by Violet Ray
Chapter 1
Unlocking the door of her childhood home, Olivia was greeted by silence. The emptiness in the house was like a haunting presence. Nothing was different from her last visit, or even since she was a child. But everything else had changed.
Olivia’s mother had moved in with her older sister, both widows now and happy to head down south to the warmth of Florida, even though they were only in their fifties and too young to retire.
“I can’t stay at home any longer,” Mom had told Olivia when she came to visit, the two of them sitting in her tiny, cramped living room in her Brooklyn apartment. “There’s just too many memories. It’s too lonely now. If you want the house, it’s yours. If not, I’ll put it up for sale. But either way, I’m moving in with your Aunt Audrey.”
“I want it,” Olivia said immediately.
“You should think seriously about it before you give me an answer, darling,” Mom said. “Are you sure you want to leave New York? You’d have to give up your career.”
“It’s already over,” Olivia said, more to herself than her mother.
“Don’t say that. You just have to take a break for awhile, but it’s too soon to give up now.”
Staring down into her cup of strong black coffee, Olivia didn’t reply. Usually she loved her mother’s optimism, but for the first time it was making her feel worse.
On the brink of Olivia’s growing success turning into international renown, everything had fallen apart.
She had been rehearsing for her first tour with Ballet Manhattan, having landed a prime lead role in a modern ballet that had been on fire since it debuted last year.
Just days before the company was scheduled to start the tour, Olivia had been dancing in the final dress rehearsal. Everything was flowing together and it all felt so right. Flying across the stage in her signature jete, she couldn’t have felt better.
Seconds later, she was in a crumpled heap, the tiniest error in timing causing her to crash to the ground.
Olivia still didn’t understand exactly how it had happened, but she couldn’t forget how it felt. Two surgeries later and nothing had changed. She was haunted by a twisting, aching pain in her leg that kept her awake at night and never let her forget what she had lost, everything broken in a single moment.
After weeks of physiotherapy, Olivia had been able to leave the crutches behind. For the most part, she could walk normally again. It only hurt when she danced. Her body might recover from the fall, but her career couldn’t.
Propping her suitcases by the door, she went to sit in the living room.
Her mother had left everything behind for her. The house was filled with the same furniture that she had grown up with, all aged wood covered with worn cloth cushions. It was a solid house. Could last for decades more without too much upkeep.
“Why would you want to go back?” her mother had asked her. “What are your plans?”
The only thing Olivia really wanted to do was fling herself into her mother’s arms and cry. All she had ever wanted was to be a dancer. It had never even occurred to her that her dream might not work out the way she planned. There was no backup plan.
And now she had no idea what to do next.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll figure something out,” Olivia told her, trying to sound upbeat and positive.
A clean slate was supposed to be a good thing, right? There was room for endless possibilities. But right now, it seemed like there was a big, scary, gaping void in front of her, full of fear instead of promise.
About to shrug her coat off, Olivia got up and went back to the front door instead. There was an endless amount of time to sit around and figure out what to do with the rest of her life.
But she hadn’t gone out to the woods in ten years, not even when she visited her parents after moving to New York to continue dancing. She didn’t do anything more than gaze at them from the window of her old bedroom before she went to sleep.
Facing the woods now, her spirit reawakened for the first time in a very long while.
More people knew about werewolves now, at least more than would admit it when she was a teenager. Going alone wasn’t without risks, of course, but the sun hadn’t set yet. And she was used to going it alone.
When her boyfriend had dumped her, she was completely blindsided. She had been so in love with him, it never even crossed her mind that he might not have felt the same way.
Ron was always telling her he loved her. Why would someone say it if they didn’t mean it?
The two of them had been together almost from the moment she had joined Ballet Manhattan and met him. Her life became complete, a whirlwind of dancing, sex and fun.
Sure, they weren’t married, but after four years together their lives were so entwined they might as well have been.
Until her fall. Suddenly Ron became distant when they were together, which was far less often than normal.
She didn’t want to admit it, but the change in him had come as soon as she stopped dancing and started eating like a normal person. Or rather, a normal person that had been starving herself for a long time and had a lot of years to catch up on.
She discovered Ron had been cheating on her with another dancer, and then she found out it was her understudy. He didn’t even have the decency to face her and tell her it was over. Olivia came home one evening after a difficult physiotherapy session to find the few things that he kept in her apartment were gone. A brief, cowardly note was waiting for her on the kitchen table.
I’ve met someone else.
All the other words he had scratched out hurriedly on the torn scrap of paper disappeared after she got to those ones. They weren’t even true, Ron had known the other woman longer, but they were burned into her memory nonetheless and all the hurt and anger she felt became contained in them. They haunted her.
The day he left his terrible note, he hadn’t taken Olivia to physio like he usually did. She didn’t think much of it when he said he had to work. Ron had gone on the company tour without her, leaving her behind to cope with her injury without his help, and it had been a great boost to his career.
