The Keeper Saga: Wynter's War, Charmed, and The One (The Boxed Set Book 2)

by K. R. Thompson

  I hopped up from the bed. “I need to go,” I said, realizing that my tone sounded short, but I didn’t care. I walked toward the door. Why did I think I had the beginnings of something with this girl? She already had a boyfriend. A boyfriend, who was waiting on her to call him back. “Thank you again for the help.”

  “Wait. Hold on,” she said, jumping up and struggling into her shoes, half-running, half-struggling to catch up with me. “I’ll walk you out.”

  “You should call Brian back. I know the way out.” The words sounded angry, even to me, but I couldn’t help it.

  She looked up at me, unsaid questions in her dark brown eyes. “I’d like to walk you out, if that’s okay with you. I will call him back later. He can wait.”

  “You’d better not make him wait for too long. I can hear him pacing all the way up here. He’s trying to decide whether or not to come up.” Okay, that’s a slight lie. I can’t hear that far away. But still…

  “How do you know that?” she asked, her eyes narrowing as if she was wondering what other secrets I knew that I wasn’t telling.

  “Lucky guess. It’s what I would do.” I gave her a weak shrug and smiled. “Come on then. Walk me out.”

  I said a quick goodbye to Emily and Ms. Harmon as we left and without even thinking about it, led Nikki to the same spot where she had seen me that first day.

  She’s probably going to think I’m some weird stalker now, I thought, as I turned around to tell her goodbye.

  “We could drive you home,” she said, looking over my shoulder at the shadows of the forest. Her brows knitted together in a frown, as if she didn’t like the parts of the woods that she wasn’t able to see. “You’re not going to make it home before it gets dark. It could be dangerous in there.”

  Dangerous? I’m the most dangerous thing this wood has in it, I thought. But she looked genuinely worried— “You’re worried about me?” I asked. This was something new. No one typically ever worried about me all that much.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “I know this forest better than anyone. I’ll be home before full dark and I’ll be fine. I’m not Little Red Riding Hood, you know.” I couldn’t help making that particular joke and I smiled.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” I reached out and traced my thumb down the line of her cheek. “Good night, Nikki.” Without waiting for a reply, I turned and walked into the woods.

  “Good night,” I heard her whisper. I still felt her watching, as if she was waiting until the last moment to go back inside.

  Take that, Brian Shaw, I thought, then stopped. I really shouldn’t be acting this way. He really is a good guy.

  My inner radar had picked up the fact that Nikki was back on the porch of her house and was headed back in, so I switched to wolf and started to run. My wolf shook his head and I felt a twinge of anger, obviously, he was disagreeing with my assessment of Brian Shaw and what we should do about Nikki. After all, if she was meant to be the one for us, we should fight for her if we needed to, right?

  “How was your day, son?”

  My dad was sitting at the table, papers spread over every inch of its surface. He looked up when I came in and smiled. His eyes looked tired. Small crow’s feet etched in their corners, evidence that his day hadn’t gone great, but he still wanted to know about mine.

  “It was good,” I said, taking two cokes from the fridge. I handed him one and then sat down across from him.

  “Erik called a little while ago. He wants details on your date.” Tired or not, mischief gleamed in his eyes.

  “It was a study date,” I clarified, not wanting him to get the wrong impression just yet. Then I added, “For English.”

  “Ah.” No further explanation was needed. My father was well aware of my aversion to that particular class and had heard me say on more than one occasion that if I had the ability to speak two languages—one of them being English—that the class was a complete waste of time.

  He didn’t bother asking me anything else about that. “So how are the Harmons?”

  Leave it to him to get directly to the heart of the matter.

  “They’re good. They’re nice people,” I said, then took a long drink, pretending that I thought he was asking about the nature of our newest neighbors. “I don’t think they’ll be setting bonfires like the college kids when they lived there.”

  He laughed. “All right, I’ll drop it.”

