Page 50 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Clay stood outside the Jeep, leaning against the driver’s side door in a pair of aviator shades like he didn’t have a care in the world. He flicked a bit of dirt from beneath his fingernail and looked up, finding me rushing out with the rest of the students after last bell.

The first thing that hit me was a wave of spine- tingling relief, the second was fury.

“What the hell Clay?” I demanded in a harsh whisper when I was close enough that no one else would hear. “Where did you go?”

The mirrored lenses shielded his eyes so I couldn’t tell if his lips were parting in surprise or disdain.

“I’ve texted you like five times.”

“I don’t have my phone.”

“What happened?”

He jerked his head toward the Jeep and opened the driver’s side door, lifting himself into the seat with a hand curled around the roof. He’d changed. That, I noticed.

He wasn’t wearing the same jeans and t-shirt he had been earlier. Now he was in a black muscle shirt that made me want to avert my eyes and drool at the same time. Why did he have to flex his arms like that? Wasn’t he cold?

Could he wear a fucking jacket like the rest of the world did in fall?

Between him and Jared, I was fucked.

“Get in,” he said. “We can talk on the way to the DMV.”

Grumbling, I made my way over to the passenger side, scooting the door closed and ducking low when I saw Viv and Layla exiting the main doors with Quinn in tow behind them.

“Fuck,” I cursed. “Can you hurry please?”

I did not need to have to explain this to them, too.

Clay smirked as he drove us from the lot. I didn’t sit up until I was sure we were far enough away that no one would see me. But I had to guess the damage was already done. Someone would have seen. Which meant that Viv would find out one way or another and there would be hell to pay.

I groaned, pressing my palms into my eyes.

“Does it get any easier?” I asked, more for myself than because I thought Clay would have the answers.

“Lying to your friends?”

I moved my palms to look at him from the corner of my eye, studying his stoic profile.

“No,” he said. “It doesn’t. Which is why I stuck with Jared after I left school.

Relationships with humans are—” he seemed to be searching for the right word.

I didn’t think I wanted to hear it. “Difficult,” he decided, finally, giving me a tight-lipped frown.

My stomach turned and I wanted to lash out at him for dashing what little hope I had. But what did he know? He was bitter and…and…mean. Maybe it would be difficult, but you didn’t turn your back on family just because it was difficult.

“So,” I said after a few miles of silence stretched between us with me scanning the trees for the wolf that had been chasing us this morning.

There was no sign of anything out there at all.

The only movement the occasional leaf falling to desiccate with its relatives on the forest floor.

“Are you going to tell me what happened this morning?”

Clay snorted. “Haven’t you spoken to Jared?”

I pursed my lips. “No. He isn’t answering my calls, either.”

Clay shrugged. “I wasn’t able to catch him. He was definitely from another pack, though. Not an alpha. A scout.”

“A scout?”

“Probably sent here to see if the rumors were true about you.”

“Why?”

Clay’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Don’t worry about it. It’s being handled.”

“Clay,” his name came out through clenched teeth, my anger rising again.

Clay reached for the radio and flicked it on, turning up the volume. A song I knew only because Devin used to like it blared to life through the speakers. I punched the power button.

I glared at Clay.

He sighed. “The only reason an alpha would send a scout would be to see if it was worth it for them to breach our territory. A scout or a low in rank pack member on our lands is a nuisance. We kick them out, give them a warning not to come back, and it’s done,” he paused.

“But an alpha on our lands is different. If an alpha from another pack steps foot in or around Forest Grove without permission, it’s not just a nuisance—it’s a direct challenge. ”

I wanted him to explain more, but Clay put the Jeep in park in front of the DMV and nodded to the building in front of us. “DMV’s closing soon,” he said, reaching over me to push open my door. He was kicking me out. “Better hurry.”

My phone buzzed as I entered, but I didn’t bother checking it. Clay was right. If I was even going to finish the damned test before they closed, I needed to get signed in. And I didn’t spend all afternoon studying for nothing.

I walked up to the counter and told the lady what I was there for, providing a form from school that had my incorrect address on it and a photocopy of my birth certificate I’d printed from my documents folder in the computer lab during Geography class.

“Allie?” The woman behind the counter asked.

I nodded, pulling out my debit card to pay the testing fee with a wince when I saw the amount on the screen.

