Chapter One

The front porch creaks as the weight of the heavy box lands on the old wood. Laurie looks up with a heavy sigh as she looks the house over, taking stock of all the repairs that would need to be done. The overall structure was fine, but the house itself was old and even she had to admit it looked straight out of a horror movie at night. The windows needed a good cleaning, the paint around the structure was worn and peeling, and the wood was old, not dangerously old but old enough to warrant a once over by a professional.

Of course, if the circumstances had been different, she would have purchased a newer house. A better house. One with less sentiment attached to it. But Laurie couldn't. This house was the last thing she had left of her family. An inheritance that should have gone to her sister, Dana had she not died with the rest of her family.

It has been a month now. A month since the accident had ripped Laurie's family from her.

It had been some time since the whole family had been together and her father had managed to convince everyone to go on a camping trip. A trip her mother opposed at first, the thought of spending the weekend in the forest not being the most appealing thing, but eventually agreed to at the thought of having both of her children in the same place for once. Their father, Jonathan, used to take her and Dana every summer. It was something they both genuinely loved until Dana and eventually Laurie had been too busy with college and then work.

Laurie and Dana had been busy. Too busy to visit their parents and neither of them had the time but their father had spent weeks trying and had guilted them enough to take some admittedly, much-needed time off.

Laurie had flown in from California and had been the last to arrive. She had been pulled into a last-minute meeting and had to push her flight to a later one. The plan was for Dana and her parents to pick her up at the airport and for all of them to drive out together but they never made it.

She had been waiting at the airport for nearly an hour before she got the call that changed her entire life.

An eighteen-wheeler had decided to run a red light and caused a massive pileup, leaving the destruction of multiple vehicles in its wake. One of the vehicles was the car that held Laurie's family. Her parents and her sister, Dana. The car was crushed beyond recognition and all three of them had died on impact. Her entire family, her world, gone in an instant.

To say she was surprised to have inherited a house in a forest in the middle of nowhere was an understatement. As far as Laurie knew, her father hadn't mentioned their family ever having roots or even knowing anyone from this part of the country. She knew nothing and no one here but didn't have the heart to sell the only thing she had left of her family.

Her parents had not been filthy rich but they had measures in place to make sure she and her sister were taken care of should anything ever happen to them. Their deaths had left her with more money than she knew what to do with and the job Laurie loved so much had gotten increasingly harder to do. She just couldn't handle seeing patients and saving lives when she hadn't been able to save the lives of those who mattered most to her. She didn't have anything left to stay for.

Laurie didn't have any close family left and it had been hard to live in the city she used to live in with her sister. She found out just how much when she broke down one day in Dana's favorite coffee shop. The choice to leave had been an easy one.

Laurie looked around the property she had just inherited, taking in the vast forest that surrounded her parent's-her house now. Everywhere she looked there were trees. There wasn't much of anything else. So far, she hadn't run into anyone since driving up to the house. She had spotted a town a ways back but it was far enough away that she decided to get a new car. She wasn't sure how well her Prius would hold up in the terrain so she traded it in for a dark red Ford pickup. Dana would have had words for that choice.

"It had to be in the middle of the goddamned forest," Laurie mutters under her breath as she moves to unlock the door. "I swear I've seen at least five horror movies that started like this."

Cursing herself for deciding against hiring a mover, Laurie starts lugging boxes through the door and into her living room, a space she had deemed big enough to dump everything she brought until she could sort through everything.

Laurie runs out to her car and grabs the last box from the front seat. She stops to look at her reflection in the side mirror for a quick moment. Her hair was a mess, the dark blonde strands flying every which way, ocean eyes looking tiredly back at her.

A loud bang from the distance startles Laurie and she speed walks back into the house, shutting the door behind her with a thud. It was getting dark and she was woman enough to admit that she was a little scared. This of course would be vehemently denied if anyone asked. Not that she knew anyone here.

Laurie stands in her living room, taking in the boxes covering a good portion of the large space, "Nope. No way." and turns to walk up the stairs and into her room, making the executive decision to start unpacking in the morning.

...

