Page 31 of The Girl in the Forest

I shuddered, remembering Azul.

“They’re protected by magic, more than before. Harder to kill. I think they’ve been testing us. Changing the strategy.”

I plucked at a green-black blade of grass. “Did you know I was back?”

“Yes.”

But he hadn’t come immediately. I supposed it was arrogant of me to expect it.

His expression turned neutral. “I had to choose, Noa. Carmag needed me. You were safe with Mace and Fallon.”

Leaning forward, I plunged my hand into the stream, letting the rushing current wash the grime from his wolf rune. “I didn’t feel your rune twitch.”

“Because it didn’t.”

I swished my hand, stirring up little eddies where bits of grass were caught in the current and floated away. “What good is your stupid mark if it doesn’t work? It would have been nice to know you were still alive.”

He glanced at me. “You were worried?”

“No.” I splashed water before withdrawing my hand. “You didn’t deserve my worry.”

His mouth twitched. “What did I deserve, Noa?”

I narrowed my eyes at him and thought about my favorite word. I thought about it more than once.

He dropped the relaxed pose and rose to his feet, holding out a hand to me.

Deliberately, I stood without his help.

“The Green Man changed the rules.” Cool disinterest in his voice now. “The rune doesn’t work like it did before, and I’m not stupid or arrogant enough to ask him why.”

I chewed on my inner lip. “Then what of our bargain?”

“Nothing’s changed. You’ll live in Azul. Train. Help Leo when you can. Be ready when I need you.”

“How am I supposed to support myself? We never clarified that detail.”

He scowled. “As part of my inner circle, you’ll be paid the same as Mace and Fallon. I’ve already set up accounts for you.”

“And my duties?”

“The same.” He tipped his head as if stretching tight neck muscles—still so easy to irritate. “You’ll train with Mace and Fallon. Hand-to-hand tactics, fighting skills since you can’t shift, and until you can control that power you have, you can’t be the weapon I need.”

“You know, Grayson…” I bit back a sad smile and brushed past him. “In all the times when I imagined my perfect life, I never once thought about a man asking me to be his weapon. Kill things for him.”

“You’ve never lived among wolves, Noa.”

CHAPTER 9

Noa

Since I was part of the team, Grayson expected me at a formal meeting, to be conveniently held in my dining room. Arguing about it wasn’t worth the effort. But as I walked through the forest before the meeting, I couldn’t ignore the scent of charcoaled wood lingering in the air. I hoped the wolves thought it was a camper’s fire. The obstacles were still blocking the path, but all other signs of our mutual destruction had been obliterated.

Mutual, because Grayson had also taken part—and what he’d done was worse than setting a few trees on fire. He’d summoned a storm, breaking branches, sucking all the air from the flames. Nearly from my lungs. So much power… I was still in awe. Possibly terrified.

I pushed the hair from my face, returned home for my laptop, then went searching for Laura. She’d told me there was an internet connection at the archive, and I hadn’t checked email or my photography site in months. Banking was another concern, and it took only moments before I was sitting at one of the long tables in the archive, logging in with passwords I’d thankfully not forgotten. Fallon dropped by and offered to help with the account Grayson set up. She whipped out a cell phone, and within minutes, she’d connected with a gregarious man who spoke so courteously that I glanced at her, my eyebrows raised with a question.

“He’s wolf, for one,” she teased. “And the Alpha of Sentinel Falls is what they call a valued client.”

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