EDEN
Adrift…
Pack is everything. Without pack, there is no protection, no home, no family. Abandoned by one and tormented by the other, I tried being alone. I failed.
Now, with a broken past and an uncertain future, I've tracked down the one person in the world who ever gave a damn whether I lived or died.
Instead of finding sanctuary, my arrival threatens to destroy the least deserving. Including the shifter who truly sees me as no one has before. Whose amber eyes hold a promise of forever, of love, want, and need. But that future can only happen if this pack survives the devastation I have wrought.
Can I mend what I have ruptured and find my happiness with Luka, a life I never dared to even dream-or will everything crumble around us?
***
It takes a long time for me to realize the scent of my fear is the only thing pursuing me through the Blackshaw forest.
Even then, I don't stop.
A little voice in my head tells me that the shifter with the gentle voice and the warm amber eyes doesn't seem the type to chase terrified women through a forest. But even that isn't enough to slow my steps.
As I leap over ditches, scramble over bushes, and weave around tall trees that stretch high into the sky, small creatures pause at my rapid approach, or flee away in terror.
I know how they feel, those animals-the rabbits, moles, and other small creatures who never forget that predators lurk all around them, that one mistake will end their life.
I know because once, that was me.
The dark thoughts invade, and I battle with them as I have so many times before. This time I lose.
I should've known coming face-to-face with Kier-letting him see me for the first time since I came to Hardin would have this effect on me. From a distance, I didn't have to meet his eyes, didn't have to face up to the death I caused.
Back then, he tried to help me. It didn't matter that I was Jared's mate, and not his to protect. He still tried… and failed, anyway.
But he wasn't the only one to fail at protecting. Was he?
When I stumble over a root, nearly going down, I wrench my mind away from the very thing I swore to myself that I wouldn't think about.
I run for several more minutes before I eventually stop, which is when I realize I've run off the Blackshaw pack land and into the public forest.
The reason I stop isn't because I'm tired, or that I've reached my destination. In fact, the opposite is true. It's because I have nowhere to run to.
I came to Hardin because I learned Kier was here, and I hoped he'd help me again. He's the only one in the world who I know would help.
Or I thought so, until I came face-to-face with him. Now I'm not so sure.
When my stomach grumbles, I place my hands over my belly to muffle the sound. Of course, it does nothing. It growls just as loudly as it did before.
They were eating back by the lake. That was one of the things that drew me to them: the smell of barbecuing meat. But it wasn't the only thing. I knew that Kier Stone-or Savage, I heard he likes to call himself now-was going to be there.
I didn't intend to venture close enough for them to see me, or to scent me. But hearing them laugh, and smelling the food, and… him, drew me closer and closer like a moth to a flame, until suddenly I was right there, in front of him-the shifter with the amber eyes and the laugh lines bracketing his eyes and mouth that tell me he laughs often.
I froze. And so did he.
As I backed away, I heard Kier telling them who I was: Eden Stone, the former alpha of the Stone Pack's mate, a woman he probably thought my mate, Jared, had killed one night.
With a violent shake of my head, I force myself not to think about it anymore, sending my long, dark hair flying around my face. As I do, the soft, almost gentle sound of rainfall hitting the leaves high above me has me angling my head up to peer through the tall trees, the leaves, and into a darkened night sky.
This won't be heavy rain or a storm, I think, as a few droplets splash on my cheeks and forehead. This will be like a summer storm, a sudden but light sprinkle. Not that it matters what kind of rain it is. Being outside in the rain with threadbare jeans, a worn t-shirt, and sneakers with holes in the toe, rain is rain, and the last thing you want is to be wet when you have no shelter to call your own.
But there was a cabin.
All the times I'd creep onto the pack land, I saw cabins. A couple of them were old and empty, looking long abandoned. But there were two that weren't. One carried the scent of the alpha, and his mate-the pregnant woman back at the BBQ-so I knew to stay away from that cabin so the alpha wouldn't pick up my scent and kill me for being in his territory.
The other cabin hadn't been abandoned, but no one was living in there, either. At least not recently.
The alpha's scent there wasn't fresh, so I knew he'd been the last one there, but not recently-maybe days before I finally summoned up the nerve to venture closer.
When I peered through the window and eventually opened the door, it was as if someone had left their whole life behind. Stuffed bookcases, jam-packed clothes rails, and even a kitchenette filled with crockery told me that someone would have a reason to come back.
It looked like a home. Like a safe place to stay. So I stayed for one night, sleeping curled up on a blanket on the floor by the front door so I could get away quickly if heard footsteps approaching. But I didn't need to, because no one came.
I woke early the next morning and slipped out when the sky was still more dark than light, and then I waited to see if anyone would discover I'd stayed there. I expected to find the door bolted the next time I returned-or even worse, the rest of the pack hunting me.
But the door still opened, and the only fresh scent around the small wood cabin was mine.
So I went back. Again and again.
I think of that cabin now, and how much warmer it was than any other old draughty cabin or abandoned building I ever spent the night.
When the rain intensifies, proving that I don't know how to read the weather at all, I sigh.
It's like even the universe is telling me to go back.
With no place to go, all the money I'd accrued from my years of running exhausted, and my belly empty, I do the only thing I can: I turn and head back into Blackshaw pack land.