1. Chapter 1
Chapter one
T here’s no place like home. I didn’t say there wasn’t anything better–just nothing like it. I put as many months and miles between me and the Red Wolf pack as possible, but my past had caught up with me. It snored like a chainsaw and bled all over the passenger seat.
Lucas Williams had been tasked with the challenge of bringing me in. He was the best tracker on the NPA payroll. I ought to know, I interned in their Human Resources department. He was also my ex. Lucas wasn’t the first one they sent after me. Others had tried and all of them failed. So, the alpha of the National Pack Alliance ordered him to pick up my scent and bring me home.
If anyone could have done it, it would have been Lucas.
Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t the only one following me. Apparently, Hell’s Hollow was a happening place for werewolves. Who knew? Lucas may have tracked me down first, but his competition drew first blood. It seemed I had a secret admirer. The kind that showed their affection with threats and attempted murder. I had a sneaking suspicion the wolf responsible for my father’s death and my admirer were one and the same.
I intended to find out who they were and bring them to justice.
Except, I didn’t have much to go on. Just the love note left on the bathroom mirror back in my motel room to scare me off going home, and the silver laced bear trap set in the woods not far from where I had been staying. I was their intended target. They’d caught Lucas instead.
With the help of an intriguing rogue named Gabe, I patched Lucas up, loaded him in the car, and headed home.
When I left Cedar Grove, I swore that nothing and no one could bring me back. Of course, that was before I knew someone murdered my father. I was a daddy’s girl through and through—until I came of age. His politics drove a wedge between us and the challenge he orchestrated for my hand in marriage drove me away.
We never spoke, not once, in the time I was gone. It had no doubt broke his heart as much as it did mine. But he refused to listen and I refused to be a pawn in pack politics. So, I declared my independence and took the freedom I so desperately wanted. I left without saying goodbye.
And then someone killed him.
“You missed the turn off.” Lucas woke from his nap and massaged the crick in his neck from sleeping with his head against the passenger window.
“We need gas.” With one hand still on the steering wheel, I pointed to the indicator lights on the dash. “I haven’t been gone that long, Lucas. I know my way home.”
The nook and cranny towns I’d chosen were so remote GPS satellites were useless against the heavily wooded mountains and so small no one bothered to put them on a map. I knew the back roads like the back of my hand. I didn’t need Google Maps to find my way back. I could have made the trip blindfolded.
I just needed to follow my heart.
A wolf’s bound to their pack by a magical tether, and I was no exception. It was possible to block the connection. A trick rogues discovered years ago and one I mastered before I ran away. It was forbidden and drove wolves mad.
So far, my sanity remained intact.
I reopened the connection before we left Hells Hollow, alerting everyone in the pack of my return through the bond. Lucas cautioned against it. No one outside my family, apart from Lucas and his father, knew the truth about my father’s death. Lucas worried my sudden reappearance would raise too many questions.
I disagreed. We argued. I won.
The wolf who killed my father, and threatened me, might be among them. I wanted his murderer to know that I didn’t take kindly to threats and I was coming home— that I was coming for them .
Of course, I would need a cover story. One I had yet to come up with. I had roughly forty-seven miles left before I needed to figure that part out.
My plan was to flush them out. If the killer was in the Southeastern pack, I should have been able to sense them. It was impossible to hide something like that through the bond. We felt everything through the connection. Well, almost everything .
Thankfully, some things were left to the imagination.
When I opened myself up to the bond, I checked to see if the pack tethers were in place. As best I could tell, the only person who had been disconnected from the pack was me. Everyone was present, accounted for, and not entirely happy to hear from me. The reception I received was tepid at best. Not that I expected them to roll out the red carpet after the way I left, but the silent treatment from my immediate family was a surprise, nonetheless.
“Where the hell are we, anyway?” Lucas asked, as he tugged at the cross strap of the seat belt and turned to face me.
The question was a welcome distraction from the old hurts that threatened to resurface after reconnecting to my family and the pack.
“Sawyers Creek.” I flicked the turn signal and eased the car into an old service station nestled into the mountain side.
“You’re stopping here? It looks like something out of a B-slasher film.” Lucas reached for his wallet.
I considered myself an independent woman. But after busting my ass working odd jobs and just barely scraping by for the last twelve months, I had no objections to Lucas or the Alliance footing the bill.
“Don’t tell me the big bad wolf is afraid of one harmless senior citizen.” I teased and pointed to the old man working behind the counter of the closest thing to a convenience store within twenty miles.
“The first twang of a banjo and we are out of here.” Lucas didn’t so much as crack a smile. His poker face was always better than mine.
“Banjos equals running. Got it.” I said, laughing as I opened the car door. “Want anything?”
“Something salty. Chips, I guess.” He added an energy drink to his order before I closed the driver’s side door.
On my way back to the pump, I stopped at the front passenger window to drop off my haul from the convenience store.
“Salty and protein.” I handed him a bag of beef jerky and a bottle of water.
“There’s a joke there somewhere, but I’m too tired to make it.” Lucas tore open the bag of jerky and shoved a handful in his mouth.
“Damn, you’re hurt worse than I thought.” I reached over him then tossed my granola bar and water onto the driver’s seat. “Let’s see the leg.”