Laurie rolls over groaning as she pulls her blanket over her head. This was the fourth time in the past twenty minutes that she had been pulled from her near sleep by the loud clanging noise. The sound seemed to have been coming from somewhere quite far out.

Laurie waited another minute, sighing in relief when the annoying sound stopped.

Clang Clang Clang

"You've gotta be kidding me." Laurie grunts, rolling over, grabbing a pillow and placing it over her head, trying to ignore the sound.

The loud clanging stops for a few minutes and just as she is about to slip back into sleep, it starts up again. This happens a few times before a particularly loud bang drives Laurie out of bed. A quick glance at the clock on her bedside table reveals that it is in fact just after midnight.

"That's it." She changes into a pair of jeans, keeping the old "I fix hearts ;)" shirt she already had on, and starts putting on the boots she had been wearing earlier in the morning. She grabs her phone from the side table and walks down the stairs, grabbing her coat on the way out the door and into the dense forest where the loud clanging continues to ring through the night.

Laurie had been walking for a good fifteen minutes, using her phone as a flashlight and her annoyance as fuel to ignore the rational voice in her head debating whether or not she should turn back when she spotted a house a little ways from where she was standing.

It looked respectable enough. Like one of those fancy log cabin houses, you see in those trendy nature magazines. It didn't look "staged" though, it looked well taken care of. The lights were on indicating someone's presence and Laurie marched on before stopping abruptly.

"Am I seriously gonna go over there? They could be a serial killer or something." As if on cue, the banging starts up again. Obnoxiously loud now that Laurie was standing so close to the source.

Annoyance winning over fear, she starts towards the house, heading for what looked like an open garage.

"This is it. This is how I die. I'm gonna get abducted and live chained to some lunatic's basement." Laurie mutters out as she gets closer and closer to the garage.

She's a few feet from the open garage when a particularly aggressive back resonates through the air.

"Nope. Nope nope nope nope not today." She chants repeatedly under her breath as she turns to walk away just now realizing how stupid she had been the past few minutes.

"Hello?" Laurie stops in her tracks as a voice calls out from inside the garage. "Who's there?"

For a second, she considers making a break for the trees but before she can take a step, a dark-haired woman walks out from the open garage.

Laurie takes in the tall form now in front of her. Eyes involuntarily checking out the admittedly attractive stranger. Her dark hair was tucked back into a messy ponytail, strong arms covered with tattoos were shown off with the dark gray tank top she was wearing, and the stranger must have been doing some work considering the light layer of sweat that made her skin glisten just a little.

A cough broke Laurie from her staring and a light redness colored her cheeks at the thought of obviously being caught staring.

"Can I help you?" The stranger before her asks. Laurie couldn't help but notice how raspy her voice sounds. It was soft and welcoming. She felt like she could listen to that voice for years. A strange thought considering she didn't even know this woman.

"What?" Was the only response Laurie could come up with, thrown by the woman who was now standing barely a foot away.

"I said can I help you?" The stranger asks. "Are you lost or something?"

The brunette had left her garage thinking it was one of her pack members and had admittedly been surprised to see the beautiful woman nervously standing in front of her.

Laurie shifts her weight from one foot to another. "No. I'm not lost." Maybe coming out here wasn't such a good idea.

"Okay. Did you need anything? It's not safe to be out here this late." The brunette says and Laurie couldn't help but feel like it sounded almost like a warning.

"I uh, I'm Laurie. I just moved here. I was sleeping but then I heard a noise." She curses herself as her voice comes out shakier than she wanted.

"So you decided to walk through the cold forest past midnight?" The woman asks, an amused smile starting to form. Laurie noticed her eyes just then. They were a beautiful shade of green that almost seemed to shine in the darkness.

"When you put it like that it sounds dumb." Her words come out in a mumble and she could swear the stranger's smile broadens.

"I'm Kate." The stranger, Kate, steps closer and reaches out a hand. Laurie could swear she felt something as soon as her hand touched this woman's. A little shock. A quiet gasp escapes Kate's lips. Her hand tightens around Laurie's and an expression Laurie couldn't decipher crosses her face.

