Shifted Fate (The Wolves of Forest Grove Book 1) Read online

  Jared seemed to be doing the same thing I was—looking around all the fine things gathering a fine layer of dust in storage, meanwhile, everything I owned in here could fit in the little box in his arms. “Is any of this stuff your dad’s?” Jared asked in a breath, his voice neutral even though the distaste was clear in his expression.

  I gestured to the massive Maico bike covered in a taupe sheet back behind a fancy ottoman and mahogany headboard. “That’s Dad’s,” I told him. “But my aunt and uncle don’t want me riding it, at least until I’m eighteen.”

  “That’s it?”

  I pursed my lips. “Yeah. That’s it.”

  They’d gotten rid of everything else when he’d passed. Saying there wasn’t space in storage, and they didn’t want to pay for another unit. My father hadn’t been able to leave me much, either. Ours being a single income household my entire life, his medical bills took every last cent before his illness finally took him. Leaving me with almost nothing.

  I’d wanted to look for a new picture of my dad to take with me, but with stacks of boxes piled ceiling high, I knew it would take too long. Besides, I couldn’t even be sure my aunt and uncle kept any…

  I hoped they had, though.

  The only photos I had of his now were the ones on my phone, and they were taken just before his passing. I didn’t want to remember him like that. I wanted to remember him healthy and happy and full of life.

  “You ready?” Jared asked gently, pulling me out of my head.

  “Hmm?” I murmured, swallowing hard and spinning on the spot, not realizing my eyes were damp with tears until Jared had already seen them. His jaw clenched. I sucked in a breath, easing the ache in my chest. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  Jared set down the box atop a gilded table and closed the small gap between us. I looked up at him, my heart suddenly aching for an entirely different reason. He wasn’t looking at me with pity like he did before. This time the emotion buried deep in his amber eyes was something more like understanding. Like…like he was sharing my grief.

  I parted my lips to say something, but his arms came around me. I stiffened at first, but then his cedar and birch scent filled my lungs and I sagged into his embrace, pressing my cheek against his warm chest. My chin quivered as I tried to erect a dam to stop the swell of emotion rising within.

  He rubbed wide circles into my back.

  I fisted my hands in the material of his soft t-shirt.

  The dam broke, and I let go, shaking as the first of the tears came.

  It was like he’d given me permission to feel the pain, and I hadn’t had that in a long time. Not ever, really.

  I couldn’t cry like this in front of my aunt and uncle.

  And I didn’t want Viv and Layla to worry about me, so I kept the pain at bay.

  They’d seen me cry once and only once—at his funeral. Then I had to be strong. I had to hold back my pain so I could get through going to school and to work. So I could get to my refuge in the woods each night without collapsing.

  I had to be strong. I didn’t have a choice.

  But for the first time, with a perfect stranger holding me—giving me permission to feel my pain, I let it out. It was like letting something go—a weight that I’d been carrying but unable to put down even for a second, finally hit the ground and I felt heavier and lighter all at the same time.

  I cried for what felt like only a few minutes, but when the tears finally dried and I began to pull away, I knew it’d been a lot longer. My shoulders were stiff and the wide circle of damp on Jared’s t-shirt spoke of more tears than I cared to admit. I sniffled, completely unable to look at him as I withdrew my arms, using my sleeves to get the worst of the wetness and snot from my face.

  A warm touch beneath my chin made me tilt my head up. I met Jared’s amber eyes with an angry red blush clawing up my neck. I was surprised to find that his own eyes were damp—my own chaotic emotion had drawn some of his own pain to surface. For the first time I wondered about Jared’s parents.

  He lived in that cabin with Clay. Neither ever mentioned their families. I’d never even seen Jared with his mom and dad. His uncle came to pick him up from school once, though. I only knew that because I was in the office when he came to call him out from class.

  What had happened to him? To his parents?

