Page 30 of Secret Wolf Baby

Alarm flashed in her eyes, and she shook her head so hard that she yanked her chin from my grasp.

“Of course not,” she said, giving a tittering laugh that sounded about as genuine as a snake-oil salesman’s pitch. “Everything is fine with them. Why wouldn’t it be? And besides, even if there were issues with them, what would that matter? It’s not like I live there anymore.”

I let go of her chin and give her a long, searching look. “Audrey, you can tell me anything.”

She didn’t respond. Instead, she ran her hand through her hair as she stared out the window, eyes far away as she lost herself in contemplation. As she did, her baggy sleeve drooped down, slipping to the elbow. The setting sun caught her arm, lighting it up, making the long, thin bruises on the skin more visible.

Long, thin bruises that looked an awful lot like fingers.

Rage began to simmer, growing hotter every second I looked at them. My wolf snarled, howling in fury. I didn’t know who the hell had done that to her, but they were going to pay for putting their hands on her.

“What’s that?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even as anger threatened to creep in.

Despite my best efforts, she must have noticed an edge to my voice because she froze. Her eyes grew wide with surprise and then panic, similar to how she’d looked in the woods.

“What’s what?” she asked.

Gently, trying not to spook her, I reached out and took her hand, extending her arm so I could get a better look. The dark splotches on her arms stuck out starkly against her pale skin. They were unmistakably finger marks.

“Who did this?” I growled.

“No one.” She tugged her hand away, but I didn’t let go. She glared up at me, a hint of her former fire returning to her face. After days of seeing her look like a shell of the woman I remembered, seeing the spark in her expression was almost a relief. “Let go of my hand,” she demanded.

I obeyed, letting go of her. “Was it Reacher or your dad?” I demanded.

“I fell a couple days ago,” she answered. “That’s all.”

I didn’t respond right away. Those bruises were deep but had already begun healing. There was no way she had gotten them since moving here, and there was no way in hell she had gotten them just by falling.

I moved my hands to her shoulders, thumbs brushing against her bare skin. “If something happened to you, you know you can tell me,” I said, trying to sound gentle despite the rage rushing through me. “You’re safe here. I promise.”

The dubious expression in her expression told me she didn’t believe me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered, her eyes averted to her feet. “There wasn’t anything wrong there. There’s nothing to tell. I swear.” She glanced up, finally meeting my gaze. Based on the way she paled and her uneasy expression, I was fairly certain she knew I didn’t believe a word of it.

As much as I wanted to push the matter for my own purposes, I knew that forcing her to tell me wasn’t going to do any good.

Instead, I said, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

She gave a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I know,” she said unconvincingly. She hesitated. “I’ve got to go take a shower.”

Before I could say anything else, she turned and hurried out of the room.

I stayed where I was, listening as her footsteps hurried up the stairs, then faded into nothing. I tried to hold back my growlof frustration. Inside, my wolf snarled, his tail swishing in fury. He wanted to tear whoever did this to her to ribbons. It was the least they deserved.

But Audrey wasn’t going to tell me anything. Not right now. Not after everything I had done to her.

I had to figure out a way to make her trust me again. The only question was how.

Chapter 10 - Audrey

Falcon’s Reach was larger than my old town. Rowen had been simpler to navigate, though that might have had more to do with living there my entire life. Falcon’s Reach seemed windier, though it maintained that small-town feel. It took me a while to find my way around. Even though everything somehow managed to find its way back to the center square and the town hall that stood at one end, the roads wound and intersected in ways I wouldn’t have expected.

Despite the unfamiliarity, I was surprised to find that I liked the town. There was something about it that just felt homey and welcoming in the way other towns never had. I couldn’t put my finger on why, only that it was easy to relax and let my guard down, to not think about my dad or Reacher or any of the problems plaguing me.

Except that wasn’t all of it.

It took a while of wandering around, moving from shop to shop as I grabbed groceries and bought new clothes for Claire until I figured it out, or at least part of it. It was that people here seemed happy. People were smiling and laughing as they strolled around in small clusters. People waved to one another across the street as they went about their business. In the Blood Moon pack, a looming tension had gripped the entire town. Everyone had known about it, but no one would mention it. None of that plagued Falcon’s Reach.

It was one of those things you didn’t realize was a problem or abnormal until you went somewhere else. As I explored Falcon’s Reach, I had to wonder how I’d never noticed it in Rowen.

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