Chapter 2

B etsy

Betsy stood in a small clearing, her arms akimbo, surveying the lush greenery around her with a mixture of awe and determination. The forest was a riot of colors and textures, from the rough bark of ancient trees to the delicate petals of wildflowers peeking out from the underbrush. Sunlight filtered through the canopy, creating a dappled pattern on the forest floor that shifted with each breeze.

"All right, Mother Nature," Betsy muttered, adjusting the woven basket looped over her arm. "Let's see what goodies you've got for me today."

She took a deep breath, inhaling the rich, earthy scent of the forest. This was it—her first real foray into foraging. Sure, she'd watched a few YouTube videos and skimmed through Grandma Francine's old notebooks, but how hard could it be? Plants didn't move. They just sat there, waiting to be picked. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Right?

Betsy scanned the ground for any herbs that looked vaguely medicinal. Or edible. Or just green, really. At this point, she wasn't feeling too picky. She tried to remember what plants her grandmother had pointed out to gather, but it had been a long time since they walked the forest together.

When her parents had moved to Jersey, she only saw her grandmother during the summer and then only for a weekend here and there. After her father passed, her mother didn't want to make the trip anymore, and her visits with her grandmother became few and far between.

"Okay, let's see," she mused, crouching down to examine a cluster of leaves. "Pointy edges, kind of fuzzy. That's got to be something useful, right?"

She plucked a few leaves, holding them up to the light like she'd seen real herbalists do in documentaries. They looked... planty. Definitely planty.

"In the basket you go, mystery herb," Betsy declared, dropping the leaves into her basket. "I'll figure out what you are later. Probably some kind of super-plant that cures hiccups or gives you x-ray vision or something."

As she continued her botanical treasure hunt, Betsy's initial excitement began to wane. An hour into her expedition, her basket contained a motley assortment of leaves, twigs, and what she hoped were mushrooms but feared might be oddly shaped pebbles.

"Come on, Betsy," she grumbled, wiping sweat from her brow. "You've got this. You're a strong, independent woman who doesn't need a plant identification guide."

She paused, considering.

"Okay, maybe I do. Note to self: Amazon Prime that bad boy ASAP."

Just as Betsy was contemplating calling it quits and heading back for a well-deserved nap, a familiar scent caught her attention. A memory winnowed up of making tea with her grandmother and sipping it iced on a sticky summer day. She followed her nose to a patch of green leaves. "Jackpot."

There, nestled between two fallen logs, was a cluster of plants that looked exactly like the mint in those mojito recipes she'd been saving on Pinterest.

"Oh, you beauty," she cooed, running her fingers over the leaves. "You and I are going to make some magic together. Mint tea, here we come!"

With the enthusiasm of a kid in a candy store, Betsy began harvesting her treasure. She could almost taste the refreshing brew, could practically feel the steam rising from a rustic mug clasped between her hands as she sat on the porch, surveying her forest domain like the herbalist queen she was destined to become.

"Take that, doubters," Betsy crowed, stuffing handfuls of leaves into her basket. "Betsy Ferris, Herb Whisperer extraordinaire. They'll write books about me. Or at least a moderately successful blog."

Betsy crushed some of the leaves between her fingers. "Huh," she mused, "It's a bit stronger than I expected. Must be some kind of wild super-mint. I'll probably be able to hear colors after drinking this." Almost immediately, an itchy, burning sensation began to spread over her hand.

Betsy's eyes widened in horror as angry red bumps started to appear. "Oh no. That's not mint. That's so not mint. That's—" she groaned, the realization hitting her like a sack of particularly itchy bricks. "Poison ivy. Grandma is probably rolling in her grave right now. Probably because she's laughing too hard to lie still."

She needed to go back home and hope that she could find the calamine lotion. But as she looked around, the clearing she'd been in seemed different. Weren't there more rocks before? And that twisted old tree—had that always been there?

"Okay, no problem," she muttered, turning in a slow circle. "The cabin's just... this way. Or maybe that way?"

