Evan, caught between light and shadow, real and ethereal, present and disappearing.
I stared at the image until my eyes burned, trying to understand why looking at it made my chest tight with something that felt like hope mixed with longing.
This was more than curiosity about the mysterious local boy. This felt like recognition. Like finding something I hadn't known I was searching for.
Like the beginning of something that might actually matter.
4
WORDS LEFT UNSPOKEN
EVAN
Amonth. Four weeks of stolen glances and careful conversations conducted entirely through my notebook, and I still couldn't figure out what the hell Nate Harrington wanted from me.
He'd made it his personal mission to crack whatever code he thought I was hiding, showing up everywhere I went with that crooked smile and his ever-present camera. At my locker between classes, sneaking into the library corner where I usually sketched alone, even following me to the forest edge like some persistent shadow I couldn't shake.
Not that I'd tried very hard to shake him.
That was the problem. Every logical part of my brain screamed that getting attached to the human boy was dangerous, stupid, a complication I couldn't afford. But my wolf had claimed him from that first day in English class, marked him as something precious and worth protecting, and arguing with wolf instincts was like trying to reason with a hurricane.
So I'd let him stay. Let him sit across from me during lunch, chattering about photography and city life while I pushed food around my plate and pretended I wasn't memorizing every expression that crossed his face. Let him walk with me to the edge of Evernight Forest, respecting the invisible boundary I'd drawn without ever needing to explain it.
Let him matter, which was the most dangerous thing of all.
Now I sat in the back booth of the Moonbeam Café, hot chocolate cooling in front of me while I sketched the outline of his camera against window light. Martha Greer had brought the drink without asking, like she always did, her weathered hands gentle as she'd set it down with a knowing smile that made my cheeks burn.
The whole town had noticed my strange friendship with the city boy. Pack members watched us with carefully neutral expressions that didn't hide their concern. Human locals whispered behind hands about the “quiet Callahan boy” finally finding someone to talk to, as if my silence was a disease that Nate might cure through sheer persistence.
If only it were that simple.
My hand trembled as I shaded the curve of the camera lens, and I forced myself to breathe deep, to find the calm center that Dad had taught me to reach for when the wolf got restless. But even that meditation was tainted now, because every lesson from my father came wrapped in expectations I wasn't sure I could meet.
You'll need to speak up eventually,his voice echoed in my memory from breakfast that morning.An Alpha who can't address his pack is no Alpha at all.
As if I didn't know. As if the weight of that failure didn't sit on my chest like a stone every goddamn day.
The café door chimed, and I looked up to see Nate scanning the room, hair mussed from running and that familiar grinlighting up his face when he spotted me. My wolf perked up immediately, pleased and possessive in equal measure, while my human brain went through its usual cycle of panic and longing.
He slid into the booth across from me without permission, breathless and radiating the warm energy that made everything around him seem brighter.
“Found you,” he said, like we'd been playing hide and seek instead of me trying to find a quiet corner to escape the weight of everyone's expectations. “I was starting to think you'd mastered the art of invisibility.”
I kept my eyes on my sketch, adding unnecessary details to avoid meeting his gaze. A month of this, and he still looked at me like I was a puzzle worth solving instead of a broken thing that couldn't be fixed.
“So,” he continued, settling back against the worn vinyl seat, “I had the most enlightening conversation with Deputy McKay today. Apparently, asking about local wildlife patterns makes you a 'person of interest' in a small town. Who knew?”
My pencil stilled. Nate had been asking about the wolf tracks again, the ones I'd hoped he'd forgotten about after that first day in the forest. The ones that belonged to pack members on their runs, following paths that no human was supposed to notice or question.
“Don't worry,” Nate said quickly, catching my tension. “I didn't mention the specific tracks I found. Just general curiosity about what kind of animals live in the area. Though McKay got really weird when I mentioned how big some of the paw prints were.”
Of course he had. Travis McKay was human, but he'd grown up in Hollow Pines. He knew enough to be nervous when outsiders started paying too much attention to things they shouldn't see.
“Martha's hot chocolate really is as good as advertised,” Nate said, changing the subject. He gestured toward my untouched mug. “Though you might want to drink it before it turns into chocolate-flavored room temperature sadness.”
I almost smiled at that. Almost.
Instead, I flipped to a clean page in my notebook and wrote:
