Chapter 4
Promise arrived at the campground around lunchtime, her stomach growling and her wolf prancing in her head in excitement. The lush, wooded area around the campground was amazing, and the mountains were spectacular. She bet the sunrises and sunsets were incredible to witness.
She parked in front of a cabin with a sign that said, “Welcome Center,” hanging from the front porch. Turning off the engine, she grabbed her purse and phone and climbed out.
Turning in a slow circle, she inhaled the sweet air and listened to the sounds of the birds and bugs. The trees rustled in the breeze and a sweet scent pricked her subconscious.
She closed her eyes and inhaled again, but the scent was gone.
Whatever it was, it had been spicy and masculine, like sun-warmed leather and cinnamon.
Which was a very strange thing to smell outside like that. Whatever it was, she liked it.
Turning her attention to the welcome center, she climbed the steps to the porch and pushed open the door. A bell overhead tinkled, announcing her arrival.
As she reached the counter, a female stepped out from a back room. “Hello! Are you Promise?”
“I am, are you Ally?”
“I am!” The female laughed and came around the counter to give her a hug. “How was the drive?”
“Good. Uneventful, which is what my dad says the best road trips should be.”
“So true.” A male walked out of the room she’d come from and introduced himself as Richard, one of Ally’s mates.
“Welcome. I just texted Charlotte to come to the center to take you on a tour of the grounds. Are you hungry? Lunch is chicken salad wraps and chips and will be ready in a half hour.”
“I didn’t expect you to provide me lunch,” she said. She’d planned to run out and get groceries after she got settled.
“Nonsense,” Ally said. “While you’re here, you’re family.”
“That’s so sweet, thanks.” She put her bag on the counter and unzipped it. “How much do I owe you for the cabin? Or do you want to wait until I’m ready to leave to settle up?”
“No charge,” Richard said.
“What?”
“No charge,” Ally said. “We have a bunch of empty cabins right now, so you’re not taking any rental income from us, and it’s our pleasure to help out a fellow shifter. Well, I’m not a shifter, I’m human, but we’re all one big happy family here at Freshwater. If you decide to stay here, we’ve got job openings too.”
“Oh, well,” Promise said, “I don’t know what the future will bring.”
“No pressure at all,” Ally promised with a smile. “I’m just laying it all out there. We’re really excited for your mate-finding adventure.”
The bell tinkled as it opened and a pretty brunette walked in. “Hi, I’m Charlotte. Are you Promise?”
She nodded with a smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too! Do you want to drive or walk?”
“How much walking?”
“A lot if we go around the whole place.”
“I wouldn’t mind walking, I’ve been cooped up in the car for a few hours.”
“Let’s hit the road and then we’ll come back and grab lunch. We’ll stop at my cabin and grab my roommate Isolde and she’ll go with us.”
“Sounds great, thanks.”
Promise smiled at Ally and Richard and followed Charlotte out of the welcome center. “Those are my grandparents,” Charlotte said. They stepped off the porch and hung a left onto the dirt road. “Their kids—Harry, Mark, and Taylor—mated Jenny, and they formed a clan. Then they had four kids—me and my brothers, Kieran, Owen, and Davis. Do you know much about hyenas? I know your friend Jessi sent you here. I met her at the gathering where she found her truemates.”
“I know some things about hyenas, but not much.”
“Well, a clan is a group of three hyenas, usually brothers but sometimes cousins, and their truemate. The clans get together and form a baro, and the eldest hyena from each clan is the leader, and all the leaders get together to make decisions for the baro.”
“Cool. Are you mated?”
“Not yet. I hope soon, though. I’m tired of being single and going to the gatherings every year. Some males that come to the gatherings only want to find a hyena to mate with and don’t care if they’re truemates or not.”
“There are wolves like that, too.”
As they walked down the sun-dappled road, Charlotte pointed out the pond where guests could fish and swim, and ice skate in the winter, the building where meals were put out for guests who wanted to pay for the meal plan provided by the campground, and the various paths that led to unique lookouts and scenic areas around the territory.
They picked up Isolde, who was using a hose to rinse off an old desk she’d gotten from an online yard sale group. She had white-blonde hair and bright blue eyes and smelled like snow.