While she had been struggling to learn how to walk again, he had gone to her apartment, using the key she gave him to get in, and left her a note. A note. Four years spent together and not even a face-to-face goodbye. It made her burn with anger even now.
They hadn’t seen each other since. It had taken more willpower than Olivia thought she had to keep from contacting him. Some nights were so hard she would ask a friend to come over and take her phone away so she wouldn’t cave in and text him.
“He’s a coward,” Paige would tell her every single time she came over for another rescue mission, so many times it got embarrassing. “He doesn’t deserve your time or your thoughts. Leave it alone.”
It was true, of course. But so, so much easier said than done.
With wounds gaping from lack of closure, coming home had seemed like a very good idea at the time.
Now, stepping out into the cold evening air, Olivia wasn’t so sure. Flipping her collar up to guard against the icy reaches of the whipping wind, she plodded towards the woods, wincing as her injured leg protested the unfamiliar strain that walking through deep snow was putting on it.
Olivia paused at the edge of the forest, leaning against a tree to take her weight off her right leg. She shouldn’t keep going. Just because nothing had happened to her before didn’t mean it was safe now.
Screw it. She was going in. She might have lost everything she had going for her, but not her spirit. At twenty four, she was far too young to start being cautious.
Trying to ignore the twinge of fear that reminded her she was a lot more vulnerable now, she plunged forward.
The woods were beautiful and peaceful, just the way she remembered them. Easily finding her way back to the circle, she was about to take a seat on a fallen log when she saw a swift movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning around too quickly, she took an involuntary
step back and tripped, her knee giving way with an ominous pop.
A sharp spike of burning pain shot up and down her entire leg as she tumbled to the ground.
Her racing heart galloped at twice its speed when she heard footsteps crunching in the snow. They were too heavy to belong to an animal. Would someone other than her be crazy enough to venture in here at night?
With that thought, the gravity of her situation hit her with full force. She was completely vulnerable and alone. Coming here had been a very bad idea.
Chapter 2
Blaize caught the scent long before he saw the person, recognition stopping him in his tracks. Unbelievable. But he couldn’t deny the evidence of his senses.
It was the human he had come face-to-face with back on his first night of solo patrol, the one who had been in the back of his mind in all the years since then.
No matter how hard he fought it, he was always pulled to her whenever she came back into his forest.
Like him, this human had grown up in the time that had passed, but her essence was unmistakable. Even after the change from child to adult, it was still fundamentally her.
She was enticing, and now it was time to make himself known to her. Although for some reason she hadn’t been afraid of him in wolf form, tonight he was going to approach her as a human.
Watching her walk into the forest, not a dozen feet from where he sat, he marvelled at the way she didn’t seem to pick up his scent. Maybe that was why she kept entering his territory without fear. She didn’t know what lay in store for her.
Blaize circled around her as she walked, silently matching her pace, keeping out of sight until he made a decision.
He headed back to the cave he used to sleep in when he was on patrol, intending to shift into human form.
Racing through the trees, running into branches and letting them snap against each other as he passed, Blaize purposely made as much noise as he could to either scare off or call out anything that might be hiding or lying in wait for him. If there was a conflict to be had or skirmish to be fought, he wanted to have it out now so he wouldn’t be interrupted later.
Ever since this human had been drawn to him too, compelled to brave the forest even as a child, he knew he had to find out if they were meant to be together. Tonight was his chance.
She had disappeared for so long, he had started to think that he had imagined the connection between them. After all, he had been quite young as well, and still learning many things.
But the moment he found her again tonight, everything he felt before came flooding back. It was unmistakable, and it seared him right down to his bones.
Even as he tried to shake it off, just as he had that first night and every time after that she entered his forest again, he couldn’t deny it.
He was drawn back to the circle for no reason he could understand until he caught her scent once again and knew in his heart that she was the one for him.
A human was his destined mate? That should have been impossible. But somehow it was true. And so it was time to face her.
Blaize didn’t have to let anyone else know about it, not right away. He could still see what happened and then decide what to do. He could send her away, warn and threaten her so she wouldn’t come back. Or worse. Either way, he would be free of what had to be a curse.
Reaching the cave, Blaize wasn’t happy to find that he was not alone. He was already beginning to shift when he spotted Phyr lying on the ground, just waking up.
“I was going to go looking for you.” His friend yawned, stretching as he sat up.
“Why?” Blaize tried not to let his impatience show. If he didn’t head back soon, the human could leave. That wouldn’t do. He had to figure this thing out, once and for all.
“Your father sent me to bring you back. He wants to talk to you.”
Blaize stifled a groan, knowing what his father wanted. That was the entire reason he had avoided him for the past few days.
“And you agreed to that?” Blaize asked, finding the clothes he had stashed there earlier on. Dressing quickly, he looked over at his friend.
