Page 5 of Autumn After

“What about my truck?” How could I convey just how important that was. It was my whole business. My life plan.

“She’ll be fine. Not many people come down this road. You can lock it up, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, let me just grab a couple of things from inside and we can go.”

Go to a stranger’s house. Who I’d just met. In the middle of nowhere. Maybe Alex and my parents were right, I was making poor choices.

I trusted my instincts, though, and Cedric was good. I could feel it.

I grabbed my backpack, which had my overnight supplies, and went into the food part of my truck to grab some of my favorite treats. He was going to help me, the least he deserved were goodies.

I grinned at Cedric once I was outside the vehicle. It was as if I could ignore the rain and wind that surrounded us. All I saw was him. “All set,” I said.

He smiled back, and for a moment, I thought the sun had come back out. Cedric was good-looking—like model good-looking. And I was going back to his house, wherever the hell that was.

Just then thunder rumbled and lightning struck. The crack of a tree branch from somewhere in the woods shook me from my stupor.

Cedric grabbed my hand. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

Didn’t have to tell me twice.

Chapter 4

Cedric

My mate.

Willow was my mate.

This beautiful, free spirit of a human was my mate.

The thoughts were rolling around in my head like loose marbles spilled onto a linoleum floor. I kept my face neutral. I couldn’t risk scaring him.

I found my mate driving a purple truck of all things. Well, not driving, but with a purple broken-down truck on the side of the road, but same thing. It was almost as if fate had heard my father’s conversation and was like, “Nope, don’t listen to him. I got you.”

And they did. The only problem was my mate was human, and that meant I had to tread lightly. He had already been a little standoffish at first. Humans weren’t keen on taking random help from strangers, nor should they be. Shifters could scent out trouble, but humans were left nearly defenseless. They were so fragile.

Telling him I turned into an animal and wanted to keep him always and forever probably wouldn’t go over well. Humans didn’t have fated mates, and most of them really didn’t know about wolf shifters. He’d probably dive headfirst into the river and swim as if his life was depending on it if I told him. And that river was the last place he should be during this weather.

The thing was, Willow felt it too, though he might not have known what the words were. But I could see it the second he scented me—the way he relaxed, the tension from earlier just vanishing out of nowhere. He knew who I was to him on some level. I just had to figure out what to do from here because messing this up was not an option.

He climbed into my car and buckled up, not saying much along the way other than repeatedly thanking me. I could scent it, though—he was as aroused as I was—and I really hoped that he didn’t look into my lap and see just how true that was. Humans were not as amenable to the jumpstart of relationshipsthat shifters tended to have. They were all about the wooing and courting, taking their time. At least that was my understanding of their rituals. Which I had only leaned from watching movies. I’d never dated a human—never considered it, really.

“It says ‘Private.’” Willow pointed to a sign as we turned down the main dirt road that led to the packlands. It was less of a road and more of a two-track. If we encountered anyone leaving the packlands, we’d have to pull over so they could get around us. Not that anyone would be heading out in this weather.

I wouldn’t have been gone so long, except I had to pick up the craft supplies, and of course, just as I was about to head back, my mom called asking if I could pick up just a few more squashes and gourds from the neighboring den. They had extra, and we wouldn’t want to run out.

There was no way we’d run out of pumpkins, squashes, or gourds. We planted seven acres of them.

“Yeah, but it’s private for the people who live here, and I live here.” It was mostly to keep hunters away. The last thing any of us wanted was to be running through the woods and getting a bullet in our butt because some asshat didn’t know we were people too and didn’t understand there was no season for hunting wolves here. Or anywhere.

“Oh, so like HOA stuff?”

“I guess.” I wasn’t sure what an HOA was, but if that answered the question for him, for now, it would do. He’d find outsoon enough, though. It wasn’t as if I could keep him from discovering what I really was. He was my mate. It would come out eventually.

Anxiety threatened to claw at my chest, but I kept it at bay. First, I needed to get my mate someplace safe and dry, then I’d worry about how to tell him what I was.

I also wanted to get to know him and hear all about that truck of his that he seemed to treat like a precious child.

---