Leigh Alexander has lived every day of her life feeling like an outcast amongst her family and the small-minded people of Pine Hollow, a secretive community to which her parents belong. When Danielle, Leigh’s younger sister, asks Leigh to come home for her wedding, Leigh’s torn between being there for her sister and keeping the promise she’d made to herself to never allow those people near her again.
Knowing she’ll regret her decision, Leigh gives into her sister and goes home for what she hopes is the last time. Leigh was prepared for people to ignore her, for them to shun her, for them to point out all the ways she didn’t belong all because she wasn’t a size perfect, but what she hadn’t been prepared for was falling for Ryan Hart, a man she will soon learn who knows all of the secrets her family and the town of Pine Hollow refuse to tell her.
Revealing the truth about Pine Hollow and the rest of the Supernatural world might be forbidden, but to save Leigh’s life, Ryan will tell her everything about who she is, or more importantly who she isn’t, even if it will forever change her life and the lives of every person in Pine Hollow.
This excerpt starts chapter 2. We are still in Ryan’s point of view.
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Tiffany patted my arm to draw me out of my thoughts of Leigh and back to the matter at hand. I was her escort for this event, not by choice mind you, but it would be rude of me to not pay attention to what I was doing. The woman stood too close to me as we made our way to the chapel entrance and down the aisle, causing my wolf to snarl in disgust and beg me to back away from her. Another thing he had never done when in the presence of a fellow pack mate. I couldn’t blame him though. If she had been any closer, I would’ve been carrying her. When she slid her hand up my arm, I did let my wolf snarl at her once, but that didn’t seem to bother her. By the scent wafting around her, it turned her on, which was disgusting.
Briefly, when we first entered the room, I cut a glance over to Leigh, but she was looking down at her hands and not up at us. I could see tears rolling down her cheeks and her body softly heaving. Her tears made my muscles clinch in anger. The result was my pulling Tiffany tighter to me, giving the woman the wrong impression. My wolf screamed at me to push Tiffany aside and comfort Leigh. If the simple act wouldn’t have disrupted and possibly even stopped the wedding, I would have obeyed him.
Not caring what anyone thought, said, or did, when I released Tiffany—by released, I mean forcibly pried her arm out of mine—and took my place behind Dave and his best man, I turned to watch Leigh. I wanted her to see me, to know that I was watching her, to maybe understand that I cared even if no one else seemed to. She never looked my way. Her head stayed bowed until her sister and father entered the room. She stood with everyone else as the two passed through the doorway, and Dave’s mother’s overly dramatic tears drowned out her sobs. Leigh’s entire body heaved from the force of her tears, and with the shade of red her face was turning, I feared she was going to hyperventilate.
More than anything at that moment, I wanted to snatch Leigh up and put her behind her sister. Okay, what I actually wanted to do was take her far from this place, but I knew putting her in line with her sister would make her happier. She belonged with her family. She belonged behind her sister as the maid of honor. I took comfort in seeing Danielle turn to Leigh and mouth, ‘I love you,’ which made Leigh cry harder and brought tears to Danielle’s eyes.
My body jerked. My wolf rippled my skin, and if it hadn’t been for Dave reaching over and grabbing my shoulder, I think I would have jumped from the stage, shifting mid-flight and attacking everyone in the room who had brought this misery down on Leigh.
“Ryan,” Dave said in a whisper, staring directly into my eyes. “Calm down. This will be over soon.” His tone echoed with a command that neither my wolf nor I would dare defy.
I nodded, breathed deep, and felt my wolf settled a tiny bit.
I heard murmuring from the wedding party and the crowd, signifying that I wasn’t the only one who saw Danielle’s actions and that Dave wasn’t the only one who saw my near transformation at Leigh’s reaction. At that moment, I was proud of us both for our acts of rebellion even though no one else was. Dave’s mother would be livid, but she wouldn’t dare make a scene. The Council would bring us both in for questioning. My parents would threaten to disown me, but none of that mattered to me. I was telling them all to get bent after the wedding anyway.
My blood boiled a second later though, when I saw Leigh and Danielle’s father tug slightly on Danielle’s arm to get her to turn around. He didn’t look over at his eldest daughter or say a word about what Danielle had done, but his silent command said it all for him. Leigh was to be ignored. His expression was hard, not showing any remorse or satisfaction in what he did. The pact would be proud of him. Any other action would have shown weakness, and would have probably been an automatic expulsion from the pack. If it weren’t for the fact that Dave and Danielle were madly in love with each other, I would say that getting kicked out of the pack would be a good thing.
The man was torn; I was sure. In his place, I don’t know what I would do. Either way you hurt one of your daughters.
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That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed it.
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