The forest, which had seemed so welcoming and full of potential just moments ago, now loomed ominously. Every rustle in the underbrush became a potential threat, every shadow a lurking danger.

"Just great," she groaned, clutching her basket like a lifeline. "You wanted to be one with nature, and now you might scratch yourself to death in the middle of nowhere. Grandma would be so proud." Betsy's mother had warned her not to do anything rash.

She should have warned her not to get a rash.

"You're a Jersey girl," her mother had said. "You wouldn't last ten minutes in the deep woods of Connecticut."

It had been twenty-four hours. So technically, she proved her mother wrong. Pulling out her cell phone, she hoped for a signal. No luck. There hadn't been any when she was a kid, and there wasn't any now. At least, the cabin had Wi-Fi—if she ever made it back there.

She picked a direction that looked vaguely familiar and set off, trying to retrace her steps. But each tree looked the same as the last. Each clearing was a mirror image of the one before. As she walked, Betsy's mind conjured increasingly ridiculous scenarios.

"Maybe I'll become a forest legend," she mused, ducking under a low-hanging branch. "The Ghost of the Lost Herbalist, doomed to wander these woods forever, rattling her basket of misidentified plants and wailing about the dangers of gardening without Google."

A twig snapped somewhere way too close, and Betsy yelped, nearly jumping out of her skin. "Or maybe a serial killer will get me and they'll never find my body."

As the light grew dimmer and her feet grew wearier, Betsy's sass began to give way to genuine fear. She was lost, truly lost, in a forest that suddenly seemed vast and unknowable. The weight of her ignorance pressed down on her like a physical thing.

"Okay, universe," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "I get it. I'm not cut out for this whole earth mother thing. I promise, if I make it out of here, I'll stick to store-bought herbs and only use essential oils ironically. Just... please. Help me find my way back."

As if in answer to her plea, a sound cut through the forest—a low growl that made the hair on the back of Betsy's neck stand on end. She froze, her breath catching in her throat.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she turned.

There, in a small den formed by the roots of a massive oak, lay a wolf. And not just any wolf—a mother wolf, her body curled protectively around a litter of tiny, squirming pups.

For a moment, Betsy forgot to be afraid. The scene before her was straight out of a nature documentary, beautiful and wild and utterly awe-inspiring. The mother wolf's eyes met hers, and Betsy felt a connection, a primal understanding passing between woman and beast.

Then one of the pups yipped, and the spell was broken.

The mother wolf rose, her hackles raising as she positioned herself between Betsy and her babies. More growls joined the first, and Betsy's heart sank as she realized the rest of the pack had arrived.

"Nice doggies," Betsy squeaked, taking a step back. "Good, terrifying, probably-going-to-eat-me doggies."

The wolves began to circle, their movements fluid and purposeful. Betsy's mind raced, trying to remember anything useful from those wildlife survival shows she'd binge-watched. Play dead? No, that was bears. Climb a tree? With her upper body strength? She'd be lucky to scale a stepladder.

Just as Betsy was considering making a run for it—because hey, death by wolf was death by wolf, whether you were standing still or flailing wildly—a sound unlike anything she'd ever heard before echoed through the forest.

It was a howl, but not like the wolves'. This was deeper, more resonant, filled with a power that shook the trees. The wolves' ears perked up, their heads swiveling towards the source of the sound. For a moment, everything was still.

Then, as one, the pack turned and melted into the underbrush, leaving Betsy alone and shaking.

She didn't wait to see what could make a sound terrifying enough to scare off a pack of wolves. Betsy turned and ran, her basket of poison ivy-mint forgotten on the forest floor.

Branches whipped at her face, roots seemed to reach up to trip her, but Betsy ran on, fueled by adrenaline and the fervent desire to not be eaten by whatever forest monster had just saved her from becoming wolf kibble.

