by Lola Gabriel
“No, thanks. I have to get going,” Quinn said as she picked up her backpack and swung it over her shoulder. “I have a snow-filled obstacle course to get through.”
“Grab the tent from the closet. You might need it,” her mother laughed, and Quinn rolled her eyes.
“You are so not funny.”
“Bye, honey! Have a great day,” her mother said with a bright smile.
Quinn shook her head and gave her mother a wave before heading out the door to her car.
The black truck that stood in the driveway may not have been the prettiest car Quinn had ever owned, but it was durable and made driving in the snow so much easier and faster. It wasn’t love at first sight for Quinn; rather a slow transition into a love-hate relationship. The truck was temperamental, regardless of how many times Quinn had taken it to the shop.
“Your truck just has a strong personality, and all you can do is just deal with it and be nice to him,” Joe, the mechanic, had told her time and time again.
The drive through town to the community college she attended had Quinn reflecting on her life, as she did every single morning. She had come to the conclusion that she was not made for small-town living. She missed the city, especially Miami, and she couldn’t wait to graduate and leave this place. Sure, it’d be sad to leave her mom behind… unless she could convince her to come along. She had dragged Quinn all the way here, so the least she could do was allow Quinn to drag her back again.
Quinn stopped in the parking lot and climbed out of her truck. She made her way to the main building, where her first class was, and as she walked through the door, her best friend, Carla, ambushed her with a totally unexpected hug.
“I am so glad you’re here!” Carla beamed.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Quinn retorted, glancing at her.
Carla had been Quinn’s best friend ever since she had arrived in Jackson. Their connection was deepened by the fact that Carla also came from a big city, New York, and was forced to join the community of small-town living when her father was transferred.
The two young women were quite the opposite in physical appearance. While Quinn was short, slim, and had dark brown hair with brown eyes, Carla was tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. Their interests were similar, but Carla seemed more extroverted than Quinn, with a zero-bullshit tolerance and a rather foul mouth when given the opportunity.
“Why are you so excited to be here?” Quinn asked as they walked toward their first class. “Or that I’m here?”
“Do I have to have a reason to be happy to see my best friend?” Carla asked with a pout.
“I guess not.”
“I tried calling you last night, but the line made this really weird sound.”
“My phone’s been acting up a bit lately,” Quinn said with a frown. “Maybe it’s time for a new one.”
“Maybe. It sucks not being able to talk to you.”
Quinn smiled and placed her arm around Carla’s shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere soon, so you’re kind of stuck with me.”
“Yay!” Carla cheered as they entered their first class.
Fifteen minutes into the lecture, Quinn felt her phone vibrating in her pocket, and she inconspicuously took it out. Mr. Donovan had a strict policy of not allowing anyone to use their phones in class, and he’d been known to confiscate them in the blink of an eye.
Quinn glanced briefly at her phone and frowned. For a second, the screen flickered like a television set in a horror movie, and before she could do anything, it was gone.
“Miss Perkins.” Quinn glanced up and saw that Mr. Donovan looked at her from the front of the class. “Can you name the three steps of memory processing?”
“Sure,” she answered. She shifted in her seat, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “Encoding, storage, and retrieval.”
“Very good. So you were paying attention,” he said.
“Of course, Mr. Donovan.”
“Moving on,” he said and turned back to the blackboard, where a detailed brain was drawn with chalk.
Quinn pursed her lips as she sighed a breath of relief. She secretly thanked her eidetic memory and lowered her gaze to where her phone was safely tucked in her pocket. Maybe it was time for a new phone after all.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the guys in her class briefly looking at her before turning his attention back to the textbook in front of him. She shook off the strange feeling inside her and focused all her energy on listening to Mr. Donovan. The last thing she wanted was to be distracted from her main goal: graduating and getting the hell out of Jackson.
Later that afternoon, after her classes were done for the day, Quinn drove into town to pick up a few things her mother had texted her to get. Her mother was tied up at school and wouldn’t be home until much later. Of course, Quinn agreed. Not that she could’ve said no, but she enjoyed being out and about in town. As much as she liked the house they lived in, she wasn’t the type of person who enjoyed being cooped up inside, even when it snowed. Besides, she was hanging out with Carla later, and she wouldn’t have time to help her mother.
As she loaded the bags into her truck, she saw the guy who had been staring at her in class.
Honestly, she couldn’t believe she had never noticed him before because of his rugged good looks. He had a mop of thick dark brown hair, a chiseled jawline and mysterious eyes that captivated her. He looked as though he belonged in a boyband, not in a community college in the heart of Wyoming. He was stylishly dressed in dark jeans, trendy sneakers, and a light grey sweater. She locked her truck and walked over to him.
“Hey, I know you,” Quinn said with a smile.
He turned to her, and when his eyes met hers, Quinn felt like she was struck by lightning. He had the most beautiful and brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. They were luminous, like the crystal-clear water she remembered so fondly from Miami Beach.
“Excuse me?” he asked, his voice a lot deeper than she had anticipated.
