, breathless laugh out of me, and when I look back at
his wild features, I find him grinning down at me.

Then his expression grows more serious, and he runs his hands up my legs, his
calloused palms gliding over my calves, knees, and thighs. “This is what you want,
Sable? Us? This?”

I’m nodding before he’s even finished speaking. There’s no reason to hesitate. I’ve
never been more sure of anything in my entire life.

“Yes.”

As if that was the single word they’ve been waiting for, three other sets of hands fall
on me too, and my body temperature shoots up as if I’ve stepped into an inferno. The
feral smile reappears on Dare’s face as he settles between my legs, gripping my thighs
in his large hands to spread them wider apart. I can feel wetness coating my thighs,
and all four men must be able to smell my arousal, because suddenly, their caresses
border on desperate.

Trystan leans over to kiss me again, picking up where we left off in the living room
while Ridge and Archer explore my body with their hands and mouths. And Dare…

I can feel his broad shoulders between my legs, his hold still firm on my thighs. Then
I feel the warm tickle of breath on my core, and my entire body tenses with
anticipation.

When his warm, wet tongue licks a line all the way up my center, I cry out into
Trystan’s mouth, my back arching so hard it’s like I’m being electrocuted.

“Oh… Oh, God!”

I feel the vibrations of the pleased, hungry sound Dare makes, and then he licks me
again. Ridge bites down on my nipple at the same time, making sparks explode inside
my body.
Archer catches one of my flailing hands, linking our fingers together to ground me in
this storm of sensation even as his own lips trail over the delicate skin of my wrist,
awakening nerve-endings I didn’t even know existed.

My legs are straining in Dare’s grasp, my hips rocking against his face as he licks me,
my entire body undulating on the bed as I try to ride out the feelings overpowering
me.

This is my first time. I don’t know what I’m doing. But then again, I don’t have to
know. These men are so attentive to my every reaction that all I have to do is lie here
and feel. Let them take care of me.

And they want to. That’s obvious in every touch, every kiss.

I let that thought dispel any nerves I might have otherwise, allowing my legs to go
pliant in Dare’s grip. He gives another satisfied growl low in his throat and spreads
my thighs wider, giving himself access to every bit of me.

Trystan draws away from my mouth, but Archer is right there to take his place. My
entire body is tingling, burning, humming with sensation, and I’ve lost track of whose
hands are where.

But when the orgasm finally comes crashing over me, I know exactly where Archer’s
hand is, because I squeeze the shit out of it as a ragged sob tears from my lips, my
body shuddering from head to toe.

Dare keeps lapping at me, using the broad, flat part of his tongue, and every lick sends
another jolt of pleasure through me. He doesn’t let up until I give a little yelp and
reach down to push his head away from my sensitized core. He nips at my hand, then
grabs it and kisses my palm.

His face is wet. I can feel my own arousal on my skin as he kisses me, and it makes a
different kind of heat spread through me. I force my drooping eyelids open to gaze up
at the men gathered around me, my chest rising and falling hard as I suck in air.

Ridge’s face is the closest to mine, and his amber eyes gleam like fire as his lips curve
into a devastating smile. “How do you feel, little wolf?”

“Hungry.”

It’s not a lie. My body is still shivering from the aftershocks of the orgasm, but I don’t
feel… complete. I still want something. I still need more.
He chuckles, a low rumble in his chest. “Don’t worry. We’re not done.”

Dare makes a noise of agreement before releasing my hand and crawling up the
mattress until his body hovers over mine. He kisses me soundly, and there’s a taste I
don’t recognize on his lips.

Me, I realize with a start. I’m tasting myself.

I groan into his kiss, and he keeps our lips connected as he backs up, pulling me with
him until we’re both on our knees. The other men shift around us, but I lose track of
who’s where for a moment as I sink into the depths of Dare’s kiss.

Then more hands are on me again, and I’m being lifted, turned… and set down right
over Ridge’s face.

He’s lying on his back. My knees meet the mattress on either side of his head as I
straddle him, and for the first time since that indescribable wave of need hit me, a
bubble of shyness rises up through my arousal.

I’m… I’m sitting on his face.

The most intimate part of me, the part no man had ever even seen before tonight, is
positioned right above his mouth. Dare just had his mouth on me and I didn’t feel
awkward or embarrassed about that, but this feels different somehow.

Because of the way we’re positioned, I can look down and see Ridge’s face, poised
right at my entrance. And without the mattress at my back, I feel more exposed, more
adrift.

Like I’m supposed to be the one in control here.

And now I’m worried about my inexperience, about not knowing what to do.

I shift uncomfortably, about to awkwardly clamber off his face, but before I can, he
grins up at me.

He looks so… pleased. So hungry.

Just like I’m hungry.

His smile broadens as he loops his arms around my thighs until his fingertips find my
core. Then, without an ounce of hesitation, he spreads my folds, baring me even more.
And he licks me.
My mouth drops open, my toes curling as my core clenches. It feels like what Dare
did, but different too. The way Ridge is holding me open gives him different access to
that little bundle of nerves every bit of pleasure radiates from. And my body is still
sensitive, still coming down from the previous high, so I swear I can feel each stroke
of his tongue everywhere.

