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HUDSON

W ild Hollow, Appalachian Mountains

Present Day

There’s something about the air up here—thicker, heavier, like it remembers things.

Secrets. Blood. Burdens. I step out of the truck and yank my coat tighter against the cold.

The cold wraps around you like old stories, clinging to your skin and whispering warnings in the wind.

Pines lean in close, and the mountains brood in silence, ancient and unmoving.

Every step on the gravel sounds louder here, every breath carries weight, and even the sky feels darker—like the land itself is watching.

Waiting. Like it remembers me. And it doesn’t forgive easily.

I’m back.

I didn’t come home for the nostalgia. Didn’t come back for the badge, either. I came because Elias Rawlings is dead—the head of the Rawlings pack—and the alpha’s seat is empty, and this town is circling the drain. Someone’s gotta keep the pack from tearing itself, and the town, apart.

Apparently, that someone is me.

The sheriff’s office still smells like stale coffee and old pine. Deputy Morris left me a set of keys and a hand-scribbled list of things 'still broken.' It’s half the damn town. The roof leaks, the back door sticks, and the file room’s full of half-solved mysteries. My kind of welcome.

The police scanner’s guts are scattered across my desk—wires frayed, the mic chewed up like something had gnawed on it during the last thunderstorm.

The office creaks around me, the radiator coughing like it’s dying in slow motion, and outside, the wind scrapes the windows with skeletal fingers.

It’s the kind of quiet that feels wrong.

Heavy. Expectant. I just get the damn thing back together when the scanner crackles to life, static dragging like a blade.

“Disturbance at McKinley’s Mercantile. Again.”

McKinley's. Of course it’s the McKinleys... it's always the McKinleys.

I slam the file shut, clip my badge to my belt, and head out.

The McKinleys were always a thorn in the town’s side—and a stick in mine. They weren’t the main pack in the Hollow—that was us, the Rawlings pack. But the McKinleys operated like a rogue pack when it suited them.

Elias always said the McKinleys were wolves who thought the law was optional and traditions were to be ignored when inconvenient.

Half charm, half chaos, one hundred percent pain in the ass.

I remember their kids cutting class, running shine through the holler like it was a damn family sport, and laughing at anyone dumb enough to try and enforce any rule against them.

Looks like nothing’s changed.

The bell over the door rings like a dare when I walk in.

McKinley’s smells like cinnamon and danger. The store stocks everything from canned soup to locally made soap. There’s a display near the register advertising 'hand-knitted whiskey cozies', which is exactly the kind of nonsense that thrives under the McKinley name.

Then I see her. Kate McKinley—with her wild riotous red curls and shining green eyes.

And I’m not the only one staring. There’s a guy standing stiff in the far corner by the greeting card rack—middle-aged, khaki shorts in winter, camera around his neck, and a very recent bite mark on his forearm.

His eyes are wide and jittery, like he just barely escaped a horror movie.

And Hank, still proudly posted beside the register, lets out a low hiss in his direction like he’s not done yet.

Figures. Hank’s the disturbance. This guy must’ve called it in.

I remember Kate as a kid—skinny knees, scraped knuckles, always climbing trees she wasn’t supposed to or sneaking into meetings to eavesdrop.

A little tomboy with fire in her eyes and a mouth full of mischief.

She once stuck a dead fish in the muffler of my dad’s truck and laughed for a week straight when it took the mechanics three days to find it.

She was part of the McKinley's red wolf pack—technically not one of us —born of our blood but bound to their own alpha. They had their own way of doing things, but Wild Hollow cared little for borders back then. I didn’t either.

But the woman standing in front of me now?

She’s something else entirely. The kind of stunning that makes your breath stop and your blood start to simmer.

Wild red hair piled up on top of her head like she forgot she was beautiful, curves that weren’t there before, and a mouth that still looks like it’s always two seconds from trouble.

My wolf lunges toward her with recognition, primal and certain.

For a heartbeat, I forget why I came. Forget the badge. Forget the tension chewing through this town. There’s only her—sunlight wrapped in thorns. And I’m already bleeding.

She’s leaning against the counter, arms crossed. That messy knot looks like she did it in a rush, and yet it’s still distracting. Her eyes are amber and sharp. Her mouth curves like she’s already thinking of three ways to annoy me before I speak.

And Hank—the damn goose—is beside her on the counter, glaring at me and hissing like I owe him rent.

“You’re late,” Kate says.

“I didn’t realize you were expecting me.”

“You’re the sheriff now, aren’t you?”

“Reluctantly.”

She shrugs. “Good. I hate enthusiastic cops.”

“What’s the disturbance?”

“That damn duck.” The tourist standing in the corner of the store points at the bird.

“He’s a Canada goose,” Kate rejoins.

“Doesn’t matter. It tried to attack me.”

I look at Hank. I can’t believe Kate still has the damn thing resting comfortably near her. “He attacked someone?”

Kate snorts—that very unladylike sound I remember from childhood. “Technically, he flew at him. Hank doesn’t bite without provocation.”

I stare at her, then at the tourist still cradling his arm like Hank nearly took it clean off. “Glad to know I’m risking frostbite and flat tires to referee barnyard brawls. Next thing you know, I’ll be issuing tickets for chickens loitering too close to the liquor shelf.”

She leans in, voice low and honey-warm. It hits me like a shot of good whiskey—slow burn, no warning.

My jaw tightens against the way it makes something inside me lean forward, like I want to chase that sound, wrap my hands in her hair and see if her mouth tastes like it sounds.

Bad idea. Every instinct says to back off.

