Novels by oreoluwaogunleye153

The trucks didn’t stop at the bottom of the hill.I heard them from the porch before I saw the headlights. Two of them. One was Harlan’s black Ford that never got washed. The other was Kaden’s blue one, the one he polished every Sunday.My mother grabbed my wrist.“Amelia. Inside. Now.”My bare feet stayed frozen to the cold wood. The tea in my hands was shaking.Jax was already moving. He didn’t run. He walked down the steps of his cabin like a man going to check his fence.He was in a t shirt. The cold didn’t touch him. The four white scars on the side of his neck glowed faintly in the dark, just like before.He stopped at his property line. There is a line there, an old barbed wire fence and a wooden post that reads PRIVATE. STONE. NO TRESPASS. In Wolf Creek, that line means something. No Alpha can cross another Alpha’s line without permission. Not even Harlan. Eliza had told me once, back when I still thought it was just a story for children, that the Council itself couldn’t overr

His fingers were still wrapped around my wrist.Not hard. But tight enough that I couldn't pull away. Tight enough that I could feel his pulse hammering against my palm, fast and uneven, nothing like the steady calm he had pretended to have since he found me in the rain.His eyes were yellow. Full wolf yellow, glowing in the dim light of the cabin, and they were locked on my neck. On the place where Kaden's rejection burn had been smoking an hour ago.The burn wasn't smoking anymore.It was cold."Let go," I whispered, but my voice didn't sound like my voice. It was lower. Rougher at the edges.Jax let go instantly, like my skin had burned him."What did you do?" he said. It wasn't angry. It was scared. He took a step back and hit the edge of the fireplace hearth. "Amelia, what did you do?""I didn't do anything. You grabbed me."My mom was behind me, both hands over her mouth. "Eliza, get back," Jax snapped at her, not looking away from me."Don't you tell her to get back," my mom sn

I don’t know how else to explain it. It was just a normal fireplace, logs cracking, but after Jax said it, after “She’s just not a wolf,” the sound filled my whole head and I couldn’t hear the rain anymore.I was looking at my wrist. At that stupid pale crescent I’d had since I was seven. I’d always thought it was a scar from falling off the tire swing. Mom told me it was a birthmark.“White,” I whispered. “You said white.”Jax was still kneeling in front of me. He hadn’t touched me since he showed me my wrist, like he was afraid if he touched me now I’d shatter.“Amelia,” my mom said from the couch, her voice shaking. “Your grandma. My mom. Her name was Mara. She didn’t have a wolf either, not the way they mean here at Wolf Creek. The pack up north didn’t call themselves werewolves. They called themselves the first wolves.”I swallowed. My throat was still raw from screaming in the barn.“First wolves?”“They’re born as wolves,” she said. “Not people who turn into wolves. Wolves who

The mug shook in my hands even after I set it down. Tea sloshed over the rim. “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked again, louder. “That’s not an answer, Jax. What am I, if I’m not wolfless?” He didn’t answer right away. He looked at my mom. Eliza Quinn had her hands clasped so tight the knuckles were white. That high collar she always wore, even in summer, even sweating over dishes in that tiny trailer. I was staring at it now like I’d never seen it before. “Mom. You said you have one. A scar.” She finally looked at me, eyes wet. “I was eighteen too,” she said, quiet. “Same barn. Same circle. Same Alpha calling my name. I stood where you stood tonight, in a borrowed dress too. Your grandma’s.” The fire popped. I felt cold despite the heat. “Who rejected you?” “Harlan Stone.” Harlan. Alpha Stone. Kaden’s father. Jax’s brother. Hearing it hit me like a punch to the stomach. “Your dad’s dad?” I whispered. She nodded, once, sharp. “Harlan and I thought we were mates. I th

I didn’t get in.I stood there in the rain staring at that open passenger door like it was a trap, because it was. Every door at Wolf Creek had been a trap. Pretty fairy lights and then public humiliation. A borrowed dress and then laughter. A bond and then a rejection.The rain was hammering so hard it hurt. The white lace was transparent now, stuck to me, and I crossed my arms over my chest without thinking.The man in the truck didn’t look away. He didn’t do that slow, gross up and down look the ranch hands did either. His gray eyes stayed on my face, on the mark on my neck that was still burning.“Amelia,” he said.My blood went cold. I hadn’t told him my name.“How do you know my name?” My voice was raw from screaming.He didn’t answer right away. He pushed his black hat up a little and I could finally see his face properly. Older than Kaden, maybe thirty. A short beard, rain in it. A scar cutting through his left eyebrow. Not a pretty boy like Kaden. A man.“I know everyone on m

The truck smelled like leather and rain and him.I didn’t even know his name then. I just knew his truck was warm and my dress was soaked through and I was shaking so hard my teeth were clacking.“You’re bleeding,” he said.I touched my neck. My fingers came away with a little blood. Where Kaden’s rejection had burned. The mark that never got to be a mark.“I’m fine,” I whispered. My voice was gone from screaming.He didn’t say anything. He just reached into the back seat, grabbed a flannel shirt, black and red, huge, and dropped it in my lap.“Put it on. You’re freezing.”I did. It swallowed me. It smelled like pine and smoke. Like him.He drove. Fast, but not scary fast. The windshield wipers slapped hard against the rain. We left Wolf Creek Ranch in the rearview. I watched the fairy lights in that barn get smaller and smaller until the trees swallowed them.“What’s your name?” I finally asked.“Zayn Blackwood.”My stomach dropped. Even I had heard that name. Blackwood Mountain. The