Chapter 8 - Connor
Three days of watching Fern, and I still don’t know what to say to her.
I’ve been stationed near the medical center since the lottery, keeping my distance while staying close enough to intervene if trouble shows up.
Nic’s orders. Protect the pack’s newest member, even if she doesn’t feel like part of the pack yet.
Even if every interaction between us has been stilted and awkward, weighed down by the reality of what happened in the Hollow.
We’re supposed to be mates. Soon, we’ll stand before the pack and complete the bonding ceremony that will tie us together for life. And yet we’ve barely exchanged more than a handful of words since Elder Amelia read her name from that slip of paper.
I catch glimpses of her through the medical center windows sometimes.
She moves between appointments with a focus that borders on obsessive, throwing herself into work like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to sanity.
Maybe it is. I remember the look on her face when Amelia announced her name—the shock, the disbelief, the edge of panic in her pale blue eyes as the crowd erupted around her.
She didn’t ask for this. Neither of us did.
But the spirits chose her, and now we’re both stuck figuring out what that means.
This morning, I’m leaning against my truck across the street from the medical center, pretending to check my phone while I keep one eye on the building. Fern arrived an hour ago. She didn’t see me watching as she hurried inside. Or if she did, she pretended not to.
That seems to be our pattern now. Pretending.
My phone starts ringing, and I glance down to find Nic’s name on the screen.
“I need you at the eastern border,” he states as soon as I answer. “Dylan’s patrol picked up some unusual activity. Human, not shifter.”
“What kind of activity?”
“That’s what I need you to find out. Meet Dylan at the old logging road and report back when you know more.”
I look toward the medical center one more time. Through the front window, I can just make out Fern’s ash blonde hair as she crosses the lobby with a stack of files in her arms. She stops to chat with Skylar, and for a moment, her face relaxes into something almost like a smile.
She’ll be fine for a few hours. She has the whole medical center staff around her, and whoever is camping in the woods is nowhere near town.
“On my way,” I tell Nic and end the call.
The drive to the eastern border takes twenty minutes, winding through increasingly dense forest until pavement gives way to gravel and then to dirt.
I park my truck at the old logging road trailhead and continue on foot, following the overgrown path until I spot a familiar figure waiting near a massive fallen oak.
Dylan looks up as I approach. He’s leaner than he used to be, the grief of losing his younger brother in the League of Humanity attack having carved away whatever softness he once possessed.
These days, he channels all that pain into border patrol, running himself ragged checking and rechecking the territory lines like he’s personally responsible for making sure no threat ever breaches them again.
“Took you long enough,” he says by way of greeting.
I stop beside him and scan the tree line. “What have we got?”
“Campsite about half a mile northeast. Single tent, small fire pit, and basic supplies.” Dylan pushes off from the fallen oak and starts walking. “No vehicle anywhere nearby, which means they hiked in carrying everything on their back.”
“And we’re sure it’s not a rogue shifter?”
“Human. The scent’s unmistakable.” He glances at me over his shoulder. “Could be nothing. Hikers wander through here sometimes, even though it’s technically private property. But something about this one feels off.”
We move through the forest in silence, our footsteps muffled by years of accumulated pine needles and decaying leaves. Dylan sets a pace that’s brisk without being rushed, and I match it easily as I expand my senses outward to take in every sound and smell around us.
After ten minutes, Dylan slows and holds up a fist. I stop beside him and peer through a gap in the underbrush.
The campsite is exactly as he described.
A dark green tent, cheap and practical, pitched in a small clearing near a cluster of granite boulders.
A ring of stones marks where a fire has been built and extinguished multiple times.
Scattered around the tent are the basics—a cooler, a backpack, a rolled sleeping pad, and what looks like a pair of high-powered binoculars sitting on top of a folding camp chair.
The binoculars catch my attention. Hikers don’t usually carry equipment like that.
“See anyone?” I murmur.
“Not yet. I’ve been watching for over an hour with no movement.” Dylan crouches behind a thick pine trunk. “Could be out foraging, could be scouting the area. Hard to say.”
I inspect the campsite more closely, noting the tent's position relative to the surrounding terrain. Whoever chose this spot knew what they were doing. The boulders provide cover from one direction, and the trees screen the site. More importantly, there’s a clear sightline to one of the trails our pack uses frequently for patrols and runs.
“This isn’t random,” I conclude. “Someone picked this location intentionally.”
“That’s what I thought.” Dylan settles into a more comfortable position against the tree. “Nic wants us to monitor and report. Figure out who this is and what they want before we make any moves.”
We establish a surveillance pattern, taking turns watching the campsite while the other monitors the surrounding forest. The afternoon stretches on as the sun traces its slow arc across the sky while we wait for the mysterious camper to return.
Birds call in the canopy overhead. Squirrels chase each other up and down tree trunks. Nothing else moves.
“So,” Dylan says during one of his shifts, keeping his voice low, “you and the human therapist. How’s that working out?”
“It’s fine.”
He snorts. “You’ve been lurking outside her workplace for three days straight. That doesn’t exactly scream ‘fine’ to me.”
“Nic assigned me to watch her.”
“Nic assigned you to protect her. There’s a difference.” Dylan picks up a twig and twirls it between his fingers. “Protecting someone doesn’t usually involve hiding behind parked cars and spying on them through windows.”
