Page 3 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

We walked for what felt like at least an hour but was probably less. By the time I saw the mellow orange glow of artificial light through the trees and caught the scent of burning firewood on the breeze, I was half unconscious.

Between the cold, the adrenaline crash, and all the exertion, I was past the point of no return.

I had just enough presence of mind to recognize shelter and sigh in relief before my body gave out under its own weight and the darkness at the edges of my vision started to spread.

Come on, I shouted in my mind. You’re almost there.

Call out for help or something.

I parted my lips to call out, but my voice rasped out barely above a whisper. I tried to push my body up, but the numbness had spread to cover most of my hands and forearms. They were practically useless at this point.

Army crawl it is…

I pulled myself forward on my forearms, using all my shoulder strength to move the rest of my aching body. As I nudged a particularly spikey shrub from my path, I saw it.

Nestled in a grove in the trees, down a gently sloping hill.

A wooden structure, like a modern hunting cabin, or maybe a private chalet, crouched among the foliage.

It had two levels, each with their own wraparound deck.

A big peaked roof with a chimney puffing out coils of dark smoke made me shiver, anticipating the warmth it would provide.

If only I could make it there…

I glanced around for the wolf, hoping it could help me get the rest of the way. Pull me like it had when I was stuck in the mudslide. But it was gone.

I sent a silent thank you to the white beast, bowing my head for a moment of rest. It had gotten me this far. I could make it the rest of the way. I just had to try to stand back up. I’d never get there dragging myself across the mud.

“I’ve got you,” the rich male voice made me gasp and recoil as a strong, warm hand curled under my left arm to help me up. “It’s okay, Allie. It’s me. It’s Jared.”

I all but squealed, wanting to wrench my arm away, but he was holding me tightly as he braced my body with his other hand around my middle and lifted me to standing. He pulled my left arm around his neck and then held my hand there to keep me in place, securely against his toned torso.

His naked torso.

A pair of beige khaki shorts hung low on his tan hips. He was barefoot and when I turned in horror to meet his gaze, I saw that his eyes, a beautiful caramel color with a bright fleck of green in the left one, seemed to be lit from within. Glowing.

He smelled of cedar and birch with an undercurrent of something not entirely unpleasant, but unusual. Something musky and animal that I couldn’t place. “Jared?” I croaked, blinking away the black spots from my eyes and craning my neck to see him better. Had I passed out? Was this a vivid dream?

“Come on, we need to get you inside before you get hypothermia,” Jared said, helping me to move slowly down the slope to the cabin.

Hypothermia? Hypothermia caused confusion. Could it cause hallucinations? I couldn’t remember. But maybe that’s why his eyes seemed to be glowing? Maybe that was why I was seeing him here in the first place. Maybe he wasn’t really here at all.

What the hell would Jared freaking Stone be doing out here in the woods half naked and alone in the hours before dawn?

He was in his senior year at Forest Grove High.

Everyone knew him. And it wasn’t hard to see why.

You couldn’t exactly miss the guy. With those striking eyes and high cheekbones framing an unnaturally symmetrical face with a dimpled chin.

The perfectly tousled dirty blonde hair.

Jared Stone could have any girl at Forest Grove he wanted, but he’d never dated any of them.

He’d never even spoken to me before I didn’t think. Not that I cared. I’d only dated one guy in my high school career and that turned out to be a big fucking mistake. Maybe Jared was on to something by taking himself irrevocably off the market.

“What,” I started, swallowing to ease the scratchy feeling in my throat. This was suddenly mortifying. I was covered in mud and leaves and god knew what else. I probably smelled like a sewer.

Fuck. My. Life.

“What are you doing out here?”

He paused and cocked his head at me, his brows drawing together in confusion.

A feral growl had me turning back to the cabin ahead, clinging to Jared as a wolf approached. Not my white wolf. Not my savior.

This was another beast. Bigger. I almost thought it was a bear, but it wasn’t. Its face twisted in a feral snarl.

The dark gray wolf skidded to a stop a few feet away and I let out a small sound of fear. Its hackles raised and it snapped in my direction, its piercing blue eyes locked on me as though it wanted to tear my throat out.

Jared squeezed my hand, stopping me from screaming and drawing my attention back to him. My heart was thudding so loudly I’d have been surprised if he couldn’t hear it. The black spots were coming back, now. The adrenaline too much for my body to take. But Jared stood calmly at my side.

