Wayward Pines Series Novels & Stories

"Carlee Hood, who do you think Dominic would save if we both crashed? My bet's on me!" The moment five steel bars speared through my body, Paige Ryan, sitting in the passenger seat, calmly pulled her hands back from the steering wheel she had just yanked. She sneered, "Make sure you hang on a little longer, alright? Dying too fast would be such a bore." The rain had been relentless lately, leaving the roads flooded and treacherous.

The morning broke with a brittle chill, the kind of cold that settled deep beneath the skin and made every breath sharp and fleeting. Frost coated the pine needles and the earth, glittering faintly under the pale light of a winter sun struggling to rise. I stood at the edge of Ashfang camp, my wolf Nyx restless beneath the surface, sensing the tension that clung to the forest like a suffocating shroud. Ahead of me stretched the wild, tangled maze of Frostwillow — a land both beautiful and dangerous, where twisted trees loomed like dark sentinels and ancient shadows whispered of things best left forgotten.

It wasn’t just snowing—it was snowing, as if the sky itself had decided to bury the land under layers of thick, unrelenting white. We drove away from the airport, the tires crunching through the snow, heading deeper into the wilds of Alaska. As we moved farther from the town, I noticed how the landscape grew even more desolate. The trees were sparse, leafless and skeletal, their branches clawing at the sky. The forest was thick, but there was a barrenness to it that made me feel small and insignificant. The wilderness here didn’t welcome you—it seemed to watch you, cold and indifferent, as though waiting for you to leave.

War was coming; her pack would need her. Before she could say she was ready, the world yanked sideways again. Cold air bit her cheeks, and pine needles crunched under her feet. They were in the woods just outside Crimson River territory. She braced against a tree until the nausea passed. “I thought you said I might end up a pile of bloody goop if I went past the wards. What changed?” “You did, Alpha.” His lazy smile made her itch to punch him. “And I’m guessing you’re not going to explain?” she asked, irritation rising.

he asked. Sienna was already walking. “Hell yes.” Inside, the sleepy eyed cashier confirmed they had 24-hour surveillance cameras trained on the pumps and front door. Gold mine. She jotted the location, dates, and times from the card activity and mentally prepped the request for another warrant. As they drove back toward the office, Trevor chatted about dinner options and possible leads, but Sienna’s mind drifted again, but not with longing but with irritation. How do you just flip a switch like that? she thought.

Just like what happened to me in my previous life. When I heard of their death, the weight on me was instantly relieved. Those who brought about my tragic end were gone at last. The winter of my life ended, and I was heading toward spring.

"Get us to the tree-line." ​As the SUV roared to life, Leo looked back at the Miller Tower. It was no longer pulsing red, but it looked broken, a monument to a family that had tried to be gods and ended up as orphans. ​The Cabin in the Pines: ​Three hours later, the rain had turned to a thick, mountain mist. The SUV groaned as it climbed the unpaved trail toward the highest peaks of the Silverwood valley. Here, the pines grew so thick they choked out the light of the city below. The scent of damp earth and pine needles was so strong it made Leo’s wolf-half stir, a low, deep rumble in his chest that he hadn't felt since the fight in the Hall.

Ryan said, gripping the box with one hand and the door frame with the other as the car bucked hard enough to rattle his teeth. "It's not supposed to save us. It's supposed to buy thirty seconds." Samuel killed the headlights, dropping them into near-total dark, moonlight the only thing filtering through the canopy. "Which is exactly how long I need to find somewhere to stop without them seeing where we went." Driving blind through unfamiliar woods should have terrified him more than it did, but somewhere in the last day his sense of fear had reset entirely, and all that was left now was a strange, narrow focus as Samuel steered the dying car deeper into the trees until the engine finally qui

He was still telling himself that when the GPS lost signal twelve miles outside of town. He wasn't surprised. The town had always existed in its own universe — slightly out of reach, slightly out of time, the kind of place that didn't care whether the rest of the world could find it. He remembered that about it. He remembered more than he wanted to. The way the pines pressed close on both sides of Route 9 like they were leaning in to get a better look at who was coming. The way the sky above the treeline was always a different color here than it was anywhere else — deeper, somehow, more deliberate, like the light had made a decision about what it wanted to be before it arrived.

In a flash of an eye all three of them were dire wolves running through the woods, wild, free. Not for long, Pearl knew she needed to go back to the mortal realm and save Ethan. END OF BOOK 1