“I’m not spying.”
“Ruby says you are. She also says Fern is starting to find it creepy.”
I wince. That’s not the impression I was going for.
“Look,” Dylan continues, tossing the twig aside, “I get that the situation is weird. Human woman stumbles into the lottery, gets matched with you, now you’re both supposed to act like everything is normal. It’s a lot.”
I rub the back of my neck. “She barely knows me. She barely understands what we are. And in three weeks, she’s supposed to stand before the whole pack and bind herself to me forever?”
“So help her understand. Spend time with her. Answer her questions.” Dylan fixes me with a pointed look. “Stop skulking around like some kind of stalker and actually talk to your mate.”
“I talk to her.”
“When? When you nod at her from across the street? When you grunt hello if she happens to pass you in town?” He shakes his head. “That’s not talking, Connor. That’s avoiding.”
I want to argue, to defend myself, but the words die in my throat. He’s not wrong. Every time I’ve had the chance to approach Fern over the past three days, I’ve found an excuse not to. Told myself I was giving her space. Told myself she needed time to adjust.
The truth is, I don’t know how to bridge the gap between us. I don’t know how to be a mate to someone who looks at me like I’m a monster.
“Just go talk to her,” Dylan suggests. “Stop playing hard to get and spend some actual time with the woman. The bonding ceremony is coming up fast. You two need to figure out how to be in the same room without it being awkward as hell.”
“And if she doesn’t want to talk to me?”
“Then at least you’ll know where you stand.” He turns his attention back to the campsite. “Go on. I’ve got this covered. I’ll report to Nic and let him know we’re keeping eyes on the situation.”
I climb to my feet and brush pine needles from my jeans. “You’ll call if anything changes?”
“The second our mystery camper shows up, you’ll be the first to know.” Dylan waves me off without looking. “Now get out of here before I change my mind.”
The drive back to town feels longer than it should, with Dylan’s words rattling around in my head the whole way.
By the time I pull into the medical center parking lot, the sun is dipping toward the horizon, and most of the staff vehicles are gone.
Only a handful remain, including Fern’s now fixed Honda.
I find her in her consultation room, alone, bent over a mess of paperwork with a pen tucked behind her ear and another one tapping against the desk.
She’s so absorbed in whatever she’s reading that she doesn’t notice me in the doorway, and when I rap my knuckles against the frame, she rockets out of her chair with a strangled yelp.
“God!” She clutches the edge of the desk until her knuckles go white. “What is wrong with you? You can’t just sneak up on people like that!”
“I knocked.”
“You appeared out of nowhere!” She presses a hand to her sternum, gasping for breath. “I almost had a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you heard me coming down the hall.”
“Well, I didn’t.” She sinks back into her chair and drags both hands down her face. When she looks at me again, some of the panic has faded, replaced by a weariness that seems to go bone-deep. “What do you want, Connor?”
“To check on you. See how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine.”
The response is automatic, reflexive, and completely unconvincing. I step into the room and lean against the wall near the door, keeping plenty of distance between us.
“You seem jumpy,” I observe.
“You scared me. That’s what happens when someone materializes out of thin air.”
“I didn’t materialize. I walked down a hallway and knocked on your door like a normal person.”
She opens her mouth, probably to argue, then seems to think better of it. Her shoulders sag, and for a moment, she looks impossibly tired. “I have PTSD. Loud noises, unexpected visitors, certain triggers… They set off a response I can’t always control. It’s something I manage. Most of the time.”
“PTSD from what?”
The question lands between us like a stone dropped into still water, and her gaze drops to the desk.
“That’s not something I want to discuss.”
“We’re supposed to be mates. Shouldn’t we know things about each other?”
“We’re supposed to be mates because an old woman pulled my name out of a hat. That doesn’t entitle you to my trauma history.”
“I’m not trying to pry—”
“Really? Because it sounds like you are.”
“You’re a therapist,” I point out. “Aren’t you supposed to advocate for talking about this stuff? Processing it instead of bottling it up?”
“Is this some kind of reverse psychology? Because if it is, it’s not going to work.”
“It’s not reverse psychology. It’s a genuine question.”
“Then here’s a genuine answer.” She rises from her chair and starts gathering the scattered papers on her desk.
“Just because we’ve been lumped together by some ancient tradition doesn’t mean I owe you access to every painful thing that’s ever happened to me.
You’re still a stranger, Connor. A stranger who turns into a wolf, whom I’m supposedly going to be bound to forever in a few weeks.
So forgive me if I’m not ready to spill my guts just because you asked nicely. ”
The words are pointed and meant to wound, meant to push me away. I recognize the tactic because I’ve used it myself more times than I can count.
“Okay,” I relent.
She pauses mid-shuffle with a crease forming between her brows. “Okay?”
“You’re not ready to talk. I can respect that.
” I push off from the wall and take a step toward the door.
“But Fern? Whatever you’re carrying, whatever happened that made you run all the way to Silvercreek…
You don’t have to carry it alone anymore.
That’s what a pack is for. That’s what mates are supposed to be. ”
She doesn’t respond. Just stands there behind her desk, clutching those papers like a shield, watching me.
I turn and walk out, leaving her alone with her secrets.
But as I step into the fading daylight, my wolf rumbles a single, certain thought.
She’s ours. And we’re not giving up that easily.