Chapter 2
Later, Rex would look back on this moment and mutter, Yep, this is when it all started going south. And by south, he meant both the situation going sideways and his self-control migrating straight below his belt. Yes. That south.
He was the Alpha, and that came with knowledge of people in his town, but she was basically a stranger.
They’d never talked, never even been in the same room or had any sort of proximity.
Not once, since she’d come back to Mystic Hollow with her fancy degrees and tidy competence, and stepped into her grandfather’s shop as neatly as she seemed to do everything else.
Like her grandfather before her, she was beloved by the pack and the town, by magiks and humans alike, in that communal way small towns functioned.
And apparently, she was about to march into his forest and poke around in an issue she’d sniffed out.
That might be a problem.
So, on this late-spring morning, he’d made it a point to be standing in front of her shop ten minutes before opening.
And there he was.
Waiting.
The air was already balmy, June warmth mixed with pine resin and ripe earth. His wolf settled, scenting the breeze.
She arrived exactly five minutes before nine.
She parked the car. Opened the door. Stepped out.
And then the wind shifted.
Her scent hit him, grabbed him by the balls, and yanked. Sweet and clean with a little spark of lavender.
His wolf locked onto it like it had been waiting its whole damn life, and suddenly, he was cataloging everything.
Tiny. Five-foot-something. Light—he could probably lift her with one arm without noticing.
A chaos of curls the color of late-summer wheat before harvest. A yellow dress that made his chest feel too tight, and a light jacket that did not keep his brain from wondering if her shoulders would be bare.
Pretty. Very pretty. Sweet brown eyes that looked made for smiling.
And that mouth—currently doing exactly that.
She noticed him. Questions flickered across her face, but she didn’t slow her steps. “Good morning,” she said, keys in hand.
His dick responded before his brain did. His mouth produced a soft growl instead of any known human greeting.
“Oh. Maybe rough morning?” she said, laughing.
Her laugh turned the situation from bad to catastrophic.
He couldn’t muster words. She noticed, opened her mouth as if to say something, thought better of it, shook her head, and unlocked the door. “I assume you’re here for me, so come on in.”
He followed.
And the moment the door shut behind them, her scent wrapped around him fully, warm and soft and all-consuming, another kick straight to his senses. He would have stumbled if he weren’t an Alpha who refused to go down in a small herb shop.
He pulled in a breath through his teeth, trying to lessen the hit. He focused on everything else he could smell: dried lavender, crushed yarrow, sage bundles, beeswax candles, a faint trace of lingering rosemary oil. She overpowered everything.
She set her purse behind the counter and rested her hands on it. “So, what can I do for the mighty Alpha of the Mystic Hollow pack?”
“You know who I am.” Not the brightest contribution to dialogue, and it came out unnecessarily growly. He drew a breath through his nose, trying to settle.
She shrugged, unimpressed. “Everyone does. And those who don’t can usually sense it. You’ve got very powerful energy.”
Her words pleased him. Stupidly. He didn’t do stupid. He needed to get a grip. “You don’t have magic,” he said.
“Not a lick of it. But you don’t need magic to read people, if you know what I mean.”
He did not know what she meant because she had said lick, and now that was all he and his wolf could think about.
Her smile stayed warm, but her brows pinched slightly. “So...”
For fuck’s sake, pull it together. He cleared his throat. “I heard you want to get into the forest.”
Smoother than poetry.
She laughed. And the laugh lifted him clean off the ground like a gust full of floating dandelion seeds, everything bright and soft and achingly gentle. He wanted to close his eyes and exist in that sound only.
“This town, man,” she said. “Gossip on steroids. But yeah, something’s going on with my herbs. I want to look into it.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“Potency. Which is odd for herbs that look perfectly healthy.”
“Could it be a processing error?”
A word disaster. He should have stayed shut up.
She gave him a slightly condescending look, but smiled. “I don’t think so.”
He believed her. The shop was spotless—everything fresh, tidy, and cared for. Everything in a place that made sense. “I wasn’t implying you messed up.”
“You were kind of implying it, but it’s a reasonable question. I wondered the same myself, then ruled it out. Hence why I need to investigate.”
Right. That was why he was here. “Where are you planning on going?”
“Some of the herbs that presented issues were collected near the south meadow below Brackenridge Bluff, so I thought I’d start there.”
