Chapter 2

The next few days slipped by in a blur of work and quiet streets. I tried to focus on my photography, hoping the lens would keep my mind from spiraling into “what the hell just happened” territory. But every time I looked at the pictures I’d taken in the forest, the one with the wolf was... off.

Blurry, sure. But there was something there, something almost alive hiding in the shadows.

At night, I’d dream about those golden eyes. Not just seeing them, but feeling them. Like they were pulling at something buried deep inside me. I’d wake up gasping, heart pounding, clothes soaked with sweat. It was starting to freak me out.

Then there was Kade Rivera.

I didn’t know much about him, except that he was new in town, with a reputation for being cold and distant. Tall, dark, with eyes like storm clouds, like he was carrying a weight no one else could see.

I bumped into him the first time at the market. Literally bumped, knocked over his basket of apples. He didn’t say much, just grunted, but his stare cut right through me.

“You okay?” I asked, cheeks flushing.

He nodded. “You lost?”

That stopped me cold.

“Not exactly,” I said, trying to sound casual.

But inside, my heart was flipping. Because the way he looked at me felt... different. Like he knew things he shouldn’t.

And somewhere, deep down, I felt like I’d seen him before.

Maybe in those dreams.

I couldn’t get Kade out of my head. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those stormy eyes, that quiet intensity that didn’t quite fit with the small town. Like he was hiding something heavy, something dangerous.

We ran into each other again a couple of days later, this time at the old diner. I was trying to nurse a terrible cup of coffee and a headache, and he just showed up, like some shadow slipping through the door.

He didn’t say much. Just sat across from me, watching like he was trying to read the cracks in my smile.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” I finally asked, half-laughing.

He shrugged, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes.....interest? Maybe something more.

Before I could say anything else, our hands bumped while I reached for my camera. The spark was instant, a jolt that made the hair on my arms stand up. My camera screen flickered and died right in that second, as if some electric current had shot through it.

Kade’s brows rose, surprised. “You feeling that?”

I blinked, heart hammering. “Yeah. What was that?”

He shook his head like it was nothing but I wasn’t so sure.

For the first time, I felt like I wasn’t just some outsider in this town.

Like maybe, just maybe, this storm was about to change everything.

Kade Rivera was a puzzle I couldn’t quite solve. The kind of guy who moved through the world with his walls built high, like he didn’t trust the air around him. And maybe he shouldn’t. Shadowpine wasn’t a place where strangers were welcomed with open arms, especially not ones who looked like him, tall, dark, with eyes sharp enough to cut through shadows.

I wanted to understand him. To peel back those layers and see what made the storm in his gaze. But every time I tried, I ran headfirst into silence. Not the polite, small-town quiet, but the kind that weighed heavy, like a secret breathing just beneath the surface.

One afternoon, I caught him watching me from across the market square. His jaw was tight, eyes narrowed as if deciding whether I was a threat or something more interesting. I waved, awkward and hopeful, but he didn’t return it.

Later that evening, I sat on the porch of the little cabin I rented, the air thick with pine and the scent of rain that never quite stopped. My fingers trembled around my camera, and I found myself thinking about the night in the forest, the wolf, the bear, the way those golden eyes seemed to see through me.

That’s when it hit me: the rules here weren’t written anywhere. They lived in glances, in silences, in the way people crossed the street to avoid talking. And Kade? He was both the enforcer and the mystery wrapped in those unspoken laws.

I wanted to be part of it. To break through the walls that kept me out. But I was a human in a wolf’s world, a stranger trying to find her place in the pack without knowing how to howl. And maybe, just maybe, I was about to learn that some rules were made to be broken.