IN THE DESPERATION
FIND YOU SERIES #1
CAIT FORESTER
In the Desperation © Cait Forester 2019.
Amazon Kindle Edition.
Cover design by Resplendent Media.
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The author has asserted their rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.
CONTENT WARNING:
This book contains themes of sexual assault (not between the main character and his love interest). Please be kind to yourself and take caution when reading if you are sensitive to this subject matter.
CHAPTER ONE
I should have gone to culinary school, I thought as I tasted a mouthful of stew. Perfection. I grinned down at the pot and placed the lid back on, turning the heat down to a simmer. It had been Mam’s recipe, but I’d tweaked it just a little bit over the years.
It had been hard, those first days and weeks and months after Mam passed away. Up until then we’d been country wolves, living in a little cottage up Montana way. I still remembered it fondly. Mam had grown roses all over - climbing up the sides of the house, bushes lining the property line, a few less hardy varieties safe in her greenhouse.
I’d loved the greenhouse as a child. I didn’t even have to shift into my fur in order to feel completely warm, from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, even in the dead of winter.
It was hunters that killed her. She’d gotten away - but only barely - and stumbled into the cottage bloody and shaking. I’d been only twelve years old.
Dad and I had both been completely lost without her. I think that if he hadn’t had me to care for, he would have just wasted away - just shifted into his wolf and run, never looking back.
As it was, we found our own ways of coping, after a time. Mine was cooking. I thought that if I was able to master Mam’s lasagna, and her chocolate chip cookies, and her coq au vin, that she’d be proud of me.
It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I really understood that she would have been proud of me even if all I could ever do was microwave a bowl of that disgusting, canned Benty Duor beef stew that Dad bought from the store by the truckload before I’d taken the reins in the kitchen.
I placed the tasting spoon into the sink just as the timer went off for the oven. It was the work of a moment to grab the oven mitts from the counter and ease out the casserole - a hearty chicken and mushroom - onto the trivet to cool.
After, I took in a deep breath, leaning back against the countertop and surveying my domain. There were pots and pans and bowls everywhere. It seemed like I dirtied up everything that could be dirtied every time I did a big meal prep. But after living on caffeine and grocery store sandwiches for the last few days, it was worth it. The food looked and smelled amazing - and by the time I was done in here, I’d have everything packaged up for me and dad to last us most of the week. Perfect end to a perfect day.
I’d finished the last of my exams that morning. Once the results came back next week, I’d be a fully fledged university graduate - just in time for Christmas. I was still debating what I’d do after that, though. I’d applied to a couple of grad schools - and had even been accepted - but I wasn’t sure.
We’d been in the city for eight years now. And don’t get me wrong - it had been good to us. The larger local packs had a pretty laissez-faire attitude to lone wolves and family packs. Being in a new environment had helped Dad and I begin to heal and move forward. I’d made friends, and Dad had coworkers he could count on.
But eight years was a long time.
I sort of thought it might be time to go home.
My dad, Nash, was late getting home that night - but not so late that I started to worry. He stepped in the front door bearing a box of my favorite lemon-berry cookies from McGonagall’s Bakery, and he’d had them put a little card in the top that said, Congratulations graduate! in a lovely script font.
“Proud of you,” Dad said as he leaned in to nudge my shoulder. We were used to scent marking each other as soon as we came through the door. We were wolves. Some animal instincts never fully went away.
“Dad,” I grinned. “You shouldn’t have.”
“They’re just cookies,” he said, and opened the box with a flourish, grabbing one of treats from the top.
I rolled my eyes, but spoke sincerely. “Thank you, Dad.” He hadn’t been thrilled when I’d chosen to pursue a degree in Folklore & Mythology rather than something easier to make a career in - say Accounting, or Forestry. But he’d been behind me every step of the way.
“Well, I’d better go get washed up,” he said, his mouth full of cookie. “Something smells good.”
“Beef stew,” I said. “I thought I might pop some in a thermos tomorrow and drive out of the city, take a post-exam hike.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Dad said. “Give me a couple minutes and I’ll meet you at the table.”
True to his word, Dad was back quickly, pulling out his chair just as I sat the full bowls down at our places.
“So what’s next?” Dad asked, bringing a spoonful of stew to his mouth. He paused before he took the bite. “Have you decided about your Master’s, or were you going to look for work for a while?”
I lowered the spoon I was holding back into my bowl. “Actually,” I started, but I wasn’t really sure how to on.