Blaize hadn’t seen Phyr in human form for quite some time. It was a rare sight these days, as Phyr seemed to prefer his wolf form more and more. It was a change from when they were kids, when they would shift back and forth at will, trying to best each other at anything and everything, in wolf and human form.
The two of them had been fast friends for their whole lives. They were even physically similar enough that they would get mistaken for each other from a distance, sometimes even by their own families. Their black hair matched, although Phyr was slightly leaner than Blaize, wiry and agile where Blaize was built for strength.
But not if someone was looking at their faces. Phyr’s eyes were an unusually pale grey, contrasting sharply with Blaize’s very dark brown. No wolf or human Blaize had ever seen had eyes like Phyr’s. They looked unreal, and nearly everyone did a double-take when they saw him for the first time.
Phyr looked at Blaize, his eyes full of amusement. “What else could I do? Besides, the real question is, what are you going to say to him?”
Blaize shouldn’t be annoyed, although he was. Just a little bit. Of course Phyr couldn’t turn down a request made by an elder. Especially Blaize’s father. Although he was fair and reasonable most of the time, he could easily switch to intimidating someone with simply a look to get what he wanted.
Blaize himself couldn’t always stand up to the man, even now that he was fully grown. Ayrmin had been on him a lot lately about finding his mate. He had been doing the same thing from the moment Blaize had become an adult, but lately, the pressure had been almost relentless. As if the world would end if he didn’t have a partner before his next birthday.
Blaize shrugged, turning away. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be avoiding him.”
Phyr came over, grasping his shoulder. “He only wants what’s best for you.”
“He wants me to do what I’m told,” Blaize said, shaking his head.
“I’ll tell him I gave you the message. But for my sake at least, will you go see him soon? He’s not above shooting the messenger, and I have parents of my own for that.”
A twinge of guilt made Blaize look away. Phyr shouldn’t have to be forced into the growing conflict he was having with his father, and this wasn’t the first time it had happened.
“I’ll go see him soon, if only to tell him to lay off you.”
“Alright. You know, when you’re busy dodging him, I don’t get to see you either,” Phyr said lightly, but Blaize picked up on the sadness in his voice.
“I’m done patrolling duty in two more days. I’ll see you then.” Blaize clapped his friend on the back, gazing at him fondly. They were spending more time apart than together these days, and it wasn’t right. Friends were no less important than family in the Fyryne pack, and Blaize was nothing if not loyal.
“Great. See you then,” Phyr called over his shoulder as he disappeared outside.
Blaize held back until after Phyr left, not wanting his friend to see where he was going. It wasn’t really necessary, but right now he didn’t want anyone to know what he was up to.
He wouldn’t lie, least of all to his best friend, but what he was going to do would certainly raise questions. Blaize wasn’t ready to tell anyone about this human and what significance she had, not even Phyr.
After a couple minutes, he stuck his head out of the cave to check. No sight of anyone. Striding back the way he had come from, he sniffed the air but he was too far away to tell if the human was still around.
Blaize picked up his pace, walking rapidly but not breaking into a run. Running in human form was awkward and unpleasant, being so far removed from the ground.
As he got closer, he picked up her scent again. Good. She was certainly still in the forest.
Rounding a bend in the path, he was close enough to reveal himself but he couldn’t see her. Frowning, Blaize scanned the area until he spotted h
er lying on the ground.
He approached her cautiously so as not to scare her. She seemed to be injured in some way.
What could have happened during the short time he was gone? There were no signs that she had struggled in a fight, nor were her injuries visible. The thought that she might not be what she seemed wove its way into his mind, and he didn’t like the idea one bit.
Twisting her head around in an attempt to see what was going on, Olivia gaped at the figure of a man approaching her. Struggling to sit up, Olivia already knew she wouldn’t be able to stand.
“I…” she began as he got closer. His face was hidden by a hood pulled closely around his head. This might not be the kind of man who would help her out.
“You’re hurt,” he said bluntly, holding his hand out to her. Olivia tried to stifle a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t going to kill her on first sight. She had a chance.
Unable to keep from leaning heavily on him, she tried to rise. A cry of pain escaped her lips and she would have fallen back if he hadn’t been holding onto her.
“I can’t walk on my own, but I live very nearby,” Olivia said. “If you could help me out, just help me to get back home, I would really, really appreciate it.”
The man looked into her eyes for the first time. “Come with me and I’ll keep you safe.”
There was something about his dark eyes that made her want to believe him, but she took a deep breath, trying to steel her resolve.
“If you wouldn’t mind just helping me out of the forest,” Olivia said again, but he was already turning the opposite way.
“I don’t leave these woods,” he said, his voice colder than the night air.
He doesn’t leave the woods? The only creatures that stayed in the woods without ever leaving were werewolves. Was this man a shifter? Olivia’s heart beat crazily in her chest.