By some miracle—or perhaps guided by an instinct she didn't know she possessed—Betsy burst out of the tree line and into the clearing where her grandmother's cabin stood. She didn't stop running until she'd crossed the porch, slammed the door behind her, and collapsed against it, gasping for breath.

As the adrenaline faded, leaving her shaky and spent, Betsy let out a laugh that bordered on hysterical. "Well," she panted, sliding down to sit on the floor. "That's one way to get my cardio in."

She looked down at her trembling hands, twigs and leaves stuck in her hair, and made a solemn vow. "Next time I want to commune with nature, I'm watching Planet Earth with a bag of kale chips. Much safer."

With that declaration made, Betsy hauled herself up and stumbled to the bathroom. She had leaves to pick out of unmentionable places and a date with the largest, hottest bubble bath the cabin's ancient plumbing could provide. Anything to stave off the burning itch in her fingers.

As she soaked, rubbing in the calamine lotion, Betsy couldn't shake the feeling that something out there—something big—was watching over her. The thought should have been terrifying.

Instead, she felt oddly safe.

CHASE

Deep in the heart of the forest, where shadows lay thick as molasses, Chase stood motionless. His dark eyes, keen as a hawk's, were fixed on the small figure stumbling through the underbrush. Every snapped twig, every muttered curse, set his teeth on edge.

This human—this Betsy as she kept calling herself—was more disruptive than a herd of elephants crashing through his carefully tended woods. Her very presence here was an affront to the natural order, a chaotic element in a world Chase had spent centuries carefully balancing.

And yet...

Chase's nostrils flared, drinking in her scent. Beneath the sharp tang of sweat and fear, there was something else. Something that stirred memories long buried, feelings he'd thought withered and dead.

She smelled of herbs and wildflowers, of sun-warmed skin and something uniquely her. It was intoxicating. Maddening.

Chase growled low in his throat, the sound rumbling through the forest like distant thunder. He shouldn't be thinking like this. He was a guardian, a protector. This human was a threat, nothing more.

So why couldn't he look away?

He watched as Betsy crouched by a patch of plants, her face lighting up with misplaced triumph. Chase's eyes widened in alarm as he recognized the distinctive leaves of poison ivy. Surely she wouldn't...

But no, there she went, harvesting the irritating plant with all the enthusiasm of a child in a candy store. Part of him—a larger part than he cared to admit—wanted to stride into that clearing. To snatch those leaves from her hands and toss them aside. To show her the true bounty of the forest, the hidden wonders that only one such as he could reveal.

But no. That way lay madness. He'd learned long ago the folly of becoming attached to these fleeting creatures. Humans came and went like seasons, their lives a mere blink in the grand tapestry of the forest. To care was to court pain.

And yet, as Betsy's expression shifted from triumph to confusion to dawning fear, Chase felt something stir within his chest. He should have helped her. Especially, now that she had mentioned her grandmother. She was Francine's granddaughter.

The memory of the old woman hit him like a physical blow. Francine had seen him not as a monster, but as a fellow guardian of the woods. Francine, who had left him and the forest vulnerable by her passing. Surely, Betsy wasn't planning on replacing her grandmother.

Chase shook his massive head, dislodging the ridiculous thoughts. Betsy couldn't be one with the forest. Not if she couldn't recognize poison ivy. But if she wasn't here to aid him with the forest, why did her scent made him want to howl at the moon like some lovesick pup?

With silent steps that belied his enormous size, Chase began to track Betsy through the woods. He told himself it was merely to ensure she didn't damage any more of his forest. It had nothing to do with the way his chest tightened every time she stumbled, or how his keen ears strained to catch every muttered word and breathless laugh.

As Betsy's path grew more erratic, her movements more frantic, Chase felt an unfamiliar urge rising within him. The need to help. To guide.

Before he could think better of it, he found himself leaving subtle signs. A branch bent just so to mark the path. Pebbles arranged in arrows too perfect to be natural. Signs that any forest-dweller would recognize instantly, but which he hoped might trigger some buried instinct in this bumbling human.