Lucas unwrapped the hand towel from around his calf. The terry cloth had been a dingy white when I stole it from the Hells Motel bathroom. Enough blood seeped from his puncture wounds to turn the cotton crimson.
“It’s still not healing.” I tried to hide the fear that held my heart in a death grip.
I wasn’t any more prepared to lose him in that moment than I had been when he broke my heart twelve months prior.
“It’s hardly bleeding.” Lucas saw right through me. He always did.
“It shouldn’t be bleeding at all.” I rewrapped his leg and helped him prop his foot up on the dashboard. “Keep it elevated the rest of the way.”
“Yes, Dr. Redford.” He closed the door as I walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side.
Lucas downed his bottle of water and tossed the empty in the back seat.
“Here.” I handed him my water and climbed in behind the wheel.
“I just drank a liter. I can hear it sloshing around in my stomach.” He set the plastic bottle in the cup holder. “If I drink anymore, you’ll have to pull over before we make it to Cedar Grove.”
“You’re craving salt and you’re thirsty.” I grabbed the bottle out of the holder and handed it to him. “It’s from the blood loss. You need to hydrate.”
“I could get used to having my own personal nurse.” Lucas took a swig of water. “You’d look hot in scrubs.”
“In scrubs?” I asked, with a shake of my head.
“I’m an ass man. What can I say?” Lucas shrugged.
“You’re delirious.” I opened the strawberry yogurt dipped granola bar with my teeth and took a bite. “Another sign you’ve lost too much blood.”
“When did you become such a medical expert?” Lucas teased.
The answer to his question was no laughing matter.
“I’ve been on my own for a while. I learned on the fly.” I knew he would want to know more, but I didn’t elaborate.
“Why did you have to learn on the fly?” Lucas rested his hand on my forearm. “Lina, why did you have to learn about blood loss?”
“Like I said, I’ve been on my own.” I wasn’t in the mood to rehash more of my past.
There was only so much room in the car and the emotional baggage from my family occupied most of it.
“Okay.” His tone said it wasn’t okay and far from the end of the conversation, but he stopped pushing for the time being.
He would see the scars eventually. We’d discuss it then.
“Why don’t you take a power nap?” I pressed down on the accelerator pedal and picked up speed. “We’ve got less than an hour to go, but you could use the rest. We both know you’re going to talk to your dad before you see the doctor.”
“But at least I agreed to see Dr. Bennett.” Lucas rested his elbow on the door and head on his fist.
He was out before we reached the turnoff.
Night closed in quick once the sun dipped below the mountain tops. The narrow stretch of road that led up to the pack lands lacked guard rails and became a hell of a lot more treacherous in the dark. I white knuckled the steering wheel until I pulled up in front of the Williams’ residence.
The drive home ended the way that it started—with Lucas snoring and bleeding in the passenger seat.
“Wake up. We’re here.” I gave him a light nudge on the shoulder. “Lucas, wake up.”
His eyelids fluttered a few times before he opened them all the way and took in our surroundings. He gripped the door handle, but didn’t open it; turning in his seat to face me instead.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Lucas was more concerned about my family reunion than his.
I liked his father, and I was relatively certain he liked me—until I ran off, ruining the challenge and his son’s chances of marrying a Redford. In other words, Mr. Williams, the alpha of the Southeastern territory and new head of the NPA, scared the hell out of me.
I’d rather face my mother and that was saying something.
The porch lights flickered on, and a shadowy figure loomed behind the storm door. I reached into the back seat, grabbed my bag, and got out of the car. Lucas gave in and did the same, leaning on the passenger side door as he adjusted his weight to his good leg.
“You’ve got enough to deal with here.” I hitched my backpack higher on my shoulder. “Do me a favor?”
“Name it.” Lucas reached for me, but I stepped back.
The easy rhythm we had fallen into back in Hells Hollow disappeared the moment we crossed the property line. It wasn’t Lucas. It was me. Cedar Grove held too many memories and they held sway over me. The pulse of the pack magic through the tether was stronger, louder, and utterly foreign without my father’s energy coursing through it.
“Call me as soon as Bennett finishes his examination.” I fought the urge to hug him goodbye and took another step back down the driveway.
“You gave your phone to Gabe.” Lucas said, reminding me that I needed to replace my burner phone. “Take mine. It’s in the console.”
He held on to the door and hunched over to reach into the car for his phone, but I was in and out of the car before he could grab it. We stood up at the same time, peering at each other over the roof of his sixty-nine Camaro.
I recognized the look in his eyes—the one that said mine .
I blinked first, focusing on the trees, the starlit sky, the ground; anything to avoid meeting his gaze.
“Lucas …” I shook my head, afraid I’d say the wrong thing, something that might encourage his pursuit. As much as I still wanted him, he was the only ally I had. I needed his help and couldn’t afford to lose him if things went south between us.
History had a way of repeating itself.
“Just call me after you see the doctor, okay?” I left Lucas in his driveway just as his father stepped out onto the porch—narrowly escaping another conversation I wasn’t ready to have—and headed for my parent’s house.
It was a mile and a half between our families’ cabins. I needed the time to get my head together before I faced my family.
There was a stark difference between Lucas’ homecoming and mine. No porch lights came on and no one waited for me at the door.
You can’t go home again. You can’t run away from it either. I tried.