Page 103 of Rocky Top

She smiled then, wicked and soft. “Good. ‘Cause I ain’t lettin’ you go.”

“Wouldn’t let you if you tried.”

The flames crackled, shadows dancin’ across the clubhouse walls, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like a man haunted.

I felt like a man claimed.

Chapter 26

Birdie

The road twisted up the mountain like a secret being whispered through the trees. I sat behind Rocky on his Harley, arms wrapped tight around his middle, my cheek pressed to the back of his cut. Every bump in the road jostled my body, but I didn’t complain. After what we’d been through, after Emma was taken, after the blood, after I shifted for the first damn time, I wasn’t sure I’d ever complain again.

Not about the fear.

Not even about the part of me that wasn’t quite human anymore.

“Beautiful,” I said as we pulled up to the cabin out on the edges of Rocky’s families property. It was tucked into the foothills like it had grown outta the mountains themselves, all weathered wood and stone, with a chimney that looked like it hadn’t seen smoke in years.

Rocky shut off the engine and glanced back at me, his blue eyes softer than I’d ever seen. “My mama used to call it her keep. Said it was the one place the world couldn’t touch her.”

My boots hit gravel as I swung my leg over the seat. “A keep, huh? Sounds like something out of a fairytale.”

He cracked a tired smile. “She was big on stories.”

Inside, the place was dustier than I expected but not abandoned. There were candles on the shelves, worn quilts draped over furniture, a jar of dried herbs sitting next to a stack of old journals. It smelled like cedar and memory.

Rocky lit a fire without a word, moving like his boots knew the floorboards by heart. I walked the perimeter of the room, fingers brushing the spines of books, the edge of a faded photograph in a wooden frame, him as a boy, maybe ten, standing next to a woman with sharp cheekbones and wild hair.

“Your mom?” I asked.

He nodded. “Cora. She was… different. Even before I knew we were different.”

I turned, my eyes drawn to him like they always were. “You said she could see things.”

He dropped onto the old sofa, elbows on his knees. “Visions. Dreams. She’d warn folks before tornadoes hit. Knew when people were comin’ to call, even before they got in their cars.”

“And what about you?” I asked, crossing the room to sit beside him. “You get visions too?”

He shook his head. “Not like her. I got instincts. Animal stuff. But you… what happened with Emma, how you tracked her down… that was more than just the wolf. You saw somethin’.”

I looked down at my hands, still scratched from the fight, my nails rougher than they’d ever been. “I saw her bleeding. I saw hercrying in a shed I’d never been to, but I knew how to get there. It was like… like I’d already been.”

“That’s what Mama used to call a pull. She said time didn’t move straight for women like her. Sometimes she’d step sideways into it.”

The fire crackled behind us, throwing shadows on the walls. I swallowed hard, heart thumping like a drum. “You think I’m like her?”

“I think,” Rocky said slowly. “You’re part of this world now. My line. My family. The wolf is one thing. But maybe you got more in you than just claws and teeth.”

My breath caught. I wasn’t ready for that. Hadn’t even made peace with the wolf, let alone visions and fate and whatever else was waiting in the dark.

“I didn’t ask for this,” I whispered.

“No one does,” he said. “But maybe you were meant for it, anyway.”

“You said shifters live forever. But your mom…”

“Killed by another shifter. ‘Bout the only way you can go unless you bleed out and all the magic in your blood can’t keep you breathin’.”

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