Page 84 of Wolf's Chance

“It’s not right,” she whispered quickly.

Ah, it was her pride talking. “Willow, you’ve done more than I thought possible. Take the chance to rest.” I saw her head dip lower. “I can move quicker with you like this.” It was a harsh reality, and she would be offended that I said it out loud, but it worked. She stayed where she was, and soon the slow rhythm of me carrying her lulled her to sleep.

We would be in packlands by early morning, and I hoped Willow was ready for what was coming.

She knew more than most humans, and that knowledge came with a price. Guarding the shifter secret was given to few,and it came at a great cost. Her life would never be the same. She would be watched going forward, and some shifters would always be suspicious of her, doubting her.

But to get her answers, she had to be exposed to shifter life. There was no way around it.

I just hoped she was ready.

“We’re close,”I told her, my voice steady, breaking the silence that had followed us for most of the morning as we climbed the peak.

Willow was walking beside me. I was strong, but some parts of the mountain made carrying a human in your arms nearly impossible. The unforgiving slope of the mountain made it a natural deterrent to most humans.

She’d been on my back for some of it, to let me carry her and her artwork, but when the ground evened out, she’d wordlessly dropped her legs and slid off.

I hadn’t argued. She was stubborn and I had too much on my mind to argue with her.

I could feel the tension in my body getting tighter and tighter with every step we took. It had been a long time since I had stepped into packlands, and it was something I had promised myself I would never do again.

“Their home is just beyond this next ridge.”

She didn’t need to speak to tell me how nervous she was feeling. I could read her easily enough. Her breath was coming more rapidly, her footsteps slowed, and she looked between me and the ridge with growing uncertainty.

Her whole body language screamed unease, and I could smell her fear.

“You’ll be okay,” I assured her.

“Will you?”

The question surprised me so much that I turned to look at her. “Why would you ask that?”

“I’m scared,” Willow admitted, coming to a stop. “But you? You’reterrified.”

“Wil—”

“I can feel it, Caleb,” she whispered. She tapped the side of her head. “I don’t have my pencils or sketchbook in hand, but I am still drawing it in my head.” She looked away. “You, in my head…and I can feel how scared you are.”

It was my turn to look away, and I focused on the ridge ahead, a rocky slope that marked the boundary of a town that I’d grown up nearby. My home had never been here, but this was the closest I’d been tohomefor a long time.

I didn’t know what waited on the other side, but I knew having Willow here didn’t make it better. Maybe she was right, maybe I was scared because I didn’t know what to expect once we passed that boundary.

There would be questions. From Willow. From the pack. About her. About me.

I didn’t have any answers.

As we’d walked closer to the point of no return, the urge to tell her everything had lessened, but here, now, it was back stronger than ever. She should hear it from me first.

Right?

I knew it was right, but still, the words stuck in my throat.

Breaking my stare from the ridge, I looked back at her,seeing she was studying me again. There was concern in her eyes, nothing else. No suspicion. No wariness. I wondered when she had lost that.

Or had she just seen enough to piece it together? She wasn’t dense. She’d been with me for days. She’d seen the way I moved through the trees, the way I’d known when we were being watched.

She’d seen the wolf at the edge of a waterfall.

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