Chapter 2
Hannah
The music still drifts through the trees behind me. Then the road bends west, the clubhouse disappears, and there’s nothing behind me but the red glow of my taillights on the road.
I keep waiting for Cade’s truck to come tearing around the last bend. For my phone to start ringing. For a line of motorcycles to appear ahead and force me off the road.
Instead, the road stretches empty, pale beneath my headlights.
My hands ache from gripping the steering wheel so tight. I flex them one at a time, keeping my eyes on the road.
The white dress is bunched around my legs, its hem streaked with dirt. My scalp hurts. A few stiff strands of brown hair have worked loose around my face, and the stupid flower crown is digging into my head.
At the next straight stretch, I tug the bobby pins from my hair and toss them into the cupholder. Then I yank off the crown. For one glorious second, I consider throwing it out of the window. Then I picture Cade finding it at the side of the road. I toss it onto the floor behind my seat instead.
There. Out of sight and out of mind. A laugh escapes me, shaky and slightly deranged.
I made it.
I actually made it.
The realization keeps arriving in little waves as the miles slide by. I’m out of East Ridge. Away from my father. Away from the criminal who thought he owned me.
Then my phone lights up in the cupholder.
DAD.
I stare at it for two rings before stabbing decline.
It starts again almost immediately.
Dad.
Decline.
Dad again.
Decline.
Then Cade.
I let that one ring a little longer.
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But there’s something deeply satisfying about picturing him back at the clubhouse, surrounded by all those men who were so jealous of him discovering his captive mate has disappeared.
I hit decline.
The phone goes dark.
A minute passes. Two. No more calls.
That worries me more.
By now they’ll have searched upstairs. They’ll know the truck is gone. Cade will be furious. Dad will be calculating.
I know which one scares me more.
The road curves sharply along the mountainside, the guardrail flashing silver in my headlights before the land drops away into darkness.
I crack the window. Cold air rushes into the cab, clearing out the stink of hairspray and perfume.
I want to stop somewhere soon and change out of this dress. But where? Half the county knows Dad, and the other half knows Cade. The last thing I need is someone recognizing me.
The dashboard clock creeps past eleven-thirty. The gas gauge is sitting just under half a tank. I glance at it again. Not ideal, but enough. It has to be.
The farther west I drive, the more remote it gets. Houses become few and far between, and miles go by without so much as a gas station. My cell signal drops to one bar, disappears, then comes back again. Eventually the radio dissolves into static between country songs.
I switch it off. Silence fills the cab.
A few miles later, a green highway sign appears in my headlights.
ASHBURY — 97 MILES
My foot eases off the gas.
Ashbury.
I want nothing more than to turn toward it.
I can picture the journalism building at this time of night, almost completely dark except for the security lights in the corridors.
Professor Bennett’s office at the end of the hall.
The yellow lamp he kept burning long after everyone else had gone home, surrounded by towers of books and marked-up papers and the cup of coffee he was forever forgetting to drink.
I’d go straight to him. I wouldn’t even care about arriving in this ridiculous dress. I’d put the files on his desk and tell him everything.
Professor Bennett would read them. Then he’d look at me over the top of his glasses and ask the same questions he used to write all over my work in red ink.
Who benefits?
What can you prove?
Push harder.
And I wouldn’t have to figure out the answers by myself.
But Professor Bennett isn’t in Ashbury. He’s thousands of miles away on sabbatical.
The sign disappears behind me.
There is nobody waiting for me at the end of this drive.
My vision blurs.
“Shit.”
I blink hard, but the tears spill over anyway. I swipe them away, only for more to follow.
Well, I’ve spent the entire evening being dressed, displayed, threatened, handed over and discussed as though the rest of my life had already been decided.
I can cry for five fucking minutes.
So, I do.
By the time the road begins climbing again, it’s over. My face feels tight and my nose is running, but my hands are steadier.
I check the phone mounted beside the dashboard. No signal now. The map is still there, though. A blue line winding away from the highway into a blank green expanse.
Beyond the reach of my headlights, everything is black. Pine trees crowd the guardrail, thick and unbroken on either side of the road.
Half a mile later, the GPS tells me to turn right. I slow as a sign emerges in the headlights.
FOREST SERVICE ROAD 14
NO WINTER MAINTENANCE
The turnoff is barely more than a gap between the trees, flanked by two rusted barriers pushed open. I turn onto it.
The pavement disappears within the first mile. Packed dirt gives way to loose gravel, rutted by old logging trucks. Pine branches hang low over the road and scrape along the sides of the truck whenever it narrows.
