Page 66

I laugh, tucking my camera against my side as we continue down the path. Chase scrambles to grab his discarded backpack and catch up. The trees are thin, sunlight streaming through like speckled love marks across our cheeks until we come upon a clearing. There, tucked underneath the opening of a rock cave is a half-buried fire pit. The stones around it are blackened with age. Chunks of charred wood sit long forgotten inside the stone circle. Glass bottles are littered around the opening of the cave.

“Well,” Chase says as he kicks one of the bottles. “This feels like we stumbled into a memory.”

I squat down, running my fingers along the moss on one of the rocks. “It looks like it hasn’t been used in years.”

Cal steps in close behind me, his eyes scanning over the area. “The older pack members, long before Orion took over, used tocome up here as a way to connect with our Goddess. Seems when Orion took over this was another thing our pack lost.”

There’s something heavy in his voice, something I can feel through our bond. I glance up at him, but he’s already crouching down beside me. His fingers tracing over the rocks right along with mine.

Chase sinks down onto a nearby log with less flair this time, looking around at the lost memory. With a faint frown on his face as he looks at me, he says, “Lou said she wanted raw emotion, right?”

“Yeah,” I say in a hushed tone as I lift the camera. As if any loud sound would disturb the area. “I think we found it.”

Chase is mid-pout while poking a piece of the charred wood with a stick. Like a kid who got socks for Christmas, I can’t help but chuckle.

“Fine,” he grumbles. “One serious photo so Lou knows at least I tried.”

He strikes his most dramatic pose yet beside the pit, hand on his heart, his eyes misty as he looks up at the trees. You would think he was auditioning for the lead of the pack’s Shakespeare in the Pines and not just taking photos with me.

Cal laughs behind his hand, trying to stifle the sound. He leans in close to me and says, “That one’s going on the wall.”

“I will sue,” Chase deadpans, before grinning and flopping across a log, thumping his arm against the ground. “Tell her I love her,” he sighs before bubbles of spit foam at the side of his mouth and his eyes roll back.

I lower my camera, shaking my head. “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

His head pops up, winking at me he says, “Obviously, now shh. We are acting out a dying lover here. Be sure to get that foam from the poison, really gotta sell it here.”

We linger a while longer. Snapping photos, tossing pine cones, swapping funny stories, and bringing life back to this long lost fire pit, before finally turning back down the trail, boots crunching against the fallen pine needles.

For the first time in a long time, I feel complete as if this is exactly what I needed. A mate who sees me, a friend who can turn any moment into a memory, and the whispered words across the winds as they breeze through the pine trees.

Even if Chase complains the entire walk back, I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

Chapter 25

Selene

Saturday, July 26th – The Hunt

The blindfold slips into place plunging me into darkness.

The soft fabric is pulled taut around the back of my head, cutting out all the light, the comfort of one of my strongest senses. Everything else heightens—the breeze moving across my skin like fingers trailing, the cool temperature of the damp forest floor beneath my bare feet, the air full ofhim.

His scent moves in slow curls as it surrounds me. Like pine, smoke, and something deeper, almost mirroring scorched earth and need. Our arousal clings to the trees, teasing the moss, living in the breeze, and it’s already driving me wild.

Behind me, his voice comes low and deep as if it’s not him talking at all, but something darker. “Let’s see how well you can hunt, little Leni.”

There’s a rush of air. A breath. Then nothing.

He’s gone.

My pulse picks up beating like a drum, low and steady. I slowly pull air deep into my lungs, centering myself, determining my first move. His scent is everywhere as though he rubbed it on every tree, shrub, branch, and rock he could before running away. Smart asshole. I can taste it in the air, but I can’t pinpoint him, and that’s exactly why he did it.

He’s toying with me.

I should have known that someone as smart as Cal would never have let it be as easy as following his scent trail. The terms were simple. Only use my instincts and scent. No using the bond to pull me to him. Hunt as if he is the prey and I’m the predator.

I take a step. Then another. The dirt and pine needles crunching under my feet, every sound feeling louder in the dark. Every whisper of fabric across my skin adds another layer of distraction. I can hear a squirrel pushing his acorns around in his nest somewhere off in the distance. I can hear an animal munching on leaves. My body is wound as tight as a coiled spring ready to burst. It’s restless and desperate as it aches for something…something only he can give me.