But I’ve never been much good at following orders—even my own.

“This is Wild Hollow, Sheriff. If you’re looking for neat little rules and polite folks, turn that badge in now and drive back to wherever the hell you came from.”

I take a step closer—and immediately regret it.

She smells like pine, brown sugar, and something wild that hits me straight in the chest. It's too much.

Too tempting. Every alpha instinct I've spent years shoving down claws its way to the surface.

And just to drive the point home, Hank lets out another hiss, louder this time, like he's daring me to make a move.

Getting close to Kate McKinley is a bad idea for more reasons than I care to count.

Starting with the way my body reacts and ending with the feathered hellbeast that clearly sees me as a threat.

“I didn’t come here to play games, Kate.”

She tilts her head, grin bright and cutting. “Then why does your jaw twitch every time I smile?”

She’s infuriating. And intoxicating. I remember the time she out-bluffed a table full of grown wolves at a backroom poker game when she was maybe sixteen, walked off with two bottles of whiskey and a fifty-dollar bill she claimed was 'interest.' There’s nothing simple about Kate McKinley. She’s as unpredictable as spring floods and twice as dangerous—and somehow, that just makes her more impossible to ignore.

“I came to clean this place up.”

“You mean like with a broom? Or with a gun?”

“Whichever gets the job done.”

Kate arches a brow. “Big words from a man who's been away a while. It's as if you've had a wild animal caged up too long.”

My blood spikes.

She sees it. Smells it.

Something flickers between us. That crackle that lives in the space between challenge and instinct. My wolf wants her. Marked her as mine from the second I walked through the door. But I don’t move. Not yet.

She pushes off the counter and walks toward me, casual like a cat circling prey.

My chest tightens. There’s something in the way she moves—unbothered, bold—that lights every nerve ending on fire. I wonder if she knows. If she can feel the pull as much as I can.

Hell, maybe Hank does. The goose hasn’t stopped glaring at me since I walked in. Maybe he’s trying to keep me away from her. Maybe he senses what she is to me. My mate.

And maybe she does too—and that’s why she’s smiling like sin and walking like temptation. Maybe she knows, and she wants to pretend it’s not real.

“Well, Sheriff Rawlings,” she purrs, “if you’re here to bring law and order, you should know you’re standing in the middle of both and neither.”

“And you?” I ask. “Where do you stand?”

She stops inches from me. She grins malevolently; I wonder what the hell it means... nothing good, I’m sure. “I don’t. I run the place.”

Hank hisses in agreement. It’s not the casual kind of hiss either.

It’s sharp, aggressive, territorial. Canada geese are naturally protective—nasty little bastards when they want to be—but this is more than that.

This is personal. Protective. He’s pacing the edge of the counter like a sentry, wings twitching.

It’s not just me he’s warning. It’s anyone who gets too close to her.

Damn bird acts like he’s her mate, not me.

And the worst part? I can’t tell if she wants him to keep it that way.

I stare her down, jaw tight. “Get the goose under control.”

“Or what?”

“I’ll arrest him and have him for dinner.”

"Not likely. " Kate says with a grin before throwing her head back and laughing loudly. It’s not dainty. It’s loud, full-bellied, and dangerous. I’ve heard war drums quieter. “You can't be serious.”

“Try me. You'll find I don’t bluff.” I never have. You clear enough rooms in dead cities overseas, you learn real fast that bluffing gets people killed. You say what you mean. You do what you say. And when someone challenges you, you make damn sure they don’t do it twice.

Her smile fades just a fraction. “Neither do I.”

There’s heat between us now. Palpable. Coiled.

My wolf pushes at the edge of my skin, restless, hungry. I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t want her.

But Kate McKinley doesn’t just stir the beast—she dares him, and I’ve never been good at walking away from a dare.

She steps back, slow and deliberate. Hank flaps his wings with a self-satisfied honk, hopping off the counter like he just claimed victory in a turf war.

He circles her feet protectively, puffed up and strutting like he’s made it clear who really runs this place—and it sure as hell isn’t the sheriff.

“I’m sure you’ve got actual crimes to solve,” she says. “You know, ones that don’t involve poultry politics.”

“I do.”

“So go solve them.” She turns, heading into the back room, hips swaying like she doesn’t give a damn if I watch. At the door that leads into the back, she pauses and says, "Take the tourist with you and lock the front door on your way out."

I look down and see the only lock is a deadbolt that can’t be locked from the outside. I can’t help but watch her and feel mesmerized by the way she moves.

“I can’t do that with the kind of lock you have.”

She doesn’t look back, but her voice floats back over her shoulder before she disappears.

“Then leave it, and I’ll take care of it. But don’t come back here unless you plan to buy something.”

“What if that deranged goose of yours threatens someone?”

She stops and leans back out the doorway. “I tell you what—you don’t arrest my goose, and I won’t tell people what you used to get up to behind the library in high school.”

She winks and is gone... her goose trailing behind her with what I swear is a triumphant look on his face.

I walk the tourist out, his wounded pride bruised more than his arm.

He mutters something about reporting Hank to Animal Control if the damn goose strikes again.

I don’t think he realizes Wild Hollow doesn’t have an animal control department.

He nods fast and stumbles off like Hank might still be lurking in the shadows.

The silence that follows is thick. I stay there a beat longer than I should, staring through the glass, fists clenched, pulse ticking.

Goddammit.

This town’s still got claws in me, roots tangled around every bone. The mountain’s watching, same as always. And she—Kate McKinley—is a secret the soil refuses to bury.

This place might kill me.

But if it doesn’t, she will.