Page 3

KATE

H ank's staring at the door like he expects Sheriff Tall-Dark-and-Broody to come marching back in for round two.

His beady eyes are full of righteous fury, and his feathers remain puffed.

My focus should be inventory, but I am instead elbow-deep in a box of canned peaches, muttering curses that would make my grandmother cross herself with a ladle.

"You know, Hank," I say, pulling out a dented can and squinting at the label, "if you keep flying at tourists, we’re gonna end up on Yelp under 'Places Where You Might Get Mauled by a Goose.’"

Hank lets out a defiant honk. I know he's a menace—feathers, fury, and far too much attitude for something without teeth—but he's also saved my hide more than once.

Ran off a drunk with wandering hands last summer and stood between me and a copperhead the year before that.

He may be more bite than brain sometimes, but he's mine.

And I adore the stubborn, overprotective, sharp-beaked bastard more than most people I know.

"Yeah, yeah. I know he was asking for it," I sigh, setting the can aside. "But the new sheriff doesn’t exactly have a sense of humor. Or a pulse, far as I can tell."

He honks again, louder this time, and flaps his wings once for punctuation.

It's his way of saying he's still on duty, still watching. I swear the bird takes his job more seriously than half the wolves in this town. Maybe it’s because he’s seen what I haven’t said out loud—how many times I’ve had to smile through clenched teeth, play nice with men twice my size, twice as loud, but never half as loyal.

Hank doesn’t just guard the store. He guards me. And he never needs a reason.

I roll my eyes and push the box aside, wiping my hands on a dishrag.

I’ve known Hudson Rawlings since we were kids, but that man who walked in today?

That was not the boy who used to sneak lemon drops from the jar at the counter when he thought no one was looking.

That man embodied coiled steel and quiet anger.

Built like a nightmare. Eyes like smoke.

And he looked at me like I was a problem he couldn’t wait to solve—or bury.

And God help me, something in me responded.

Hot. Immediate. Unwelcome. A low thrum in my belly that settled like a spark in dry grass and refused to die out.

It wasn’t just his size or the brooding.

It was the way he looked at me—like he saw too much.

It stirred something I hadn’t felt before. Need. Want. And I want none of it now.

When I took over McKinley’s Mercantile without asking anyone’s permission, I knew I was setting a match to the old way.

I’ve worked too hard to be independent, to be untouchable.

I built this life brick by stubborn brick, fortified it with sarcasm and self-reliance, and I’ve kept every damn wall standing through storms worse than Hudson Rawlings.

The last thing I need is to come undone just because he walked back into Wild Hollow like a storm in boots—with that voice, that presence, that impossible pull that messes with my head and heats my blood like I don’t get a say.

But I do. I have to. Because if I let myself fall, there’s no guarantee I’ll get back up again.

I glance at the mirror behind the counter and scowl at my reflection. Flushed cheeks. Hair trying to escape from where I tried to corral it in a messy bun, like even it can’t keep it together. My heartbeat’s still thudding like I sprinted up the ridge. Useless. All of it.

I don’t do this. Don’t swoon. Don’t stare after a man like I’ve forgotten how to stand my ground.

And yet one look from Hudson Rawlings and I’m flushed and fidgeting like some lovesick teen at the county fair.

That kind of distraction gets people hurt.

And it’s not just that he’s beautiful—it’s the way he sees me.

Like he’s already unwrapped every layer and isn’t the least bit sorry for it.

The last thing I need is to get distracted by broad shoulders and smolder. Not when there’s actual trouble brewing. Not when shadows are starting to creep where they don’t belong and folks are already looking to the McKinleys to blame.

“C’mon, Hank. Time to make our delivery.”

He waddles after me as I grab the box for Old Man Kerrigan.

He’s been buying shine and peaches from the McKinleys since before I could walk.

Half-blind, fully cranky, and sharper than anyone gives him credit for.

He lives two ridges over in a rusted-out trailer with a view that should’ve made him a poet and a temper that made him a legend instead.

The truck growls as it starts. Hank jumps into the passenger seat as if he owns it, settles into the cushion as if it were made for him, and glares at me until I roll down the window.

He wants air, of course—he’s picky about airflow—but I also think it’s his way of asserting dominance.

He doesn’t like when I’m rattled, and Hudson showing up definitely rattled me.

He watches me the whole time I back out, like he’s trying to decide if I need scolding or protection.

Probably both. And the truth is, I’m glad he’s here.

There’s something comforting about his steady presence.

He’s a surly feathered constant in a world that keeps changing under my feet.

“You’re the worst co-pilot,” I mutter.

The drive up the ridge is winding and quiet.

Too quiet. Normally the mountain buzzes with hidden life—crickets chirping, birds wheeling, the distant rustle of something always moving just beyond sight.

But today? Nothing. It’s like the whole ridge is holding its breath, waiting.

The kind of silence that presses against your ears and makes your instincts twitch.

Hank must feel it too—he’s become still in the seat beside me, head tilted, eyes scanning the trees like he’s expecting something to step out.

I slow the truck as we round a bend, eyes darting over the shoulder-high weeds and crooked fence lines. Every inch of this road is familiar—I grew up bouncing around these turns in the back of my daddy’s pickup—but it feels different today. It’s as if the land appears to have been disturbed.

