chapter 6

Sable

For a moment, I got lost in Ridge’s honey-colored eyes. I woke up expecting to come face-to-face with Uncle Clint, but what I ended up getting instead was pretty much the complete opposite of the man who raised me.

When the dark-haired man caught me near the trees, I was so certain I was about to die that I fought with everything I had in me. But inside his house, something shifted in his demeanor.

His gruff voice managed to block out the fear, to shove away the rising panic so that I could focus on him and his calming words.

I started to calm down.

I started to feel… safe.

But I don’t feel safe now.

Nearly a half-dozen of the biggest people I’ve ever seen crowd into his living room, voices raised as angry, violent energy pours out of them. My terror returns full force, and I cower into the cushions, wishing I could sink right through them

and disappear to the other side of the planet.

Ridge meets my eyes, a look of resignation passing through his amber irises. Then he pushes to