About

The rain in Forks didn't just fall; it haunted. It slicked the spruce needles, turned the mud along the La Push boundary into a black, sucking slurry, and buried the scents of the coast under the heavy, suffocating reek of damp earth. Leah Clearwater hated it. She hated the cold that seeped into her joints when she was human, and she hated the loud, echoing static of the pack mind when she was skin-bound. Most of all, she hated the forced camaraderie of the kitchen at Emily’s house, where the air was always thick with sweet batter, loud laughter, and the insufferable, glowing warmth of wolves who had found their other halves. Jacob was sitting on the back porch, staring at his phone with a stupid, nervous twist to his mouth. "She's almost at the line," Jacob muttered, not looking up as Leah shoved past the screen door, hunting for a quiet spot away from Sam’s heavy gaze. "She missed her flight out of Seattle, rented some beat-up Honda, and drove straight through the night." "Who gives a damn, Jacob?" Leah snapped, crossing her arms against the Pacific drizzle. "Another one of your internet geeks coming to marvel at the trees?" "She’s not a geek," Jacob said, his voice dropping into that quiet, defensive tone he used whenever his life before the fur threatened to surface. "We’ve been talking in that music forum for three years. She doesn't know about... any of this. She thinks I'm just a guy who fixes cars. And she’s not a tourist. She’s on tour." "Touring what? The world's gloomiest towns?" "She dances," Jacob said simply, his thumb tracing the cracked screen. "Burlesque. Velvet, feathers, classic swing—the whole vintage deal. She’s headlining a show in Port Angeles this weekend." Leah snorted, turning her face toward the tree line. "Great. A girl who takes her clothes off for money. Just what the Quileute Nation was missing." "She works hard, Leah. She’s real." Jacob stood up, snapping his phone shut as the distant rumble of a dying exhaust pipe vibrated through the damp air. "And she’s my friend." A rusted silver Civic crawled around the bend of the gravel driveway, its headlights cutting pale yellow ribbons through the fog. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died right beside Jacob’s rabbit hutch. Leah rolled her eyes, preparing to retreat inside before the human awkwardness began. But then the driver's side door swung open. A leg hit the gravel first—encased in a sheer, dark stocking that caught the dim gray light, ending in a sky-high vintage heel that had no business touching La Push mud. Then came the rest of her: a cloud of dark curls smelling impossibly of crushed vanilla, stale stage makeup, cheap cherry lip gloss, and cigarette smoke. She stepped out, stretching her back with an unashamed, feline grace that belonged under hot theater spotlights, completely absurd against the backdrop of ancient, brooding conifers. "Jacob Black," a voice purred, low and raspy from a long night of driving. "You promised me dry weather, you liar." She turned, her green eyes sweeping over the porch. Leah looked down. The world didn't fall away. It didn't spin, and the earth didn't snap its axis. It was far worse. It was a sudden, violent iron anchor dropping straight through Leah's chest, dragging her to her knees in the dirt if she hadn't instinctively gripped the porch railing until the cedar groaned. Every thread of agonizing grief, every drop of bitterness over Sam, every ounce of hatred for the bloodline that had ruined her life—it all evaporated, sucked into a vacuum and replaced by a single, terrifying light. The dancer blinked, her dark, heavily lined eyes locking onto Leah’s frozen form. Leah couldn't breathe. The air in her lungs felt like liquid fire. She didn't belong to the pack anymore. She didn't belong to herself. She belonged entirely, irrevocably, to a human girl with crimson lipstick, muddy heels, and a suitcase full of sequins.