28. Caleb

TWENTY-EIGHT

Caleb

The cold, crisp air felt almost sharp in my lungs as I crouched in the bushes, senses heightened, trying to push everything from my mind as I hunted. I had left her behind, alone, in an abandoned cabin that I hoped would heat up for her. That generator hadn’t been on for so long I wondered if it would last. Knowing that I hadn’t waited to see bothered me, but I needed to get away from her.

The truth was, I was hunting as much for clarity as I was for dinner.

The ground felt uneven here. Despite all my years away, this place was still familiar. The feeling that something was wrong, which I had been feeling for so long, was stronger now, gnawing at my gut for days. I thought it would be better here on the Peak. This was my mountain. My home—the one constant in my life, the one thing I thought I could control—but the control felt like it was slipping through my fingers.

Why did nothing feel right anymore?

The sounds of Shadowridge Peak, the taste of the air, the energy that surrounded me, nothing felt right.

And Willow? I wanted to bury myself inside of her, taste her, take my time fucking her, not the quick fumble at the side of the road, in a cramped car, but stretch her out on a bed and really spend the time learning every single inch of her. I’d had a brief taste…but, fuck, I wanted more. I wanted all of her.

But I couldn’t.

I saw the way she looked at me here. I saw the mistrust in her eyes. I thought her being here would make it better, but what did I expect? I told her about the many that I killed, and she judged me for it. She would never let me near her again.

I knew that now. I knew it the moment she stepped away from me.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs again with the fresh air, trying to ignore that it tasted tainted. Snapping my eyes open, I growled low in my throat. I felt restless, irritated by everything that was around me. The hunt wasn’t going well either. No matter how hard I pushed forward, I couldn’t shake the distraction of Willow’s presence on the mountain.

I kept hearing her words echoing in my head.

“The darkness that follows you, you’re not yourself, Caleb.”

As if she knew me well enough to be able to judge that. As if she hadn’t burst into my life, ripped everything apart, and had no idea what she was doing. I let out another low growl as I recalled the sight of her after I told her what I did, looking at me with those wide eyes of hers, staring at me like she was seeing something broken . Seeing a side of me she never thought existed .

Maybe the worst part of it all was the feeling that she wasn’t entirely wrong.

A flash of movement caught my eye, pulling me back to the hunt. A deer, walking carefully through the underbrush, the snow and cold not bothering it too much. This mountain had been abandoned for too long. Prey forgot what it was to be hunted. To be prey. My body tensed, muscles coiling as I prepared to give chase, but I didn’t move.

Something held me back.

I watched the deer disappear into the thick trees, my instincts gone, my drive lost.

What was happening to me?

Everything just felt…wrong.

This was Willow’s fault.

Those words she said, the accusation in her tone, they cut deeper than I wanted to admit. I resented the way she made me feel.

Unstable.

Off-balance.

A constant reminder that the ground beneath my feet was unsteady.

I hated her for it. I knew I shouldn’t, but…I did.

Willow was not my enemy, but who the fuck did she think she was to accuse me of losing myself? I couldn’t control the feeling of rage at her words. How could she understand the weight of what I had been through? No one could. Not her. Not any pack. No one.

Not even me.

They thought they knew me, but they knew nothing about me. They thought they understood the “tragic loss”—they understood nothing . They would never know what it felt like to know that feeling of betrayal. That loss of trust and family.

She said I was paranoid. Didn’t she understand that I’d be a fool not to be?

They all expected me to trust them. Trust . I’d trusted before and I’d paid the price for it. My pack paid the price for it. I didn’t trust anyone. Not anymore.

My head turned south as I felt them step onto the mountain. Turning, I focused on my senses, tuning into the intruders who dared walk over my lands. The wind shifted, carrying their scent to me. My growl was low as my anger rose. The scent of another caught the breeze—a familiar one, human.

Willow.

Even when I tried to focus on something else, I was never free of her. She was all I could think about.

Had the generator come on? Was she warm? Was she worried about me, thinking that I was out here, losing myself, spiraling out of control while she froze in an abandoned cabin? I could almost hear her worrying about me.

I shouldn’t have left her.

Shaking my head, I tried to clear the heaviness of self-doubt. She would be fine. She was safe. I was in control. I was in charge of this, and she would be fine.