  “Thanks,” I grinned. Then I gestured to the papers. “Any luck finding Meghan Dougherty after we left?”

  “No.” He frowned, and then pointed to the red lines on a map lying in front of him. “I’m afraid this one is another disappearance like the others. We haven’t found any sign of her and there should be something. We should have found something, some sort of trace that she was on the trail. It’s as if she simply disappeared walking to the trail.”

  “Is it possible that she didn’t make it as far as the trail? What if someone picked her up before she made it that far?” Inwardly, I was agreeing with him. There should have been some sign of the missing hiker.

  “Anything is possible, but something in my gut is telling me she made it to the trail and something happened to her.”

  Always trust your instincts. I nodded. “We’ll search again tomorrow after school lets out. We’ll spread out farther and cover a wider range. If she’s out there, we’ll find her.”

  He reached down and picked up a bag on the floor. “Her parents sent us this. It’s some of her belongings. They should help you figure out which scent is hers and how far she made it on the trail.”

  Not if she made it to the trail, I noticed, but how far.

  “We can go back out now,” I offered, taking the bag from him. The Keepers wouldn’t have any problem following a scent that was a week old.

  “No, they’ve already been out today and all of you need to rest. You have school tomorrow. Even though you are Keepers, first you are students and students need their rest in order to succeed.” He gave me a serious look, one that told me not to argue with him and not to tell my brothers to go on another search. “Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He smiled, and then got up from the table. “I have to go back to the office and tie up a few loose ends tonight. It will be late before I’m back.”

  “No problem, Dad. If anything happens here, I can take care of it.”

  He squeezed my shoulder as he walked past. “I know you can, son. But if anything comes up that you need any help, just let me know.”

  He hadn’t been gone for very long when I heard someone come up on the porch. I inhaled deeply and found a familiar scent.

  I peeked out the window, praying my nose was wrong. It wasn’t.

  Hannah stood just on the other side of the front door. She swung her long dark hair over her shoulder and knocked.

  “Adam,” she called, and then knocked again. “C’mon, I know you’re home. I saw all of the others come back hours ago.”

  I stifled the urge to sigh, and then opened the door.

  “Hey Hannah. What’s up?”

  She smiled, then twisted one long lock of hair around her finger and took a step forward, effectively blocking any chance that I’d be able to shut the door.

  “I was wondering if you had plans this weekend.”

  “Yes! I do.” Okay, that came out a little too enthusiastically.

  She frowned for a second, and then understanding dawned in her eyes. “Oh, you must not have found the missing hiker. Is the pack going to be searching for her again?”

  “Well, yes…” I stopped, wondering exactly how to explain that I was interested in someone else. I had known Hannah all my life and she was a good person. I didn’t want to hurt her.

  But she had taken my silence completely wrong; she took another step toward me and pressed her lips against mine.

  I froze for a second, and then remembered that I needed to do something to stop this. Even though I didn’t have a girlfrien
d, this felt wrong. It felt as if I was cheating on Nikki. I took a quick step back and broke the kiss.

  “Hannah, there’s something you need to know,” I said, praying that I wasn’t going to break her heart.

  “It’s about that new girl, isn’t it?” Venom coated the last few words as her eyes narrowed, accusing. Now I felt guilty—as if I’d cheated on Hannah instead of Nikki. Funny how things can flip around so quickly. “She’s not tribe, Adam. I know Erik somehow has you thinking that she is your destined mate, but he’s wrong. There’s never been an outsider involved with a Keeper.” She took another step forward, closing the gap between us, her dark eyes flashing. “It’s me, Adam. I’m the one you are meant to be with. How long is it going to take before you realize that?”

  A long time, I thought as my mind brought up Nikki’s face.

  “We’re not supposed to be together, Hannah. I’m sorry. Truly, I am…”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yeah,” I said, running my hand through my hair. “Yeah, I do know it. It’s not something I can explain. Something inside of me is telling me that Nikki is somehow connected to me.”

