Page 104 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Ipadded down the stairs on leaden legs, my mind in a thick fog. I might have slept even longer had the wafting scent of bacon and pancakes not woken me. I rubbed my burning eyes and did my best to stretch out the awful kink in my neck.

My legs protested every step, threatening to give out under my weight. Seeing Jared flip a pancake into the air and catch it in a sizzling pan in the kitchen brought it all back in a wave.

The reason why I was so sore. The hundreds of miles Clay and I had run. Where we’d gone in secret. What we learned.

My stomach waged a war on itself as I shuffled into the kitchen. Hunger and disgust dueling at the fresh memory of my alpha mating to Clay’s little sister. Had that actually happened?

I wished I could believe it was all just a really bad, really vivid dream, but I knew better. Clay had been shaking when we finally left. Ryland had insisted Sam stay at pack camp with him. Sam didn’t seem opposed to the idea, so what were we to do?

I could tell Clay had wanted to do something. Wanted more than anything to say something. To warn his sister. But how could he? With his sister smiling and laughing. With the gleam in her eyes.

He wouldn’t speak to me on the way back from camp as much as I tried to reach him.

Not during the run, or the long drive home.

We sat in horror-steeped silence, listening to late-night radio turned down low.

He let me hold his hand while we drove, however, and every so often, I felt his fingers twitch, as though he was remembering where his sister was—who she was with—all over again.

I gulped past a hard lump in my throat and glanced around to the living room and out the window to the yard. I couldn’t see him anywhere.

I wondered if he slept at all. It took me hours to finally drift off. The thud and rattle of Clay hitting the heavy bag in his shop becoming something of a violent lullaby.

“Morning,” I croaked, trying to clear my throat.

Jared spun, just barely catching a pancake he’d been tossing for a second time to flip.

He set the pan down on a dormant burner and his lips twitched into a halfway grin.

“Hey,” he said, taking in my likely monstrous appearance.

I’d had a long bath before attempting to sleep last night but tossing and turning with wet hair had left me with a mane that was about the size of a lion’s.

A worried crease formed in his brow as he wrapped his arms around me, pressing me into him for a soft hug.

I melted into him, shuddering at the intensity of the sensation of his nearness.

He was away so much that the feeling was always so strong when he returned.

“I missed you,” he whispered against my cheek, and I nearly smiled before remembering what Adam had told me.

I stiffened and drew back, guilt pooling like acid in my belly.

I couldn’t tell him now, not with everything else going on.

“Hey,” he said, crooking a brow at me as he brushed some warmth back into my arms. “You okay?”

I shook my head, blinking to clear my thoughts. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Just really tired, and I missed you, too. Where’s Clay?”

“He left early this morning right after I got home.

Said he wanted to go and check on Sam.” I sighed. Of course, he did.

“Did he seem…okay?”

Jared’s sandstone eyes fell to the floor.

“I think so. It’s a little messed up. I mean, she’s so young.

It’s the first time he’s seen her in almost four years, you know.

He usually goes up to Alaska to visit because she doesn’t like coming here.

I don’t think he expected to be welcoming her back for good, or for her to mate with one of his least favorite people. ”

I winced. That was putting it lightly.

“Doesn’t she need, like, permission from her own alpha to leave?”

Jared nodded. “Yeah, but when it’s to do with mating, it’s almost never denied. Apparently, she’s flying back round trip tomorrow to get her things and then she’ll be here to stay.”

“So fast?”

Jared gave an uncomfortable shrug. “I guess Ry doesn’t want to waste any time. Some of us were starting to wonder if he was ever going to find his mate.”

The way Jared said it, like even though the whole thing grossed him out, he was happy for his uncle, made me want to be sick all over again.

Soon, I promised myself. I would tell him as soon as I had something concrete. Soon.

If Sam was in any sort of danger with Ry…if that story about him murdering the shifter woman he got pregnant was true…then there wasn’t any time left to waste.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jared asked again, brushing some of my hair away from my cheek.

I brushed my palm over his hand, holding it there, reveling in how blissfully perfect the feel of him was. It was that small thing that gave me enough comfort— enough courage—to nod. I was okay.

We were all going to be okay.

I was going to make sure of that.

“Are you hungry? I made pancakes and about two pounds of bacon.”

