Avi (Little River Stallions #3)

Chapter 1

Fallon Caldwell pressed herself into the corner of the SUV where she sat on the floor in the back, heart pounding like it wanted to beat right out of her ribcage and flop around on the floor.

The vehicle was silent except for the steady rumble of the tires on the road.

The three shifters up front—Joss the alpha wolf, Jupiter the lion, and Alfie the wolf—didn’t say anything to her or each other, just watched the road, prepared for anything.

She hadn’t said a word herself since she’d been hurried into the back of the SUV once the sun set, leaving behind her best friend Sunny and the Amazing Adventures Safari Park—the last place that had felt remotely safe.

The past week had been a clusterfuck of the highest order, and Fallon didn’t know what was going to come from this trip.

She’d been told that the destination would bring safety, but the reality was she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel safe anywhere.

She trusted Sunny. They’d been best friends ever since Fallon’s mom, Sera, had taken her in when her parents had been killed by her dad’s tiger pride. And then the alpha of Fallon’s jaguar prowl had decided to kick Sunny out for being a non-shifting half-tigress. Which was bad enough.

What followed had been far worse.

Alpha Dario had used Fallon as collateral to save his own skin from another alpha taking over the prowl, promising her in an arranged mating to a psychopath named Otto.

Fallon had fled the prowl’s territory in Tennessee to join Sunny at the safari park where a large group of shifters lived and worked in secret from humans, who didn’t know that shifters existed.

It had been strange but safe.

For a while.

Then Dario had found them both and gone after Sunny again and again.

He’d lost his life in a battle where Sunny had been able to finally shift to save her mate Seneca.

Safe again?

For a heartbeat.

Then Otto had sent flowers to the park for Fallon.

He was coming for her.

So here she was, hiding in the back of an SUV heading toward Little River, a small farming town in New Jersey, to the territory of a group of stallion shifters.

One of the males in the SUV coughed and she stopped musing on the past and focused on the present. Lifting her head, she looked out the back window but could only see darkness.

“You okay back there?” one of them asked. Joss perhaps.

“Yeah.”

“It’ll be fine,” another male said. “The stallions are a great group. Very protective. And we’re not being followed.”

She wanted to ask how he was sure, but she thought that might be insulting.

“I promise we’re not being followed,” the third male said. “You’ll be safe at the farm.”

“Thanks.”

She let her head fall back against the side of the SUV and closed her eyes, seeing Sunny’s face as they’d said goodbye at the park.

Sunny had promised Fallon would find safety at the farm and that eventually Otto would forget all about her and the arranged mating and move on, but Fallon wasn’t so sure she’d be that lucky.

Plus, her mom was still with the jaguars, and Fallon had no idea if she was okay.

Communication with her had been spotty, everyone afraid to bring danger around with too much chatter.

Damn, she missed her mom.

She missed things being normal. Peaceful.

Just her and her mom and Sunny, in the campground the jaguar prowl had called home before everything went to hell.

How long was she going to be with the stallions of Little River? Was her mom okay? Would Otto try to hurt Sunny to get information on Fallon?

There were simply too many questions with no good answers.

No one knew what tomorrow would bring. Or the next day. They only assured her that there was safety in Little River and that a herd of stallions was willing to put their own lives on the line to keep her safe if Otto should show up.

She hoped that was true.

But mostly she hoped that she’d never see Otto again.

* * *

“We’re almost there,” one of the males said, breaking through Fallon’s endless thoughts about the future.

She sat up a little and peeked between the seats as the SUV turned and the tires crunched on gravel.

She couldn’t see much since it was so dark out and there weren’t street lights, but occasional breaks in the clouds allowed moonlight to shine through, which revealed wooden fences, open pastures, and a farmhouse with barns.

The gate was opened by several males and the SUV drove through, and she heard the creak of the gate as it closed behind them.

“I’ll come around and let you out,” one of the males said when the SUV stopped.

She settled back and waited, her heart in her throat.

The liftgate opened and Jupiter smiled gently at her. “This is where you’ll be safe, Fallon. The farm is full of protective measures and we weren’t followed by anyone except our own SUVs, which are parked on the main road.” He offered her his hand and she stared at it for a long moment.

She very much wanted to believe him. But she just wasn’t sure if there was any place that was actually safe from an alpha who thought she belonged to him.

Taking his hand, she let herself be guided out. As she straightened, she felt something deep in her bones.

Turning slowly, she stepped from the shadow of the SUV and looked around. What was she feeling? It was a pulse of something, an urge she couldn’t place.

There was the farmhouse, white siding stark against the night sky, porch lights lighting the wide wooden planks and the rocking chairs. Then her gaze landed on the largest barn.

A male stepped out of the barn through a big open door.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, backlit by the soft glow of the barn’s interior.

As he made eye contact with her, her jaguar stirred inside her.

“Hi, I’m Crew.”

She nearly jumped out of her skin as the voice spoke from behind her.

Pressing a hand to her chest where her heart was doing the rumba, she turned to see who spoke.