The usual hum of the mountain feels muffled, like the trees are leaning in to listen instead of whispering their usual gossip.

The birds aren’t singing. Not a single squirrel chatters.

The quiet is too quiet. The gravel under the tires crunches louder than it should, and every shadow feels like it’s watching.

Like we weren’t the first ones to come this way today—and whatever came before us might still be out there, just waiting for us to stop.

I don’t like it. My fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and my foot hovers over the brake like I’m waiting for something to lunge out of the tree line.

My instincts are rarely wrong—too many generations of wolf-blood intuition to ignore when it whispers warnings.

It’s not just quiet. It’s wrong . The kind of quiet that feels heavy, watching, loaded with teeth you can’t see yet.

Kerrigan’s place comes into view just as the sun goes down over the ridgeline, throwing long shadows like reaching fingers across the clearing as I park my truck and get out.

His trailer squats on the edge of a slope like it’s defying gravity and good sense, rusted and hunched, part relic, part warning.

Smoke curls from the stovepipe in thin, reluctant ribbons, and the porch groans under his weight as he squirms in his chair, like the wood itself is tired of holding secrets.

It should be familiar. Comforting, even.

But the air is thick, still clinging to that unnatural hush.

The hair on my arms won’t lie flat, and there’s a pressure in my chest like the forest hasn’t let us go.

Like the shadows followed us through the trees and are just now settling in to watch.

Kerrigan’s sitting there like a sentinel, an old rifle across his knees, a chipped enamel mug in his hand, eyes narrowed and face unreadable.

The whole scene feels like something out of an old mountain ghost story—the kind whispered by firelight and never written down. Only now, I’m not sure I’m the audience.

A single dry twig snaps in the woods behind me.

I freeze.

Hank makes a low, throaty noise deep in his chest, something between a warning and a growl. My heartbeat stutters, then kicks hard.

I think I might be in the next chapter.

“Took you long enough,” Kerrigan says, voice gravel and smoke.

“You’re lucky I like you.” I hand over the box.

“You bring the good stuff?”

“Peaches and pie whiskey.”

He grunts, inspecting the jars. Then his eyes flick toward the tree line. “You see anyone on your way up?”

I frown. “No. Why?”

“I’ve seen tracks by the old still site. Fresh ones. Big. Two sets. One smelled off.”

My spine goes tight. “Off how?”

“Like rot. But covered in pine. Like someone’s trying to hide under the wrong scent.”

Hank honks low, uneasy. His head jerks up, feathers twitching, body tense—not like his usual bluster, but something sharper, more instinctive.

He doesn’t honk at squirrels or shadows.

Not like this. This sound is lower, heavier, vibrating with a kind of primal warning I’ve only heard a handful of times. Every time it meant danger.

He’s picked up something I haven’t yet. Something wrong. And the unease rolls over me in a wave.

“You think it’s tourists poking where they shouldn’t?” I ask.

Kerrigan shakes his head. “Tourists don’t know where to find the old still sites. And they don’t cover their scent.”

I glance toward the woods. The breeze alters its direction—slow, deliberate, as if the mountain itself is exhaling—and something in me stirs.

A ripple of warning threads down my spine.

Not sharp, but slow and spreading like a shadow at dusk.

The trees don’t sway; they lean. The leaves don’t rustle; they whisper.

It’s like the forest knows something I don’t know yet.

Something it’s not sure I’m ready to hear.

Hudson might’ve been a pain in the ass today, but I have a feeling I’m going to need him before long.

And that might be the worst part. Because needing him means opening a door I’ve spent years nailing shut.

Letting him in—into my business, my territory, my life—feels a lot like stepping off a cliff and trusting the wind to catch me.

And that man doesn't strike me as gentle landing material. He’s all hard edges and slow-burning fire.

He looks at the world like it’s already guilty, and at me like I’m the one who set the charges.

I don’t need his protection. But God help me, a part of me wonders what it would feel like to have it.

To stop being the one who holds the line, just for a moment.

I can still feel the heat of his gaze from earlier, the way his voice rumbled low when he warned me about Hank. It settled deep, like a secret I couldn’t shake. I didn’t ask for and can’t quite forget.

That thought alone is enough to make me shove the door shut all over again. I’ve survived without him. I can survive with him watching from the other side of the room. Just not any closer.

“I’ll check it out,” I say.

Kerrigan snorts. “You always were too damn brave for your own good.”

I give him a tight smile, but there’s no humor behind it. “Somebody’s got to look, and I don’t see anyone else getting off their porch.”

As I head back to the truck, Hank trailing close, I can’t shake the feeling that the shadows in the woods aren’t just watching—they’re waiting. There’s a thickness in the air, a breath held too long.

The wind grazes my skin like a warning, and every instinct I have whispers the same thing: trouble is coming.

Hank stays close, closer than usual, his feathers ruffling every time I glance toward the trees. The quiet isn't empty anymore. It’s charged. Heavy. And familiar in the worst way.

Something old is stirring in the Hollow—not magic, not myth, but memory. The kind that festers when left alone too long. And someone—maybe pack, maybe not—wants to unearth it.