by Sophie Stern
I hear laughter and both Flynn and I turn to see his friend, still holding Maple and Syrup, laughing like crazy.
“Something funny?” Flynn asks gruffly. He pushes away and gets to his feet. Then he glares down at me. “Come on.”
“No.”
He rolls his eyes, grabs my wrists, and pulls me to my feet. As much as I don’t want to go with them, I’m starting to realize that I don’t have a choice. They’re either going to torture me or murder me, and even if they weren’t, I’m starting to realize that my entire world is on the brink of changing.
Only I’m not ready, and I don’t want this, and I’ve never felt so out of control in my entire life.
Chapter Four
Flynn
What the hell was that all about?
That kiss?
What was she thinking?
More importantly, what was I?
I should have known better. It’s not in my nature to lose myself to pretty girls on a whim, but oh, Heather is so much more than just a pretty girl. I’m completely ignoring my inner-wolf, who seems to be screaming mate, mate, mate.
I don’t believe in mates. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t believe in a human mate.
Get real.
I stare at her for just a second before lifting her up and placing her over my shoulder.
“Hey!” She hits my back. “Let me down.”
“No chance in hell, writer.”
I carry her back to the car. Even in the darkness, I can see clearly. That’s one of the perks of being something not-human, I suppose. Both Gaston and I can see in the darkness of the forest like it’s the middle of the day.
Not Heather, though.
I’m a little bothered that she ran from me into the forest. Not because she ran, no. I mean, that’s kind of to be expected. I did kidnap her, after all. No, what bothers me most is that there’s no way what she did was safe. It was a dangerous thing to do. Running off into the woods? What was she thinking?
Only, I know what she was thinking.
She was terrified.
Heather was scared. I should have scented her fear earlier, but I got caught up in exploring her house. Seriously, it was like a sort of doll’s house. It was beautiful inside, and comfortable. It felt cozy. It felt like a home, to be perfectly honest. It’s not really fair that I should be so swept away by something as simple as a little cottage, but I was. I am.
By the time we realized she was gone, Heather was already deep in the woods. Why the hell does she live way out here, anyway? There’s nobody around.
I can practically feel Gaston’s eyes on me as I head back to the car and drop Heather to her feet. He’s carrying the cats with him.
“Do you have a carrier for the cats?” I ask her.
“What?”
“Put them in the trunk,” I say to Gaston.
“No!” She shrieks. Then Heather frowns and puts her hands on her hips. She bites her lip, but I get the distinct impression she’s weighing her chances of running again.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“What?”
“Running away.”
“I wasn’t!”
“You were.”
“Nu-uh.”
“Children, children,” Gaston breaks into our conversation. “If you don’t mind? The carriers?” He gestures awkwardly because he’s still holding the two cats who, strangely enough, seem to like him. One of them is licking his cheek.
“They’re in my kitchen,” she says.
“I’ll accompany you.”
Together, Heather and I walk silently to her home, fetch the carriers, and bring them back to the car. We make sure each cat gets settled in carefully. We shove everything in the back seat.
“Well?” Gaston asks, jerking his head toward Heather. “What about her?”
“What about me?” She says. She puts her hands on her hips and looks at me. “I don’t want to go in the trunk again.
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, writer, we’re about out of room.”
“Stop calling me that.”
I shrug.
“I’ve got it,” Gaston says. “Cats up front. Luggage in the trunk. You two in the back.” He smiles, grinning like he’s thought up the most wonderful scenario for getting her back to the academy, but he’s wrong.
“Fine,” she says. To my surprise, she doesn’t fight it. Heather looks over at me and shakes her head. “I don’t know what your problem is or why you, of all people, wanted to take me away, but here I am. I’m not going anywhere, so we might as well get comfortable.”
I’m shocked when she starts moving things around in the car. I barely have time to hurry over to help before she’s finished and sitting primly in the backseat. Gaston looks like he’s going to erupt in laughter at any moment.
I shove him hard when I walk by him. Without a word, I get in the backseat of the car with Heather, pull on my seatbelt, and wait for Gaston to start driving. He does so silently, which is just as well. None of us has anything to say, really.
“How’d you find my house?” She finally asks.
“Driver’s license.”
“Oh.”
“You did a good job hiding,” I tell her. I’m not sure why I’m complementing her. “We couldn’t find your house since you use a pen name.”
A little smile tugs at the corner of her lips.
“Yeah, well, you know how it goes.”
“Not really.”
She looks at me sideways.
“Writers have to protect themselves. I mean, having fans is wonderful, but some people take it too far.”
“What do you mean?”
Who took it too far with her?
She shrugs, but I’m not done.
“Tell me.”
She has no reason to trust me. I am the one stealing her away, after all, but something about the way she’s talking bothers me. The idea that someone might threaten or hurt her, or even make her uncomfortable, doesn’t sit too well with me.
