Page 41 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Maybe I should just join the stupid pack. Even though I hated the idea of it down to the marrow of my bones, it really would solve all the problems. Ryland would leave us alone. Other packs wouldn’t be crossing the borders of his land. Jared wouldn’t have to leave.

But…I wouldn’t belong to myself anymore.

I would be bent to the will of another. I would have to do what Ryland commands. Jared hadn’t sugar coated it for me. He told me on the way to school in the morning exactly what it would mean if I joined.

“Ryland is a decent alpha,” he’d said.

“But I would have to do what he says,” I’d pressed. “Even if I don’t want to?”

Jared nodded solemnly.

“So, if he told me to kill someone, I’d have to do it?”

“He wouldn’t—”

“But if he did?”

It was a shit example, but I wanted to know just how much control he would have. Was it really that bad?

Jared’s eyes had darkened. “Yes. Technically. You could fight it, but it’s almost impossible.”

That made up my mind.

Or rather—it made up my mind to not make a hasty decision.

I couldn’t leave Forest Grove. Not after everything I’d done to be able to stay here.

Layla and Viv were the closest thing to family I had left.

If I was forced to leave, staying in that hunting blind for months, all the hours I’d put in at Jacqueline’s shop, all the lies; it would all have been for nothing.

I would lose everything I worked so hard to keep.

But staying meant giving up a part of myself. A very important part; my free will. That wasn’t something I was going to toss out the window so easily. Not without a lot of thought and a damn good reason.

A part of me held out hope that maybe, just maybe, I could live in Forest Grove like Hazel does, without a pack. A lone wolf. I knew the circumstances were much different, but if Ryland made an exception once, maybe he would do it again.

Maybe.

“Are you going to leave her the keys to your precious jeep?” Clay arched a brow at Jared as he shoved his running shoes into a messenger bag to join the clothes and bare necessities he’d packed after we returned from our run home together from the bookshop.

Other than the drive to school and a few exchanged words after work, before the run, we’d barely spoken. There hadn’t been time. And it felt like it was all happening so fast.

Jared was leaving in less than twelve hours and he couldn’t tell me when he was going to be able to come back. He told me he was going to check in at night when the quarry quieted down, if he could get away, but he couldn’t make any promises.

Jared was leaving me alone.

With Clay.

There was no other option. I had no other place to go.

And Ryland had given a command—albeit a second-hand one—but it was still a command. Jared needed to go. I needed to stay.

Jared looked at the keys hung on the hook by the door and to me. “Shit. I forgot,” he said, grinding his teeth. “Will you be okay to run?”

“Are you really not going to let her drive your jeep?” Clay growled at him.

Jared opened his mouth to speak but fumbled for the words.

“I can’t drive,” I said for him. “It’s okay. I’ll run. I need the exercise anyway.”

Or, more accurately, my wolf does.

Clay narrowed his eyes at me but said nothing.

“When are you leaving?”

“Before first light,” he replied, casting furtive glances at Clay. “Ryland will want me there by daybreak.”

I nodded my understanding.

“Allie,” Jared said after placing the packed bag by the front door. His jaw was taut and something in his expression set my nerves on edge. “Can I have a minute with Clay?”

“Oh. Uh—yeah. Sure. I’ll just go outside.”

“Stay in the yard,” Clay growled at my back as I left the cabin. I refrained from shouting something back at him. I didn’t want Jared to worry about us getting along while he was away. I was already worried enough for the both of us.

I padded down onto the dirt lawn and shivered as the cold dirt brushed against the pads of my bare feet. Unable to help myself, I peered back toward the cabin, trying to see them through the crack in the blinds where one of the slats was missing.

A pair of bright blue eyes locked onto mine and I started, tearing my gaze away and rushing further from the house. I rounded the east side and attempted to quiet my mind, hoping Clay wasn’t about to rip Jared’s head off.

There was a reason Clay didn’t want anything to do with me; a reason why he was keeping distance between us.

He’d made it clear as crystal that he wasn’t at all fucking impressed that he was going to have to babysit me.

That would mean he would actually have to be near me.

Maybe even talk to me. Hell, he might even have to sleep in his own bed down the hall from me at night instead of as a wolf in the woods.

Fuck.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either, but that was for an entirely different reason.

As I rounded the back of the house, I saw that both Clay and Jared’s rooms shared the large second-floor balcony that wrapped around the western exterior.

My room didn’t have access to it, but it seemed mine was the only room that didn’t.

Though, I thought if I crawled out my window, I could probably get to it.

Surveying the back of the cabin, I saw where a different structure, one comprised of a different sort of wood and a tin roof jutting out from the rear.

It was a good size. Maybe fifteen by twenty feet with a large garage door and no windows.

From the smell of engine grease and carburetor wafting out from it, I had to guess it was Clay’s shop.

Glancing behind me, I listened for approach and found no sounds save for the chirping of crickets and the rustle of dried leaves still clinging to their branches.

Just a peek, I told myself, and crept to the door. It was open. Clay must’ve been working in there before he heard us get back.

There was a lantern hanging crookedly in the back corner of the space, casting light and shadow over the shapes in the shop. The silhouettes of two bikes were visible near the back, covered by rough canvas sheets.

Ahead of those, perched proudly among the meticulously arranged tools and parts hanging on the walls and arranged in straight lines on the rough wooden counter’s edge, was a Sportster forty-eight. A beast on wheels.

The Harley was done up in chrome and midnight black with shocks of shimmering blue.

She’d been polished to within an inch of her life. There was no doubt in my mind who it belonged to. “Get a good look?”

I yelped, spinning around to find myself face to face with Clay.

“Fuck!” I shouted, springing back from him until my back was pressed against the wooden exterior of his shop.

Once I caught my breath, a rush of heat flooded my cheeks. “I was just…” I started, but the words eluded me. What was I doing?

“Snooping?” Clay offered with a snide look.

The blush was gone in an instant, replaced with a different sort of hot flash. “Sorry,” I grunted, pushing off from the wall to leave. “Won’t happen again.”

“You said you ride, right?” He said, making me pause mid step.

My jaw clenched and I closed my eyes. Vivid images of my Dad and I tearing up the dirt together flashed like projected images against the backs of my eyelids. My stomach rolled.

I got the sense he was trying to offer the proverbial olive branch. To find something in common between us. This was his apology for snapping at me. But I couldn’t take it.

“I used to,” I corrected him. “I don’t anymore.”

“Pity,” he said.

“Why did you—” I started, but by the time I turned around to face him again, wondering why he’d asked, Clay was gone and the absence of him was a cold sting in the air.