Page 13

HUDSON

I don’t remember the drive back to the compound. Not the curves of the mountain roads. Not the cold air sneaking in through the cracked window. Not the trees, skeletal in the dark, standing like silent witnesses to how thoroughly I fucked that up.

I just remember the sound of Kate’s voice.

The way it cracked—not from weakness, but from fury barely contained.

The razor edge of hurt threading through every word.

It wasn’t just anger. It was the sound of someone who had been burned too many times and refused to let it happen again.

And it hit me like a punch to the gut—because I put that fire in her throat.

Her fury was righteous, her fear hard-earned.

It hit like a lash across my chest, sharp and stinging, forcing me to face what I’d done.

My throat tightened, jaw clenched, every instinct screaming to go back and fix it.

But I knew better—this wasn’t something a quick apology could erase. Not this time.

And her challenge? It was sharp as teeth, daring me to do better—or stay the hell away.

It echoes in my ears long after the tires crunch across the gravel drive, long after I slam the truck door so hard the frame shudders.

The house is quiet—too quiet. One or two pack mates catch sight of me as I pass through the wide entryway, but the look on my face must warn them off.

They step back into shadow, heads lowered, pretending not to see the wild threading through me.

I don’t stop.

My body holds energy wound too tight, like a taut wire strung through muscle and bone.

Every step forward is a silent snarl held in check, a promise of violence to anyone dumb enough to get in my way.

I don’t have the words, not yet. The burn of humiliation lingers, tangled with regret and something sharper: the awful clarity that I’d come too close to claiming what I hadn’t earned—what I might never deserve.

I growl when a younger wolf rounds the corner into the hallway too fast, his scent sharp with curiosity. The kid stumbles back, eyes wide, body snapping to attention like prey cornered. I bare my teeth and keep moving.

No one follows.

The hallway stretches behind me, quiet as a grave. I catch the scent of someone ducking behind the door to the den, the soft creak of a floorboard under a weight held still.

Even the walls feel like they’re holding their breath.

Their silence isn’t respect—it’s fear. And maybe that’s for the best. I’m not safe to be around right now. Frayed and furious, my instincts claw for release, stretching my skin too tight. I don’t want company. I want control. And right now, I’m not sure I can trust myself with either.

The tension claws at my skin. My pulse hums with leftover rage, barely leashed. Every breath is too tight, every step too heavy. I don’t remember feeling this out of control since I was a teenager, and even then, it didn’t feel this close to rupture.

I strip down on the back porch, the old wood cold against my bare feet. The shift comes easy—rage makes it that way. The mist rises fast, curling up from the ground like it knows what I need. Lightning flashes through the fog, a crack of thunder splitting the night.

When it clears, the man is gone... and the wolf runs.

I tear through the woods like I’m chasing something—prey, purpose, clarity. My claws tear into the underbrush. My breath steams in the frozen air. But the only thing I’m really chasing is the scream I didn’t let out back at the store. The guilt I didn’t admit. The truth I didn’t want to feel.

That I came too close to ruining the one thing I’ve ever wanted. Not just the woman. Not just the mate my wolf claws at me to claim. But the idea that maybe I could be more than the damage I came back with. That I could be hers. And that I might still be worthy of being wanted back.

Every scent I pass—the sap from broken branches, the faint tang of deer deeper in the hills, the bitter stink of old ash—feels like a taunt. None of it fills the hollow that opened when she pushed me away. None of it silences the echo of her voice, telling me I crossed a line.

The moon overhead is silver and unsympathetic. The wind carries no answers. My paws find every familiar path, but even the forest feels different tonight—less forgiving.

The mountain watches but does not welcome. The Hollow remembers. And now I understand just how deep that truth cuts.

When I return, the frost on my muzzle has melted.

Mud cakes my paws. The cold bites deeper now, like it’s trying to gnaw through my bones.

I shift back and stalk through the rear door without care for who might be watching.

I grab a pair of sweatpants from the stack by the mudroom bench, pulling them on.

It doesn't matter that I’m still dripping mud and half-feral.

Modesty's never mattered much in this house, but control does.

And I need to look like I still have some left.

Eddard waits in the study.

He’s got a fire going and a drink in his hand like he knew I’d come back this way.

The room smells like aged oak and something sharper—gun oil, maybe, or the tang of bitter root.

A log splits in the fire with a crack like a bone snapping, and the sound burrows deep inside me.

It’s too still, too staged. Like he’s waiting to see if I’ll explode or fold.

The bastard always did enjoy playing the oracle.

The light from the fire casts him in half-shadow, etching the sharp lines of his face and the silver threading his beard in bronze and black.

He’s seated like a man holding court—legs spread wide, one hand wrapped around a tumbler of something amber, expensive, and mine.

The other rests loose on the arm of the worn leather chair, fingers drumming faintly against the scuffed surface. Calm. Too calm.

He looks like he belongs here. Like he never left.

And that pisses me off more than it should.

“Make yourself at home,” I mutter, voice low and brittle.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look at me.

Just takes a slow sip, swirls the glass like he’s savoring it. “Didn’t have to,” he says finally, eyes flicking up to mine. “I never stopped thinking of it that way.”

