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“I know this can’t be easy to hear, but she’s trying.”
He trained his eyes on the Smashland Mobile Park sign as he drove under it and into the dark woods. “This isn’t my job. I’m coming to see you tomorrow, and then I’m going back to my real life.”
And then he put the trailer park in his rearview, and did his best to ignore the streak of white that followed him in the sky.
This place had been the plan when he was a kid—grow up with all his best friends and start a park together. But then life had happened and his friends flew to all four winds, and Cadence had happened, and eventually, Lucas had ventured out of Damon’s Mountains too. He had to if he wanted to find himself.
Coming back here, so close to his hometown, was a mix of emotions. If he was honest with himself, he’d stayed away from here on purpose. There was something magical about these mountains. Everyone who had lived under the protection of the dragon knew it, but he had made it. He’d gone out into the world and found his place, and that was nothing to sniff at.
He’d earned his home. His life. His reputation.
Coming back here had been a bad idea—not because it was a bad place, but because it was the only place on earth that could tempt him to give up the life he’d built.
Chapter Two
“He’s going to run again,” Jenna whispered.
Cadence tossed Jenna a giant T-shirt, and she couldn’t help her smile as she opened up the billowing material and read the logo. Smashland Mobile Park.
“Since when do we have trailer park T-shirts?” Jenna asked, pulling it over her head to cover her newly-Changed body.
“Since Kru decided to use some coupon he got in the mail at the new print shop in town. Don’t go thinking he did something responsible, either. He seduced the receptionist and negotiated free T-shirts, but they’re all 3X and only fit the boys.”
“He’s such a man-ho,” Jenna murmured, her eyes on the ground.
“Are you ever going to be able to look at me?” Cadence asked.
The heat flared in Jenna’s cheeks as she smiled at her feet and said the same thing she always did when shifters asked her that. “Maybe tomorrow is the day.”
“Anyway,” Cadence said, huffing a sigh as she sank down onto the bottom stair of the 1010 replica. “Guess it didn’t work.”
Jenna dared a glance at the white tiger shifter. “Why did you bring me here? I didn’t even think you liked me. Why did you choose me?”
Cadence shrugged. “Beaston told me to.”
Chills rippled up Jenna’s arms and the blood drained from her face. “Beaston?” she whispered reverently.
“Don’t think too hard on it, Jenna. He also said to bring in Kru, and that boy is an idiot on a good day.”
And that was Cadence’s way. Say something semi-kind, then follow it up with an insult. Jenna was a watcher. Cadence hadn’t always been this way. She had picked up the habit of keeping people at a distance years ago, back when Lucas ran around these mountains with her. “Was it hard to see him again?” she asked softly.
She’d been raised in a different Crew, but everyone in the mountains knew what had happened. At least, they knew the rumor version of it.
“It felt…” Cadence frowned with a faraway look for the dark woods. “It felt different than I thought it would.”
“Worse or better?”
“Neither. It felt…less.”
Less. There it was—the reason their animals hadn’t matched. The proof.
“Where do you think Gunner is?” Jenna asked.
“You ask too many questions.” Cadence got up and walked back into her single-wide mobile home.
“He’s staying at the Lake Worth Lodge in Red River,” she called out. “I followed him.”
“He’s a leaver, Jenna,” Cadence called. “Always was. We tried your way, but we can’t make him stay.”
