Page 1 of Wolf's Providence

Prologue

My eyes opened.

The lights were so bright.

Why did the lights have to be so bright?

I needed to turn them down. Trying to sit up caused an intense pain to shoot through me. Looking down, I saw the thick white bandages wrapped around me.

“What the hell…”

The door opening caused me to look up. “Lily?”

My best friend burst into tears when she saw me. “Oh my God, Willow!” As she rushed to my bedside, I didn’t have time to brace myself as she launched herself at me.

“Ow!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

The door opened again and both of us looked up at the same time, bumping heads, causing both of us to curse.

Shaking my head to clear it, I looked at Doc.

And I remembered everything.

“Where is he?”

ONE

Willow

The room was quiet.Too quiet. It was the kind of silence that settled so deep into your bones you were sure that something bad was going to happen. That something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Hadn’t it?

Lying, staring at the ceiling, I felt the weight of emotion threaten to overwhelm me once more. If it wasn’t bad enough that my entire body ached, that the slow throbbing pain in my abdomen was in rhythm with the sluggish thudding of my heart, there was something else too. Something warm, humming under my skin, vibrating in my veins softly.

Irritating me.

I wanted to scratch my body, and I envisioned grizzlies rubbing up against a tree to satisfy that itch, but I didn’t have the luxury of tree rubbing. I had chicken pox when I was six, and the itch was similar. This itch felt “off.” I wasn’t entirely sure it felt natural.

Trying to move made the bed creak beneath me. The bed was soft, not as comfy as mine at home, but I couldn’t complain. The bunker walls were a pale yellow, and the window across from melet in sharp, clean air with the faint scent of pine and earth—so typically a smell I would always associate with packlands.

But not Caleb’s.

My heart skipped a beat at the thought of him, but I shoved it down.

I wasn’t ready for that.

Not yet.

Caleb would have to wait until I was allowed out of this bed, had left this room, and got off this mountain.

I didn’t want to wait, though.

I wanted answers. My groan of frustration was low, but it was loaded with pent-up emotion. All I had wanted since I met that freaking man was answers. Another few days wouldn’t hurt.

Slowly, I tried to push myself up into a sitting position. The wounds in my abdomen protested loudly, and the rest of my body echoed its agreement as my yelp of pain echoed in the empty room. Wincing when I heard the sound of feet approaching, I braced myself for the reprimand.

---