[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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ADELE HOOKED HER finger around the curtain in her bedroom, peering out into the dark. The sun had set almost two hours ago, plunging the woods into blackness before the hunt would light up the night. At ten o'clock sharp, the Honour Guard would storm the forest with an arsenal of shotguns and rifles, spreading out in all directions on quadbikes and horses to hunt down the werewolf that was currently resting in Adele's garage.
She let the curtain drop. It was still only eight. She had two hours to put them off Caleb's scent. Already, she had scrubbed down her truck and the main entrance to the garage was locked and barricaded, a bonfire burning outside the door to put the Guard off the scent. They tended to avoid her cabin anyway: she was fairly certain that Caleb would be safe for the night, that the hunt would be futile. She had warned the hunters plenty of times that she was at liberty to shoot anyone who stepped foot on her property.
They hadn't believed her until she had followed through, taking a shot at an intruder who had turned out to be a rogue hunter. She hadn't done any lasting damage, she had made sure of that – nothing that a little surgery and a few stitches wouldn't take care of – but it had been more than enough to scare the Guard, and to infuriate Creighton. But he didn't have a leg to stand on: she had made her warning clear, and so had the signs around the cabin, and she had followed through with the consequences.
The Guard would be eating. She knew their schedule. They ate at eight o'clock; they had a meeting at eight-thirty, an hour's breakdown of how the night would go; the final thirty minutes before the hunt, they prepped their weapons, packing their jackets with ammunition. As soon as it hit ten o'clock, a siren would wail in Keir Square to initiate the hunt.
If it was successful, the siren would wail again. It was a horrific sound, the deafening blast of an air raid siren that even Adele could hear from seven miles away. It had been installed during World War Two, when Creighton's grandfather had been in charge of the Honour Guard, and he had opted to keep it. The sound was the only thing that could really unnerve Adele, the haunting wail that struck dread into her heart. It turned her stomach even when she was expecting it.