  A pained expression crossed her face and she stood there for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure whether or not to keep arguing with me or turn around and leave. “I still say you are wrong,” she said finally. “I’ll just have to wait until you see that. Hopefully, it won’t take too long. Good night, Adam.”

  And with that, she spun on her heel and left, taking an extra second to close the door quietly behind her.

  “Well, that went better than I expected,” I murmured, looking at the door, expecting it to spring back open at any second. But she only walked down the steps and disappeared into the night.

  Chapter 4

  Nikki actually beat me to English class the following day and the instant I slid into the chair beside of her, I knew something was up.

  “So, there are some of us going on a hike up the Appalachian Trail this weekend,” she began.

  At the mention of the trail, I turned and stared directly into her eyes. Out of all the places in the world, that was the last place I wanted to envision her being.

  “I was wondering if you were going,” she finished, waiting for me to say something.

  “It isn’t safe,” I said, then turned away.

  I was still mulling over how much I wanted to explain, when the teacher came in and class began.

  “Okay, guys. You’ve had a couple days to get in your first study date. I want to see if you know the basics. We’re going to start at the beginning. I’m going to write a sentence on the board. I want a volunteer to tell me what the pronoun is.” She walked over and wrote on the chalkboard, then turned around and asked, “Who wants to volunteer?”

  No one spoke for a long moment.

  “Come on, people. It’s only a sentence. It won’t hurt you.”

  Here goes nothing, I thought. Let’s see if I learned anything. Nikki had noticed as I put my hand up and her eyes grew as wide as saucers.

  “Yes, Adam. Thank you for volunteering. What is the pronoun?”

  I looked at the board where she wrote, You should have studied in bold letters. Lucky for me I’d had this lesson.

  “You,” I answered quietly. “’You’ is the pronoun.”

  The teacher looked so happy; you would have thought she’d won the lottery. Beaming from ear to ear, she exclaimed, “Wonderful!” Then she turned back to her board.

  “I guess I learned something yesterday evening,” I whispered, just loud enough for Nikki to hear me.

  She only smiled at me, which made me feel as if I was being warmed from the inside out. I don’t remember what else happened in class, only that once again, it sped by quickly.

  When the bell rang, I reached over and took her books. “I’m heading the same way. Let me take them for you.”

  So we walked together to the lockers. I didn’t say anything until we made it there. I’d been busy thinking of ways to try to convince her not to go on that hike.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking her books from me and putting them away.

  I leaned against the locker next to hers. “You need to be careful in the woods when you go on that hike. Stay with the others and don’t separate. I’ll try to make it, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to. If I don’t come, promise me you’ll stick close to Brian. He’ll look out for you.”

  Her brows furrowed as I said those last words.

  “Yeah, I know,” I smiled, even though I didn’t feel at all like smiling. “I may not like him, but I know he won’t let you out of his sight. So, promise?”

  “Okay.” She sounded as if she wasn’t exactly sure about what she was agreeing to, but I took it as a promise she would attempt to stay safe, so I gave her another forced smile and turned to go when I saw Brian running up the hallway.

  “Sorry, Nikki. Class went over and I couldn’t make it in time to make it to yours,” I heard him huff, breathless as I walked away.

  I’ve chosen wisely, I thought. So long as he is close, she’ll be safe from whatever is out there on the trail. Then a dozen other different scenarios ran through my head, none of them about hikers, and all of them about Brian and Nikki spending the day together. I’ve got to stop thinking like this. She isn’t mine.

  Not yet, anyway.

  The one who thought she was mine attempted to wrap herself all over me when I sat down in the cafeteria.

  “Hannah, cut it out,” I whispered, resisting the urge to push her away. I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the others, but she’d deliberately sat beside of me and was now laying her head on my shoulder, fingers playing at the neck of my t-shirt.

  Everyone at our table knew what was going on though, and Erik lost no time in backing me up.

