Alpha Hayley's Destined Mate novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Cabin

"Don't go up there," Roddy said. "Hayley. Are you listening to me? Do not go up there by yourself."

"I'm already in the truck."

"Then turn it around and come get my brother first, or he's going to walk up there on one arm."

I turned it around.

By the time we got to the jeep track below the cabin, it was nearly dark.

Roddy met us at the gate with two Greenhorn wolves in human skin, both of them barefoot and grim.

"He went out at sundown," Roddy said. "On four legs, down the canyon. Big gray son of a bitch. The boys watched him go."

"He'll be back before light," Torrey said. "He always sleeps by day. Two years I've been one valley behind him, and he always comes back to the same bed until something spooks him."

"So we wait," I said.

"We wait. Roddy takes the ridge. You and me take the river."

The cabin sat on a bench of rock above the Kern, with a tin roof and one window.

My father built the porch on it the year I was born.

I hadn't been up here since.

From the river you could see its back wall through the pines, and the trail the grey would have to come up.

We sat on the big flat rocks at the edge of the water, a quarter mile below it.

The granite was still warm from the day.

The river was loud here, fast and white over the stones.

I could feel it in my teeth.

"Good place to practice," Torrey said.

I looked at him.

"You're joking."

"You've got a rogue coming up that trail tonight with silver in his teeth," he said. "I'd like you to have more than pliers."

He sat facing me with his back against a boulder, his left arm held stiff.

The bullet hole under his shirt was closed and pink.

He'd winced every time the truck hit a rut.

"Up," he said. "Not down. Like you did on the rug."

I closed my eyes.

I breathed up through my ribs and into my chest.

The heat came into my hands, faster than this morning.

A prickle ran up my forearms, and then up past my elbows.

I opened my eyes and looked down.

Fur ran up my arms, light brown and thick, and it stayed.

It stayed for three breaths, then four.

"There," Torrey said softly. "There she is. Keep coming."

I breathed again.

And the river was right there.

It was loud and white, ten feet from me, the same water that took my father.

The roar of it came up over everything.

I felt the cold at my chin, and then at my mouth.

The fur went out of my arms like a light switched off.

I was bent over on the rock with my hands flat on the granite, gasping, and his good hand was on my back.

"I'm here," he said. "You're on the rock. It's warm. Feel it."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I was almost there. I was so close."

"You were further than you've been in two years." His thumb moved over my spine. "That was fur to the elbow, Hayley. In front of the river. This morning you got one second of it on a rug."

I sat up.

He was closer than I thought.

His face was all shadows and starlight, and he was looking at me the way he'd looked at me on the test road.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I'm cold."

"You're not cold. The rock's warm."

"Then I'm something else."

I put my hand on his face.

His jaw was rough. He turned his mouth into my palm and kissed it.

"Your shoulder," I said.

"My shoulder's fine."

"You winced at every rut on that road."

"I'll wince quietly."

I laughed, and it came out shaky.

Then I kissed him, slow, and he made a low sound in his chest.

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