Page 2 of Hunted by Them (Primal Desires #1)

There were four structures here if you counted the outhouse listing at the edge.

Two cabins had roofs in recognizable shapes.

The third had collapsed into a heap of gray boards.

The fourth was a shed or had been, its door hanging by a single hinge.

Someone had also carved initials into the trunk of the big pine standing proudly in the center.

The old fire ring was still visible, stones blackened.

The first fat drops of rain struck my forearms and the top of my head.

They felt cold enough to be an assault. I jogged to the nearest standing cabin, the one with the door that sagged but still latched.

I slid my pack down, propped it against the wall under the overhang, and reached for the handle.

Something moved in the treeline.

I froze with my hand on the metal. It wasn’t a dramatic kind of movement, not the kind that left proof behind.

It was a shift. Nothing more than a suggestion.

A dark shape among the trees and the shadows they cast. I didn’t breathe for a count of three.

Rain ticked on the roof like impatient fingers.

“Deer,” I whispered. “Or wind. Or me being me.”

I cocked my head and listened anyway. The forest gave me nothing back.

I felt my pulse in my throat. The sensation of being watched slid down my spine like beads of cold water.

I thought I’d felt it on the trail and distracted myself with a story to keep calm, but here it was again, persistent just like Connor and his texts.

What if it’s a man watching me and not an animal at all?

For just a second, that thought flickered through my mind, and maybe I liked it.

After months of being overlooked at work and a boyfriend who had been cheating on me for just as long, the idea of a gaze that didn’t ask me to perform felt shocking.

It surged through my body like electricity. Did that make me broken or honest?

Maybe both.

The rain fell harder in the space of a breath, and the sky must have decided it was tired of waiting for me to get inside.

It let go, and the clearing blurred with the torrential downpour.

I shook myself and shoved the door with my shoulder.

It complained but gave, then swung inward into a dark, dank shadow.

The smell hit first. Old wood, dust, the faint ghost of smoke baked into beams that had watched a hundred winters and could tell just as many stories. I took a step inside, and the floor creaked like a warning under my boot.

Light slid through the gaps between boards and striped the room. I pulled the small flashlight from the side pocket of my pack and clicked it on, the beam slicing through the dim interior.

It was just a single open space, exactly how I remembered.

Grabbing my pack, I set it down, closed the door behind me, and proceeded to inspect the rundown cabin.

A window on the far wall had been boarded, and another was open to the elements, the screen gone.

A rusted cot leaned on two legs against the far wall like a drunk unable to stand without help.

Shelves ran along one wall with the detritus of other people’s storms. There was a cracked mug, an empty matchbox, and a pencil whittled to a nub.

I liked that pencil the most. It felt like proof that someone else had come in from the rain and decided to write something down.

It didn’t matter what it said, just that others had been like me.

The sound of the rain softened, transformed from an assault to a grumble. The wind moaned through the cracks in the wood, and the door rattled before falling still. I stood a moment and let my body register the shift from flight to shelter. My breath evened. The knot between my shoulders eased.

Ding.

Connor…again. I didn’t have to look to know it was him.

I took my phone out, slid it into airplane mode, and put it deep in the pack beneath my spare socks.

I would not let him follow me out here. I did not want to picture his face again.

Instead, I envisioned the trail and how it made me feel calm and whole.

I unrolled my sleeping pad in a clean rectangle of floor and sat.

My thighs hummed in a good way. The kind of tired that said you had earned your hunger.

I took off my boots and wiggled my toes, then set them near the door to dry.

Pulling out my thermos, I made tea in my small tin cup with the last of the morning’s hot water.

The scent of peppermint turned the air minty fresh.

I dug around in my pack and found my pen, twirled it in my fingers, then fished a small notebook from the front pocket.

On the first page, I wrote three lines.

I am not going back for him.

I am not begging for what I deserve.

I am not small here.

I underlined the last sentence. The cabin creaked like it agreed. I smiled into my cup, steam softening the edges of the room.

A sound outside lifted the hairs on my arms again. Not thunder. Not rain. A step. Then another. Slow and deliberate.

My breath froze in my chest. I set the cup down quietly and turned off the flashlight. The room went green-gray with the storm’s light. I slid closer to the window and eased up to it until I could see a narrow slice of the clearing.

Rain streaked the view like silver sheets. The big pine stood like a sentinel. For a moment, there was only the shimmer of water and the sway of branches. Then, at the edge of the trees, a shape separated from shadow. I blinked, not believing what I saw.

It was tall and still. A darker cut-out against the wet green. Indistinguishable. My heart thudded so hard it hurt. I blinked again. The shape didn’t move, or maybe it did. In the next blink, the shadow was gone, swallowed by the forest.

I stayed at the window until my tea went cold.

The shape never reappeared. Eventually, the storm softened to a lullaby.

I told myself it had been a trick of light and distance.

I told myself many things that sounded reasonable.

And tried to ignore the fact that the footstep I’d heard had been much closer… right outside the door.

“No, Sage, we are not doing this,” I mumbled.

Turning my flashlight back on, I finally lay back on the sleeping pad. The cabin smelled like mint and wet wood. The rain kept time on the roof. The pen rested by my notebook, and the last line I had written glowed pale in the dim flashlight glow.

I am not small here.

I closed my eyes and listened to the storm carry the world away, and I knew four things with certainty. Tomorrow, the sky would break open and wash everything clean. I was never going back to Connor. I needed to quit my job and find one that valued me.

And…I was not alone in these woods, not at all.