Into Their Woods (The Eerie, #1)(13)

Maybe it’s shock, or maybe I’m still high on whatever hallucinogen they dosed me with. Somehow, I don’t feel like I’m in immediate danger, which makes no sense because I was attacked in a parking lot and now, I’m here.

I didn’t see either of these two around town before I was attacked though. They certainly weren’t in the diner or at the coffee shop. I would have remembered faces like theirs.

I study them, waiting for my sixth sense to ping and warn me away. Nothing happens.

Carefully, I run my gaze all over them, but no ick surfaces or red flags start waving. It’s stupid—because what can anyone really tell about a person just by looking at them? But something in my gut is giving me an all clear, and my heart starts to slow while warmth pools low in my belly.

“What the hell is going on?” Ruger asks as he rises from the bed, a pair of maroon sweats hanging low on his hips. “Did you hit your head during the Hunt? Are you feeling okay? She’s awake, so it can’t be the Fade, right? She shouldn’t be awake this soon, though. Could it be?” he asks, turning to Perth.

I knew these two were big, but seeing them both on their feet instead of their backs makes the word big feel puny. Ruger has to be a foot taller than me, maybe more, and Perth looks like he’s only a few inches shy of his bed buddy.

Ruger looks back at me. “You’re in Howling Rapids. Home of Pack Arcan. Last night was our Hunt. You ran in it. Gannon bit you, which means our den claimed you and freed your wolf,” Ruger explains, as though everything he’s saying should make perfect sense.

I knew it—a twisted sense of validation winds through me at the mention of a bite…but then the rest of his words start to trickle through to my unhelpfully lethargic brain. Words like pack and your wolf.

It’s a good thing he’s pretty, because he’s clearly unhinged.

I study him for a moment, my gaze roaming over his wide shoulders and tapered waist. The way his dark red sweats skim the V of his hips. The dusting of hair on his chest is the exact shade of brown as the hair on his head.

“My wolf?” I challenge, swallowing down the hysterical laughter that tries to bubble up my throat. “I’m just a woman. There’s nothing wolflike about me, unless you count the winter months when I don’t shave my legs. As for your den,” I tell him, the word spilling from my lips more like a question than the title he used it as, “thank you for your interest in claiming me, but I’m going to have to pass.”

What medieval motherfuckery is that? Claiming women. No thank you.

These guys have to be in some sort of cult. I look around the room for any sign of red cloaks, but I don’t spot one.

Doesn’t matter. What happened last night was not me joining whatever the fuck they’re a part of.

Or was it?

Shit.

Someone needs to call animal control on these assholes because forcing wolves to chase after people is fucked. Of course, I can’t say that aloud. I’m also not one-hundred-percent sure it happened. I think they drugged me, but I don’t know.

Fuck. This is so messed up.

“I just wanted a burger,” I protest, “not whatever this is…” I gesture between us and then around the room. “Last night was…um…interesting, but I start a new job in a couple weeks, and I really need to get going.”

Am I good to drive? Yes, I have to be. I don’t have a choice, because staying here is not going to happen.

I inch closer to the door, hoping against hope that these two will somehow let me go.

“You can’t leave,” Perth decrees, and I pause my advance to shoot him a glare.

“You can’t keep me here against my will. That’s illegal,” I warn, the reminder filled with false bravado. I don’t know what I’m going to do if these two behemoths decide they don’t care.

“I don’t understand,” Perth lobs at me, his gaze shooting to Ruger in a silent plea before he looks back at me. “What are you doing here in town if you didn’t come to run in the Hunt?”

The accusation in his tone that I’ve done something wrong here—that I’ve injured him in some way—shocks and angers me.

“Are you kidding me?” I challenge. “Do you honestly think you can claim every stranger who drives into town? I was hungry and needed a break from driving. I didn’t know that stopping in Howling Rapids meant I was signing my life away. You might want to put that on a sign outside town or something. Better yet, hang a notice at the diner. ‘Free kidnapping with every meal.’”

Perth, the redhead, looks even more perplexed. “We don’t need a sign, we have wards. You can’t even cross the town’s limits unless you’re one of us. Unless you’re an eerie,” he counters, like it’s something that should be obvious.

I stare at him completely lost. “What the fuck is an eerie?”





4





NOAH





Perth reels back like my question just cracked him across the face. He stares at me, one second slipping into another, and something dawns in his amber eyes.

“You don’t know what an eerie is,” he repeats, only this time it sounds more like a statement and less like a question.

Exasperated, I throw my hands up. How many circles around I don’t know what the fuck is going on do they want to make?