My stomach burbled between us and he chuckled. “I guess I could eat,” I joked, tugging him in for one more hug, admiring how my body just fit there with his.

When I opened my eyes again, I gasped, jumping back. “You have got to be kidding me,” I groaned, pushing my palms into my eye sockets to rub my eyes. I looked again.

Nope.

Not a cruel joke at all.

The clock above the stove glared at me with angry red numbers.

“It can’t actually be one in the afternoon? Please tell me that’s wrong,” I begged, jabbing a finger in the general direction of the imposing clock.

A strained smile that was more a baring of teeth split Jared’s face. “Sorry?” he offered. “I thought about waking you, but you looked so tired and—”

I moaned, wiping my hands over my face as I slumped into the chair at the little table by the window, hanging my head in my hands. “Just great,” I grumbled to myself. “I’m going to lose my job and fail all my classes.”

And then there was the fact that I’d already been avoiding calls from Uncle Tim. The school would be calling him for sure. Fuck. What if he came up?

Four more days until you turn eighteen, I reminded myself.

Just four more days and then you never have to answer a call or text from him again.

Ninety-six hours and he can stop worrying about me and tend to his snooty wife. He can serve her drinks on their beach patio and never think about me again.

Four. More. Days.

“You’re not going to fail,” Jared said, gently tugging my hands away from my face as he kneeled in front of me. His caramel-blond hair glowed in the muted light from the window.

“I’m already failing,” I argued.

Jared bit his bottom lip, thinking before he replied, “How about this: I’m really behind on a bunch of stuff right now, too. Let’s eat, and then we’ll spend the day getting caught up. I’ll help you with math and geography and you can help me with English.”

My eyes burned at the offer.

There was just one problem, but I doubted it would even be a problem anymore once I checked my voicemails. “Okay,” I whispered. “Just let me get fired first.”

Jared cocked his head at me.

“I’m supposed to have a shift at the shop tonight after school,” I explained. “But I’m pretty sure there’s a voicemail on my phone that’s going to tell me not to bother coming.”

Jared’s eyes darkened. “I’m so sorry, Allie. Maybe I could talk to her for you? I could explain—”

“How?” I asked, laughing darkly.

He opened his mouth to argue and I pressed two fingers to his lips, effectively cutting him off. “It’s fine.”

“I hate that word.” I lifted a brow.

“Fine,” he said, heaving a sad sigh. “I never want you to be fine Allie. Fine is nowhere near good enough. Not for you.”

IT TOOK a solid hour before I could really focus on anything after a few nibbles of breakfast. But when focus finally did find me, Jared and I blew through classwork and overdue projects like a breeze.

With his help, algebraic equations looked less like foreign hieroglyphs and more like structures of numeric pyramids.

Still confusing, but a lot less like a foreign language.

He made quick work of my geography project, helping me craft an essay from start to finish. With my competence in English and proper essay formatting and his geo knowledge, we finished the whole thing in under an hour.

His own past due English paper got a thorough upgrade and full reference section complete with proper notations and formatting.

He was worried his teacher might worry he’d stolen it, but I told him it wasn’t against school policy to get help, and I’d take full credit for his improvement, just as I’d give him full credit for mine if asked.

Overall, within about four hours, we were essentially caught up on everything, with only a few smaller assignments and some daily homework left to complete.

I’d have kept going, but I think both of us were starting to run out of gas.

Every time I tried to work through a new problem in my textbook it was like my brain choked and sputtered to a stall.

Trying to jam the key in the ignition and pump the gas pedal wasn’t working anymore, either. I’d chewed the end of my pen to a disgusting mess, and Jared’s hair was sticking out at every angle imaginable.

It looked cute like that.

No, cute wasn’t the right word. Rugged, maybe. Sexy for sure.

He glanced up from the philosophy text he was reading and caught me staring. The glaze over his eyes abated and the knot between his brows softened. “What?” he asked, a playful smirk twisting up his lips.

I reached over across the coffee table and ruffled his hair. “Your hair,” I joked. “It’s getting so long.”

The tops of his ears turned pink as he dragged both of his hands through it, trying to finger comb it into place. But it just sprang back into the mess it’d been a second before.

I giggled.

“I guess I could use a trim,” he grumbled. I shook my head. “No. I like it like this.”