Page 30 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

She sniffed and wiped at her nose with the sleeve of her sleep-rumpled plaid shirt.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said, but from her tone I knew that she didn’t mean that.

She was saying it to placate me. Even now, in the amount of pain she was in, she still had it in her heart to not want me to feel guilt.

How was I ever going to deserve her?

“It is,” I rebutted. “And you know it is.”

She looked at me then, curiously, but with her jaw locked, the spark of her wolf faintly coming into her eyes.

“And I’ll never forgive myself for allowing this to happen to you. But it has happened, and there’s no going back.”

She whimpered and it was like a punch to my gut.

“I’m doing to everything I can to help you. I promise. But you need to eat, and you need to—”

“Where’s Devin?” she asked, her voice breaking on his name. A muscle just beneath her left eye twitched and the glow around her iris’ brightened.

I held her gaze as best I could as I answered. “His punishment hasn’t been decided yet.” Much as I tried, I couldn’t keep my own wrath from tainting my words. I’d have torn his head off by now if my uncle Ryland had allowed it.

And I knew Clay was plotting something to do just that.

Normally, I would try to stop him, but not this time.

If Ryland wanted to punish Clay for doling out the sentence that fucking bastard deserved then he’d have to punish me, too, because as soon as I was able to look my best friend in the eye again, I vowed to help him in whatever way he needed to see justice served.

Devin couldn’t be allowed to walk free. He would do it again. And if it wasn’t Allie, it would be some other girl.

Her nostrils flared and she glared at me. “Why not?”

“It takes time,” I attempted to explain. “Ryland doesn’t deal out death unless it’s warranted. He—”

“So, he’s going to kill him?”

I couldn’t tell if she was relieved or paralyzed with fear. It really could have been either. “Maybe,” I said carefully. “It’s either that or he’ll be forced to leave Forest Grove with a warning that if he steps back onto the lands our pack controls—he’ll be dealt with on sight.”

“Your pack,” she corrected, seeming to miss what I was saying entirely. “Yours,” she repeated. “Not mine.”

I reached out unconsciously and placed a hand on her knee. She flinched a bit, but softened after a minute and I sighed, not pulling away. “It could be yours, too. We’re the only pack in the area. And the only other lone wolf in these parts that Ryland allows to live not under pack law is Grams.”

Her brow furrowed. “So, what you’re saying is that if I don’t join your pack…what?” Allie snorted in a dark laugh. “Ryland will kill me?”

My eyes widened. “No,” I said, more fiercely than intended.

She batted my hand from her knee, recoiling at the harshness of my tone.

I soothed the pounding in my chest with a measured breath, excavating the nerves from my flesh. “No, he wouldn’t do that. We wouldn’t let him. But he could try to make you leave.”

“Gladly,” she said, crossing her arms.

Her rejection stung. “It isn’t safe out there as a lone wolf.”

“I’m not a wolf,” she replied, but her voice was already wavering again, and her eyes began to glow more brightly in direct contradiction to her words.

“You are,” I told her. “And the more you hold back from shifting, the harder it will be for you. In the beginning it’s important to shift as much as you can by will so that you can learn how to control it.”

She didn’t respond for a while, but then she choked out, “I can’t.”

We both knew it was more a matter of won’t than can’t, but I didn’t correct her.

The silence hung between us for long enough that I started to feel the bristle of awkward tension on the back of my neck.

“I don’t want to keep upsetting you,” I told her, taking in a lungful of air.

“I’ll go, but can you please,” I started, gesturing at the tray of now cooling and slightly congealed macaroni and cheese. “Can you please eat something?”

Her nose wrinkled.

“I can make you something else,” I tried. “Anything you want.”

She gulped and with her eyes downcast, thick lashes brushing her cheeks, she said in a small voice. “A steak?”

My brows rose.

“Never mind,” she rushed to say, turning her body away from me.

I snapped myself out of it and reached my hand out again, more tentatively this time. I brushed the curve of her arm to get her attention and she turned back to me; her cheeks flushed. “It’s what it wants,” she said helplessly.

“I have two steaks in the fridge,” I said encouragingly. “Why don’t you come down with me and get a drink while I grill them?”

She frowned.

“Just the two of us. And you can come back upstairs whenever you want.”

Her resolve was wavering, and I held my breath for her answer, whispering a mantra of pleases and promises if she would just say yes.

“Okay,” she said finally and moved to get up on shaking limbs. She almost stumbled, but I caught her before she could fall. The press of her body against mine made my blood race through my veins and my breath come heavier in an instant.

Allie couldn’t get herself disentangled from my arms fast enough. She stepped back, shivering.

“God,” she shouted accusingly. “What is that?”

I took a step back from her and pushed my hands back into my pockets, not trusting them to behave themselves. “It’s the mate bond,” I offered with an impish smile. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

She looked like she wanted to do anything but get used to it, but I reassured myself that all she needed was more time and everything would be alright.

It had to be. I was only going to mate once in my life, and I’d wanted it to be her since she set the food and water from her little camo backpack around where I laid curled into the corpses of my parents.

I knew she was goodness incarnate from that moment and had watched her from a safe distance ever since.

A lot of good that did me.

“Shall we?” I pressed, holding out my hand to her, my throat suddenly parched.

Allie studied my hand in the orange glow of the sunset and her lips parted as though she was going to say something, but then she closed them again, maybe thinking better of it.

Instead of taking it, she grimaced and walked past, wandering down the hall on wooden legs as though no more than a phantom of the girl I fell in love with a long time ago.