heart that if she did try to speak with them things wouldn’t go the way she wanted. They wouldn’t understand. They were hellbent on hating Saint and his kin, would only try to persuade her to remain at the Creek.
Worse, there was a chance they would stop her.
Holly tugged her purple woollen hat down and burrowed into her scarf as she hurried from the deck, her heart pounding at the thought of what she was about to do. Ember would be worried about her, and the brothers would probably be mad at her if they discovered she was gone, but she had to go.
She needed to know Saint was all right.
Needed to know if he was her fated mate.
She would be quick, would get to Black Ridge and back again before anyone realised she was gone.
The recent snowfall tried to make that impossible, was up to her thighs in front of Cobalt’s cabin. Holly waded through it, forced to head down the clearing slightly to reach shallower snow and then bank left, towards the woods. The snow crunched beneath her boots as she sank into it with each step and chilled her legs through her black salopettes. She focused on reaching Saint, trying to ignore how cold she was already, keeping her eyes locked on her destination.
A breeze chased around her and she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep the chill off. Her dark green jumper offered some protection from the weather, but she began to miss her coat more and more with every stride she took across the open ground.
The towering pines and spruces offered shelter from the snow as she reached them, made it easier for her to walk as she wove through the sea of their broad trunks and even kept some of the chill from her skin as they provided protection against the wind.
The nerves she had been fighting since waking this morning began to break free of their tethers, rose again with each step that brought her closer to Black Ridge. The trek through the forest seemed to take forever, but she remained on the animal track, following it down into deep pits filled with twigs and bracken, and up the high rises on the other side. Her senses placed the river to her right and she tracked it around the sweeping bend that separated Cougar Creek from Black Ridge.
Just as she was beginning to feel that she had taken the wrong turn somewhere, voices cut through the still air.
She instantly recognised them.
“What’s wrong with him?” Knox’s voice rang clearly across the snow and she hurried to the edge of the woods and sheltered behind a tree so he wouldn’t spot her. His black woollen hat had been pulled low over his blue eyes, but she easily recognised him as he stood at the bottom of the steps that led up to Saint’s cabin.
While he and his brother looked the same, there was a cruel twist to Knox’s lips, a darkness about him that Lowe didn’t possess.
“I don’t know.” Lowe shoved fingers through his ash-blond hair as he stepped out onto the deck of Saint’s cabin. He sighed. “It’s like he’s just given up or something. He shifted back last night and I want to take that as a good sign, but…”
That didn’t sound good.
Her heart started at a pace again, the urge to break cover and hurry to Saint making her jerk forwards, past the shelter of the tree that had been her hiding spot.
Knox immediately whipped to face her.
Busted.
Rather than turning tail and running back to the Creek, she stepped out from the trees and marched through the snow, mustering her courage as she closed the distance between her and the twin bears. When she reached the spot where Saint had fought the cougars, she kept her gaze fixed on Lowe, didn’t want to look at the crimson patch of snow where Saint had gone down.
Lowe dropped off the deck to join his brother, remained close on Knox’s heels as he stormed towards her.
“What the hell do you want?” Knox growled, the aggression that rolled off him rousing her own, making her want to bare her fangs at him and show him that she wasn’t going to be cowed by him.
She wasn’t afraid of him.
“I think I left my coat.” She shot for breezy with a dash of sarcasm. When she glanced at the cabin beyond them though, her bravado faltered. She reached out with her senses, seeking Saint, and fear