AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Zachary parked across the street from the Golden Acorn at the nearby post office. More cars were there, and they wanted to take every precaution to not arouse suspicion. There was every possibility they were walking into some kind of elaborate trap.
After an hour of waiting, the trio stepped outside the vehicle. That’s when they saw her. Her hair shined bright red against the cloudy rain sky, her eyes green like the dew-dripping leaves.
Atlas could feel his heart bursting from his chest. His eyes ignited with a furious emotion he’d never felt so intensely. Pheromones. He felt compelled by this wolf, motivated in a way nothing had ever motivated him before. He felt like a man possessed.
“Do you feel that?” Atlas questioned his beta, Colt.
“Feel what?” Colt replied, his eyes also locked on to the woman in front of them.
“I don’t know. You’re usually the one with the words,” Atlas growled.
“Like my heart just left my body, ascended to heaven, and then fell back down to Earth, soaring to the pavement in a fiery ball and shattering into a billion tiny pieces?” Colt answered in his usual cocky way.
“Yes, just like that,” Atlas replied dryly.
“Then no,” Colt joked. “I don’t feel that at all.”
Even so, he could tell that his beta was just as affected by the strange woman as him. As Atlas playfully punched Colt, and Colt rubbed his arm, the girl looked up and out across the street. Atlas knew it was time to improvise. Without thinking, he turned immediately around and walked into the post office, signaling for Colt and Zachary to follow.
Before the woman could notice them, they were inside the building, waiting for her next move. Zachary purchased a copy of the Crest and read it in the lobby while Atlas and Colt stared out the front window, transfixed.
The post office door swung open. Atlas and Colt moved without telling Zachary, giving chase when it was clear they could safely tail the woman. For some reason, she insisted on traveling by foot. The three followed her several blocks to Wisteria Hill, the local veterinary clinic. Unsure why she might stop there but ultimately uninterested, they decided to double back to the Golden Acorn.
They realized with relief that hers was the only car in the parking lot, aside from the owner’s Dodge Power Wagon.
“One day,” Zachary said, looking out over the parking lot. “One day I’m going to own that truck, and I’m going to save its life.”
“You said two thirteen?” Atlas ignored Zachary’s daydreams and remained focused on the woman.
“Oh. Yeah,” Zachary replied, a bit frustrated his ambitions were being ignored.
Atlas produced a key card from his pocket and inserted it into the door. It was one of the many perks of running the town… you had a key for everything. The door clicked open without protest, and they stepped into the room.
“You know the drill,” Atlas said. “Let’s see what we can find out.”
The bedcovers and sheets had been tossed aside and left unfurled. On top of the bed, Atlas found a laptop whirring enthusiastically. Opening the laptop, he discovered that the most recent browser window had been left on a local job search website.
The bathroom floor was soaking wet, and it appeared as though the girl had left in a hurry by the state the room was in. Nobody, Atlas reasoned, would have left a room in this condition unless they were chased out of it.
On the bedside table, Colt found a wallet, which immediately prompted the question of why anybody would leave their wallet behind in a rented room. Rifling through it, he discovered an ID with the name “Harlow Marie Constance.” He then realized that Harlow was anything but local. She appeared to have traveled a long way to get to Forest Crest.
But the three of them couldn’t reconcile one thing, and it all but confirmed Atlas’s worst fears. Everything in the room smelled of rival shifters. Her shirts reeked of wolves from rival territories.
“We might have to face facts,” Atlas sighed. “I think our new friend is a spy from another pack.”
Zachary nodded in agreement.
“We still don’t have all the information,” Colt said. “You always do this… jumping to every paranoid worst-case scenario.”
“Do you have another explanation?” Atlas asked. “Really, I’m all ears. What the hell else could be going on?”
“I’m not sure,” Colt replied. “But I’m more than willing to ask.”
“Shh.” Zachary hushed them. At that moment, the door clicked open, as somebody swiped their room key. Atlas, Zachary, and Colt stood alert, watching as the door opened and a very frightened woman entered the space.
Chapter 6
Harlow