“What is it, son?” Dad asked kindly. “It’s okay if you wanted to enrol in that program at Berkeley. I’ve been putting out feelers to see if there are any job leads if you picked that one.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s not Berkeley, Dad,” I said. “Although their program is pretty tempting. It’s…” I could see his face start to grow impatient. Now or never, I thought to myself.
“Iwanttogohome,” I blurted out.
“What was that?”
I cleared my throat. “I want to go home, Dad.”
My words hung in the air for a long moment before Dad pushed his bowl away and leaned forward. “You’re entitled to want to see the place again,” he said evenly.
My shoulders slumped. “But you don’t want to come with me.”
Dad sighed, and I hated that I put the crease back between his eyebrows. “When were you planning to go?” he asked.
“Not ‘til after Christmas,” I said quietly. “Dad - I’m sorry. I just… I miss the roses, and how the air was so clean. I miss shifting for a good long run up in the hills, and just… I miss feeling close to her.”
He let out a breath and slumped back in his chair. “You know there’s no telling what the garden looks like now.”
“I know,” I said.
“The pack probably didn’t keep it up,” he continued, referencing the larger pack that held sway over that territory. When we left, the alpha was my mam’s Uncle Harold. He hadn’t been pleased to see us go, but he understood why we were leaving, and told us that we’d always be welcome to return.
“Probably not,” I said.
“Aw, hell, Jay,” Dad said. “I suppose if you want to go home, we’ll go home.” He pulled his bowl closer to himself and picked up his spoon again.
I hid a smile. I hadn’t actually meant
to make Dad uproot his life here. Our packbond was strong enough for me to spend a few weeks or months up there and then come back to figure out the rest of my life. Lots of wolves did leave their birthpack for good - Dad had when he’d joined Mam’s - but we were all we had. We had a close relationship, and neither of us wanted to be truly lone wolves. We’d probably stay in our family pack of two until I found an alpha I liked enough to mate with, and then we’d join his pack.
But right now, this was better. Dad had capitulated so easily that he must have been thinking about it himself, even if he’d never admit to it. I thought it would be a good thing. We’d moved to the city to get away from Mam’s ghost. Maybe moving back home would help Dad to move on from it.
CHAPTER TWO
As it happened, Dad hadn’t been able to leave with me.
We’d had a few more discussions over the holidays about it. Neither of us knew what would be waiting for us up there, or how we’d react. Maybe I’d just want to stay a little while and then return to academia to get my Master’s degree. Maybe I’d want to stay forever. Maybe Dad would finally start to let his fur out amongst the familiar roses and deer paths. Maybe he’d hate it and want to leave right away.
Maybe the house would be unlivable, or maybe it’d be preserved so well it would seem like no time at all had passed.
We just didn’t have answers yet, and even though we could have called Uncle Harold for an update, there was something about the possibility of going home - maybe for good - that made us want to keep our confidences to ourselves.
But we didn’t know, and that was the crux of it. Dad was reluctant to quit his job if we wouldn’t be staying - or moving to a city with a prized university - so he arranged for a leave of absence instead. Unfortunately, there’d been some miscommunication within his company, and he found out at the last minute that they weren’t expecting him to leave for another two weeks.
We were completely packed; once we confirmed that we were, in fact, doing this, I’d become overeager as a pup. Since we planned to take both of our vehicles - my old Jeep and his midsize truck - out there anyway, Dad told me to on ahead. He’d meet me in two weeks - and I’d be able to give him a heads up about what to expect when he got there.
It was a seven hour drive, and I made good time despite the snow that dropped in thick, wet flakes for the final two hours of it. I’d started off cheerful - spirits bright, belly full of road trip food, singing along to the music.
My mood started to dampen the closer I got.
This is something we should be doing together, I thought, and nearly pulled the car over to turn around at the next exit. But I was nearly there. So close. Really, it’d be a shame to turn around without even seeing the outside. Mostly, I didn’t want to seem like a coward, even in the privacy of my own thoughts. I only had another half hour to go; I could scope the place out a bit, check that the house was still standing, maybe take a few pictures. Then I’d hit up the closest motel for the night. I could drive back to our city home in the morning, and wait out the two weeks. Maybe stop by Uncle Harold’s first, depending on how I felt.
It only took me that extra half an hour to realize that I should have just taken the coward’s way out.
I nearly didn’t recognize the roads that I took, courtesy of the GPS. It had been so long ago, and as our cottage was located a bit far from an actual town, there were fewer markers in the form of shops and buildings. The road I turned on at last was an old country lane; it was paved, but with the snow falling down I was too concerned that I might not be able to actually get the car turned around again to chance turning off there.
