Page 7 of Bound to the Griffin (Hillcrest Hollow Shifters #3)

Gwendolyn

The window hated me. I was down on my knees with a roll of weather-seal tape and frozen fingers, glaring at the frame like I could intimidate it into cooperating. The draft was still winning. Wind sneaked through the gaps like a whispered insult, curling icy tendrils along my ankles.

“Just one room,” I muttered, pressing the tape along the wood and smoothing it with the edge of a spoon. “Just one warm, godforsaken room in this entire creaky house.” I’d been fighting with this roll of tape for days now, it seemed. A task like this had never given me so much trouble before.

Halver’s Haven was beautiful in that bones-still-good-under-the-peeling-paint kind of way, but the old place was stubborn.

Every floorboard had a groan, every pipe had a death rattle, and every window apparently thought insulation was an optional luxury.

That meant every room was icy, no matter how hard I tried to fix the draft.

Unless I stoked the fire in the living room all night and slept on the floor in front of it, I was doomed to icy toes and a cold nose.

I’d been working since dawn, and I hadn’t seen a soul since Luther dumped my last order on the counter and told me, “That’ll go on your tab, Miss Avery,” with all the warmth of a Siberian prison guard.

Not that I expected confetti and cupcakes, but.

.. damn. I thought he might warm up to me over time—especially after the sheriff had helped out—but warmth in that department didn’t appear to be in my future, either.

And Jackson?

Nothing.

Not since two days ago, when he’d walked me back from the general store.

We’d shared, I thought, such a pleasant moment over a cup of tea.

He’d stayed long enough that night had fallen, and then he left me with a quiet, unreadable stare.

Like he wanted to say something, but wouldn’t.

Or couldn’t. Then—poof. No sheriff. Not even a shadow.

I pulled the last strip of tape tight, sat back on my heels, and wiped a sheen of sweat off my forehead. There, was that it? Did that do the trick? I waved a hand in front of the edges and felt nothing, and a quiet sense of jubilation washed over me. Had I done this one thing right after all?

Then my phone rang, shattering the moment. I froze because there shouldn’t be anyone calling me at all. Who would? After that mess I’d left behind? There was only one answer when I pulled out my phone and stared at the lit up screen: Mom .

I considered letting it ring. I really did, but that would just make her call again and again, with escalating texts and guilttrips about how she “could be dying for all I knew” and “how would I feel if this was her last day on Earth and I ignored her?” She was nothing if not dramatic—and somehow, it always worked, damn it.

I sighed and swiped to answer. “Hey, Mom.” My voice trembled, but she wouldn’t hear that anyway.

“ Gwendolyn Avery, ” she started, her voice sharp enough to cut drywall.

“I have left three messages this week. Are you alive? Are you being eaten by hill people? Because I swear to God, if you’ve been murdered in a cornfield—” Her voice was high and shrill, definitely already halfway into a panic attack.

Not that this was real; this was just an act to make me do whatever she had planned this time.

For this much drama after the first hello, I knew I was going to hate what she was after, but how to avoid it?

“I’m fine,” I said, too tired to match her energy, that was an impossible task anyway. “I’m working. The B they were just tools to get me to come back “home.” To Chicago, and fake parties, fake friends, and an even faker fiancé.

“Mom, I’m fine, ” I said it with as much confidence as I could gather from the scraps of my old, torn self.

It wasn’t enough. She wouldn’t listen. It was so frustrating and exhausting, and with the wounds Evan had inflicted wide open, I didn’t have the energy to stand up to her.

Not just Evan, her too. The her I did not even want to think of by name, or recall her face.

That was what hurt the most, but my mom didn’t understand that because she only had acquaintances to leverage, not friends.

“You don’t have to be. You can come home. You can make it right. Evan says he’d consider— consider! —getting back together if you just apologized. And you should , Gwen: you embarrassed him; you embarrassed me .”

My throat went tight with emotion, lodging there like a barb I couldn’t swallow.

There it was: the words I’d been waiting for.

The old tune. Guilt in a crisp soprano. It made me want to scream, or cry, or hurl my phone across the room.

Instead, I stared at the half-sealed window, voice flat. “I’ll think about it.”

My words were met with silence, but it was a silence that spoke volumes.

It thrummed with satisfaction. Then came a prim, victorious hum.

“Good. That’s all I’m asking.” I hung up before she could say more, not that she would, now that she had what she wanted.

I tossed the phone onto the windowsill and let out a long, shaky breath.

Glaring at the device as if it were to blame, I crossed my arms over my chest and contemplated what had just happened, fuming silently.

My mom didn’t get it, no one in my life did.

This wasn’t about Evan, and I wasn’t being stubborn or trying to prove anyone wrong.

This place was mine; untouched by their judgment, their darkness, and their lies.

I wanted something of my own, even if it was drafty, and even if everyone here looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

Even if I were starting to wonder if I’d made a huge mistake...

I needed air. Fresh , pine-scented, non-phone-call air that reminded me of my failures and those of my so-called friends. So, I threw the spoon I was still clutching onto the musty, unmade bed and headed down the stairs.

