Wolfed Up

Chapter 1

ELIZA

The road into Silver Ridge narrows until it barely deserves the word highway.

One moment I’m on a respectable two-lane mountain road with guardrails and the occasional gas station, and the next I’m winding through a stretch of dense evergreen forest where the asphalt feels like an afterthought someone remembered to pour decades ago.

Pines crowd both sides of the road, tall and dark, their branches tangled together overhead like conspirators whispering secrets.

It’s beautiful in the unsettling way wilderness tends to be when you realize just how small you are in it.

My car rattles slightly as I slow for a tight bend. A faded wooden sign appears ahead.

WELCOME TO SILVER RIDGE.

The paint is chipped, and someone has carved a wolf into the wood beneath the lettering. Not a cartoonish wolf either—something lean and sharp-eyed. Charming. I roll past the sign and into town.

Silver Ridge isn’t big. In fact, calling it a town feels generous. A single main street stretches between clusters of weathered buildings—brick storefronts, a diner with a neon coffee sign buzzing faintly in the window, a hardware store with an American flag hanging limp in the still air.

Mountains rise around the town like walls. Massive, forested slopes that seem close enough to touch. It’s quiet. Not the pleasant quiet of a lazy Sunday afternoon. The kind where every sound seems to travel too far.

I park outside the small library, cut the engine, and sit for a moment gripping the steering wheel. This is temporary. That’s the deal I made with myself when I took the job. Lay low. Let the storm blow over. Catalog some dusty records for a few months in a place where no one cares who you are.

Then go back to real life.

I grab my bag from the passenger seat and step out into the cool mountain air. It smells like pine and wood smoke. And something sharper underneath. Probably just the forest.

The Silver Ridge Public Library looks like it used to be someone’s house—a two-story building with white siding and a small front porch. A sign hanging by the door creaks softly as a breeze drifts down from the mountains.

Inside, the scent of old books greets me like an old friend. Now this part of the job I can handle.

A woman stands behind the front desk, peering at a computer screen through reading glasses perched at the end of her nose. Her silver hair is pulled into a loose bun, and she glances up when the door chimes.

“You must be Eliza.”

Her voice is warm but careful.

I smile. “Guilty.”

She comes around the desk and shakes my hand.

“I’m Helen Holden. Head librarian and reluctant technology wrangler.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“We’re glad you could come,” she says. “The historical archives are… well. Let’s say overdue for attention.”

“That’s my specialty.”

Helen leads me past rows of bookshelves toward a back room stacked with boxes. Dust floats in the sunlight streaming through a small window.

“These records go back over a hundred years,” she says. “Town council minutes, newspapers, property documents. We’ve been meaning to digitize everything for ages.”

I crouch beside one of the boxes and open it. Inside are stacks of yellowed papers tied with twine. Perfect.

“I’ll try not to break anything,” I say.

Helen laughs softly.

“Before you get buried in paperwork, let me give you the key to your cabin.”

She hands me a small brass key attached to a wooden tag.

PINE RIDGE CABIN 3

“The library owns a few rentals just outside town,” she explains. “Writers, researchers, visiting professors… that sort of thing.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“There’s a grocery store down the street if you need supplies.”

She hesitates slightly.

“And if you go exploring,” she adds, “try to stay on the main roads.”

Something in the way she says it makes me look up.

“Wildlife?” I ask.

Helen smiles again, but it’s the kind of smile people use when they don’t want to elaborate.

“We have plenty of it.”

The cabin sits about half a mile outside town, tucked against the edge of the forest. It’s small but cozy—a single-room place with a stone fireplace, a tiny kitchen, and a porch overlooking a slope of towering pine trees.

I drop my bags on the bed and step outside. The mountains loom even larger here. The forest feels… alive. Wind rustles through the branches, carrying the scent of damp earth and sap.

For a moment, I get the strange feeling something is watching from between the trees. I shake it off.

Congratulations, Eliza. You’ve officially been in the mountains for two hours and already developed a paranoia complex.

I head back into town before sunset to grab groceries. The Silver Ridge Market is exactly what you’d expect—narrow aisles, creaky floors, and a bulletin board near the entrance covered in handwritten notices.