It was only a half mile’s walk to our home. Ten minutes, perhaps, without the snow.
As a wolf, I could cover the same distance in about half the time.
Shifting in the city was an infrequent occurrence. Of course I could shift into my four-legged form inside our house, and the packs maintained special preserves that could be used occasionally for when the itch became too great. There were those who were able to pass themselves off as dogs, or even coyotes - although that was just as risky as it was to appear as a wild wolf running through the suburban streets.
But it had been far too long since I had actually shifted without care. I didn’t need to worry about hunters in this part of the state, and while it wasn’t usually a good idea to roam shifted on another pack’s territory, my blood connection would be enough to shield me from any unpleasant consequences.
I felt a smile stretch my lips as I considered the pristine fall of snow. Pulling the car over to the side, I left the keys beneath the left front wheel. I stripped my clothing off quickly and efficiently and tossed the bundle back into the Jeep, the cold winding around my naked body and causing my teeth to chatter.
Then I was wolf again, the stretch of the shift rushing through my body like the world’s best massage. I shook my fur, tongue lolling out of my mouth as I grinned, and shot off toward home, relishing in the way my body moved, the power I felt in every long lope.
Nearly there.
It’s just fact that Montana gets a lot of snowfall. The western part of the state might get twenty five feet of it per year; the eastern, considerably less. We weren’t high in the mountains where the worst of it would probably have the house already buried. Still, I expected to see a house covered by vines and glazed over by the white, powdery stuff.
I wasn’t expecting to see our cottage inhabited.
The house looked intact, though worse for wear. I expected that. I didn’t expect to make out two trucks parked out front, or the blaze of lights shining through the windows. Over the clean, sharp scent of the snow, I could make out the scent of a fire just lit; when I looked up I could see the first plumes of smoke escape the chimney.
“Well, look what we have here. Are you lost, little omega?”
I startled badly, nearly falling over in my efforts to wheel myself around. Two men that I had never seen before in my life emerged from the treeline. A quick inhale confirmed that they were alphas; I wasn’t usually phased by that.
Most of the alphas that I knew were decent, honorable men.
These ones had predator written in every line of their body.
I strained my senses; I couldn’t hear any other human heartbeats coming from the house or the surrounding woods, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have other allies or tricks up their sleeves.
A shifter can communicate with other shifters in his wolf form. But a shifter can’t communicate with a strange wolf when one of them is human.
They weren’t shedding their two legs in favor of four, and even though most shifters weren’t usually phased by nudity, I wasn’t about to shift back buck naked in front of them. As much as I wanted to tell them to get the hell off of my property, it was easy to see that they were bigger and scarier than I was. The safest thing? Light on out of there and head over to Uncle Harold’s to see what the hell was going on.
It didn’t have to be nefarious. There could be a perfectly solid reason the pack would allow these men to squat on our land - because there was no way that the pack wasn’t aware of strange wolves on their territory, not if they’d been here for any length of time.
One of them inhaled deeply as I started to back away, his feet coming forward in the snow. “Aw, Brett, this omega’s scared of us, idn’t he?”
The other guy chuckled. “Looks like it, Ellis.”
I didn’t wait. I launched myself back the way I’d come from, my paws eating up the distance between the cabin and my car. Behind me, I could hear the crack of bones as they shifted - never a good sign. Shifting should be seamless, unless there’s something wrong with you.
They gave chase. I fought to keep my wits about me. I wasn’t going to have time to put my clothes back on; I needed to not only run fast enough that they wouldn’t catch me, but also fast enough to shift back, grab my keys, and get the car going again before they caught up.
This was complicated by the fact that by all measure
s, I was now a city wolf. It didn’t mean I wasn’t powerful - but it meant that desperation was fueling my run rather than sheer habit of running through snow, or training my body in my wolven form.
Shit.
I saw the car just up ahead; truly, I hadn’t been gone long. The cold wouldn’t have had a chance to seep through the engine; there was no reason I couldn’t put the pedal to the metal as soon as I dove inside.
So that’s exactly what I did. I put on a final burst of speed, grabbing the keys with my mouth before shifting mid-step. At least I didn’t swallow them. I fumbled a bit with fitting the key to the ignition, but not with locking the doors.
And then I hit the gas and the car jolted forward with a squeal.
CHAPTER THREE
In the Desperation (Find You Book 1) Page 1