AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“A dragon?” If they had a dragon shifter, which was almost as rare as my kind, then maybe The Wilderness Pack was somewhere I could fit in for a little while.
“Yup.” She waited until after the server set my drink and appetizer in front of me to add, “I don’t really know Artemis since I didn’t see him much while I was there. He likes to keep to himself and claimed a cave even though one of the cabins is his.”
Hearing about a grumpy shifter who holed up in a cave might scare off other people, but it just made me more interested in visiting this place. “If The Wilderness Pack is so small, how do you know they’ll have space to take me in?”
“You can use our place if you need to.”
At the offer made in an unfamiliar feminine voice, I looked up and found a woman standing next to our table. She was human but smelled of wolf, so it was easy to guess who she was after Ramsey’s rundown—Thora.
“Are you guys for real?”
Thora patted my shoulder. “It worries me that you feel the need to ask that when letting you crash in a cabin that’s barely being used isn’t that big of a deal. But yeah, we are.”
I had never in my life experienced so much kindness. Not without being expected to give something in return.
4
CRESSIDA
Between Jack sending me to Timber Ridge and Ramsey suggesting there was a better place for me to go, the path I’d taken to get here was an odd one, but I had zero complaints about the destination. The land that The Wilderness Pack claimed as their own was downright gorgeous. With the forest surrounding a bunch of cabins, I could easily see myself getting more comfortable than I’d been in years.
As I stepped out of my SUV, I enjoyed the quiet surrounding me. The nearest town was a bit of a drive away, and I’d barely seen any other vehicles on the road since I had driven through it. If Thora hadn’t given me specific directions, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to find the place since I was in the middle of nowhere and my maps application on my phone hadn’t recognized the address for the alpha’s cabin.
Which just made it that much more perfect to me. Being somewhere that strangers stuck out like a sore thumb would make it difficult for anyone to look for me without warning.
Ramsey and Thora offered to let Keane know that I was headed up here, but I wasn’t sure which one had called until he opened his door, stepped onto his front porch and called, “Cressida Crawford? You’re earlier than Ramsey thought you’d be.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I was up, so I figured I would hit the road. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine.” A woman followed him out and beamed a smile at me. “Atlas thinks he should be awake whenever the sun is up, so you’re not pulling us out of bed. He already did that hours ago by jumping on his daddy. The day that boy figured out how to climb out of his crib to crawl into our room was the last night of good sleep either of us has had.”
Keane placed his palm on his mate’s stomach with a smug grin. “He’s just getting us ready for when our next little one will keep us up all night.”
“Aw, you’re expecting another?” I flashed them a smile as I climbed their front steps. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Laina waved me inside their home, tugging her mate into the kitchen. “Want some coffee? Now that Atlas is down for a nap, I’d love a cup more than anything, but mine will have to be decaffeinated while you two get all the good stuff.”
Taking the seat at the small table that Keane pointed toward, I nodded. “I’d love some.”
After she made a cup for each of us, adding cream and sugar to hers and mine, they joined me at the table. Keane’s eyes assessed me over the rim of his mug. “Ramsey said you needed a place to lay low?”
I’d gotten away with not giving her too many details yesterday, but I knew the same wouldn’t be true with him. Keane was an alpha with a pack to protect, along with his pregnant mate and son. Taking a sip of my coffee, I collected my thoughts while deciding how much to say.
Although I hadn’t shared a lot with Jack when I asked him for permission to be in his territory, I found myself wanting to give Keane a better explanation. “There are some things I can’t tell you because they’re secrets my parents taught me to keep from anyone except for the man I’ll eventually take as my mate. But you need to know that just by existing, I’ve always been a target for unscrupulous people, and that will never change. I left the last place I called home because someone was in town asking about me. I have no idea how they tracked me there, but I’ve basically been on my own for the past two years. It isn’t safe for me to be with my parents because my mom is also at risk. We needed to split up to increase the odds of us staying safe.”
“You poor thing,” Laina whispered, reaching across the table to pat my hand. “Two years is a long time to be all by yourself.”
The sympathetic gleam in her eyes was almost my undoing. It took nearly all my willpower to stem the flow of the tears that welled in my eyes. “It hasn’t been easy, but I’d rather be lonely than someone’s captive. Or worse.”
“Fucking hell,” Keane muttered, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t have to look over your shoulder like this. You can’t be more than nineteen or twenty.”
“I turned eighteen shortly before we had to run,” I confessed.
Keane fisted his beefy hands, his knuckles turning white. “Ramsey was right to send you my way. There’s nobody I hate more than people who try to hurt defenseless women and children.”
Considering all the self-defense training my dad had given me, I wouldn’t call myself defenseless, but I appreciated the sentiment. “From what she told me, it sounds as though this isn't the first time you’re taking in a loner with trouble nipping at their heels.”
He shrugged. “She wasn’t even the first.”
