Page 44 of The Girl in the Forest

I thought of my mother and the girl in the journal I’d read.

“Wolves believe in fated mates,” Fallon continued. “During the war, those who lost their mates suffered more than others. It was only four years ago, Noa. Memories linger, and the girls don’t want to risk a mate bond locking into place.”

“Like handcuffs?”

“Ugh.” She made a face. “And here I thought you were romantic.”

“Handcuffs can be romantic,” I said, as I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel. “But I don’t believe fate can tell you who to love.”

“You never know.” Fallon flicked a quick look at me. “Having a fated mate doesn’t mean you accept the bond.”

“Good,” I teased, “because with my luck, he’d be fat and ugly.”

“You always have a choice.”

“But how would you even know?” I was goading her because I was uncomfortable. “Girls in Seattle could fall in love every other weekend, and each new guy was the one.”

“It’s different with shifters.” Fallon draped her arm over the backrest, twisting so I could see her face. “The wolf knows first. He becomes hyperaware of your moods. Protective. They can get a little crazy. Then they… do things. Considerate. As a sign you’re supposed to recognize.”

“Like what?” I smirked at her. “Tell me they do something awful. Like leaving a dead mouse in your shoe the way a cat does.”

“Not awful, but… what you feel can be unsettling.”

Now Fallon seemed uncomfortable, and I dropped the tease. “So, tell me.”

“Promise not to laugh?”

I made a zipping motion across my lips.

“First, it isn’t the wolf you’re responding to—it’s the man—and you sense something here.” She tapped above her heart. “Inevitable, like you can’t live without him. You want every passion, every touch. Every endless night until you’re breathless. No other man makes you feel that way. Someone else might get close, but you’ll always know he’s second best.”

“What else?” I wanted to keep her talking.

“You can hear each other, but it’s different from the pack bond. It’s… intimate. A caress. Wolves will wait their entire lives for that connection, to hear that singular voice in their head.”

I scanned her face, running through the signs she’d given off around Mace. The way she watched him, reacted to him—and the weight in my heart was for her. “Do you both hear it, even if you aren’t interested?”

“No.” She smiled sadly, brushed at the blonde hair that teased her face, strands tugged from her braid by the wind. “If it’s only one of you, it means the other isn’t ready to hear. Or he doesn’t want to hear.”

The curving road demanded my attention, and once we hit the pine-edged straightaway, deep shadows made the sunglasses unnecessary. I tossed them aside, shooting another glance toward Fallon.

She was leaning back, one knee drawn up while she studied the road ahead.

I asked, “What did Mace mean when he told Grayson his frenzy was getting dangerous?”

She choked, then asked, “When did he say that?”

“The night I was burning the forest down.”

“He was throwing an insult. It means a guy is thinking with the wrong head.”

I flexed my hands around the steering wheel, studied the road, then glanced back at her. “He also said Grayson should just take me and get it over with.”

Fallon stared straight ahead. “He was probably talking about taking you to see the witches. They’d been arguing about it for a week.”

“That’s what Mace said.” I pushed at my own wind-tossed hair, where the strands caught between my lips. But while I appreciated the confirmation, there was something in the conversation that saddened me. And I couldn’t decide if I was sad for Fallon, or for myself.

Julien Visant was a modern vampire, immune to sunlight, and he waited in an open clearing where the grass was still green and shaggy. Bare dirt marked the worn paths between the outbuildings. Pine trees clustered near the entrance to the mine, where heavy wooden doors were chained and locked. Rusting equipment sat out in the open, looking derelict, other than the silver reflections off metal edges.

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