Stella had friends, a loving family, and a staff that felt like family most of the time. But there was a missing piece of her life that she couldn’t do anything about. She sometimes wondered if she didn’t actually have a mate. Some shifters went their whole lives without finding anyone.
She was glad that her brother had moved home after he’d had that breakdown in Portland seven years ago. He’d always had issues with his inner bear. And after a terrible tragedy in a bank, it all came to a head. He met Serena at the Fate Mountain Wilderness Academy, where he’d been working. But then transitioned to working at the Fate Mountain Lodge as head chef.
It was a job that suited him. He was a wizard in the kitchen. His food was more like art than mere sustenance. And Serena was the director of the Academy now. Her parents had been overjoyed since their first grandchild, Arlo, was born. They couldn’t stop gushing about him and demanded that Theo and Serena depend on them for babysitting.
Stella couldn’t be happier for her family. She loved them. She loved her life. She’d chosen to work at the diner full-time right after her two-year management degree and took over running the place after her parents retired. Loyalty was everything to her.
Her inner grizzly growled deep inside her mind. Stella, despite her dark sense of humor, had always been steady and dependable. And she prided herself on being there for the people she loved. It was her whole purpose. To be there for her family.
But her bear needed something. She needed to feel something. The urgency was pressing against the insides of her ribs, clawing at the backs of her eyes, like the beast was trying to get out.
She’d been trying to suppress that feeling for months now. That low pull of wanting. The sense that her life, for all its routine and predictability, was missing something she couldn’t describe. She’d tried to fill that sense of emptiness with longer hours at work, weekend hikes where she let her bear out on trails above the village, and renovation projects at the house.
But none of it worked. Nothing soothed the desperate hunger that ached inside her more deeply with each passing day.
Chapter
Two
Blaze tookthe trail at full speed. His paws hit the packed dirt and his wolf pushed harder, covering ground in long strides through the Douglas firs above Fate Mountain. The predawn air was cold in his lungs. The forest was still dark under the canopy, the eastern sky just starting to brighten. He’d left town an hour ago, drove up to the trailhead, shifted, and let his wolf run.
He didn’t care about the cold or the dark, or anything else for that matter. His wolf wanted to run. He pushed faster up the slope, claws digging into the wet leaves. The trail climbed for another quarter-mile and then opened onto a granite outcropping that looked east over the valley. He stopped at the edge and watched the sun rise over the mountains.
It was a beautiful sight: the orange light seeping over the granite peaks. But his wolf was restless. The run hadn’t relieved his tension. Nothing did, no matter how hard he tried. Blaze turned and ran back down the trail. He shifted in the empty parking lot where he’d left his motorcycle, pulled on the sweatpants and T-shirt he’d left in the storage compartment, and climbed on his Harley.
The morning air was cold against his face, and the engine vibrated up through his thighs on the drive back to town. The dark shapes of the firs gave way to the lights of the village as he came around the last switchback. Main Street was just coming to life. He pulled in at 1019 and parked his bike on the sidewalk in front of Steel Protection. He parked alongside Dom’s Road Glide, Hunter’s Road King, Siren’s Iron 883, Axel’s Softail Slim, and Ryder’s Low Rider S at the end.
The Steel Protection building was a two-story brick building with the agency sign over the entrance. He went around to the side entrance and unlocked the door. He took the stairs two at a time and walked down the hall to his apartment. It was three doors down from Dom’s corner unit and across the hall from Hunter’s. This place was now the pack’s forever home. The first home Blaze had had since he left home at fifteen.
He’d furnished the living room with a single deep couch he’d bought at a thrift store, a low coffee table from IKEA, and a small TV that was usually off. A faded kilim rug that he’d picked up at a market in Chiang Mai ran the length of the room.
A framed Kris dagger with a wavy, dark blade hung on the wall. It had been given to him by a Filipino trainer named Manny, who’d told him to put it somewhere it could remind him to be still. On the bookshelf in the corner was a small wooden Buddha. He had books on fighting, meditation, and a brass holder for Baieido incense.
He walked into his bedroom as he pulled off his T-shirt. The bed was made, the comforter dark and smooth. On the wall above the dresser was a single framed black-and-white photograph of the gym in Bangkok where he’d trained the year before he met Dom.
In the bathroom, he stripped off his sweatpants and climbed into the shower. The hot water hit the bruise on his ribs from yesterday’s spar. Hunter didn’t pull punches, and that’s why Blaze sparred with him.
After his shower, he got dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt, and boots. He looked at himself in the mirror above the dresser. He had three days of stubble on his chin, an eye that wasn’t quite swollen but wasn’t fine either, and a crooked nose from where a Filipino boxer had broken it for the third time.
He went downstairs and walked into the offices of Steel Protection. He could smell the cinnamon coming from the breakroom before he walked through the door. Hunter’s mate, Brie Rayner, was unpacking Sweet Summit boxes on the table by the window. Cinnamon buns. Apple cider donuts. A tray of cranberry-orange scones with a sugary glaze. Hunter was at the counter making coffee, and Brie rubbed her pregnant belly.
“I brought treats,” Brie said brightly.
“That’s thoughtful, Brie,” Blaze said, loading a paper plate with pastries.
“I told her to take it easy on her day off,” Hunter said, turning to him. “But she insisted on bringing over all of yesterday’s day-olds.”
After breakfast, Blaze walked through to the office. Valeria was at the front desk with the baby in a playpen beside her. Adrian Steel was just over a year old now, which Blaze still couldn’t quite believe. The kid had his mother’s eyes and his father’s scowl. Blaze stopped to look at him on the way past. Adrian stared back as if he were deciding something.
“He’s judging you,” Valeria said.
“He’s been judging me since he was born.”
“He learned it from his father.”
Blaze almost laughed.
Dom was in his office with his coffee, a bear claw, and a stack of folders. He looked up when Blaze came in. Dom was six-three, gray at the temples, and always seemed ready for anything.
