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“Hello?”

The line is quiet, and I know he’s doing it on purpose. I count the seconds, waiting to hear that familiar voice I’ve grown to detest.

“Blake,” my father spits around my name. “Where are you?”

It’s a question most loving parents would ask when their child has disappeared for the past twelve months. But my father couldn’t care where I am, more like where I’m not.

“I’m on a mountain,” I reply.

His scoff has the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. “You need to be here. Not in some hippie village doing God knows what.”

I cringe, biting the inside of my cheek. If there’s one thing on this planet my father hates more than a disappointing son, it’s hippies.

“One more week… and then my finances run out.” I do my best to take the pleading edge out of my voice. Little does my father know that I’m already broke and have been for the past month. But if I can buy myself some more time, then I will. Screw it, I’ll sleep in a tent for the next month if I have to.

My father speaks low and clear; his tone rattles my bones and sends ice running through my veins. “You made a purchase at a climbing shop less than two hours ago. Don’t think for a second I’m not following your every move, Blake. You have one week, boy. If I don’t see you this time in seven days, I’ll get you myself.”

The call drops, and I sit there frozen, still holding the phone to my ear. Tears well in my eyes as I shudder with a choked breath. I knew this was too good to be true. I ran away from home, from my responsibilities, but mainly from a life I hated. A life that isn’t mine. When the first month passed and I heard nothing from my father, I hoped he might’ve forgotten about me. But then the calls started. Every week since that first month, I’ve pleaded and begged. I’ve made up stories and excuses, but now it’s getting all too impossible. I should have just tossed the phone. But the idea of completely shutting out my father is more terrifying than facing him. At least if I’m in contact, I can predict when he might strike.

My finances dried up faster than I expected, and my father never stopped ordering me home. Now I’m saying goodbye to freedom, to a life that I live on my own terms.

The sun dips behind a dark cloud that rises from the horizon, as a gust of icy wind nearly knocks me from my spot. Pulling my phone away from my ear, I look down at its black screen.

He knows. He knows where I am.

The thought has me quickly shutting down my phone and pocketing it with shaky hands. I want to scream. To yell into the abyss of how much I hate my life. How much I hate my father. How I miss my mom, and how I know if she were alive, she’d want me to be happy. But I don’t yell or scream. I simply stand from my spot, my eyes surveying the horizon as another frozen gust sweeps through me, sprinkling tiny dots of snow across my skin.

I sigh as I shiver against the rapidly declining temperature. Taking one last look at the view below me, I turn back to camp.

One week, Blake. Make every second count.

CHAPTER 3

ARDEN

Igave up on the dream of ever having a mate.

Everyone I knew in the Sasquatch shifter community had found their other half. From high school romances to young adult flings, one by one, my friends met their matches. And sooner than I expected, they had all left for their mountains. Leaving me behind.

I turned thirty and still hadn’t found my mate. I’d gone on dating sites for shifters and had plenty of awkward dinners, yet no one had caught my inner beast’s attention.

When my thirty-fifth birthday arrived, I accepted I was never meant to find The One.

The past three years have been a blur. My heart still beats, my beast still comes out every winter, and life goes on.

So, why, when that head of dirty-blond hair and sparkling eyes looked up at me from the front of my shop, did I finally feel like I was alive? Blake. What a wonderful name.

Yet as I tumble down the side of the mountain, wind whipping at my fur and snow piling high above my knees, my mate’s name screams in my head like an alarm. The storm worsens with every minute as I track Blake’s scent, which is gradually growing weaker by the second.

My gut lurches at the idea of losing the tether I have to him. If I can’t scent him, I won’t be able to find him. And if I can’t find him…

I shiver at the thought.

I let out a strained roar as I near the parking lot. Already waves of snow tumble across the gravel and pile against the side of Blake’s car. Dizziness slams into me, with no sign of the human. He couldn’t have gone far with the lookout less than a mile away.

Scenting the air, I catch a dose of that clean fragrance and deodorant. Spinning on my heel, I throw myself up the track towards the lookout. Blake’s scent intensifies the higher I climb; my feet crunch into the snow, and the wind howls between the trees. If it weren’t for the faint glimmer of green amongst the gray and white, I’d have walked right past his tent. His stupid, flimsy tent that shakes relentlessly against the gale.

The front flap is ripped wide open, as tatters of material batter against the side of the shelter. I don’t think for a second as I dive forward, pulling apart the frail tarp, and looking inside as horror bubbles through my gut.