Page 3 of Stargazer

A memory I was trying really hard to re-write in my head.

I took in another deep breath.

Because despite all the peacefulness—despite the homely comfort and familiarity—something still felt off. That peace was a façade.

I felt like an imposter.

The place might have been the same. River might have even been the same. But I was no longer the same.

And being back, I had to find a way for this new Venus to belong.

Everything about this place—Saint Claire—had always seemed too perfect. It had almost always felt … fake. A perfect bubble over the town.

I had known that before; it was a feeling I had always felt. It gnawed at me deep down, had me questioning my luck—my life. Even when I tried to ignore it.

Now I knew that was because there was so much going on behind the scenes. So much that the oblivious people living here did not know. And while in my old life I was never as ignorant as the others, while I knew about the existence of wolf shifters, I had still been in the dark about a lot.

With all the knowledge I now had, I was able to slowly peel back the layers of that façade to see the reality that I was sheltered from most of my life.

There was a darkness to the wolves I’d never known before. Not my wolves. But wolves. And it had been hidden from me. Lingering just below the surface where I couldn’t see it.

And I couldn’t turn a blind eye to it anymore. Couldn’t pretend I was the same girl who was living the fairy tale.

Experiencing the sheer realness of the academy had shattered my rose-coloured glasses. Life for me couldn’t be as simple as it had been before. I couldn’t just slot back into my old role here living in ignorance, even if a part of me really wanted to.

I’d have to figure out where I stood now. How I could help. As well as face the group of friends—River’s pack—that I had left months ago.

Sadly, they weren’t the first group of friends I’d had to leave. The ones I’d made in the city were on that list too.

After learning that the boy I’d loved for basically my entire existence was a cold-hearted killer, I’d thought I’d never set foot in this pack house again. Let alone spend another night in this comforting bed. But my wolf shifter—the one I had left in order to pursue the path of a supernatural hunter—was not a killer at all. He was a hero. And I was wrong. So very wrong.

Which meant that the whole fling I had with that intimidatingly irresistible hunter for the last four months was wrong too.

Right?

Or was coming back to River wrong?

I couldn’t decide.

But I also couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling of guilt that plagued me for cuddling my former lover last night—even though I technically had every right too. Yet I didn’t dare do more out of respect for the one who had been warming my bed before last night.

Even so, the stupidly gorgeous and annoyingly sexy smirk of a certain dark-haired Knight flashed before my eyes. Griffin.

Griffin fucking Gray. The son of Thea Gray and the heir to the whole Gray Knights operation. And the person who I’d recklessly been falling for … prior to coming back here.

After the months I’d spent training at the compound in New York City, that felt like my home now.

It was where I was truly beginning to find myself. Where I felt like I finally fit.

So I didn’t know where that left me when it came to Saint Claire and this pack—my former family, until I wrongly decided I couldn’t trust them anymore.

I had so many questions. So many inner battles I needed to figure out.

But everything was all twisted up in that overworking brain of mine.

I had come back to Saint Claire for a number of specific reasons: (1) to apologise to my best friend—that very wolf shifter who I loved for most of my life—while making sure he knew that I was here to support him in whatever way I could; (2) to protect the innocent, helpless humans, as was my new motto as a member of the Knights; and (3) to help the pack of wolf shifters who were being set up for a string of brutal deaths in the area caused by rogue wolves.

While those were my objectives, being back in River’s presence was comforting, reassuring and scarily familiar. I could see myself easily falling back into my old ways. And I didn’t know how I felt about that. Not yet anyway.

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