Heather looks at me for a minute before she decides to trust me. Then she nods, almost to herself, and starts talking.
“There was this guy when I first started writing,” she says slowly. “He was one of my first fans. He bought everything I published, followed me on social media, and emailed me regularly. Overall, he was a pretty chill person, or so I thought.”
It doesn’t sound too horrible when she words it like that, but I’m not an idiot. I’m waiting for the twist. There’s more to the story. There has to be since Heather actually changed her pen name over the entire incident.
The idea of someone hurting her doesn’t sit well with me, which is strangely ironic since that’s basically what I’m doing right now, isn’t it?
I’m hurting her.
Only, I’m not physically hurting her. I don’t have plans to, either. Heather Smith – Miracle – Whatever her name is – has answers and I need those answers. I need to find out who is hurting our pack and why, and as far as I can tell, she knows something.
Suddenly, though, I wonder if she knows as much as I think she does.
“What happened?” I ask, trying to focus on her story now, and not on what’s going to happen between us next.
“He started trying to find me in real life. He went through my social media accounts and added everyone to his own list. He even made a fake copy-cat profile of mine and tried to add people through there. Then he’d message them and try to get information about me.”
The thought makes me sick.
It all seems so...violating.
“You’re okay, though.”
“I am now,” she shrugs.
“What did you do?”
“Kept blocking him. Kept reporting him. I had to issue a statement to my fans that they couldn’t allow this guy to add them online and that I wasn’t associated with him in any way. It was kind of a mess.”
“But he stopped.”
“Yeah,” she shrugged. “I mean, part of me was w
orried that he’d come to the signing. After all, it was an advertised event, but as far as I could tell, he didn’t.”
“What was his name?”
She looks at me and cocks her head.
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Because if he comes near you again, I’m going to rip his face off.”
“Dramatic, much?”
“Name.”
“His name is Blake Gregory.”
“I meant what I said, Heather. He’s not going to hurt you.”
She doesn’t say anything, but she leans back against the seat and if I’m not mistaken, I hear a soft sigh of relief.
Everything is going to be okay.
Chapter Five
Heather
The man, Flynn, isn’t so bad after all.
His comment about hurting Blake should scare me entirely, but it actually has the opposite effect. It just makes me feel safe. Why does it do that? It’s kind of a strange reaction to a not-so-veiled threat. After all, here I am, traveling to an unknown place in a car driven by a guy whose partner literally kidnapped me, but I feel like they aren’t going to hurt me.
It happened sometime after we got in the backseat. Somehow, something shifted between us. Or maybe it was sooner. Maybe it was when I was kissing him, which was really a bad idea. It’s just that the kiss left me so happy and relaxed and free.
I’m a writer.
I’m not exactly a wild child.
I’m not out here, living my craziest life and going to wild parties and drinking and having fun.
Nope.
Most of my time, I hide behind my books and my computer. Generally, after a long day of writing, I want to read books to relax. I don’t exactly have a bustling social life. That’s never bothered me before, but now I can’t help but wonder if this is what I’ve been missing.
A guy like Flynn could be dangerous, but not in the way I originally thought.
Now I’m realizing the only thing this guy might slay is my pussy, and honestly, I don’t even think I’d be upset by that.
How could I?
We’re silent in the backseat, and I lean my head on his shoulder. He lets me. He doesn’t push me away or resist. He just sits silently while I rest on him, and I close my eyes. I’m only going to close them for a little while.
Just a little while...
I’m in the forest again.
I’m standing in front of the dark building. It’s not quite a castle, but not quite an ordinary house, either. It’s more like a tower. What is this place? It rises up, menacing and bold. It makes me feel sick to look at it. Lately, in my dreams, this is the place I come to. It holds the answers I’m looking for, but I don’t know what my questions are.
Then I hear a voice. Someone takes my hand. The man. The man who is always in my dreams. The man whose face I can never see. He grips my hand and tugs, pulling me away.
“Run, Heather,” he says.
“But we have to go inside.”
“Run,” he repeats.
“We need to find out where they’re keeping them.”
“Run!”
And then I wake up with a start, sweating and panting. I’m out of breath, and I wonder if I was crying in my dreams. Sometimes that happens. I don’t know why I have these dreams. Sometimes I wonder if they’re actually visions, and not simply conjuring of my own imagination. They come all the time but sometimes they’re scarier than others.
Sometimes I wake up covered in my own tears.
Flynn is looking at me carefully, and I rub my hand over my face to make sure my skin is dry. Good. I wasn’t crying in my sleep, then. He has no idea what I was dreaming about. He couldn’t know, right?
“We’re here,” he says.
“Where?”
“Look.”
He points, and I rub my eyes groggily for just a second before I’m able to see what the heck I’m staring at. It’s difficult to see from the backseat, but is that a...
“Castle?”
“The academy,” he corrects me.
“What academy?”
“The academy.”