  “You don’t need to hide your pain from me, Allie. We all carry scars. Some people wear theirs like armor. Some hide beneath them. Neither works. You have to own your pain. Accept it. And maybe find someone who understands it to share it with, so the burden isn’t so heavy to bear.”

  My heart swelled in my chest and I had to blink away the new tears trying to form. “Thank you,” I whispered, truly meaning it.

  Jared brushed the hair away from my face, tucking it gently behind my ear before he stepped back and lifted the box from the table. He winked, trying and succeeding to lighten the mood. “Anytime Allie. Now come on. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

  “You’re always starving,” I muttered under my breath as I drew down the metal door and latched the lock.

  “I heard that.”

  I chuckled, stepping up into the warm Jeep and shutting the door behind me. Excited to get back to the cabin. The fear I’d felt the day before at the prospect of sleeping in a house full of wolves all but vanished. They may have beasts inside them, but that didn’t have to mean they were monsters…and I was starting to see that.

  8

  The rest of Thursday and Friday came and went without incident. Jared and I shared a late-night dinner of spaghetti with meat sauce that I’d offered to cook. We set a plate aside for Clay who was presumably still in the shop out back working on something.

  Friday felt almost…normal.

  I gossiped with Layla and Viv at lunch. Almost got trampled in the hallway. Quinn actually helped with the day’s task in culinary class, though he still wasn’t overly chatty—and I didn’t blame him. And lucky for me Devin didn’t seem to be at school again, which meant I didn’t have to deal with seeing his unsettling face in the crush of students between classes. A part of me wondered where he was, but the other part—the angry rational part told me it didn’t matter where the hell he was, just that he wasn’t at school.

  After his reply message yesterday, I didn’t know what to think. I’m not sure what I expected, but an apology was not it. After I’d asked him what the fuck was wrong with him and told him Quinn didn’t deserve to be treated like that his response was all of two lines.

  I don’t know.

  I’m sorry.

  What. The. fuck.

  But no new messages came in. Not that day at school, or during my shift at the bookshop. Not at all that evening while Jared and I sat on opposite ends of the living room and watched the new Star Wars TV series. I didn’t peg him for a sci-fi guy. But I didn’t think he pegged me for a sci-fi lover, either. We were both pleasantly surprised to find such a mundane commonality after all the chaos of the week.

  The fact that he also liked to mix Milk Duds into his popcorn only made him seem even more human. My dad taught me to do that when I was barely four years old. It was the best.

  We hadn’t talked much about the heavier stuff since Thursday. He hadn’t asked me about my breakdown at the storage unit, and I didn’t ask him any more questions about being a wolf. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the questions, it was just that it was kind of hard to work into a conversation.

  Hey Allie, want some more coffee?

  Yeah, Jared, another coffee would be great…oh and by the way, were you a wolf or a human first? Who else knows? Who’s Ryland and why would he be angry if he knew you had me here? How many of you are there? Are there other things I don’t know about?

  I shivered in the early morning chill as I stood outside on the front deck with my hands wrapped around my coffee mug, leeching the warmth from the porcelain. I wanted to know the answers to all those questions and about a million more, but I was afraid to ask.


  My perception of this world had already been shattered once this week and I’d survived it. I didn’t want to tempt fate by shattering it again. The pieces of me might not come back together properly if I pushed it too far too fast.

  I inhaled a deep breath of molting leaves and cold pine. The air was so clean at the cabin—like it had been at the blind when I left the window flaps open—if I closed my eyes I could almost pretend that I was still there, up on that platform between the trees, nothing but a canvas wall separating me from the surrounding universe.

  “Hey,” the brusque voice caught me by surprise, and I reeled back, sloshing my coffee over my arm, hot trails of it ran down my sleeve to my forearm.

  “God damn motherfucking shit balls,” I cursed, trying to flick off the scalding liquid as I breathed in hard through clenched teeth and did my best not to spill any more of it. I didn’t have time to make another pot before I had to leave for my early afternoon shift at the shop.