“No need for that,” the woman said, holding up a hand at my raised debit card. “It’s already been taken care of for you.”

My stomach dropped.

I stuffed the card back into the zippered pocket of my bag and pasted on a smile for the woman as she entered the information from my documents on the computer. “I’m sorry,” I said, clearing my throat. “But who paid for this?”

The woman looked at me curiously, but grinned. She pointed past me out the window at the white Jeep parked in the lot right out front. “That young man came in about an hour ago to pay in advance for your test.”

When I didn’t answer, too stunned to form words, the woman gave a little laugh and waved me toward a cordoned off testing area.

“Good luck,” she called as another woman herded me to a desk and set a slim stack of paper in front of me and handed me a pencil.

She was saying something, but I wasn’t hearing her, all I kept thinking was that mother fucker…

The slip of paper clutched between my fingers when I exited the building was almost enough to make me forget I was pissed at Clay. He was waiting outside of the Jeep with a smug look on his face, the keys dangling from his index finger. “On the first try?” he asked. “I’m impressed.”

I swiped the keys from him and resisted the urge to shove him out of the way. “I’m paying you back for that I hope you know,” I said instead as he sidled to the other side of the Jeep, rocking the whole vehicle with his weight as he got in.

Clay just grunted and buckled his seatbelt, curling his other hand around the holy shit handle above the window.

“I’m not a charity case,” I added as I started the Jeep, feeling like the message hadn’t fully sunken in.

“I mean it,” I said, pausing with my hand on the gearshift to stare at him.

Clay finally rolled his head to look at me. “I know you’re not a charity case,” he said. “It was my way of saying thank you—for fixing the door. That’s all.”

My lips pursed, but I nodded.

“Thank you,” I ground out, realizing a little belatedly that it was rude not to thank him regardless of how his misplaced charity made me feel.

The truth was, I couldn’t really afford it.

The fee would have set me back at least a week of saving towards my goal of getting the apartment above the bookshop. “If you’re sure, then—”

“Positive,” he replied instantly, shuffling in his seat. “Now can we go?”

The two of us didn’t speak much on the way back to the cabin other than for me to ask if he’d heard from Jared. I was trying to figure out how to make a proper meal out of what we had left in the fridge at the house, since I’d forgotten to stop at the grocery store again.

I blamed Clay for that. He was distracting as hell.

And besides, I didn’t want to drag him with me.

After I parked the Jeep, only having stalled it once on the way back to the trailhead, we set off for the walk through the trees.

Somehow, I needed to ask Clay if he would help me out with another shift before the weekend.

That meant I’d either have to do it tomorrow, or early Friday if I was going to feel confident enough to spend an entire evening among my mortal friends.

I also needed to tell him that I wouldn’t be free to go to meet the pack until later in the day on Saturday. Viv always cooked a big breakfast spread when we did girls night and none of us usually left until well after lunch time.

“Clay,” I began, ready to have the conversation now and get it out of the way so we could get back to our respective corners of the house and back to ignoring one another.

“Hmm?”

“I was wondering—”

We weren’t even all the way back to the cabin when I caught a peculiar scent on the wind. I stilled, lifting my head to inhale it more deeply. The peppery aroma was distinct. I’d smelled it before. “Wait,” I said, holding a hand out to Clay to stop him, too. “Do you smell that?”

Clay was immediately on the defensive, his thick muscle flexing as he too lifted his head and sniffed the southbound breeze. He relaxed a little after a second, but the tension around his eyes never eased. “It’s Ryland,” he said. “And Forrest.”

My jaw tightened.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Just go inside when we get there. I’ll deal with it.”

I wanted to disagree, but I was still so out of my element with all of this. I didn’t even know where to begin. And if Ryland still set me as much on edge as he did when I was still human, I wouldn’t be able to keep my wolf from barging through.

“Okay,” I said, swallowing to wet my throat as we pressed on. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I drew it out just as the cabin began to come into view. The cracked screen flashed to live with two missed calls and three text messages from Jared.

I thumbed through the texts, a stone dropping in my gut.

The first was a reassurance that he was fine and an apology for worrying me.

The second told me that there’d been a complication and he needed to talk to me right away. He asked me to call him back.

The third told me not to go home.