"What are you doing?" Chase growled to himself, even as he nudged another stone into place with his foot. "Let her find her own way. It's not your concern."

But he couldn't stop. With each step Betsy took, with each frustrated sigh and fearful glance, Chase felt himself being drawn further into her orbit. It was maddening. Infuriating.

Exhilarating.

Then came the wolves.

Chase smelled them before he heard them, their wild, musky scent carried on the breeze. He quickened his pace, moving with a silence and speed that would have seemed impossible for a creature of his size.

He arrived at the clearing just as the pack began to circle. Betsy stood frozen, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and terror. The mother wolf's growl filled the air, a clear warning to the intruder who had dared to approach her den.

For a moment, Chase hesitated. This was the way of the forest. The natural order he had sworn to protect. Who was he to interfere?

But then Betsy spoke, her voice trembling but still tinged with that ridiculous humor that seemed to be her defense against the world. "Nice doggies. Good, terrifying, probably-going-to-eat-me doggies."

Something inside Chase snapped.

The howl that erupted from his throat was unlike anything the forest had heard in centuries. It was the voice of the mountain, of ancient trees and hidden caves. It was power and warning and command all rolled into one.

The wolves froze, their ears pinned back in instinctive submission. Then, as one, they turned and fled, melting into the underbrush as if they'd never been.

As the last wolf disappeared from view, Chase felt a surge of energy pulse through the forest. The trees around him shivered, their leaves rustling in a non-existent breeze. The very air grew thick with an invisible force. For a brief moment, the entire clearing was bathed in a soft, ethereal glow, as if the forest itself was responding to his presence and actions.

Chase's eyes widened in surprise. He had always been connected to the forest, but this was different. It was as if his emotional state—his desire to protect Betsy—had triggered something deeper, something tied to the very essence of the land. The realization both thrilled and unsettled him.

He waited only long enough to see Betsy run, her basket left forgotten on the forest floor, before he too retreated into the shadows. His heart pounded in a way it hadn't in years, the taste of her fear sharp on his tongue, and the lingering sensation of the forest's reaction tingling through his body.

Chase waited only long enough to see Betsy run, her basket left forgotten on the forest floor, before he too retreated into the shadows. His heart pounded in a way it hadn't in years, the taste of her fear sharp on his tongue.

He followed her at a distance, watching as she stumbled and scrambled her way back to the cabin. Only when she was safely inside, the door locked behind her, did Chase allow himself to relax.

What had he done? Why had he interfered? This went against everything he stood for, every rule he'd set for himself over long centuries of guardianship.

And yet, as he stood at the edge of the clearing, watching the warm glow of lights from the cabin windows, Chase couldn't bring himself to regret it. There was something about this human, this Betsy, that called to him in a way he couldn't explain.

It was dangerous. Foolish. Probably doomed.

But he returned to the clearing and emptied out the basket of the itchy leaves. He filled it instead with edible mushrooms and real mint leaves. In her clumsy, human way, she was attempting to connect with his forest. The thought stirred something within Chase, a feeling he wasn't quite ready to name.

With silent steps, he approached the cabin. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to maintain the distance that had kept him safe for so long. But something stronger propelled him forward.

Chase placed the basket on the porch, careful not to make a sound. For a moment, he stood there, so close to the door that separated him from Betsy. He could hear her moving inside, the splash of water suggesting she was tending to her poison ivy welts.

His hand, massive and furred, hovered near the door. So easy to knock. To reveal himself. To change everything.

But no. Not yet.

But as Chase turned to melt back into his forest, he knew with a bone-deep certainty that things had changed. The careful balance he'd maintained for so long had shifted, and at the center of that shift was a clumsy, ridiculous, utterly captivating human woman.

"What is she doing to me?" Chase rumbled, his words swallowed by the night.

As he disappeared into the darkness, leaving no trace of his passage, one thought echoed through his mind. A thought that was equal parts promise and threat, hope and warning.