Cal nodded slowly. “When will you tell her?”
“Today.” My bear stirred, eager for the reveal I’d denied it. “Charlotte is too curious for her own good. If I hold off much longer, she’ll figure us out on her own.” I looked at Everett. “Call the clan.”
Everett pulled out his phone. He looked at me, his thumb above the screen. “When and where do you want us?”
“Tell everyone to be outside the bed and breakfast in an hour.”
Everett typed out the order. After a second, he put down his phone. “Sent.”
I pushed my chair back and stood. “I’ll see you both in town.”
Cal rose and clasped my shoulder. “It’ll be fine.”
I nodded, my chest tight. Then I left the house and headed back into the forest. Snow crunched under my boots as I followed my tracks home. Nerves dogged my steps.
Because once I told Charlotte the truth, everything would change. She might choose to stay, or she might run, and I’d spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been.
The bed and breakfast came into view through a break in the trees. In an hour, I was going to shatter Charlotte’s world.
I just hoped she’d let me be there to help her pick up the pieces.
Chapter
Nine
CHARLOTTE
Ahigh-pitched beeping dragged me from sleep.
I blinked at the ceiling, my thoughts foggy and slow. Sunlight streamed through the windowpanes and made tiny squares on the hardwood floor. How long had I slept?
The beeping continued, the alarm shrill and insistent.
I sat up, my heart thumping harder as I recognized the sound. My handheld magnetic field scanner sat on the desk, its screen flashing red.
Something was wrong.
I scrambled out of bed, nearly tripping over the tangled sheets as I lurched to the desk and grabbed the scanner from its base.
“This is impossible,” I whispered. The screen showed readings I’d never seen before, the red zones higher than any I’d recorded since I arrived in Bear Cove.
Flipping open my laptop, I pulled up the link to the thermal imaging cameras I’d installed in the forest. For a second, the feed was nothing but static. Then it cleared.
My breath caught. Several large, red shapes moved through the trees.
No,dozensof red shapes appeared on the screen, the masses too large to be moose or even grizzlies. They were massive…and they were heading straight to the bed and breakfast.
My hands shook as I clicked from feed to feed. Images appeared one after the other, all showing the same thing: enormous masses too big to be animals. Thermal patterns that could only be living organisms. Bipedal movement.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Then a soft knock came at my door.
“Charlotte?” Beck called through the wood.
I crossed the room and opened the door.
“I need you to come outside,” Beck said, his expression serious. “Right now, sweetheart.”
“My equipment,” I gasped, my head spinning.