“Um, okay.”
Flynn helps me out of the car. His partner is standing there looking amused.
“I’m taking her inside,” Flynn says.
“By all means.”
The man doesn’t make a move, though. He just stares at me.
“What’s your name?” I ask him boldly. They both seem surprised. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I didn’t get it earlier.”
“Gaston,” he offers me a hand.
Am I supposed to shake it?
It seems a bit bold to shake the hand of the man who kidnapped me, but I do it anyway.
“Heather.”
“I know.” A smile ticks at the corner of his lips, and I realize that, duh, of course he knows who I am. He stole me away, after all.
“I’ll take care of the cats,” he says.
“Where are you taking them?”
He pauses for a moment, as though he’s not sure whether he wants to tell me where he’s taking Maple and Syrup, but finally he decides to be forthcoming.
“To my apartment,” he finally says.
“Not to the dungeon?” I don’t know why it surprises me that my cats won’t be locked up in a dungeon. It’s a huge relief, though. Despite being at a castle, we haven’t actually stepped back in time.
“Not to the dungeon,” he confirms.
“Please be nice to my cats.”
“Don’t worry,” Gaston says. “My wife is quite the animal lover. I’ll let her help me get them situated.”
I stare at him blankly for a minute. Wife? This guy has a wife? Does she know her husband is a criminal who just kidnapped an innocent woman? Does she even care? Maybe it’s true that she’s an animal lover. After all, she’s married to one.
My own smile fades and I turn back to Flynn.
“Ready?” He asks me.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“You know, I could carry you again, if that would make this easier,” he tells me. He watches me for a moment, like he’s trying to decide whether I’m brave enough to take him up on that offer.
“Flynn, the next time you carry me, it’s going to be straight to bed or not at all.” I turn and start marching toward the front of the castle – er, the academy – and I don’t look back. If he’s shocked or surprised by my comment, I have no idea, but it’s the truth and I’m not going to hold back anymore.
I’m attracted to him, which feels really good.
It feels weird, but good.
Suddenly, I don’t feel like just a boring old writer. I kind of feel like one of the heroines from my books. I’ve been kidnapped, taken away by a handsome man. I can easily pretend that I’m here to save the world because as of right now, I don’t know any better.
And I don’t know what this place is.
The academy.
What does that even mean?
I walk up to the front staircase and I stand there for a minute. I crane my neck to look up at what’s in front of me. It’s a huge stone castle that looks like it’s right out of a magical fairytale. I stare at the building, wondering where it came from. I mean, there are castles in the world, yeah, but not like this. This place looks like it’s absolutely magical.
The stone towers on either side of the castle extend up. They’re round turrets, and I wonder what it might be like to climb the spiral staircases inside of them. There are definitely spiral staircases. Definitely. The front of the castle, unlike most castles I’ve seen, has a couple of windows built into the stone sides. The front staircase leads up to double wooden doors, which makes this place look a little more like a dollhouse and a little less like the type of place you’d go to be eaten by vampires.
The whole castle is surrounded by a huge stone wall which seems to go on forever. We’re inside of the walls with the vehicle, so obviously there’s a gate somewhere, but I can’t see it. The courtyard we’re in is large and
beautiful: full of plants and hedges and trees.
I turn around, finally, and look at Flynn.
“What is this place?” I whisper.
He smiles and walks up beside me.
“Come on,” he pushes open the door. “Let me show you.”
Chapter Six
Flynn
There’s a heavy tension in the air when we step inside, but it’s not because of what’s happening with the academy. It’s because she’s here, and she makes me feel so many different things that I shouldn’t be feeling.
Brave.
Strong.
Protective.
Heather brings out this weird instinct within me that makes me want to take care of her. I’ve never felt this way about someone before, much less a human, but I try to push those feelings aside so I can show her around. I need to get better about separating my feelings from the things I need to be doing. What I need to do it focus. I don’t need to be thinking about that kiss we shared or how it made me feel.
“This is Greystone Academy,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I got that part.”
“It’s training grounds for shifters.”
“All shifters?”
“Wolves, specifically.”
She looks at me curiously and bites her bottom lip, and then she nods slowly, chewing on this bit of information.
“So you’re saying that shifters are real.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I write paranormal romance books, Flynn. There’s not a lot that surprises me.”
“What if I told you that the school is run by a wolf pack?”
She stares at me.
“And I’m one of the top dogs.”
“Well,” she looks away and starts staring at the paintings on the walls. “That is interesting.” She reaches for one of the paintings, but stops just short of touching it. It’s a piece of art my mother painted long ago, back before she passed away.
Heather looks at it for a long time, and I don’t have the heart to yank her back and tell her to keep her paws to herself. I should, but she seems genuinely calm about the fact that I just told her shifters are real.
She’s much too calm.
Any ordinary human would have freaked out or rolled their eyes, but she didn’t. Why not?