Chapter 2

POV: NORA ASH

My grandmother used to say that a wolf will always know when you are afraid.

"Fear smells like blood to them," she told me once, stirring her tea. "And blood smells like a meal."

Standing barefoot in the dark with a wolf the size of a small car staring at me, I understood exactly what she meant.

I was terrified. My legs were shaking so hard I could feel the tremors moving up into my stomach. But I did not run. Something deep in my chest ,some quiet, stubborn little thing that had survived three years of people calling me ghost-blooded ,told me that running would be the last thing I ever did.

So I stood still. Arms at my sides. Chin up. Like I had any right to be on this side of the border.

The black wolf watched me. Its pale eyes moved across my face, down my body, back up. It was not the look of a predator sizing up prey. It was something else. Something careful,like it was trying to figure out what I was.

I had been asking myself the same question for twenty-two years.

"I crossed the border by accident," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "I was not trying to invade your territory. I will leave right now if you……."

The wolf shifted.

It was the fastest shift I had ever seen. Most wolves needed thirty, forty seconds ,the cracking and reforming of bones, the pulling of skin, the wet tearing sound that always made my stomach turn. This wolf did it in the time it took me to blink.

One second: a black wolf,the next : a man.

He was very tall,with wide shoulders, lean through the waist, built the way old statues were built ,like every inch of him had a purpose.His dark hair fell across his forehead. He had a jaw sharp enough to cut paper, a mouth pressed into a flat, unreadable line, and his eyes were the same pale silver as the wolf.

He was also completely naked, and I was absolutely determined not to look at, so I firmly looked at a spot just above his left ear.

He did not seem embarrassed. He crossed his arms over his chest, tilted his head slightly, and stared at me with an expression that said he had all the patience in the world and absolutely none of it was for me.

"You are on Black Ridge territory," he said. His voice was low and even, the kind of voice that did not need to get loud to make a room go quiet.

"I know," I said. "I am sorry. I will go back."

"Silver Creek." He said it like a statement, not a question. He was scenting me. "You crossed the border on foot. No clothes. No shoes." His gaze dropped briefly to my feet. Something moved across his face ,so fast I almost missed it. "You are bleeding."

"I noticed."

"Why are you running?"

The question caught me off guard. Not because it was rude. Because it was quiet. Like he actually wanted to know.

"That is not your concern," I said.

He studied me for a moment. Then, without a word, he turned and walked toward the trees.

I stood there, confused. "Are you... letting me go?"

He stopped but did not turn around. "Your feet are cut. The territory border is a mile back the way you came and you will not make it without opening those cuts deeper." There was a pause ,then he continued "There is a cabin. You can clean your feet, take something to wear, and leave when you are ready."

"I do not need your help."

He turned his head just far enough that I could see his profile. "That is not what your feet say."

I hated that he was right.Then,I followed him.

The cabin was small and old, tucked between two massive fir trees like the forest had grown around it on purpose. Inside, it smelled like cedar smoke and something faintly chemical ,maybe of gun oil.

There was a table, two chairs, a fireplace that still held warm coals, and a shelf lined with medical supplies that seemed out of place in something so rough.

He pulled on a pair of dark trousers from a bag by the door and sat down in one of the chairs without looking at me again. I found a first-aid kit on the shelf and sat on the hearth and worked the splinters and stones out of my feet with a pair of tweezers, pressing gauze against each small cut until it stopped bleeding.

The silence between us was strange. Not uncomfortable, exactly. Just full like a room before a storm.

"You are the Alpha here," I said, without planning to.

He did not answer,which was an answer in itself.

"Cole Vance." I had heard the name spoken in hushed voices back at Silver Creek. Not with fear, exactly but wth the careful respect people gave to things they did not fully understand. He had taken over Black Ridge at nineteen after his father died. He had not attended a single Summit since. He did not trade with other packs and he did not accept visitors.

And he had brought me to a cabin and handed me tweezers.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Nora."

"What are you running from, Nora?"

I tied off the last piece of gauze and looked up at him. He was watching me with those pale silver eyes, and there was nothing soft in them, but there was nothing cruel either. Just direct,like he had skipped all the small steps and gone straight to the part where he actually meant what he said.

I opened my mouth to tell him it was none of his business.

Instead I said: "My mate was kissing my cousin at the Moon Ceremony tonight."

The words fell out of me and hit the floor and sat there.

Cole Vance looked at me for a long moment.

Then he stood up, went to the shelf, and set a clean grey shirt down beside me without a word. He moved back to his chair,then picked up a mug that had been sitting cold on the table and drank from it like it was still warm.

"You can stay until morning," he said. "Then you need to go home."

Home.

The word landed in my chest like a stone.

I picked up the grey shirt and held it in my hands, and for the first time since I had run from the Stone Clearing, I felt something loosen in my throat. Something dangerous. Something that was going to become crying if I did not stop it.

"I do not think I have a home anymore," I whispered.

Cole Vance did not look at me. His jaw tightened, just slightly,and just once.

"Then you can stay until you figure out where to go."

I stared at the side of his face and at the way the firelight caught the line of his jaw and made him look carved out of amber.

Outside, the moon had turned from white to gold.And somewhere deep in my chest, in the place where my wolf was supposed to live, something ,something I had never felt before ,stirred for the very first time.