  When I finally looked up, blushing, it was into the stunned icy blue eyes of Clay as he came around the cabin and up onto the deck. “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, not seeming to care at all that I’d just spilled boiling coffee all over myself and effectively ruined my light gray sweater—probably the nicest article of clothing I owned.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a girl curse like that.”

  I tried to reign in my temper. It got easier as the burning sensation dissipated.

  “Well I’m not most girls. And most humans make noise when they walk. They don’t just fucking appear.”

  It was the truth. I should have heard him coming if he’d walked from the shop around back over the dirt and gravel drive, but I hadn’t heard a sound. “Well I’m not human,” he said in rebuttal, lifting a brow. “But you already knew that.”

  His blue eyes pulsed with an otherworldly glow, a warning. I stood my ground and didn’t flinch away from his hard stare. Jared’s words replayed in my mind. He’s all bark and no bite.

  Clay backed down after a moment, some of the ire in his expression melding into something more like indifference, but with a hint of something else. Respect.

  He’d challenged me. Tried to scare me with his stupid unfair wolfishness, and I hadn’t backed down. He cocked his head at me. “You aren’t what I thought you were.”

  I snorted, but didn’t answer, raising the mug to my lips for a sip as I looked away from him and out into the misty trees. My spine tingled as I felt his gaze sweep over me one last time before he vanished into the cabin without another word and I let loose a breath, unfurling my tense muscles.

  I zipped my sweater the rest of the way and I sat down on the top step of the porch, draining what was left of my coffee and then set the mug down and curled my arms into my chest, taking in the silence, or rather the peaceful sounds of the forest that passed as silence in an otherwise boisterously loud world.

  The gentle rustle of dry leaves. The whistling of wind through branches. The calls of songbirds in the gray light of early morning. It was my favorite part about being out here. The sound of nature’s silence.

  Clay ruined it the moment he stepped back outside, the screen door banging loudly closed behind him. I scooched to one side of the stairs so he could pass, trying not to flinch at his stomping approach. If he was any louder, he’d wake up Jared. And I had been trying really hard to be quiet this morning as I showered and made coffee to let him sleep in. Just because I couldn’t sleep last night and had to work today didn’t mean the whole house had to wake up with me.

  “So,” Clay said, and I craned my neck to see his jaw twitch as he spoke. “You know bikes?”

  “Most.”

  “Cars?”

  “The older models. I don’t touch any of that new computerized bullshit.”

  His lips twitched. Was that…

  Was that a smile?

  He nodded, but the motion seemed to be more for himself, as though he was agreeing with a thought thunk within the confines of his own mind. “Okay.”

  I squinted up at him. “Okay?”

  He nodded again. “Okay,” he repeated without elaborating and jumped down the four steps to the ground and began to walk off towards the back of the cabin. That was…weird.

  He’s so…I couldn’t think of the word just yet, but it was there on the tip of my tongue. Closed-off? No, that wasn’t it. Hostile? Yes, but that wasn’t it either.

  I didn’t really know what the hell Clayton Armstrong was, but he was really something. Not just the bad boy who graduated a few years back that supposedly took on an entire football team once in a straight-up brawl on the field. Not just the guy who broke the hearts of at least five girls during his high-school career. Or the guy who allegedly blackmailed a teacher and told off Principal Dane to his face on his last day of school. There was more to him. And I didn’t think it was all bad.

  No one was all bad.

  Not even me.

  No matter what my mind tried to tell me when I fell asleep at night. I didn’t only cause pain and devastation everywhere I went. Not always. If I could make a guy like Clay smile even for an instant, I couldn’t be completely bad. I wasn’t rotted inside like the version of myself I saw in my nightmares. Those were silly manifestations of my own thoughts.

  At least, that’s what the therapist my dad had me see for two months before he passed told me. He’d paid her a pretty penny to see me every Wednesday evening after school during those months. He wanted me to be properly prepared he said. To be able to handle his death.