The male was tall and wearing a plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves. Next to him was a petite female who smiled. “I’m Crew’s mate, Zara. We’re alphas of the Little River Herd. Welcome to the farm.”

Fallon was caught in limbo, curious about the male, who she could feel drawing closer, but not wanting to be rude to the alphas who’d opened their home to her.

Instead of turning to see the male walk toward her, she extended her hand and shook theirs and thanked them.

She was introduced to stallion Grey and his human mate Tatum, and Ford, another stallion. And then the male who’d been walking toward her appeared with the others and she finally got a good look at him.

And help her, he was a sexy hunk of male.

He greeted her with a warm smile, introducing himself as Avi.

She was aware she was gawking, but her life had been turned upside down repeatedly over the course of the last few days, and now here she was, standing in an unfamiliar place with strangers, and…one of them happened to be…no.

She wasn’t going to deal with that right now.

Firmly pushing the wayward but very enticing thoughts to the back of her mind, she moved clear of the SUV so the doors could be closed after her bag was set on the ground, and listened as the park shifters talked to Crew and the other stallions.

Joss cleared his throat and Fallon looked at him.

“You can contact Sunny through the phone we gave you. If you want to pass a message to your mom, do it through Sunny so we know for sure there isn’t any way that Otto can track you here.

We’ll keep you posted, but hopefully things will settle and Otto will move on. Either way, you’re safe here.”

She took a quick look around. Wooden fencing enclosed the farmhouse, barns, and extended down the sides of the cleared space. She could hear animals in another barn and the smell of hay and dirt was heavy in the air.

“Thank you for everything,” Fallon said. “I’m sorry for the trouble I caused.”

All the males growled softly. “You’re not to blame,” Crew said. “Males like that Otto asshole need to realize they can’t control everyone. It’s barbaric.”

The three park shifters wished her well, and she said goodbye. Once the SUV was gone and the gate was shut once more, she was well and truly stuck in Little River, with a herd of stallions she didn’t know and an alpha wanting to take her as his mate by force.

There was something very surreal about the whole thing, but it was her very real life.

“Are you hungry?” Tatum asked.

“I’m really just kind of tired.” Fallon smiled weakly, feeling about two seconds away from falling apart entirely.

She hadn’t cried much since she’d been on the run from first Dario and now Otto. But she really wanted to cry now.

“We’ve got a private apartment in the barn for you,” Crew said. He explained the security features of the barn and that someone in the herd was always on patrol overnight to ensure they were all safe.

“I’ll show you to the barn,” Avi said, picking her bag up off the ground. “If that’s okay.”

Hell yes, it was okay.

But she didn’t say that. She just nodded.

“We’ll see you in the morning,” Zara said. “Rest well, Fallon.”

“Thank you.”

Avi gestured toward the barn and she followed him.

Inside, she saw workbenches and stacks of wood and boxes piled on top of each other.

He led her to a flight of wooden steps up to a landing on one side of the barn, and when they reached the top, he opened a door and stepped aside so she could walk in first.

Inside, she found a quaint studio apartment with a small kitchenette and a main room separated into a living space and a bedroom by a folding screen.

“Bathroom’s over there,” he gestured as he set her bag on the bed.

“The kitchen is stocked, but I was kind of guessing about the kinds of things you might like. You can let me know what you’d like and I’ll be happy to get it. ”

Her chest tightened unexpectedly.

Her throat felt too tight to speak.

What would she say anyway?

That she knew what he was, but it was too much right now? That her life was in such complete upheaval that there was no way in hell she should even be thinking the very incredible word that her jaguar kept trying to get her to say?

She finally managed a thank you, and he nodded.

“There’s a walkie on the counter, just turn it to channel three and whoever is on patrol will answer. All of us carry walkies when we’re around the farm so we can be in touch easily. And we all live in the farmhouse, so we’re really close. Can I get you anything?”

He spoke so kindly, so reassuringly, that she wanted to just fall into his arms and find out what it felt like to be held by someone so seemingly strong, but instead she shook her head.

She was so freaking exhausted.

He gave her a quiet look. “You’re safe here, Fallon, I promise. If you need anything, just holler. I’ll be close by.”

He walked out of the apartment and closed the door behind him. She stood frozen for a little while in the silence of the apartment.

Safe.

Everyone kept saying the word safe, like an echo. She’d heard it a dozen times in the last hour.

But she didn’t exactly feel safe. Not yet anyway.

Not when Otto was still out there, possibly nearby and waiting. Not when she didn’t know what was going on with her mom.

Not when everything in her life had been torn up by the roots and scattered.

She sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled shakily. The apartment was quiet and private.

For just a moment, she felt like she was standing on the edge of a new beginning. A new chapter of her life that had everything to do with the stallion male with coal-black hair and enchanting blue eyes.

She wasn’t sure she could afford to believe in a new beginning.

She felt like she could only handle surviving to the next day.

As she settled back on the bed, she stared at the ceiling until it blurred with tears, and then she let herself go into the marrow-deep sorrow.

She cried for the life she’d had to abandon and the hopelessness she felt now.

And she cried for Avi, because she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to say out loud the word that kept banging around in her mind.

Soulmate.