  “Yep, he’s right. That one over there is meant to be his other half,” he nodded toward the table where Nikki had sat down. As if she knew we were speaking about her, she lifted her head, her eyes locked with mine and I completely ignored Hannah and everyone else around me too.

  That’s it, I thought, getting up from my seat.

  I crossed over to her, not caring what anyone thought when I asked, “Nikki, I was wondering if you would eat lunch with me today?”

  “S-sure,” she mumbled as she picked up her tray and followed me.

  Hannah stood up, took her tray, and strode to the door, dumping its contents in the trash as she left, her long hair swinging wildly behind her. The rest of my pack ignored her exit, and welcomed the girl beside of me as if they ate lunch with her every day, scooting their chairs around to give her plenty of room to get around them and sit next to me.

  Erik grinned at her. “Hey, Nikki.”

  “Hey, Erik,” she replied with a smile.

  “I think you already know Ed. Those two are Michael and Tommy,” I said, introducing her to the youngest of my pack.

  They both gave her a polite smile, a nearly exact dimple dotting each of their left cheeks. “Nice to meet you, Nikki,” they said in unison, then looked at each other and laughed.

  “So when are you available for another English lesson?” I asked.

  “Whenever you want,” she replied.

  “He needs all the help he can get,” Erik said, teasing. “He is available tomorrow evening. If you want, I can take you over after school.”

  “If she wants to go, I’ll take her,” I told my second-in-command firmly, which only made him grin wider.

  “I can get a ride. It’s not a problem,” she cut in, obviously trying to soothe the situation.

  Erik had other questions, though. “I’ve seen you driving Brian’s old jalopy. When are you going to get your own wheels?”

  “Whenever I can find a cheap car.”

  I saw a lightbulb go off behind Erik’s eyes. “I talked my mother into letting me get rid of my old car. It isn’t much, but if you’re interested, I’ll make you a great deal on it.”

  “Yeah, he’d rather ride around on h
is bike. If you bought the car, I could tell you the money would go straight into parts for the ‘cycle,” Ed snorted, as if the idea of getting rid of a perfectly good car to ride a motorcycle was insane. Secretly, I agreed, but I kept my silence. Erik was the closest thing that I had to a blood sibling and if motorcycles were what kept him happy, I was okay with it so long as he didn’t do something stupid.

  “He’s just jealous,” Erik said, giving Ed a reprimanding look that lasted all of a second before he grinned again. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’ll still give you a ride to school when Adam’s Jeep gets too full.”

  “You couldn’t pay me to ride on that death trap,” Ed scoffed. “If the Jeep’s full, I’ll either stay home or hitchhike.”

  Nikki laughed. “How about call and ask a neighbor for a ride? If I buy Erik’s car, I’ll have extra room.”

  Ed puffed out his chest. “She offered me a ride.”

  Erik pretended to be disappointed. “But I did, too.” He tried to frown, but didn’t manage it.

  “So are we on for tomorrow after school? You can ride with us. We have room, regardless of what these two idiots say. I’ll make sure to have you home before dark.”

  “Sure, that’s fine, unless you’d rather study tonight,” she offered.

  “I can’t tonight.” Tonight we’ll be searching for the lost girl again.

  True to form, Erik picked up on my mood and explained, “We have a missing hiker on the trail. Whenever one of them goes missing, we scout out the woods and try to help find them. Adam’s dad is the sheriff, so he lets us know when someone goes missing. We help search. The national forest runs from here all the way up to Roanoke, so it’s a lot of territory for the police to cover. They appreciate all the help they can get. Since the forest wraps right around the Res, we help whenever we can.”

  Well done, Erik, I thought. He’d managed to let her know what we did, without actually telling her how.

  “Oh,” Nikki said, “I hope you find him safe.”

  “Her,” I whispered, correcting her. “It’s a her. A young woman in her early twenties. When she didn’t make it to her checkpoint, her parents reported her missing. She made it this far because some of the store clerks remember her from where she bought supplies in town a couple of weeks ago.”