I slow to a crawl.
A pothole catches the front wheel and my teeth rattle.
“Jesus.”
There are no houses now, no lights anywhere through the trees. No sign of life in miles. Fog drifts between the trunks, turning white whenever my headlights catch it.
Another sign passes.
ROAD USE AT OWN RISK.
A mile farther:
NO SERVICES BEYOND THIS POINT.
I glance at the phone again.
The blue line continues.
The road rises steeply, then drops away on the other side.
My headlights sweep across the gravel as I pick up speed.
Something moves in the road ahead.
Dark fur. A massive shape. Two eyes flare gold in my headlights.
A bear!
I jerk the wheel.
The tires lose their grip on the loose gravel. The back of the truck swings out.
“Shit—”
I turn into the skid, but the truck keeps sliding. I wrench the wheel back. The rear whips the other way.
Trees flash across the windshield.
Then the passenger side smashes into a pine with a deafening crunch.
The airbag explodes into my face. Pain bursts through my nose and cheek.
For a few seconds, I can’t hear anything except a high metallic ringing.
I blink hard. Did I pass out for a moment?
My mouth tastes of blood. The seat belt is cutting into my chest, and when I lift a hand to my face, my fingers come away red.
Jesus. I look through the windshield. One headlight is still working, throwing a crooked beam across the road and into the trees beyond it.
What about the bear?
I twist to look through the side window.
No sign of it.
Maybe it ran. Please let it have run. I reach for my phone, then stop. Something crashes through the undergrowth.
I freeze.
Another branch snaps. Closer. Whatever’s out there is coming fast.
“Oh, fuck.”
I fumble for the lock and slam it down just as something enormous bursts through the trees.
The bear.
My breath catches.
It charges straight at the truck.
“No. No, no, no—”
I scramble backward, although there’s nowhere to go. It barrels toward me, huge and dark in the headlights.
Then it stops. Right outside the reach of the headlights.
I can hear myself breathing.
The bear takes one step closer.
“Go away,” I croak.
It stares at me.
“Go!”
Its head lifts.
Then its body jerks.
I stare.
The bear seems to fold in on itself. Its shoulders buckle, its back twisting as the enormous shape begins to shrink. Fur recedes. Limbs lengthen. The outline of it changes so fast my brain can’t make sense of what I’m seeing.
The last of the fur disappears. The body straightens.
Seconds later, a naked man stands in the road.
A very large naked man.
Of course.
Because apparently one bear shifter tonight wasn’t enough.
He strides toward the truck.
I reach for the lock again before remembering I already locked it.
He comes into the light.
Jesus, he’s huge. Six and a half feet at least, broad through the shoulders and chest. Dark hair frames his face, and a thick beard covers his jaw.
He reaches the driver’s side and bends toward the window.
Then he stops.
His nostrils flare.
His eyes lock onto mine.
For a moment, he simply looks at me, and I watch shock spread across his face. His lips part slightly. His eyes widen.
Oh God.
The dress. East Ridge. Cade’s scent must be all over me.
But he doesn’t look angry.
He looks stunned.
Gold flickers deep in his eyes.
“Fuck,” he says softly.
Then his gaze drops to the blood beneath my nose.
“Are you hurt?”
His voice is deep and rough, but there’s nothing threatening in it.
“I’m fine.”
His gaze drops to the blood on my face. “You sure about that?”
I touch my nose again. More blood. “It looks worse than it is.”
“You hit your head?”
“I don’t think so. The airbag hit me in the face.”
He peers through the window at the inside of the cab. “Did you black out?”
“Maybe for a few seconds.”
His expression tightens.
“I’m okay,” I insist.
“Stay there.”
He walks around the front of the truck, still completely naked, and crouches beside the crumpled hood.
I watch him through the windshield.
There are probably situations in which a naked stranger appearing out of the forest after a car accident would be the most alarming thing happening.
This isn’t one of them.
He straightens and comes back to my side. “Truck’s done.”
“Done?”
“Radiator’s blown. Looks like you might’ve damaged the axle too.”
“No.”
Panic twists in my stomach. I reach for the handle and shove against the door.
It doesn’t move.
“Wait.” He grips the frame. “Let me.”
“I can do it.”
“You can’t. It’s bent.”
He pulls once. Metal groans, but the door stays shut. His jaw tightens. He changes his grip and pulls again, harder this time. The door gives with a shriek.
I stare at him.
He’s standing there completely naked beside the door he’s just wrenched open, and suddenly all that bare muscle is a little harder to ignore. Jesus.