On the drive down the isolated road back toward town, I think about everything that Kier told me. As much as I'd love to believe I have power in the pack, real power to affect change, I know that isn't right. It can't be.
If I told anyone in the pack how trapped I felt, they'd apologize, and although things might change for a few days if at all, they'd soon go right back to treating me like I was made of glass.
Most importantly, it wouldn't change all the reasons Marshall and I can't be together. I would have to stop being a submissive shifter for that to happen, and that's impossible, no matter how much I wish it wasn't.
By now, the rain is falling so hard that it's getting harder to see, but since this road is a long straight one back into town, I'm not too concerned, especially being in Dayne's truck which can handle just about any kind of weather Colorado throws at it.
After our coffee, Kier showed me to the front door. It took one glance at the heavy rain for him to suggest I stay until the worst of the storm had blown through, but I said no.
While I didn't believe he'd hurt me, I don't know how comfortable I'd feel being trapped in a cabin with him, no matter that he's attractive, and no matter that it seems to have been Talis' intention all along.
Anyway, I doubt Hallee would appreciate me staying with Kier, not after the sculpture I saw in his cabin, and not after the tension that I saw in his shoulders when he realized I'd seen whose face he'd carved into the wood.
Now, I understand why Hallee was behaving so strangely at breakfast, and why no one could ever find her when she said she was going into town.
I grin at her sneakiness, wondering how she and Kier even met with him living such an isolated existence.
Talis should've sent Hallee instead of me. At least someone would've had a bit of romance in a cabin in the woods.
When a warning light starts flashing, my smile fades because I know why. Seconds later, my fears are realized when the truck slows. I manage to pull over to the side of the road just before the engine cuts out, then I sit there and stare at the empty fuel sign.
Why didn't I stop at the gas station? Why did I drive right past it?
After several minutes of glaring, I let out a heavy sigh. Sitting here isn't going to get me back home any sooner, so I consider my options. There aren't many to choose from.
With several miles to go to reach town and even further to my cottage, I'm still closer to Kier's cabin than anywhere else. The smart thing would be to get out and walk back and hope it won't take so long to find the road as it did the first time.
I could shift and run back, but that'll mean I'm without clothes when I get there. I'm sure Kier would lend me some sweats, but still, he's a stranger, and I'd be alone with him for however long this storm lasts.
I'm reaching for the door handle when the rain turns torrential and is closely followed by hailstorms bouncing off the windshield. I hesitate.
Do I really want to be walking in torrential rainfall? No, I don't. While not my first choice, the quickest way for me to get back to Kier's cabin is to get out of the truck and find a place to shift.
I'd do it in the truck but there's not enough space, and the last thing I need is for me to be caught mid-shift by a passing driver. However unlikely that be in this weather, I can't risk it because it's not just my secret to protect, but the whole pack's.
Or I could wait in the truck. Sooner rather than later, Talis or Dayne or one of the others might wonder why I'm not back yet and come looking for me.
Yes, and have to save you. Again. Dayne might even change his mind about letting you leave the pack.
After turning the hazard lights on, I shove the door open, and once I've slammed it shut again, I dash into the forest that lines the road. In two seconds, I'm completely soaked through, and my hair is plastered to my head.
I dart from tree to tree, going deeper and deeper into the forest until I find one that offers the best protection from the heavy rain while I shift. By the time I do, my sneakers are waterlogged, and I feel like a drowned rat.
Even though the only scent I'm picking up is my own, that doesn't stop me from pausing before I start my shift. I take a second to listen hard for any passing cars, but it's as quiet on the road as it is around me. Probably I was the only one stupid enough to be driving around in a storm.
I grip the hem of my shirt and peel the wet material off me, tossing it on the ground. I plan on leaving my clothes where they are, and after the storm, I can sniff them out again when I come back to get the truck.
If Kier has a jerry can with gas that I can borrow to refill the truck and get home again, and if some wild animals don't run off with my clothes in the meantime.
I guess I could carry my clothes in my mouth as a wolf, but I'm not that attached to them, and they'll only slow me down. I'm already feeling cold and miserable, so my priority is to shift and get out of the rain as soon as possible.