“I know you,” Quinn repeated, tucking her long fringe behind her ear.
“No, you don’t,” he answered with a frown.
“I do. I saw you in my Psych 205 class, with Mr. Donovan. I saw you watching me today.”
“That doesn’t mean you know me.”
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“I’m Quinn,” she said, holding out her hand to him.
He glanced at her outstretched hand with a frown and pursed his lips, like he was either too scared or too repulsed to shake it.
“And you are?” Quinn asked.
“Late for something,” he said simply, turned on his heel, and walked in the opposite direction.
Quinn could only stare at him as he walked away, shaking her head to herself in disbelief. “Rude,” she muttered, “but hot, which is still totally not an excuse to be rude.”
She swirled around and came face to face with Carla, who asked, “Who were you talking to?”
“Hey!” Quinn greeted her. “What are you doing here?”
“Small town,” Carla responded. “What are you doing here?”
“I picked up some things for my mom.”
“I see. So, who were you talking to?” she repeated.
Quinn turned around and managed to see the distant figure of the boy she’d talked to.
“That guy over there,” she said, motioning toward him. “He’s in one of our classes.”
Carla glanced at the guy, who was already across the street, and then turned her attention to Quinn, her expression set in a frown. “You shouldn’t be talking to him.”
“He wasn’t really chatty, anyway,” Quinn said, shrugging her shoulders. “He was actually kind of a jerk.”
“Is that why your cheeks are all flushed and you’re breathing like you just ran a marathon?” Carla asked, placing her hands on her hips.
Quinn’s eyes widened. She crossed
her arms over her chest, feeling more blood rush to her face in embarrassment. “Yes, because every girl dreams of being rejected by the hot guy who couldn’t wait to get away from her,” she muttered. “Who is he, anyway?”
“That’s River Wylde.”
“Seriously? His name is River Wylde?” Quinn asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, his mom was probably a hippie or something,” said Carla with a shrug.
“So why should I not talk to him?”
“There’s just something off about him. He’s weird.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “So, I shouldn’t talk to him because he’s weird? Isn’t that a little presumptuous, Carla?”
“No,” Carla answered sternly. “He hangs out with this group of guys who are equally as hot and rude as he is. They’re creepy, too. They follow him around like he’s their leader or something. They’re known to disappear into the woods for days on end, especially when it’s the full moon. Then you don’t see them in town at all.”
“Maybe they’re werewolves,” Quinn said nonchalantly, and she turned away.
“You shouldn’t joke about things like that, Quinn!” Carla called after her.
“Come on, Carla!” Quinn replied over her shoulder. “Everybody knows there are no such things as werewolves. You’re being ridiculous.”
“Look, I know you’re still new in town and all—” Carla started to say.
“I’ve been here for seven years,” Quinn interjected, rolling her eyes.
“But there are weird things going on here!” Carla said, ignoring Quinn’s comment.
“Like werewolves?” she asked sardonically.
Carla threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “Fine! Don’t believe me. Just don’t come crying to me when you get chased through the woods by a ravenous wolf who wants to sex you up against a tree.”
“That is gross and disturbing,” Quinn told her. “Changing the subject now. Where do you want to meet up tonight?”
“I was actually thinking maybe we could skip dinner?” Carla said, her expression shifting to one of discomfort, like she was cringing. “I… sort of have a date.”
Quinn glanced at her, her brow furrowing as she narrowed her eyes in disgust. She felt a bit betrayed by her best friend ditching her for a guy, and she made sure to let Carla know with the look on her face.
Carla ran her hands through her blonde hair and shook her head. “No, you’re right, I’m going to cancel. I’m going to call him right now.”
Quinn’s frown was overcome by a smile, and she couldn’t help laughing slightly.
“You do that,” she said, glancing down at her watch. “I have to get home. My mom is expecting me.”
“I’ll text you, later,” Carla said and fished her phone out of her jacket front pocket. “Your phone is working, right?”
“Sort of,” Quinn replied. “Speaking of which, it did something really weird in class today. You know how televisions flicker in movies before a ghost or demon jumps out and kills everyone?”
“Yeah?” Carla answered hesitantly.
“Well, mine did that in class today. First it vibrated, and then the screen flickered, but it was only for a second, and then it was gone.”
“Oh, god,” Carla groaned, running a hand down her face. “We’re all going to die at the hands of the demon living in your phone.”
“First werewolves and now a demon-possessed phone?” Quinn laughed. “Come on, Carla. That sounds like a badly written, low-budget horror movie.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Maybe we should do a horror movie marathon tonight instead,” Quinn suggested with a grin.
“Dinner it is,” Carla said as she shook her head. “I’ll text you.”
“Bye, Carla. Watch out for the werewolves!” she called out as Carla walked away from her and crossed the street.
Quinn chuckled to herself as she walked back to her truck and climbed inside. Just as she was about to stick the key in the ignition, she noticed someone standing at the traffic lights on the other side of the road, staring directly at her.