  Handle it, like grieving his loss was the same as cleaning spilled milk or acing an exam. Like getting stitches to close a deep cut. It was when he suggested the therapist that I knew he wouldn’t survive. And not because he didn’t have a good chance of it. No. Because he didn’t want to.

  Because he was tired of fighting.

  I guess everyone gets tired sometimes.

  “And just who might you be?”

  If I had had any more coffee to spill, I would’ve as I jolted at the sudden appearance of an older woman at the edge of the trees and knocked over the empty mug. “Uh…”

  I struggled to find the words for an excuse. But found nothing.

  The woman at the edge of the woods looked so out of place among the dark wood and gray mist. She had long brown hair that was mostly gray now, swept to the side in a loose braid down her front. She wore a simple thin white dress that almost looked like a nightgown with a deep jade green shawl over top of it. She was carrying a wicker basket covered in a red cloth.

  I noticed as she drew near that she was sort of hobbling, and her feet were bare. The age spots around her dull blue eyes spoke of an age far beyond what I’d initially thought.

  “Grams?” Clay said as he came crashing back around the cabin. He looked between me and the older woman. He gestured roughly for me to go inside and I rose as quietly as I could to excuse myself. “Grams what are you—”

  “I was just about to introduce myself to your friend,” the older woman said as she reached the bottom step of the porch.

  She’s blind, I thought to myself as I watched her speak to Clay—looking in his general direction, but not directly at him. Not meeting his gaze. The dullness in the blue of her eyes wasn’t from age at all. What the hell was a blind old lady doing walking around with a freaking basket in the forest? She could be mauled by a bear, or trip and break her hip.

  I’d been about to turn back to the cabin when Clay’s jaw clenched and he stopped me with a look, jabbing his head in the direction of the woman he calls Grams. I wondered if she was his actual grandmother and where the hell she came from. Clay seemed exasperated, rubbing a wide hand over the scruff on his face.

  “Grams, this is Allie.”

  Clay’s gaze prodded me forward to meet the woman and not knowing what to do, I gulped and stepped down onto the dirt lawn—reaching out my hand to her.

  I quickly dropp
ed my hand an instant later, feeling like an idiot for offering a handshake to a blind woman. God, I could be so dense sometimes. “Um. Hi. I’m Allie. Allie Grace.”

  The woman bent to set down her basket on the bottom stair of the porch and stepped forward, reaching her slight wrinkled hands forward. I nervously eyed Clay, unsure what to make of the woman who came from the trees. He looked thoroughly amused at my discomfort.

  I glared at him and turned back just as the woman set her cool hands on my arms just near the elbows. I did my best not to flinch away as she drew my hands forward to hold in hers. Her milky gaze found mine, and for a heartbeat it was like she could see me after all. Her stare was piercing. “So much pain,” she said so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. Wasn’t really sure if I had.

  “Pardon?”

  She frowned and bowed her head, examining my palm. “Strange.”

  “What is it Grams?” Clay asked, looking at me with an accusatory stare.

  The woman ran her index finger along a line on my palm, making me begin to doubt whether she was actually blind at all. “You were two once.”

  “What?” Clay cocked his head, confused.

  But I wasn’t. I didn’t know how she knew, but I understood her perfectly. I knew exactly what she meant. A shiver ran up my spine and my lungs squeezed painfully. I ripped my hands away from her and bent to retrieve my mug. “It was nice to meet you,” I said, maybe a little too hastily and made to run inside and grab my bag, not wanting to stay here another minute longer than I had to.

  I was going to be late for work.

  I needed to go.

  “Here,” the woman said, stopping me. I clenched my fists. She bent to retrieve the basket and stuck her hand beneath the red fabric to retrieve two cookies. They smelled of oranges and cranberries. My mouth watered. “Take some cookies.” Her smile was bright and made it impossible to be upset with her. Her gaze was blank again and her eyes stared at a spot just over my right shoulder. “I didn’t mean to overstep. Please. Have some.”