I've kicked off my sneakers and toed off my socks when I stop at the sound of a car driving up the road. It's going so slowly that I know they must've caught sight of the hazard lights on Dayne's parked truck. It may even be one of my packmates who've come looking for me.
The relief surging through me is incredible. Without another thought, I grab my shirt, socks, and sneakers and rush back to the road, not bothering to put them back on again. I'm in pants and a bra, so even if it's a stranger, at least I'm not completely naked.
I'll could just say I was trying to squeeze some of the water out of my shirt.
Through a gap in the trees, just up ahead, I spot the car stopping a little behind Dayne's truck. I'm stepping out of the forest and onto the road when the car door opens. I freeze.
The figure climbing out of the driver's side isn't wearing a scent I recognize. I know enough to tell he's a shifter, but he isn't pack.
Indecision holds me immobile for another long minute because whoever it is, might be Kier's friend. He might have the same arrangement as Kier does, even if it seems unlikely that Dayne would allow another shifter to stay in Hardin. That he allowed Kier to stay was unusual already. But a second shifter?
Something doesn't sound right.
Thank God I decided against waiting to be saved.
As I'm still mostly in the trees than the forest, I don't move because any step I take will only attract attention, and every internal alarm inside me is blaring at my need not to do that.
So, I study the large male figure in jeans and a t-shirt stalking over to Dayne's truck. Through the heavy rain, it's impossible to see his face, but his face isn't important. His scent that I don't recognize is.
I observe him stopping at the driver's side door and jerking the door open. "She isn't here," I hear him shout over the heavy rain lashing down.
What?
Someone shoves the passenger side open, their scent revealing it's another guy. Another shifter. "Well, she has to be somewhere. There's no way she'd-" He stops so suddenly that panic spikes through me.
It's clear that the person they're looking for is me, and the only reason for the man stepping out of the passenger side to stop talking that suddenly is if he's just realized something. Something like where I am.
I take a small step back, trying to silence my racing heart because other than my scent, it's going to be the only other way they're going to be able to track me.
I shouldn't have bothered.
The man slams the passenger side door shut and turns his body in my direction. "Hey there, sweet thing."
I spin on my heel and run, dropping my sneakers and my shirt because right now they don't matter. Getting away does.
"Hey, where are you going? All we wanna do is talk."
Nothing about the shifter's call that trails me into the forest convinces me I can trust a single word he says.
They were driving slowly, looking for me. I don't know why or what they want, but why would two strange shifters be driving down an isolated road in the middle of a storm looking for me? Nothing good is what I'm thinking.
As I tear through the forest, wincing when it feels like every step I take has me landing on a sharp rock or pointy twig, coming close more than once to slipping on wet leaves and ending up on my ass, I try not to think about what they want from me.
I'm confident I don't have any enemies because of my quiet life and non-confrontational nature. Unless they're upset about a lost sticker order in the mail, which seems unlikely at best.
Since the only place I've been today is the pack house, and then Kier's cabin, those two shifters have to be connected with Dayne or Kier.
If Dayne was expecting trouble, there's no way he and Talis would've sent me out on this errand. He'd have called everyone together to prepare to meet this threat.
Everyone except me. Dayne would've stashed me somewhere safe while everyone put their lives on the line.
Maybe one or more of Talis' old packmates survived to come looking for payback, but that doesn't feel right either. All of that is over now with the Merrick's dead or disbanded, and Jackson the new alpha of Dawley.
But Kier? He was talking about packs fighting to the death, and it sounded like he was talking from experience. Maybe these shifters were in his pack before he left to build a new life for himself as a carpenter in the rural Colorado mountains.
From somewhere behind me, a wolf howl cuts through the roar of the violent storm battering the surrounding trees. It's a sound that strikes terror through me. When it's almost immediately followed by another, I push myself to run faster because I know what those howls mean. A hunt is on.
That they've already shifted means they're dominant enough, maybe even alphas, to have done it in such a short time.
I'm a submissive wolf who doesn't have the ten minutes it's going to take me to shift before I'm hunted down by possibly two alpha wolves, which means I'm dead. My body just doesn't know it yet.