AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 7
Lacey sank into the pillows, allowing the bed to pull her into its warm embrace. The days in Whiteridge may have been pleasant but as soon as night fell so had the temperature. Her hometown had been exactly the same.
It had taken her hours to find her way through the woods, making certain no hunters were laying in wait for a little payback. Afternoon had bled into dusk, a long strip of sky of blues and purples, the hint of the last few fireflies of the season coming out to play. The wind had picked up, trying to claw its way beneath her clothes.
Once she’d managed to find her car, she’d turned up the heater, relishing in its warmth for a few minutes before heading back to the B&B. After the day she’d had, she’d try and convince the owners to whip up something hot. If it cost her more money than what she’d budgeted, so be it.
That had been an hour ago, and Lacey’s stomach was full of chicken and stuffing. Ah, nothing beat a plate of granny’s cooking. Even if it wasn’t your own granny actually doing the cooking. Now wrapped in the floral comforter, sleep started to beckon its fingers her way when she recognised the shrill of Sam’s phone.
Groaning and muttering a long string of obscenities that even a marine would blush at, Lacey glanced at the alarm clock before she hit the answer button. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” she growled down the line.
“Do you always speak to your clients this way?”
“Yes, but you know that you’re special, Sam,” she replied, sitting up and rubbing the heel of her palm into her eyes. OK, that probably wasn’t the best way to speak to someone paying the bills – or an alpha – but what the hell did he expect? “What do you want?”
“Answers,” he retorted testily.
Another groan spilled out of her mouth. “I don’t have much to tell you right now.”
“What you got?”
Inhaling, Lacey released it on a long sigh. “Nothing conclusive, but I’ve got a promising lead.”
A long pause of silence stretched down the line. Lacey couldn’t decide whether Sam’s clipped tones was as bad as his silence. “As long as they lead you to somewhere fast. Time is running out.”
A frown pulled at her brow at the urgency in his tone. She’d never heard him speak this way before. “What’s the hurry?”
A silent pause stretched in her ears before Sam finally spoke, but his tone remained insistent. “I need what he took from me before the full moon. It’s imperative that I get it.”
Lacey pulled a face. “I hate to break it to you, but you might not get what you want by then. If the two people I met today aren’t your niece and nephew, then your family seems to be good at hiding their tracks.”
A growl reverberated through her ears. OK, decision made; those were scarier than anything else. “You’d better find them, Lacey. Don’t forget, I saved your life. You owe me big time. Fail me, and I’ll call the Blood Hunt.”
Ice slithered through Lacey’s veins at his words, her mouth dropping to her chest.
Shifters – whether wolves, bears, or foxes – had one rule. Humans were not to know anything about them. Period. Especially Sam’s pack. It wasn’t until years after Nathan’s death that she’d learnt their pack name.
Interactions between shifters and humans were permitted when necessary. But falling in love with one meant certain death.
And she’d fallen hard for the black-haired boy with the deep-set eyes and gentle hands.
She’d met him in the same woods he lived in, just casually strolling amongst the trees, searching for herbs for poultices. One look, one caress of those deep eyes and Lacey’s soul was permanently marked. Somehow, they’d kept their relationship secret for over a year, masking their scents by meeting down by the lake close to where her parents’ house stood, washing in the streams, or rolling amongst the fallen leaves. She’d discovered the truth of what he was and loved him even more than what she’d thought possible.
And he’d fallen just as hard for her.
Even now, she could smell that rich scent of ash and wild herbs that was his alone. A hundred years from now and she’d still be able to recall it. Nathan remained in her blood forever.
They’d made plans to escape to Seattle, far away from the iron grip of the pack, far away where no one could hurt either of them. It didn’t matter if it was a love sick human teenager, or one of their own – the pack protected each other from every threat.
And they’d done exactly that.
Just as the bus for Seattle had turned up, several shifters had suddenly materialised and dragged them into the woods, straight into the heart of Wolf Village. The crackle of the fire burning in the centre, the sound of growling from all around her, of twigs and branches snapping and the crunch of dry earth beneath booted feet, swirled in her mind. So many years had passed since that night, and yet she could still see the faces of the shifters surrounding them, expressions of anger and betrayal stretched over their faces. Lacey’s gut clenched with the memory of that fear, that hopelessness, forever scarred on her bones.
All of this because one shifter and one human had had the audacity to fall in love. But in her teenage mind, Lacey had believed that their love would protect them, would make the pack see how much she and Nathan were meant to be together. They would change the way the pack interacted with human, would celebrate their love with them.
But reality just kicked them into the dirt.
When they tried to convince Nathan to save himself, to swear never to go near another human again, he’d simply declared he would never deny her, would never leave her.