“I’m a snowy owl,” she said. “I heard you’re a unique wolf.”
“An apex. I have healing venom that I can use when I’m in my shift to help accelerate a shifter’s natural healing abilities.”
“That’s freaking awesome,” Isolde said. She turned off the hose and wiped her wet hands on her shorts. “I’m starving. I heard Ally made chicken salad, it’s my favorite.”
“We still have half the tour to go! I haven’t shown Promise her place yet.”
“Okay, just don’t get mad at me when my stomach scares off all the wildlife.”
Promise grinned at their banter.
“Mine is growling too, don’t worry,” she said.
They continued their walk around the campground, the females telling Promise about the activities offered, as well as the stores in town for whatever she might need. Promise caught the same spicy scent as they reached a four-wheeler tour building.
“Do you smell that?” she asked.
They stopped and all looked at the big building. A wooden sign, similar to the one at the welcome center, creaked from metal hinges.
“Smell what?” Isolde asked.
“I don’t know. I caught it earlier at the welcome center. It’s spicy like cinnamon but also reminds me of sunshine and leather.”
“I only smell pine trees and nature,” Charlotte said.
“Me too,” Isolde said.
Promise inhaled again, letting her wolf out a little. “I smell that too, but also the leather and cinnamon.”
“Maybe…I don’t know actually,” Isolde said with a laugh. “Maybe your nose is on the fritz.”
“Maybe.”
She met the couple who ran the four-wheeler tours—Brierley and Axtyn—who greeted Promise warmly.
“If you want to go on a four-wheeler tour, just let us know,” Brierley said with a wide smile. “Our son Artem does tours in the afternoon.”
“I do too,” Isolde said.
“Only if you want to get lost,” Axtyn said.
“Dad!”
Promise grinned. She loved family banter. It was clear that Isolde had a great relationship with her parents.
“Thanks for the offer, it was nice to meet you both.”
“We’re heading to the welcome center to grab lunch,” Isolde said. “See you later.”
“Have fun,” Brierley said.
They continued their walk around the campground with a stop at a very cute studio-style cabin, that had one large room with a Murphy bed and a kitchenette, plus a bathroom and a small laundry closet.
“I love it,” Promise said, looking out the back door at the woods. “It’s perfect.”
“I hope you find your truemate soon and he lives in the area,” Isolde said. “It would suck if you came all this way and had to keep traveling.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be worth it to find him, though.” Wherever he is.
Once more she thought about the leather and cinnamon scent and wondered who it belonged to.
Promise woke while it was still dark out, feeling disoriented. As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight through the open window, she remembered she was in a cabin in the mountains.
But it wasn’t the location that had woken her, it was the strange dream.
She’d dreamed she was in an arena with a cheering crowd. Everything was smokey, like someone had lit a large bonfire and wind had blown the smoke into the arena. The ground was sand, and the stands creaked as the crowd rose to their feet. Ahead of her just inside the arena was a male with broad shoulders and a tapered waist. He wore jeans that hung low on his hips, and there was a large scar between his shoulder blades.
He moved like a predator, confident in his ability to take on anyone who came against him. Something about him called to her, made her want to close the distance between them.
She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came. When she tried to go to him, she couldn’t move any farther into the arena. The crowd, now obscured by the thick smoke, roared its approval, and the male strode forward into the shadows and smoke, leaving her alone.
As the dream faded when she woke, she could only lay back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, remembering the way the male moved, all grace and deadly intention.
Who was he? And why was she so attracted to a male in a dream? It seemed impossible to even consider, but she couldn’t help but wonder…had she dreamed about her truemate? Had coming to Little Hope triggered some kind of vision?
Grabbing her phone, she looked at the time and saw it was nearly two a.m. Far too late to call Rio or London, and what would she say anyway? That she’d had a weird dream and was a little turned on by the bare back of a male she had never seen before in her life?
Rolling to her side, she stared out the window at the darker shadows of the trees, the moonlight highlighting the trees. Her wolf let out a curious whine in her head and she mentally shrugged.
She didn’t know what the dream meant, and maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe it was simply too much chatter about finding her truemate and having an adventure, and her subconscious put together some weird dream about it.
But she wasn’t sure she believed that.