For a moment, our gazes stay locked. I stare down at him as he works me over with
his tongue, and it’s one of the dirtiest, sexiest, most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in
my life.

I try to keep my eyes open. I really do. I want to see every bit of this.

But I can’t.

As he laps and sucks on me, my eyelids fall shut. His tongue is all over me, wreaking
havoc on my body. And then the others are touching me too. Hands are on my breasts,
my back, my shoulders, my hair. Lips and teeth and tongues are devouring me.

They’re all devouring me.

They’re going to eat me up.

I groan helplessly, rocking against Ridge’s face, grinding against him as need builds
inside me again.

A large hand runs down the length of my spine and over the curve of my ass,
kneading my flesh before slipping into the space between my cheeks. I jolt when a
finger presses against the tight ring of muscles there, and when it slips inside, I clamp
my thighs around Ridge’s head.

“What… what is…?”

I can’t get a full sentence out. All the muscles in my lower body are contracting
rhythmically, the foreign invasion and strange feeling of fullness setting off a chain
reaction inside me.

“Do you want me to stop?” Trystan’s voice is thick, a low murmur near my ear.

“No,” I breathe, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.

“Do you want more?”

“Yes,” I whimper.
“Fuck.”

That’s Archer’s voice, and he sounds almost as tortured as Trystan does.

As Trystan slides his finger deeper into my ass, I catch hold of Archer’s hand again.
This time, he brings it to his cock, running my fingertips over the thick length. I’m
surprised to find wetness at the tip. I didn’t know men got wet from arousal like
women did.

I want to explore it. To run my thumb over it, to dip my head and taste it.

But before I can do any of that, Ridge latches on to my core and flicks his tongue back
and forth at the same time Trystan slides his finger in another inch.

And I detonate like a bomb.

I thought my first orgasm was overwhelming, but it was tame compared to this.
Dare’s lips find mine, and I practically scream into his mouth as I come apart, jerking
and writhing and probably half-suffocating Ridge. Not that he seems to mind.

By the time the last wave of pleasure passes, I feel completely boneless. I’m literally
not sure I can hold myself up anymore, but I don’t have to. Dare and Archer support
me as Trystan slowly drags his finger out of my ass, and they lift me off Ridge before
depositing me on the bed beside him.

Ridge rolls over and rises to his knees, and once again, I find myself staring up at all
four of them.

“Still hungry?” Archer asks, his voice both heated and gentle.

I nod, smiling lazily. Some of the desperation has been burned away, but the deep
need is still there.

My core is still clenching, each ripple of my inner walls a reminder of how empty I
am. I don’t want to be empty. I want to be full.

“Is this your first time, Sable?” Ridge wears a serious expression that lets me know
he’s already guessed at the answer—hell, they probably all have.

A little flutter of panic fills my stomach. It is my first time. I’m a virgin, just like they
suspect. But I don’t want that to change anything.

I don’t want them to stop.

Ridge looks up, meeting the gazes of the other three. He opens his mouth to speak, but
his words come out sounding strange, as if I’m listening to him through a wall of
water. I shake my head, trying to clear it.

The fluttering sensation in my belly is growing stronger. Something besides panic.

Something besides the heat that overtook me in the living room.

It’s like something is growing inside me, expanding outward from the very core of
me.

My wolf?

The thought whips through my mind, and suddenly, I’m sure I’m right. It’s my wolf.
She must’ve finally been called by the onslaught of extreme emotions, by the attention
that’s been lavished on me by the four alphas who all claim me as their mate.

I try to say something, but the same muffled sound I heard from Ridge comes out of
my mouth too, as if my brain has stopped processing words altogether. But all four
men look down at me anyway, drawn by whatever noise I just made.

I expect them to look happy.

My wolf is coming, just like they hoped it would.

I expect them to be pleased.

But as they stare down at me, each one of their faces morphs into a mask of surprise
and horror.

Why?I don’t understand.

The feeling inside me is expanding faster now. I can almost feel it pressing against my
skin, pushing against the confines of my body. And then…

The scars crisscrossing my body begin to turn a deep, pure black, as if ink is seeping
out of my skin and filling in the cracks.

My heart crashes against my ribs as I look down at myself, holding up my arms in

horror.

This isn’t how the change goes. I’ve seen these men shift into wolves dozens of times
by now, and it never looks like this.
What is happening?

As if the thing inside me is spurred on by my rising panic, dark smoke begins to pour
from my fingertips, and the men gathered around me jerk back in surprise.

Dare’s chocolate brown eyes meet mine, and for a moment, he just stares at me. Then
he opens his mouth, and this time, I do hear the words he chokes out. Even if I wish I
didn’t.

“What the fuck?” He shakes his head, his nostrils flaring as he backs away. “Jesus,
Sable. You’re not a fucking wolf. You’re a witch.”

***

To Be Continued…

Broken Bond, book two in the Claimed by Wolves series, is coming soon!