Page 1 of Hunted by Them (Primal Desires #1)

SAGE

The quiet here wasn’t hollow. It had layers, the way old trees kept secrets in their rings.

Wind moved through the lodgepoles with a low hush.

Connor would have hated that I didn’t call them pine trees.

He’d always detested that I was way smarter than him, and I’d gotten sick of dumbing myself down for his sake.

Somewhere far off, a river murmured like it was trying to talk me down from the ledge I’d been standing on for months.

I let the sound pour through me until the tightness behind my ribs loosened.

I’d missed this. I used to come here every weekend and walk the trails, but I’d stupidly stopped when I started dating Connor.

He’d said he hated nature, and that was Red flag number two that I’d ignored.

Yellowstone air tasted different than the city. Thinner, colder, and cleaner enough to feel medicinal. I drew it into my lungs like a cure, held it, then let it go. I imagined all the static and stress leaving with my breath.

The apartment had felt like a storage unit for a life that didn’t fit. From the excess noise outside, the scent of fuel and food that always wafted in through the windows, to the screaming couple above us…none of it was me.

Then Connor started working late, then later, and then he hadn’t come home at all. His late-night messages were always apologetic yet guilt-laced and manipulative.

Next was the way my boss smiled when she told me the promotion was mine. But then it conveniently slipped her mind, and went to someone who projected more confidence . That was just a nice way of saying a guy named Todd took credit for my work with a louder voice.

I had promised myself I wouldn’t think about any of this shit out here.

Not the stupid ex who cheated and called it a lapse in judgment .

Not the job that smiled at my ambition, then shut the door in my face.

This trip was mine. A reset. A clean slate pressed against the bark of a tree and the fresh air.

My boots found a rhythm on the narrow trail, gravel and hard-packed dirt underfoot.

My pack rode high between my shoulder blades.

I liked the feel of the weight when I hiked.

It made me work harder and kept my body honest. Out here, there were no polite lies, no carefully crafted texts.

If I was tired, I rested. If I was hungry, I ate.

If I wanted to cry, the trees and animals didn’t care.

A row of lodgepoles rose on either side of the path like a dark green corridor.

I brushed my fingers along one as I passed and felt its rough skin catch on my fingertips.

I always touched things when I walked. Bark, stones, water, and an animal if it let me.

It was my way of plugging in to who I truly was.

My friends joked about my hippie tendencies, but they weren’t wrong. I whispered ‘thank yous’ to creeks when I refilled my bottle and spoke to the animals like they were long-lost friends. And…I didn’t feel silly doing it. I felt seen. I was grateful for this space and what it offered me.

A crow cut across the white-blue slice of sky and let out a single harsh call. It jolted me, the sound a little too sharp in the quiet.

“Okay, okay,” I said, laughing. “I hear you.”

The humor faded, and I paused to watch it fly overhead.

The forest breathed around me, but there was something else.

A slow prickling worked its way along the back of my neck, as if a thread had been laid on my skin and was being dragged across.

I reached up and found nothing, but the sensation persisted.

I turned and scanned the trail behind me, but all I saw was a long tunnel of trees and dappled sunlight. Nothing moved. I held still until my heartbeat came down from its small panic. Probably a deer off the trail had stepped on a twig, or maybe a pinecone had dropped.

My brain had been bullying me for weeks, always pushing me toward the worst version of every story. I refused to let it have the forest too. This was my time. My perfect, no-one-to-bother-me time.

Clouds huddled along the distant ridge, gray and rolling, like the mountains were bruising. A storm was coming, and that wasn’t good. My weather app had promised sunshine, but apparently, nature had not been consulted.

There was no way to make it back to the car before the rain hit.

The clouds were moving fast, and the parking lot was easily a three-hour hike yet.

I quickened my pace. I knew this section well enough to put a picture in my head of what was ahead of me.

A gentle rise, a switchback, then the narrow ghost trail that most people missed.

That path led to an abandoned ranger camp from decades back, and a pocket of cabins tucked among the trees.

They were listed on old maps, although you had to squint to notice them.

