Ruthless

Chapter 2

2

NATALIE

It was real. The wolf was real. Holy s**t, everything I remembered from when I was a girl had actually happened.

I hadn’t been sure. I’d been ten years old, visiting my great uncle—the only adult who ever really cared for me—and I’d seen something as if out of a movie. Something impossible.

I’d been upstairs in my bedroom looking out the window when I heard a shout. The ranch hand, Rand, had gotten pinned under my great uncle’s tractor, the wheels losing traction in the mud before it had tipped and rolled on top of him. I’d screamed from the window, opening it and calling to my uncle to help. Before my uncle got close, I saw a wolf scrambling out from the overturned tractor instead of a human. A wolf. I caught a glimpse of blue eyes, the thick gray fur. I’d never forget it as long as I lived.

It had startled at Uncle Adam’s approach, took off running on three legs, favoring an injured one for a few hundred feet and then running like normal. Like nothing had happened. As if he’d never been crushed.

I’d raced downstairs and out of the house to meet Uncle Adam by the tipped tractor.

“Rand was under there,” I’d sworn, pointing to where he’d been, my finger trembling. “I saw him go under.”

But there was no one there now.

“Uncle Adam,” I’d said, my voice shaky. “I saw…” I’d drawn a breath, swallowed hard. “I saw… a wolf came out the other side.”

Rand had turned into a wolf. Like magic. Or… something.

Uncle Adam had gone very still. Then he dropped a hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye. “There are strange things that happen in this valley, Natalie,” he’d said, instead of telling me I was lying or making up tales. “Come inside. I’ll tell you a story.”

He’d sat me down with a glass of lemonade and told me the wildest story I’d ever heard.

A story I never forgot, but one that was hard to believe.

All these years, I still hadn’t been sure if it was all made up. If my mind had played tricks on me. On what Uncle Adam had told me. What I saw. As if he’d embellished onto what I’d told him, to make it some kind of fairy tale. Something fun for a kid whose parents dumped her on a Montana ranch for summers because they couldn’t afford daycare. Like an adult telling a child about the Tooth Fairy or Santa, so there was some wonder in life.

Now, almost fifteen years later, I knew the truth. Actually, I’d known all along, but this proved it. Uncle Adam hadn’t lied or embellished or told tales.

Werewolves did exist.

A gray wolf specifically. The one I’d seen before. The one who’d popped out from beneath the overturned tractor. I knew who’d been at the top of the waterfall.

He’d seen me naked.

Even with only the full moon brightening the night, I knew. The silver fur. While I couldn’t see them, I imagined the blue eyes.

Rand.

I climbed out of the swimming hole, trying to calm the trembling in my limbs.

I wasn’t scared. It wasn’t like I thought the wolf would hurt me. Nor the guy the wolf would shift into. I didn’t know why I shook. Why I trembled with newfound interest in the ranch hand from all those years ago. Maybe it was just the realization that the supernatural was real. Paranormal happened—and to someone I’d known for such a long time.

Right here in Cooper Valley. Right on my property. Uncle Adam had told me the truth. Trusted me with it.

I grabbed my short terry cloth robe that doubled as a towel and wrapped it around my dripping shoulders.

My n*****s felt abraded by the soft fabric, and my p***y ached. I was aroused. Strangely eager. Maybe it was the wild excitement of seeing a wolf shifter up close.

Or maybe because it had been Rand? He’d been sixteen that summer. Big for his age. Handsome, even to a girl of ten who hadn’t known what handsome was.

In wolf form, he’d been beautiful. Enormous. Broad shoulders and a thick coat of glossy fur. Intense. Tonight, his focus had been on me. Only me.

I slipped on my sandals and followed the path back toward the house, a small smile playing on my lips.

Werewolves were real. Rand was still around. Hell, he was on my land now.

Somehow, it made my decision to move to Cooper Valley feel less crazy. There was a reason I was pulled back here. A reason beyond the fact that I’d graduated with a largely useless master’s degree in music, didn’t have a cent to my name and had nowhere else to go. I’d wondered why Uncle Adam had given the ranch to me when I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years. Maybe now, I knew the reason. Maybe now I was the only one with the secret, the one human who could be a good neighbor and protect it.