“The Hollow. Eight o’clock.”
I stand to leave, and Nic rises with me. His voice stops me at the door.
“It’s good to have you back, Bryan. Even if you don’t believe that yet.”
I leave the pack house with an uneasy feeling in my gut.
The afternoon stretches ahead of me, empty and formless. I don’t have anywhere to be, anyone to see, or anything to do except wait for this lottery I’ve been voluntold to attend. My old family cabin burned down years ago—I made sure of it before I left because I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else living in the house where my parents and sister took their last breaths. The pack probably would have assigned me temporary housing if I’d asked, but I didn’t ask. Asking for help has never been my strong suit.
So, I walk instead. Through streets I used to know as well as my own heartbeat and past houses that hold memories I’ve spent years trying to outrun.
I end up in the town square without really meaning to. People mill around, running errands, stopping to chat with neighbors, and living their ordinary lives in this ordinary town.
It’s all so routine and normal. Everything I haven’t been in a very long time.
Then I see her.
Skylar crosses the square about fifty feet away. Her arms are full of what looks like medical supplies, and she’s talking to another woman—a brunette I don’t recognize—gesturing with her chin toward something in the distance while she speaks.
My wolf goes absolutely still.
She’s changed. Of course she has. Ten years is a long time, and the girl I left behind was barely twenty. But nothing could have prepared me for the woman walking across the square like she owns every cobblestone beneath her feet.
Her hair is longer than I remember, but it’s still a deep chestnut brown that catches copper and gold in the afternoon light. It’s pulled back in a practical braid that dangles past her shoulder blades, with a few loose strands escaping to frame her face. Her features have lost the softness of youth, and there’s a definition to her features now that draws the eye. But those lips are just as full as I remember, and her nose still has that slight bump at the bridge she used to complain about when we were teenagers.
I always thought that bump was perfect. Still do.
She’s carrying herself differently than I remember. Her shoulders are back, her chin is lifted, and she’s moving through the world like she knows exactly where she belongs in it. The uncertain girl who used to duck her head when people stared has become someone who takes up space without apology.
Her body has filled out in ways that make my wolf want to howl. Generous curves strain against her fitted scrubs, and the practical fabric does nothing to hide the swell of her hips or the strength in her thighs. She’s not thin, never has been, and I’ve never wanted her to be. Every inch of her is exactly right.
Then she looks up, like she can feel the weight of my attention from across the square.
Those dark brown eyes meet mine, and everything else falls away. The people around us, the noise of the town, and the decade of distance I’ve put between us… None of it matters. My wolf lurches forward, straining toward her, howlingmateso loud I can barely think past the noise.
I can’t breathe. My lungs have forgotten how to work.
The bond I’ve spent ten years trying to smother roars back to life like a fire catching dry timber. Every nerve in my body screams at me to go to her, to close the distance and drop to my knees and beg forgiveness for every stupid, cowardly choice I made that night under the oak tree.
Skylar’s expression doesn’t change, not even a little. She looks at me the way she might look at a stranger asking for directions. Her eyes moved over my face without recognition or emotion, and then she simply turns back to her companion, says something I can’t hear, and walks away.
There’s no anger. No pain. No acknowledgment of the history between us.
Just complete and utter detachment, like I’m nothing. Like I’m no one.
I stand frozen in the middle of the square, watching her disappear around a corner, and I know with absolute certainty that I deserve every bit of this.
I left her standing alone in the dark ten years ago. I told her to forget me, to find someone else, to build a life without me in it. I walked away and never looked back. Not even when the bond burned in my chest like a wound that wouldn’t heal.
Now she’s doing exactly what I asked her to do.
And it’s the worst thing I’ve ever felt.
Chapter 2 - Skylar
I’ve reread the same patient file four times, and I still couldn’t tell you what it says.
The words all run together on the page, refusing to arrange themselves into anything meaningful. Blood pressure, heart rate, notes about a recurring knee injury… None of it sticks. My brain keeps sliding away from the information, dragging me back to the town square and the man I saw standing there like a ghost risen from the grave.