But there were shifters after her. What if they were on the mountain? What if they got to her? What if I lost her? I’d already lost so much. I wouldn’t lose Willow. I started to turn back, return to her and ensure she was okay, my wolf anxious to be by her side.

Shadows moved around me, and I shook my head as the wind through the trees started to sound like whispers .

But what if that’s what they wanted? I felt the others on my mountain. I would know if there were more than Blackridge Peak wolves on my land. Willow was safe where she was.

I had to stop being consumed by her. It seemed that ever since she came into my life, ever since I had gone looking for her, something had shifted within me. My instincts, the very ones that kept me sharp and alive, felt like they had dulled. She was an intruder in my mind as much as in my life. Would I even be back here if she hadn’t forced my hand?

I stayed far from here for ten years. How had she made it that I returned?

We were here to figure out what the hell was going on with us, what was the link we shared, but how had she convinced me that this was for the best? And now that I was here? She wanted me off it? What the fuck was her plan?

I thought we were here to figure out what bound us. But since I got here with her, I felt like I was walking through someone else’s territory, but this was mine .

Another scent reached me, this time a rabbit. But I didn’t move. I had no appetite. Not when my thoughts were so confused, filled with doubt and frustration.

She had done this. She had made me this way.

No matter how far I got away from her, she was always there, at the back of my mind, lingering. Tugging at something inside me, something that I didn’t understand. I hated how much it unnerved me. I hated how being linked to her allowed her to see into my past.

Unnerving me.

“You’ve been erratic, paranoid…angry.”

I hated the thought that she might be right. She’d said it so calmly. So clearly. There had been no doubt in her mind that she was right, like she could see me unraveling in front of her. Had she seen something I hadn’t?

What had she drawn?

Suddenly, I wanted to return to her and demand she show me her sketchbook. The very thought of her seeing something had me so on edge that I felt my hackles rise. My wolf paced, furious, resenting her thinking she knew me.

Thinking she knew Shadowridge Peak.

I knew this mountain better than anyone.

She wanted me to leave. After all that time they took to get me to come here, now she didn’t like the truth of what she saw. The betrayal and death weighed heavy on my soul, the taint of it so strong she would never understand. She may paint my past, but she would never understand the history here. She would never know the sense of betrayal when someone you loved sliced through your heart with their actions.

That’s why I resented her.

Willow thought I had to listen to her. That she could fix me. She had never been here. She hadn’t lived through the whispers of the trees, the feeling of eyes that were always watching from the shadows, or the way this mountain would turn on you if you weren’t careful.

No…I wasn’t losing it.

Willow was losing her control over me. Here on Shadowridge Peak, I knew myself again. I was strong. So much stronger than they thought. That’s what they were afraid of. They didn’t want me strong and in control; they wanted to keep me weak .

That’s how they would take my mountain. That’s how they thought they could beat me.

Fury coursed through me. I felt the intruders cross onto packlands, and I hesitated, torn between confronting them or confronting her . I could already imagine the look on her face, those concerned eyes, probably wondering how she could help me, how she could heal something that wasn’t even broken .

Or was I?

No!

I would not let them make me believe their lies. I’d been through too much, fought too hard to let someone like Willow fucking Harper come into my life and tell me I was damaged.

She’d turned my life upside down enough. No more.

Picking up my pace, I ignored the tiny whisper of doubt in my mind as I moved through the trees, preparing myself to face them. All of them.

Face them here, where it all began.

I knew where they were when I got back to the cabins. The sight of Willow waiting for me was almost a relief, but seeing the others surrounding her had my blood boiling. She looked up from where she was sitting near a fire, her face shadowed, her eyes already checking me over to ensure I was unharmed.

Even looking at me as my wolf, she didn’t flinch. She watched me, unafraid of what I was, only ever concerned for me.

She didn’t speak, but I could hear her unspoken questions. The unspoken worry. The same damn hovering that made me want to scream.

“Caleb,” she greeted me softly, her tone cautious. “Do you mind the fire?” She gestured to the small, compact campfire, and I had half a mind to walk over to it, piss on it, and kick it in their faces. But I wouldn’t. Not in front of Willow. I heard Cannon huff with contempt, and I was pretty sure my thoughts had been portrayed clearly to the other alpha in the group.

“There’s clothes for you in the cabin,” Royce said flatly, matter-of-factly, but I heard how guarded he was. Wary.

“I’ll get them.” Willow was on her feet. “He doesn’t need to go in.” She hurried inside before I could stop her. She returned so quickly that they must have been on the floor by the door. Walking quickly around the side of the cabin, she took the bundle of clothes. Following her, I noticed she had her back to me as she held out the bundle, careful to keep them off the wet ground.

“They brought food,” she told me, her voice barely a whisper. “I don’t know if you’ve eaten. The generator worked.”

Shifting, I stood behind her, my body instantly missing my wolf’s natural fur coat.

“Did you bring them here?”

I saw her back stiffen in surprise, and I wished I’d asked her that when she was facing me. She was a shit liar.

“No, I did not.” Her tone was cold and clipped, meaning I’d pissed her off. Good. Now she knew how I felt.

Coming to stand behind her, I saw her tense even more. I was naked and she was fully wrapped up, but she may as well have been as naked as I was from the way her heartbeat picked up.

Skimming my hands over her shoulders and down over the fabric of her coat, I pulled her into me, knowing she knew I was bare behind her. Pushing my way into the crook of her neck, hampered by the heavy winter coat and all her hair, I just wanted to scent her. Mark her as mine.

“Caleb?” Willow’s voice was less certain, shakier, confusion oozing from her, but I could scent something else, something I bet she wished I didn’t know. She was aroused.

“I could fuck you right here,” I whispered into her ear. “Rip these clothes off you, pin you to the wall, and fuck you long and deep.” She didn’t say a word, but I could feel her trembling, her pulse racing, and moving her hair away, I exposed her neck, my tongue tracing her vein. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You want me filling you up, stuffing you full.”

“I don’t think…” She cleared her throat, trying to step out of my hold. “I don’t think that this is appropriate.” Turning, she tried to glare at me, but I was naked, and she wasn’t used to the fact that shifters are very comfortable in their own skin. Her eyes dropped down my body, fixating on my cock, seeing it swell with need. “Oh, shit…” Hastily, Willow turned away, but not before she threw the bundle of clothes at me. “Get dressed!” Her hands were on her cheeks and, even turned away from me, I knew her eyes would be closed. “We’re not alone!” she reminded me sharply.

Smirking at her reaction, I looked at the clothes. Taking the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt, I dropped the rest to the ground. When I pulled my head free of the T-shirt, I noticed that she was facing me again.

“You were gone all night.”

“Needed to clear my head.”

Her eyes softened. I could tell she wanted to say more, snap at me, but she held back. Which was smart of her. I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture about losing control; I was more interested in the shifters on my mountain.

The silence stretched between us, heavy and full of things we weren’t saying, and as I watched her, I saw the worry she had for me in her eyes. Which did nothing except piss me off even more.

“Why are they here?”

She licked her lips, looking away from me. “They’re concerned.”

“They don’t know me.”

“Then let them get the chance!” she hissed in temper. Pushing past me, she walked around the side of the cabin.

I didn’t like her walking away.

Following, I narrowly missed the boot that was flung at me. “And put boots on. You make me even colder seeing your toes freezing in the snow like that.”

Doc jerked his head away from my line of sight, and I knew he was fighting a laugh, but my attention was on Cannon.

Ignoring the boots, I looked at the only threat to me on this mountain. “What do you want?”

Cannon’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t look away. “What we all want. To understand what’s happening to you. To Willow.”

The reminder that it wasn’t just me jolted through me. I glanced at her, seeing her cheeks flushed with cold, bundled into a jacket, and still freezing, but still here.

Why?

“The shadows grow darker around you.” The shaman spoke for the first time, and the manners my mother instilled in me as a young pup made me bow my head in respect for the old shifter, the one who had a direct link to the Goddess.

“You can see them too?” Willow asked him, making everyone’s attention turn to her.

“I can, child. They pull at him.”

“ Nothing is pulling at me,” I snapped irritably.

“They wrap themselves around him,” Willow continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “It’s been worse since we got here.”

“Have you drawn it?” Doc asked, and I heard the curiosity, not just in general but the scientist behind it.

“No, I’m afraid to put it on paper.” Her head was down, and that only angered me more.

“Why?” I demanded, stepping closer to her.

“Because it scares me.” She looked up. “ You’re scaring me.”