River Wylde.
Shivers ran down her spine, and she hesitated for a second, looking at him. There was something about him that appealed to her so much, but it also made the warning bells in her head sound louder than they ever had.
She shook her head, breaking eye contact with him, and started her truck. She drove home, still somehow feeling his gaze on her, though she was too afraid to even look in the rearview mirror.
2
River felt unsettled as he watched the black truck drive in the opposite direction of his destination. His encounter with Quinn had been unexpected, and she was probably the only person in all of Jackson who didn’t know who he was—or what he was, for that matter. He watched the truck disappear down a side road between two buildings, and then he turned around, heading back to where he needed to go. His gray SUV stood in the parking lot across the pharmacy, and he casually walked toward it. He was in no rush, especially not today.
The conversation he had overheard between Carla and her friend had been mostly strange—demon-possessed phones and horror movie marathons—but there was one thing that stood out to him, a nonchalant comment that had made him incredibly nervous.
Quinn had joked about werewolves.
River had started fresh here in Jackson all those years ago, keeping to himself and living like a hermit in a secluded cabin with its own private lake. He had soon realized that he wasn’t the only one in the small mountain town who was different, and others like him had immediately flocked to the woods behind his house. He was much older than them, almost by an entire century, and since he was the son of Luther Wylde, he was well-known in their community. Young members had gone to him to try to gain his approval, and after time, he had become the alpha of the largest pack in Wyoming.
Being born a member of the Wylde family had its pros and its cons. Each pack member had the ability to shift into a magnificent wolf during the full moon. Younger pack members had less control over their shifting abilities, leaving them rather constrained and bound by the moon cycle. River often took younger members out into the woods behind his home to teach them how to better control their abilities. They looked up to him with the utmost respect, and they worshipped the ground he walked on.
River stepped onto the curb on the way to his SUV, still unsettled by the conversation he’d overheard. He would normally tell the other members of the pack not to eavesdrop on others’ conversations, unless, of course, it was of cardinal importance. However, River could not help listening in on it, even though he was standing nowhere close to the two women.
River had exceptional hearing, which only bettered in time, and he was known to hear a whisper miles away. He had mastered his extraordinary sense when he was very young, having been scolded by his father for listening to the wrong kind of conversations more than once. This time, it was different.
Even though Quinn had seemed pretty nonchalant and her cynical facial expression had dismissed the idea that she actually believed werewolves existed, the mere fact that she had mentioned them still concerned River. He had kept his own secret, as well as his entire pack’s, for more than half a century, and he was not going to let anyone ruin that. It was one of his duties to ensure that no humans ever found out about them so that he could keep his pack safe. Not only was it his duty; it was also one of the responsibilities of his betas and those who were second-in-command.
Despite the large size of River’s pack, he only had three betas, but they were the only three people he trusted with his life. They were like brothers to him—better than brothers, actually, given the situation with his own family, who he hadn’t seen in more than half a century. Not that it bothered him in the least. They had parted ways abruptly, and River refused to dwell on what had happened, as nothing he could possibly do could change it. He had happily settled in Jackson, Wyoming, and it was where he now belonged.
River climbed into his SUV. H
e waited a few seconds before sticking the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life. It didn’t take him long to arrive at his home: a luxurious and equally isolated log cabin that resembled a resort more than it did an actual house. His father would certainly have something to say regarding it, disapproving of it immediately.
“This is no way to be inconspicuous, River.” He could almost hear the man’s voice in his head, the voice that still plagued him to this day, that had plagued him since the…
River shook his head. He would not feel guilty about it, not even for leaving.
He parked his car in the garage, climbed out, and entered the house through an inter-leading door. It was quiet inside, which was exactly how he preferred it. His mind was already overwhelmed with noise as it was. He avoided crowded places like malls, airports, and full stadiums, hence why he had picked one of the quietest towns in Wyoming. The fact that it was surrounded by mountains and woods was an added bonus.
As he walked through the house toward the kitchen, a strange feeling washed over him, and he stopped in his tracks. He couldn’t put his finger on what was making him uneasy, but then he heard it. Quinn’s voice echoed through his mind, as if she was standing right in front of him, and the uneasiness inside him intensified.
She sounded like she was on the phone, and River extended the range of his hearing to listen to her better and find out who she was talking to.
“What do you mean you have to cancel, Carla?” Quinn asked.
Ah, so she was speaking with Carla again.
“I’m really sorry, Quinn,” Carla answered, her voice smaller and further away in comparison to Quinn’s. “Randy asked me out again, and I just couldn’t say no!”
“Of course you can say no, he’s just a guy!”
“Yeah, you would say that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Quinn demanded.
“Oh, come on!” Carla cried. “If hottie River Wylde asked you out, would you say no to him?”
River found himself holding his breath.
“If it meant bailing on my best friend,” said Quinn, “yes.”
“Liar.”
There was a moment of silence on the line, and River heard shuffling noises, assuming Quinn had sat down somewhere. A couch, it sounded like.