[BOOK ONE] When hunter-gatherer Adele Shepherd comes across an injured werewolf in the woods, it's up to her to take him in and save his life: in a remote town dedicated to killing the creatures, she's the only one left who wants to help no matter t...
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THE SNOW FELL softy at first, light flakes floating slowly to the frozen forest floor. Not once had the sun shown its face, the sky an indistinct grey that blended in with the woods. The treetops were invisible, disappearing as tall trunks stretched towards the heavens, keeping out the worst of the weather. A log fire crackled, spitting sparks in the hearth like a hissing cat each time it was stoked with the poker.
Adele rested Morag's pie over the grate, heating it up over the fire until the mixed berry filling bubbled up through the cracks in the glazed pastry lid. Caleb was in charge of drinks, carefully pouring boiling water over a couple of mugs of cocoa powder and fixing a coffee for Adele. Ainslie sat cross-legged in front of the fire, frowning at the page she was hunched over.
"Here." Caleb nudged her when he passed her the mug. She looked up with a distracted glaze in her eyes and took it from him with a half-hearted smile, her pen still clutched in one hand. Adele passed her a portion of the oozing pie, serving a bigger piece onto a second plate for her and Caleb to share.
"I don't know what we can do," Ainslie said. She put her mug and pie aside to flip back to the previous page in her notebook. "I really have no idea how we can get rid of him."
"Me neither," Adele said. "God, this is a nightmare." She sat down next to Caleb, curling up with him to make herself feel a little better. It was difficult to process the magnitude of the situation, even harder to come to terms with how helpless she felt.
"The main problem is that he doesn't care about anything as much as he cares about hunting," Ainslie said. "We can't use Jade or the baby against him."
"Because he doesn't care about them," Caleb added, his voice sombre.
"No." Ainslie sighed. "At first I thought maybe we could, I don't know, offer to babysit or something and get him and Jade to have a date night but..."
"He would never fall for that," Adele said. "Something tells me he and Jade have hardly spoken since she had Fiona. He spends as little time in the house as possible and when he is there, he's drinking in the kitchen. He wouldn't give up his hunt to be with her."
