I frowned. “How long did you wait for me before you came after me?” I’d kept a meticulous daily count. If she told me how many months she’d waited until coming after me…
“A week. Like I said.” She looked at me then with a fierce protectiveness and my whole body froze, my throat tightening with emotion.
“Sage … you’ve been here five months and three weeks. How did you survive?”
She chewed her lip and I could see that I had fared much better than she had. There were so many scars; she was too skinny, too unhinged, paranoid even. Why did she keep looking at the door?
Her bottom lip quivered. “Same as you. Drink from the creeks, hunt small game, forage. Sleep under the trees.”
But that’snotwhat I had been doing. I’d had a home, letters to read, a shower, a place to go to each night and have a sense of normalcy.
Her eyes flicked to the door once more, and I reached out and grasped her hand, causing her to jump.
“Sage? What did you mean about you being cursed?”
Her gaze flicked from the door to me again and she swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t have come here. It will bring trouble to you. I need to go.” She moved to stand, but I yanked her down with surprising force and she winced as if in pain, causing me to loosen my hold.
“Sorry, but, Sage, I’ve been alone forsix months. I’m pregnant and stuck here. You arenotleaving me no matter what trouble you may bring, and I’m not leaving you either.”
She pulled her hand from mine then and burst into tears, cupping her face as she rocked back and forth. “It will know I’m here,” she wailed. “You might get hurt.”
My heart broke in that moment for my poor friend who was clearly on the edge of a mental breakdown. I’d been there, so many times I’d been there.
“Just calm down. We will figure this out together. What isit?” I rubbed her back softly as she sobbed.
She pulled her hands from her face, showcasing tearstained cheeks, which had run through the brown dirt and crimson blood, leaving clean tracks on her face.
“The curse, the magic, the woods. Ithatesme. It’s trying tokillme. Rab was right,” she whispered as ifitcould hear her.
Maybe she’d eaten some bad mushrooms or something and was hallucinating. “Okay, well, ifitcomes, we can fight it together.” I smiled, trying to brush the whole thing over.
She shook her head and then pointed to the three lined scars that ran down her cheek. “Last time I did that, this happened.”
Something clicked in my mind, then. “Wait, are you talking about the bear?”
She looked out the door, eyes wide. “The bear, the elk, the mountain lions, thetrees. They’re all trying to kill me for coming here. I’m not wanted here,” she told me, and lifted her shirt to reveal a puckered scar.
My mouth popped open in shock as things started to click in my mind.
The moving trees, the bear sniffing inside my cabin … was he specifically hunting Sage? Was Rab right about the curse?
“What’s that from?” I asked, pointing to the scar.
“Elk attack, while I was sleeping.”
Elk attack? Elk didn’t just randomly attack sleeping people. “The tree,” I whispered.
She nodded. “Threw itself at me and knocked me into the ground. I would have died without your help.”
Holy shit. Holy, holy, fucking shit.
Okay … my best friend had been stuck in killer woods for over five months searching for me and now we had no way out. No big deal … I could handle this.
“Okay. Well … I’m an alpha and the woods don’t hurt me and neither do the animals, so you’re safe with me now.”
I hoped saying it would make it true.
She looked at me with pity, like she wanted to believe that, but there was no way she could.
