PROLOGUE
FIVE HOURS AGO IN JUNCTION
The girl enters the barn, slipping between hay bales and a stack of buckets. It is that rare time in winter when hay smells like springtime to her, bringing both the scent and sensation of hope. The temperature difference between the inside of the barn is striking against the brisk pull and drop of the air outside, and Jessie tugs off her knit hat, brown hair tumbling out to brush against her shoulders. She tucks her gloves in her pockets, unzips her jacket, and prepares to clear her mind by doing some good old-fashioned manual labor.
She’s never shied away from work. She’s not the type who thinks herself too pretty to earn calluses on her hands or muscles in her shoulders and back to match her strong arms and legs. Few people have called her pretty, but few people’s opinions matter to her.
And the people whose opinions truly matter? They’re her dad, her mother (now dead more than half a year), her best friend, Amy, and her Russian-American ex-werewolf boyfriend, Pietr Rusakova.
Pietr thinks she’s beautiful.
And to a teenage girl in a tremendously complicated situation, sometimes that’s all she needs to keep going.
Jessie reaches for the pitchfork. But she stops, her hand outstretched, frozen, in midair. Her mind jumbles through images, flashing back to the time Pietr and another boy from her high school got into an epic rumble here, crashing into hay bales and rolling across the paddock outside, each using their paranormal abilities to fight for control of Jessie: Derek to possess her body and the power he could leech from her, and Pietr to protect and own her heart.
Her head buzzes with warning, her scalp prickling as if Derek is still somehow nearby.
Part of him is nearby, she knows—there is a part of him that lingers, unchecked and roaming inside her head, even after his final gruesome moments connected Jessie, Sophia, and the girl Amy calls Jessie’s frenemy, Sarah.
It was here Derek tried to kill Jessie’s pride and joy, her four-legged best friend, the chestnut mare, Rio. He used the pitchfork.
Shivering at the memory, Jessie decides against the tool in her hand and grabs the nearby shovel instead.
Rio is the first horse to spot her and lets out a happy snort of recognition. The other horses each respond in their own particular way, with a toss of a mane, a nod of a head, or a single stomp of a hoof—trying to get Jessie’s attention first.
But there is no competition. Rio always wins. When it seemed no one else was there for Jessie, Rio was her stalwart companion, her faithful friend. She listened to all the complaining, crying, screaming, and stomping with barely the flick of an ear, and after each of Jessie’s rages or depressions ended, Rio pushed her snout into Jessie’s back or shoulder and made the girl move forward again.
More than a horse and more than a pet, Rio is a member of Jessie’s family—a family whose number has dwindled with the sudden death of Jessie’s mom. Jessie props the shovel by the wall and picks up the brush hanging by Rio’s door.
“Hey, girl,” she says, opening her stall door and sliding inside to stand beside her, her hand on Rio’s cheek and drifting down the well-muscled neck to trace gently along her graceful shoulder and back.
Jessie rests one palm on the mare’s rib cage, the soft-bristled brush following the sleek and gentle patterns her short coat grows in.
“I just don’t know what to do,” Jessie confesses. “He’s different. Changed.”
Rio paws the floor, straw crackling beneath her hoof.
“I know, he was supposed to change—to not be this half-man, half-wolf that was dying as fast as he could live. I expected that change.…” Jessie moves back to the horse’s head and begins brushing out her dark mane. “I expected victory,” she says, her voice slow. Tired. “But I never thought a single victory could feel so much like defeat.”
Rio pulls away, stomping a hoof. Jessie makes shushing noises, realizing she’s pulled a little too firmly on Rio’s mane. She’s too focused on herself—again.
“Sorry, girl,” she whispers, adjusting her grip and pressure. “I had different expectations. I thought I’d get all the heat and the fire that was Pietr but without the danger of him being hunted because he was a wolf. I thought I’d have the passion but not the limitations. But it was a devil’s bargain. Maybe it was destiny that he could only be Pietr—this studious boy—or Pietr: the quickly dying werewolf. Maybe I can’t have it both ways.”
She focuses on separating one stubborn tangle, determined that today something will go right.
“The thing is, I told him I’d never let go. I promised I’d stick by him.… And when I said that, I meant it. But it’s harder than I thought. He’s so very different. He’s not the Pietr I knew at all. It’s like he’s not the Pietr I want.”
She jumps, her cell phone vibrating in her pocket, and she pulls it out. Seeing Pietr’s face, she pauses.
It’s the first time she’s ever ditched anyone. And as much as she thinks she still loves him, it’s freeing to know she can step away to clear her head. She still has enough independence to take a few hours away and think of things other than werewolves and Mafia and the madness that so recently swirled around her.
It’s reassuring to know he cares enough to notice she’s gone.
Unless he’s calling for some other reason …
She sighs, not ready to face an answer she fears, and turns off the phone, returning her attention to Rio.
The mare’s coat glistens, and Jessie steps toward the stall door. She freezes, noticing a strange and sudden stillness fall over the barn. All the horses turn their attention in one direction, all eyes fixed on one location.
A slender young man stands near the entrance, his short red hair bold against sharp and pale features, his nostrils flaring. Catching her scent, his narrow lips turn up in a smile that borders on the terrifying.
Gabriel has found her.
Although most girls might balk, scream, or run in a blind panic knowing a werewolf from a new and dangerous pack has tracked them all the way home and that they are alone, Jessie isn’t like most girls.
She can’t afford to be anything but an individual. So she sucks in a breath, straightens her back, and shoves back her shoulders.
“Hey,” she says, her bravery a bluff. “You need help with something?”
“Yes,” Gabriel says, striding closer. “Yes, I think you can help me with something, Jessica.”