In the living room, I grabbed my thermos from the sideboard and brewed some of the calming lavender-chamomile blend I’d been drinking by the gallon since I’d gotten here.

Then I wrapped a scarf around my neck, shoved my feet into boots, and headed out the back through the neglected garden, where snow half-covered the old stepping stones and the dead plants lay limply in neglected flower beds.

My puffy coat was on a hook by the door, and I remembered to shrug into it at the last moment.

The forest stood like a frozen cathedral beyond the fence—branches heavy with white, icicles catching the light like glass daggers. I pushed open the gate, the metal squealing in protest, and stepped into the hush.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The snow compressing beneath my shoes was loud and seemed to disturb the peace, or perhaps it was just a staccato beat to accompany the wilderness of nature just beyond my garden.

My boots sank with every step, and the wind picked up, biting at my cheeks, but the air cleared my head.

This was much better than the tea. Better than the window I’d finally managed to fix, I hoped.

Even better than telling my mother to mind her own damn business, not that I’d managed that.

I told myself I wasn’t thinking of a certain handsome sheriff.

That I didn’t wonder where he was or if it meant anything when he looked at me like he had in front of the fireplace.

I told myself it was stupid to get tangled up over a man I barely knew, even if he had looked like something out of a myth.

Considering the last debacle, I really couldn’t trust my own judgment when it came to men or people in general.

Then again, this whole place felt off-kilter, like I wasn’t alone, even when I was.

My dreams had been strange every night I’d slept in that cold, creaky house—shadows and whispers and.

.. calls, a pull that hooked just behind my belly button.

Like something in the woods wanted me to follow, but didn’t speak loud enough for me to understand.

Maybe I was just going stir-crazy, or crazy from lack of conversation. I wasn’t used to being alone so much that I’d already caught myself talking to the peeling wallpaper. Threatening that I was coming for it next with my knife.

I took a sip from the thermos, steam curling around my nose, and savored the familiar taste, letting it ground me, heat and cold colliding in a delicious blend that made me feel alive, awake.

I also relished the muted silence of a snow-covered path winding into a pristine thicket of oaks and evergreens.

There was nobody here to judge me. Not here in the late-afternoon woods.

But sadly, I hadn’t escaped that fate the way I’d hoped when I left the city behind.

I only needed to step out the front door to get judged by this town’s inhabitants.

Except Jackson, but he’d disappeared, probably too busy doing sheriff-y things.

Then I saw it: a hint of movement between the trees, seen from the corner of my eye.

I stopped mid-step, heart stuttering, and searched for it, hoping I was mistaken.

There—beneath pine boughs heavy with snow—stood a wolf.

He, or maybe she, was huge, with a deep silver-gray pelt and razor-sharp eyes. Watching me.

My breath hitched, and I froze, uncertain what to do and abruptly very aware of how much of a city girl I was. Was it shout, run, freeze? The locals would know, and they’d laugh in my face for not knowing myself, but that wouldn’t help me now. The thermos of tea trembled slightly in my grip.

The wolf didn’t move; it just stared at me with predator stillness.

Not like the deer I’d seen bolting at the first crack of a branch on my short walk yesterday.

This wasn’t like a scared animal at all.

No... this was deliberate . If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this wolf was staring at me like he wanted to scare me, or eat me.

I glanced uneasily left and right, never once losing sight of the wild animal eyeing me like I was a snack and it hadn’t eaten in weeks.

There was nobody here to help me, though, nobody who could tell me what to do.

No handy sheriff with a rifle to shoot into the air and scare it away.

If there were a moment for the golden-haired lawman to ride to my rescue, now was the time.

Then I swallowed roughly and forced myself to get it together.

I didn’t want to think of myself as a helpless little damsel, but damn it, that wolf was huge.

Did they even come that big? I was pretty sure he’d tower over me if he approached, but that was probably just the fear talking, wasn’t it?

My hand was still shaking around the thermos, and it was half cracked, what if I hurled that at it?

Him? I was pretty sure it was a him, though I couldn’t entirely explain why.

Something in the breadth of his shoulders, perhaps.

It wasn’t super hot anymore, but perhaps hot enough to scare him off if he lunged.

Except he didn’t lunge, he just stood there, staring at me, mouth slowly pulling into a fearsome snarl, all fangs and bite.

Something cunning moved behind those eyes that made my skin crawl and nausea rise in my gut.

It was almost like hatred, but… animals didn’t hate, did they?

I wasn’t ready, not with the cup, not with any kind of plan.

When he moved, it was lightning-fast, and all I could do was stumble back and fall.

The ground abruptly gave way beneath my feet, snow sliding and taking me with it.

With a scream, I rolled down the previously not-so-steep-seeming slope of a hill.

My thermos went flying, but not in any kind of meaningful direction, simply lost in the chaos of the fall.

A mouthful of snow and darkness stung my eyes as I went face down. Then, a sharp pain shot through my ankle, and I curled away, screaming, before my head hit something hard and darkness claimed me. As I sank into oblivion, I heard the loud screech of an eagle shattering the winter silence.