I don’t wait for an answer. The fact that neither of them have kicked into a light jog yet tells me they’re picking up what I’m putting down. They may be jackasses, but they’re not dumb.
As I pass over the threshold, Ridge calls my name and stops me on the elder’s front path. “You should know Sable’s had trauma in her past. She’s been abused.”
There’s an intense level of rage in his voice, and my own rage rises up to meet it. I kinda thought so. You don’t end up with a heavy amount of innate terror like Sable seems to struggle with without something pushing you there. But I hate to have confirmation. I don’t know her yet, and I’m not the kind of narcissist to pretend I do, but this means we stand on equal ground, she and I.
I nod at Ridge. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be careful with her.”
Then I leave him standing by the shack, watching me sprint away.
Sable isn’t running. I can still scent her on the wind up ahead, and I follow that liquid sunshine smell until I find her standing outside the cabin I know belongs to Ridge.
She’s on the sidewalk, shifting her weight back and forth from left foot to right foot, teeth digging into her bottom lip. As I get closer, she doesn’t notice me, but she whips around and walks away as if she’s come to the realization that Ridge’s house is not her home.
I give her space as I follow behind her. It’s obvious she didn’t grow up with her wolf close to the surface—if she had, I wouldn’t be able to tail her like this, unnoticed. She would smell me the minute the breeze took a turn or sense me with that deeply innate predator’s intuition.
She stops at the edge of the road where the gravel meets the empty grass that stretches between the village and the forest. Funnily enough, she’s facing east. Ten miles that way, and she’d run right onto my father’s lands. I’m struck by the thought of her there, standing in my home, taking part in my pack and in my life, and something warm and sweet spreads through my chest.
Longing, I realize.
If my wolf is correct and Sable is my mate, that daydream might be a possibility soon enough.
If she doesn’t run away first.
But she’s hesitating, doing that shift, left foot, shift, right foot thing again. It doesn’t take a genius to see she’s unsure about leaving. That gives me hope—and the nudge I need to go to her side.
I don’t say anything as I halt at the edge of the gravel next to her. There’s a half-foot-deep drop to the grass, and the toes of her sneakers peek over that ledge.
My gaze moves up her legs a little, and my jaw clenches. Her knees are dusty and a little scraped up, probably from the way Lawson was dragging her when he hauled her into the council meeting. But there are other, older wounds on her legs too, scars that curve up and around her calves and thighs.
Who the fuck did this to her?
I want to ask, and if I were Trystan, I might. But the whole reason I volunteered to come after her is because I didn’t want her to be traumatized any further. I’m sure poking into her past isn’t the way to ease her panic.
So I just allow the silence to lengthen between us for a few moments, letting her breathing even out a little more before I speak.
“Pack life is intense,” I say. I don’t try to pull my tone or use that ridiculous slow and low, I’m-talking-to-a-crazy-person voice Ridge used with her. I use my regular tone, regular pitch, because I’m ninety-nine percent certain she’s more likely to respond to a voice that isn’t making her feel worse than she already feels.
Sable tucks her hair behind her ear and tosses me a glance that’s supposed to look unconcerned, but the deep line between her eyebrows gives away her anxiety. “Yeah, no kidding. Forcible mating isn’t on my bucket list.”
I rock back on my heels and turn my face into the breeze. “Nah, nobody’s going to force you to be their mate. Hell, I won’t even keep you from leaving if that’s what you want.”
She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t leave, either.
“I get it, though,” I go on, taking her silence as an invitation. “I know what it’s like to feel like you have no control. Like your entire life is spinning out of control, and you have no way to grab the wheel.”
“How would you know?” She finally looks at me—really looks at me with those gray-blue eyes. Something’s different about them, a bit more open. There’s a spark there that I didn’t notice back at the elder’s house. Like she shut down a part of herself to deal with the situation.
Fuck. I know what that’s like a little too well. I feel a fresh wave of anger as I try to imagine what she might’ve been through. If the culprit was in front of me right now, I’d rip his damn heart out and eat it.
I go for candor. What do I have to lose? “Have you heard about the never-ending battle between witches and shifters?”
She makes a little noise in her throat that’s almost a laugh. “A little. I don’t really understand it. I didn’t even know shifters were real two days ago. Or witches either. And I don’t know why witches hate shifters.”
“Well, that puts you in good company.” I chuckle humorlessly. “We don’t really get it either. Basically, witches believe only witches should have access to magic. But magic is what allows shifters to shift. We’re physically powered by the same phenomena that gives them their powers.”
Sable’s brow wrinkles as she processes that bit of intel. She’s adorable, almost child-like in the way she takes in information. I can almost see her working out the pieces of the puzzle, thinking back over recent conversations until she has a bigger picture. “Seems like you should be allies then.”
I laugh. “You would think. Almost like we’re family.”