I had found them my first year hiking here when I was sixteen.

Then I’d gone looking for them when I was fresh out of college and thought you could solve heartbreak by walking straight into the wilderness until your legs shook.

I had run to the ramshackle buildings when a sudden summer storm had pinned me.

The cabins had been a shabby paradise. Broken windows with boards haphazardly slapped over them, a door that whined like the start of a horror movie, and dust thick enough to leave messages. But a roof, no matter how shitty, was a roof when the sky decided to open.

I pictured crawling into one now, making a nest on the floor with my sleeping pad, and listening to the rain drum a rhythm while I drank the peppermint tea I brought.

A list formed in my mind of everything I would not carry back to the city.

Connor’s name was first, and next to it was written the words ‘I’m done’ circled until the ink bled through the page.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Muscle memory had me pulling it out before I remembered my vow of no phone. I glanced anyway. A preview of a text from Connor lit the screen. Of course it was him. The man was persistent if nothing else.

I didn’t open it. But I read the first line because I was a glutton for punishment.

I miss you, Sage. Please ? —

I pressed the side button, and I slid the phone back into my pocket, grumbling. Yet it somehow still felt like I was putting a lid on a jar of hornets that were poised to strike.

We’d broken up three months ago, but if you had asked him, he would say we were on a break.

It wasn’t a break. It was a severing. My friend Colby hadn’t wanted to tell me, but had finally broken down, confessing that she had seen Connor out to dinner with a co-worker.

At first, she hadn’t thought much of it.

It was a business dinner, harmless. Not.

They kissed and cuddled at the table, which she got pictures of, before they left holding hands.

Conveniently, that was one of the nights he had to work late…

sure. The rest was easy enough to piece together. The blinders had been ripped off.

He said he wanted forgiveness, but what he really wanted was for me to forget all about it and move on. I wanted him not to take up any more of my time and to leave me the hell alone.

At the switchback a gust pushed through the trees, and everything around me shivered. Needles hissed, a ribbon of dead leaves skittered across the path, and a faint crunching sound hit my ears from my left.

I stopped again, head tilted. It had been soft.

Not a branch cracking exactly. More like weight shifting on leaves.

A footfall muffled. I told myself it was a deer sliding through shadows.

I told myself I wanted to see it. Then I didn’t move for ten long breaths as I prayed it wasn’t a mountain lion or a bear.

I palmed the can of bear spray hanging off my waist to ease my mind.

But just like before, nothing moved. The hush settled again as the breeze eased temporarily.

“Get a grip,” I said out loud, because sometimes my voice was the only thing that cut through the stories of my mind. I forced my feet to move, and the eerie moment broke.

Stop being stupid, Sage.

The sky dimmed as the ridge swallowed the sun, and the first low growl of thunder rolled over the valley. It didn’t sound close yet, just a warning passed from peak to peak. The smell of rain sharpened in my nose.

I walked faster. The trail climbed, and my thighs burned in a good way. Heat rose off my skin. I drank to stay hydrated. The water was cold enough to sting against my throat. Capping the bottle, I wiped my mouth on the back of my wrist.

Like destiny was pushing me forward, the forgotten path appeared as a faint ribbon of darker ground just ahead. I stopped at the mouth and looked between the pine needles and underbrush to the wide, clear path.

Someone had dragged a stick along part of it at some point, a scratchy line that looked like a childish map. I smiled when I spotted it and stepped off the main trail. Just like old times.

Immediately, the temperature dipped. The trees grew denser, and the ground held on to the chill. The light changed, too. It went greenish, as if I had stepped into a glass bottle. Green was bad. It indicated anything from a severe storm to a tornado.

The path curled and narrowed, brushing my calves with ferns. Another swell of thunder reached me—closer this time, and I picked up my pace.

A flash of timber beams peeked through the trees, then another.

Rooflines. The cabins waited like they had always waited, stoic and unembarrassed by their decay.

Relief flowed over me, and I laughed, almost giddy.

I had made it before the sky opened. The world expanded as I stepped through the tunnel into a large clearing in the thick trees.