Lost dog.

Community potluck.

MISSING LIVESTOCK REWARD.

That one catches my eye. Three separate flyers mention animals disappearing from nearby ranches. Strange.

I grab a basket and start collecting the basics.

Bread. Eggs. Coffee.

When I reach the checkout counter, the older man ringing up my groceries studies me with open curiosity.

“You the new archivist?” he asks.

“News travels fast.”

“Small town.”

He bags my groceries slowly.

“You from Denver?”

“Originally.”

“What brings you all the way out to Montana?”

“Work,” I say lightly.

His eyes linger on me for a second too long.

“Well,” he says finally, “welcome to Silver Ridge.”

I thank him and step outside. The sun is dipping behind the mountains, casting long shadows across the street. That’s when I notice him.

A man stands across the road near a dark pickup truck. He’s tall. No—tall doesn’t quite cover it. The guy looks like he walked straight out of a wilderness survival documentary. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. Arms crossed over a chest that probably intimidates furniture.

But it’s his eyes that catch me. Storm gray. And very much focused on me. I glance behind me to see if he’s staring at someone else. Nope. Just me.

Great.

I shift the grocery bag in my arms and start walking toward my car. Halfway across the street, he moves. Not aggressively. Just… purposefully. Within seconds he’s standing in front of me. Up close he’s even bigger.

“New in town,” he says.

His voice is low and rough.

I raise an eyebrow.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Small town,” he repeats.

Apparently, that’s the local motto.

“I’m Eliza,” I say.

He doesn’t offer his name.

Instead, he studies me like he’s trying to solve a complicated math problem.

“You staying in the cabins?” he asks.

“Yes?”

Why did your answer sound like a question? Now he’s going to know he’s intimidating you.

His jaw tightens slightly.

“Listen carefully,” he says.

Oh good. A lecture.

“Don’t hike the forest trails alone.”

“That sounds oddly specific.”

“Especially after dark.”

I tilt my head.

“I’m not sure how moronic I appear to the people of Montana, but I have no interest in wandering around the forest alone at night Still, why the warning?”

For a moment, he doesn’t answer. Something flickers across his expression—something tense and calculating.

“Just… wildlife,” he finally says.

I gesture toward the mountains.

“Pretty sure wildlife comes with the territory.”

“This isn’t a suggestion.”

The seriousness in his tone makes me pause.

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Noted. Bossy… but noted.”

He nods once. Then he turns and walks away. No goodbye. No explanation. Just gone.

I stand there for a moment holding my groceries.

“Well,” I mutter to myself. “That was weird.”

Night settles quickly in the mountains. By the time I get back to the cabin, the forest is already dark.

I unpack my groceries, make a quick sandwich, and sit by the window flipping through one of the archive boxes I borrowed from the library. Town records. Newspaper clippings. Most of them are routine. Local elections. Festivals. But every so often something odd appears.

RANCHER REPORTS LIVESTOCK ATTACK.

SEARCH PARTIES ORGANIZED AFTER HIKER DISAPPEARS.

PREDATOR ACTIVITY SUSPECTED.

The articles span decades. Always vague. Always unresolved.

I lean back in my chair.

Either Silver Ridge has a serious wildlife problem… Or a very good public relations strategy.

Wind rattles the cabin windows. Somewhere in the distance, something howls. The sound is long and haunting, echoing across the mountains. Then another answers. And another. A chorus rising from the forest.

I freeze. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Okay. That is definitely a lot of wolves.

I close the archive folder slowly.

Outside, the howls fade back into the night. For reasons I can’t quite explain, the memory of the tall stranger with storm-gray eyes drifts through my mind. And the way he looked at me. Not curious. Not friendly. Protective. Like he’d already decided something about me.

I shake my head and turn off the lamp.

“Welcome to Silver Ridge,” I murmur into the dark.

Something moves outside the cabin. Just a rustle in the trees. Probably the wind. Probably. But as I lie there listening to the quiet forest, one thought keeps circling my mind. The man in town warned me about the woods. And somehow… I have the strange feeling he wasn’t talking about the wolves.