Chapter 4 - The Wild Within**
Three weeks later, I hadn't gone back to New York.
My art classes were indefinitely postponed, my apartment sublet to Mia, and my life entirely upended. Gavin and my mother had begged me to stay through the spring to help design a series of custom wood carvings for the lodge’s new gallery wing.
And, of course, there was Rowan.
Working alongside Rowan in the cavernous timber workshop every day was a masterclass in slow psychological torture. We spent hours surrounded by the sweet scent of freshly sawed cedar and cherry wood, our banter sharp and loaded with an unspoken, electric tension that grew thicker with every passing week.
Until one afternoon in late April, everything broke.
We were alone in the workshop. A sudden, violent spring thunderstorm was lashing sheets of freezing rain against the high industrial windows. Rowan was leaning over a massive workbench, guiding a heavy electric sander across an oak tabletop, his muscles shifting rhythmically beneath his damp flannel shirt.
I was sitting on a high stool nearby, sketching his profile, my hands strangely clumsy.
For the past week, my body had felt completely foreign. I was plagued by sudden, overwhelming bouts of nausea every morning, an insatiable, ravenous hunger for raw proteins and wild berries, and a strange, humming fever beneath my skin that no cold shower could wash away. I had blamed it on the high altitude or bad mountain water.
Rowan turned off the sander. The sudden silence in the workshop was deafening.
He wiped the sawdust from his forehead with the back of his forearm, turned his intense green-gray eyes toward me, and walked slowly across the concrete floor until he stood right in front of my stool.
“You’ve been staring at me all afternoon,” he said, his voice low and raspy.
I lowered my sketchbook, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. “I’m drawing. It’s what artists do.”
“You’re not drawing,” Rowan said quietly, reaching out to gently pull the sketchbook from my trembling fingers and toss it onto the workbench. “You’re searching for answers.”
“Answers to what?”
Rowan placed both hands on the edge of the stool on either side of my thighs, trapping me in his space. His chest was heaving slightly. “You think you’ve just got the mountain flu, Chloe. But your scent has been changing for three weeks. Your heart rate sounds like a drum in my head.”
My breath hitched. “What are you talking about?”
“My kind,” Rowan whispered, leaning in until his lips brushed the sensitive skin just below my ear, “don't fall for ordinary humans. We can’t. But when we find our match... the bloodlines recognize each other instantly, even if the human mind takes a little longer to catch up.”
I froze, my entire body locking up. “Your... your kind?”
Rowan pulled back just enough to look deep into my eyes. His pupils were blown wide, completely swallowing the green-gray irises. “Shifters, Chloe. Apex predators. And last night, when the storm rolled over the ridge... the shift woke up inside you.”
“You’re insane,” I breathed, panic clawing at my throat. “Bears don't—humans don't turn into—”
“Shift!” Rowan growled softly, a terrifying, mesmerizing vibration rumbling deep in his chest. “You felt it. The fire in your bones. The roar scratching at the back of your throat. You didn't catch a cold, Chloe. You’re carrying a shift-child. Our child.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. Pregnant. The nausea, the strange strength, the wild, feral pull I had felt drawing me toward the deep timber ever since I arrived—it all clicked into place with terrifying, blinding clarity.
May you like
“No,” I gasped, shoving against his chest with all my strength. “No, I’m going back to the city! This is insane!”
Panic completely overtook me. I scrambled off the stool, grabbed my jacket, and bolted out of the workshop doors directly into the freezing downpour of the mountain storm.