That put her exactly where he didn’t want her to be. “There are mama bears with cubs roaming that area. And big cats.”
“Are you telling me I can’t go?”
“Trails aren’t closed, but it’s strongly discouraged. They shut down the camping zones at Bracken Hollow and Ridgeview Flats. Parks and Wildlife made the call—rightfully.”
She went quiet, staring at him but clearly not seeing him. Thinking. Then she shrugged and gave him what was clearly the end of that thought. “It’s their mountain, after all.” Her attention turned to him. “I’ll be careful.”
“I’ll take you.”
Well, fuck me sideways. That shat out his mouth before passing through a single functioning mental filter. If he’d had one brain cell left, he would have told Owen to go instead. Owen was a capable Ranger and his Beta. Responsible. Available. Safe.
Mated.
But no. He had volunteered like an absolute dumbass.
Zoe seemed to weigh it. “You want to... escort me? Into the forest?”
“Animals have been weird lately; they are not usually this far down. And the cubs make the bears edgy.”
“No, yes, I mean, I get it. It’s just...” She shrugged again. “Sure. You know the forest better than anyone. It’s just unexpected.”
Tell me about it.
“Fine,” she said. “If you think it’s safer, then thank you.”
Then she beamed. She actually lit up like the first warm day after a cold, wet spring.
“I close at one. Meet at the trailhead at 1:30? I need food first, or I get cranky, and you don’t want to deal with that.”
He nodded because that was all he was capable of. “I’ll be there.”
And he left.
The all-powerful Alpha of Mystic Hollow walked away with his tail between his damn legs.
WHAT HAD JUST HAPPENED?
Zoe stared at the door for a full minute after it closed. Maybe longer. Hard to tell. Time had gone funny.
Many layers here. Many competing priorities. None particularly disciplined.
First: she needed to investigate her herbs. That should’ve been priority one. Something was wrong with them, and it was her job, her passion, and her responsibility to find out what.
Second: there was danger involved. Bears. Big cats. Unknown variables. She was a good camper, but not bear-fighting material.
Third...
Rex.
Rex the Alpha.
Her grandfather had always spoken highly of him. Everyone did. Through all the summers she’d spent in town as a girl and then in the years after returning, she’d only ever heard the same things about Rex: solid man, exceptional Alpha, reliable, protective, built like a tree trunk.
She had never spoken to him or even gotten close, but she had seen him. Oh, she’d seen him. Hard to miss someone who turned a standard-sized doorway into a mere framing device. Broad shoulders, arms that gave woodsman-thirst-trap vibes without even trying.
Now, though... Now she’d seen him up close, and she’d been caught in the gravity of him, as if something had latched onto her and tugged her toward him.
His eyes, a rich chocolate brown, had held the wariness of having stumbled onto something important that he’d not yet figured out, but he’d sworn to find out.
Weird. So weird.
Scorching-hot weird.
As she went behind the counter to prep orders for the day, her mind kept looping back to him. Those sounds he made, those half-growls... A shiver skittered down her spine.
Her life was not exactly bursting with romantic excitement.
Or any excitement, really. Probably this was just her body reacting to someone attractive for the first time in.
.. a while. Maybe it was hunger. Not sandwich-hunger.
Her brain got dramatic when she skipped, um, basic self-care for too long.
“He is super, uber hot,” she muttered under her breath.
And he was going to escort her into the woods. Her knight in shiny fur, she thought, chuckling.
She kind of looked forward to it.
JUNE IN MYSTIC HOLLOW’S forests meant everything was alive and humming.
Sunlight fell in scattered coins through thick fir branches.
Ferns unfurled lazily along the trail edges.
The air carried the layered scent of warm soil, pine, damp moss, and the soft, sugary whisper of early wildflowers.
Birds argued overhead. A woodpecker hammered rhythmically somewhere deeper in the green.
It was a beautiful afternoon to be in the woods.
Or it would be, if he weren’t late.
Five minutes.
Zoe had many words for late people, none of them flattering. Time was a limited resource, and hers was as important as anyone else’s. Everyone should learn time management by eighteen.
But also, it made her unsure. How long was she supposed to wait? Ten? Fifteen?
It was close to twenty when his truck finally rolled into the lot. A black beast of a vehicle with the aerodynamic charm of a rhino and definitely past its prime.
Relief hit her first. Then a giddy burst she did not approve of. She was a cheerful woman, not a giddy one.