The gall of him. The arrogance. That lazy smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, like he knows exactly what buttons he’s pushing and is doing it for sport.

“You’re in my chair,” I snap.

He leans back a fraction, stretches out even further. “Funny. Doesn’t feel like yours.”

My knuckles go white around the glass I’m still holding.

The fire behind me cracks, spitting sparks into the room.

Rage simmers just under my skin, raw and restless, like it’s looking for a place to land.

He still hasn’t blinked. Still hasn’t moved.

And the more still he stays, the more I want to shove him out of that damn chair and reclaim the space he stole by simply breathing in it.

I walk toward him, towering over him. “Move.”

Eddard looks up as if weighing the odds of taking me on. Realizing they aren’t in his favor he gets up and moves to another seat.

“Good choice.”

This isn’t just about the chair, and we both know it.

Under the anger, quieter and more dangerous, is regret—the same bitter note I felt in the woods when her scent faded from the air. It's not just about what I did or didn’t do when I left to join the Navy, it's about what I almost became—and what I still might if I don’t get this under control.

The flames crackle on. I sit there and take it in, hoping the heat will burn the worst of it away.

I think about the way her eyes went dark when I leaned in. The way she gasped when I pressed too close. It wasn’t just fear—it was betrayal. And I hate I put it there. I’m supposed to protect her, not back her into corners.

The next day, I head to the bookstore. Elena’s there early, sorting supplies behind the counter. She looks up when I walk in, arching a brow.

“Morning, Sheriff.”

“Elena.”

“You look like someone chewed you up and spit you out.”

I lean against the counter. “Something like that.”

She finishes scribbling on a clipboard and glances up, the faint scent of aged paper and ink lingering in the air, mixing with the comforting bitterness of strong coffee brewing somewhere in the back.

The early morning hush settles over the bookstore like a blanket, broken only by the distant rustle of pages and the soft creak of worn floorboards.

“You here for a good book, a cup of coffee or emotional triage?”

“Neither. Just checking in. What do you know about Luke, Kate's brother? No one ever speaks of him.”

Elena wasn’t just a bookstore owner—she was the kind of woman who knew everyone’s secrets five minutes before they did. If something stirred in the Hollow, odds were Elena already had it cataloged by scent, source, and shadow.

If Luke had been digging into anything strange, she’d have noticed. Hell, she probably knew more than the pack elders. And unlike them, she didn’t posture. She watched. And remembered.

“Luke?” Her pen pauses mid-stroke. “Yeah, he sort of went missing. I spoke to him a few times. He was one of those souls who watched everything and said little. Quiet. Smart. Dug deep into things most folks wouldn’t bother thinking about.

Thought too much, maybe for his own good.

But he was always kind. Always curious; perhaps too curious. ”

"You think something happened to him?” I ask.

She nodded. "The McKinleys keep mostly to themselves, but no one, including Kate, has talked about him in ages.”

"Dead?"

"Most likely. Moonshining can be a lethal business. If he'd just gone, I don't think he'd have left Kate behind. They were close, and he was always protective of her."

“Then maybe it’s time I started asking the questions.”

Elena doesn’t push. Just gives a slow nod like she knew this moment was coming. “Be careful Hudson. The other moonshiners won't be the only ones who don't take kindly to someone poking around. The McKinleys aren't going to like it either."

"That isn't going to stop me. I can handle the moonshiners, the McKinleys, and the fallout. Tell me what you know... what others don't."

She nods again.

"He used to come in with old books—real obscure stuff, half of it hand-bound. He’d ask questions about shifter lore and old pack territories that even the elders barely remember.

Things others don’t pay attention to, or pretend not to.

I had the feeling he was looking for something specific, not just out of curiosity—like he was following a trail.

Connecting dots no one else bothered to see. "

“What kind of something?”

She shrugs. “Answers. Secrets. He had that look about him—the kind that doesn’t end well around here.”

When I returned to the truck, Elena’s words continued to loop in my mind like a snare. I’m so wrapped up I nearly overlook the thing I’ve trained my eyes to catch—a flicker of wrong, the shimmer of a threat, but then I see it—it's hard to miss.

Someone scratched the message into the driver’s side door, rough and deliberate.

THE HOLLOW REMEMBERS.

The letters are jagged, carved down to the metal.

Deliberate. Not just a warning—an accusation.

A message etched with intent, with rage, maybe even grief.

Whoever left it wanted me to feel it like a brand.

And I do. It hums through me like a threat waiting to rise, just like it did when the mountain watched from the tree line and the Hollow held its breath.

Like the land itself is keeping score, and I just made the list. The Hollow doesn’t forget.

And neither, apparently, do the ones who walk its shadows.

I stare at it a long time, long enough for the cold to seep into my bones and the sting of the words to sink deep and stay.

My reflection warps in the scratched paint, distorted by the message and everything it implies.

I take a breath—steady, sharp—and open the door.

The hinges creak, the sound swallowed by the morning quiet.

I climb in and let the silence sit heavy and thick around me, like fog curling low over the forest floor. But I don’t flinch.

But the wolf inside me is wide awake. And he will not rest until he drags the truth from the soil, until every secret rooted in this hollow is unearthed and exposed—claw by claw, lie by lie.