Page 30 of Crew

“I love how rosemary smells.”

“Me too! I have a blue cheese and rosemary sauce for pasta that’s really something special. I’ll make it sometime.”

“Sounds awesome.”

As they walked, sticking to the tree line to avoid the already-hot summer sunshine, they discussed living in Little River and being surrounded by nature, and all the fun things they could forage or grow in their gardens.

“You seem really happy,” Tris said. “Much happier than when you first came here.”

“I am,” Zara said. “Love will do that to a person.”

“Oh for sure. I just remember meeting you and thinking you looked so sad and defeated.”

“I wasn’t happy,” she mused. “I hadn’t really been happy since my parents died, honestly. But even before then, being in the herd with basically a tyrant for an alpha and so isolated, it was easy to feel defeated and wonder what the future held.”

“I love that you’re here and you and Crew are soulmates, I’m so glad you’re finished with that awful Colton and his males. They gave me the creeps.”

“Same.”

Zara paused and looked at a patch of tall grass. Stepping closer, she pinched a piece off a hollow leaf and rubbed it between her finger and thumb, and gave a sniff.

“Oh wow,” she said.

“What is that?” Tris asked. “Wait, do I smell garlic?”

“Yep,” Zara said, holding the leaf to Tris so she could smell it. “Wild garlic. In the spring you can harvest the leaves and they’re really mild in flavor, but in the summer the bulbs can be harvested. This is a big patch; let’s take about a third of it so we don’t over-harvest it. What a cool thing to find!”

They took trowels that Zara had packed in her bag and gently dug up the garlic bulbs, placing them in a mesh bag. When they’d harvested enough without damaging the ecosystem, they returned to their walking after Zara had logged the area and findings in her book.

“Girl, you just saved me so much money,” Tris said with a chuckle. “I can do so much with fresh garlic and man do I love to roast it too. Do you like pesto?”

“Yep,” Zara said, smiling at Tris’s enthusiasm.

They kept walking, talking about their lives and sharing their hopes for the future. Tris and Khyle were ready to start a family now that they were in their own home. Zara could relate—she couldn’t wait to start a family with Crew.

She opened her mouth to answer Tris’s question about how big a family she and Crew were thinking of having when suddenly the ground gave way beneath her. She screamed as her foot plunged into a hidden pit and she tumbled forward, landing hard on her hands and knees.

Immediately, sharp pain lanced through her ankle and she gasped, clutching at it instinctively as she rolled to her side.

“Zara!” Tris was at her side in seconds, dropping to her knees. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Zara winced and tried to catch her breath. “There’s a hole there, but it was…covered with leaves and grass.” Was it a trap?

Tris glanced at the ground where Zara’s foot had broken through. “Okay, that’s a manmade hole, Zara. It’s not very deep, but someone put leaves and grass and branches over it to conceal it. This isn’t natural,” Tris said with a low voice.

“Damn it, it hurts,” Zara said, biting her lip and gingerly trying to move her ankle. A sharp, stabbing pain made her stop. “It’s sprained maybe, but I don’t think it’s broken.”

“You can’t walk on that,” Tris said. “It’s already swelling. Lemme call one of the guys for help.”

She lifted her phone and looked at it, then frowned. “I don’t have a signal out here. Do you?”

Zara’s hands were trembling so much from the pain that she couldn’t pull her phone from the satchel, so Tris did. “You don’t have a signal either; this must be a dead zone. Shit.”

Since no shifters ever called 911, Zara said, “You can run and get help. Crew and Ford were working in the storage barn.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Tris said. She scanned the area with a frown. “Someone dug this hole and covered it deliberately.”

“Can’t you use your wolfy senses to figure out if we’re being watched right now? I don’t sense anyone, but I know your senses are sharper than mine.”

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