In fact, he was staring daggers at the wolf.

Completely unperturbed.

“Fuck off, Clay. She needs help.”

The wolf snapped at Jared and I yelped.

His hand around my waist held me closer, as though trying to reassure me.

My mind raced to make sense of what was going on. Was this…was this Jared’s pet or something? Some rare breed of domesticated giant wolf I’d never heard of?

But that still didn’t explain what the hell he was doing out here. Did he…did he live out here? That couldn’t be right.

“I’m bringing her inside. Move.”

The wolf snarled at Jared.

Sweat broke out over my brow, moving lower to coat my chest in a slick layer of ice.

The intense stare down lasted several more heartbeats before the wolf snapped its gaze away from Jared and tore off into the trees.

Relief flooded my body like a sedative injected into my veins. And once I couldn’t hear the wolf ’s footfalls any longer, I slumped against Jared and gave in to the dark. The haunting sound of a lone wolf ’s howl carried me into oblivion.

I awoke to the crackle and hiss of fire and the low hum of distant raised voices.

It was bright and I was warm beneath a heavy quilt atop a bed I didn’t recognize.

In a room I didn’t recognize, I realized as my eyes adjusted to the sunlight streaming in from the large rectangular window several feet from the bed.

Panic lodged in my throat, and I shoved the quilt off and swung my legs over the edge of the bed to rise, wincing as I set my feet down on warm wood. I swallowed hard and breathed through the anxiety rushing to my head like a loud swarm of bees.

My clothing was stiff with caked mud and grime. There were scrapes up my arms and over my hands. When I reached a hand up, I found my long hair to be crunchy with bits of leaves in it.

Shifting, I found my left pant leg was torn to the knee. A tensor bandage wrapped around the swollen joint of my ankle.

The storm.

Dad’s blind had been destroyed. And I…I’d followed a wolf here.

And then Jared…

I inhaled deeply through my nose and tried to calm down and remember how I got here.

I was in a cabin in the woods. A cabin that must belong to Jared. He had to have carried me up here when I passed out. Judging by what I could see outside, I was on the second floor. And this must be a guest room, because there was nothing identifying it as belonging to anyone.

No photos.

No band posters, or school binders or textbooks.

It had the plain wooden double bed I was sitting on. The quilt looked to be hand-stitched. I immediately prayed the smears of mud and specks of blood from my scrapes would come off. I didn’t want Jared’s parents to give him hell because I’d ruined it.

There was a low nightstand beside the low bed, and a fireplace across the room—a low burning fire, mostly embers now, in its hearth. A metal grate was set around it, and a threadbare rug adorned the floor in front of that.

There wasn’t anything else.

Except…was that?

My phone! It was cleaned off and plugged in beside the bed. It had been tucked away on the wide ledge of the wooden bedframe. I snatched it up and sent a silent plea to whatever gods would hear me that it would still work.

I held my breath as I pushed the side button and tipped my head back in a sigh of relief when it powered on.

My relief was short-lived, though. It was one in the afternoon. And I had thirty-three text messages and three missed calls. Damn.

I fired off two quick texts. One to Layla, and one to Viv. I ignored the new one from Devin and didn’t bother to read the million messages from my two friends. I just told them that my phone needed to charge, and I was fine. The battery died and I’d just slept in. That’s all.

I could find a way to explain away how I sprained my ankle later.

The raised voices grew louder, and I strained my ears to hear what they were saying. I set my phone down, ignoring the double vibration that told me I’d just gotten another message. Limping, I made my way over to the window and peeked outside, my breaths clouding the windowpane.

Jared was out there talking animatedly with another guy that sparked something in my memory, but from this far away, I couldn’t place his face. Maybe he went to Forest Grove, too? No, that couldn’t be right. He looked too old to be a student. A family member of Jared’s, maybe? A cousin.

Oh shit. Maybe this is that guy’s house and you just rubbed a bucket of mud into his clean sheets.

I reached for the knob at the base of the window and turned the crank slowly and as quietly as I could until the window cracked open.

“…can’t stay here.” A deep gravelly voice growled at Jared.

With bated breath, I gripped the sill with both hands and squinted down at the front of the house where they were arguing. Jared had a shirt on this time, but the other guy…he sure as hell didn’t.