Kate was in shock. The instant her hand touched Laurie's she knew she had just found her mate. It seemed as if every sense Kate had was now trained on her. It was overwhelming in the best way possible. She felt how soft Laurie's hand was on her own and now that she was closer, she noticed how Laurie smelled remarkably of vanilla and something else. It was warm and cozy and she couldn't place it but she was hooked. Her scent was intoxicating and one hundred percent, without a doubt, human.

"That noise you heard was probably me. I'm fixing something." Kate says, dropping her hand and seemingly shaking herself out of whatever trance she was in. The last thing she wanted was to scare the other woman. "I didn't think anyone lived anywhere near. I'll stop so you can get some sleep."

"Thank you." Laurie gives the brunette a small smile. "I just got here this afternoon. I live over there, I think." She gestures towards some trees. A feeling of dread settles in her stomach as she comes to the conclusion that she doesn't actually know exactly how to get home. It was really dark and now that she had found the source of her sleeplessness and the annoyance had faded, she realizes just how stupid it was to walk through the woods this late.

"You think?" Kate prods.

"I mean, I kinda just started following the noise." The more she said, the stupider she felt about leaving her house in the first place. It was the middle of the night and she left her house to wander through the forest. Alone. Had her sister been alive, Laurie would be hunched over in pain, courtesy of a slap to the back of the head.

"What does your house look like?"

"It's big and old," Laurie replies with a defeated sigh, and Kate can't help but smile at her exasperated tone. There weren't a lot of houses in this part of the forest and the ones that were here all had one thing in common. They were all pretty big and quite old. "I might be able to help you find it. I can take you if you want?"

Laurie shakes her head, not wanting to inconvenience the other woman. Even though she and her loud banging were the reason Laurie was out here in the first place. "Oh no that's okay. You can just point me in the right direction and I can find my way."

Kate's smile drops a little at that suggestion. She didn't particularly like the thought of her mate walking through the forest alone. Granted, she was probably the most dangerous thing Laurie could have run into, the forest was vast, cold, and it would be extremely easy for her to get lost. That, and she knew some of her pack members liked to run through the forest at night.

"Listen, It's really late and you're new here. It's really easy to get lost."

"I don't want to be a bother." Laurie insists, surprised at how concerned the other woman was for her well-being. Maybe people were nicer here. That or she was about to be serial killed.

"You're not. Besides, I finally have a neighbor. I'd hate for you to get eaten by bears or something." Kate bites her lip to keep from laughing as the other woman's eyes widen in fear. "Bears?!"

"No, I'm just kidding." The taller woman chuckles as Laurie gifts her with a glare. "There are some wolves but they'll leave you alone," Kate says with almost absolute certainty. Knowing what she knows now, no one would hurt Laurie, she'd make sure of it.

"Wolves. I didn't know there were wolves." Laurie turns to look towards the forest and then back at the woman she just met. Kate tilts her head towards the forest, a question in her eyes. Laurie contemplates her options. Option one: Get lost and die of hypothermia or possibly get eaten by wolves. Option two: Go with the gorgeous, kind of stranger she just met and maybe get ax murdered. There wasn't an ax but Kate looked plenty strong enough to pin her to a tree or something. They were in the middle of nowhere too so no one would hear her scream.

Before Laurie's thoughts could go to other activities that would require screaming and being pinned to a tree by the attractive woman, Kate clears her throat.

"So?" Kate asks, looking at Laurie with an intensity the smaller woman had never seen, willing her to say yes. Almost as if sensing Laurie's hesitance, Kate moves closer. She was so close she could feel Laurie's warmth. Their height difference showed as Laurie was having to tilt her head up a little to be able to look at the other woman's face.

"Look, I know we just met and this is weird but I can't let anything happen to you so would you please just let me help you?" The other woman spoke with sincerity and seriousness, her blue eyes never leaving Laurie's. For some reason, Laurie trusted the woman. That and the close proximity and intense stare Kate was giving her was making her blush and feel warm all over.

Option two it is.

"Okay."

A/N: Hi to whoever's reading this! Please feel free to let me know what you think so far :)