Rejected Mail-Order Bride is Rescued by a Lonely Sheriff – She Has No Idea He’s a Shifter

Chapter 9

What followed, Margaret would live again every night for the rest of her life — the running, the branches lashing her face, the fall that twisted her ankle, and then the coyotes, three of them, ribs shining through thin fur, circling with the patience of hunger.

She had raised a dead branch and prayed.

And the wolf had come.

He had scattered them the way a storm scatters leaves, blood darkening his silver coat, and when the pack broke and fled, he turned to her and staggered and went down on his forelegs in the snow.

She had led his horse to him. She had dressed him as best she could, heaved him over the saddle, and walked him home through the back alleys of a town that had to stay asleep. She had cleaned his wounds with whiskey and linen until her hands stopped shaking, and she had sat beside him while the fever burned through him, and she had watched the eastern sky go gray.

When his eyes opened, the first thing he said was, “You should have run.”

“You saved my life.”

“You saw what I am.” His voice was rough, raw. “No one survives seeing what I am and stays.”

“Then I’m already a ghost,” Margaret said, “because I’m not leaving.”

He stared at her. Something in his face cracked open, and she watched him decide — the terrible, hopeful decision of a man who has spent his life trusting no one.

“I was eleven,” he said. “A trapper took me in for the extra hands. I don’t know my parents. That first winter, the change came on without warning. I woke up covered in blood, and the man who’d sheltered me was dead.” His jaw tightened. “My bite is fatal to humans. I didn’t know. I couldn’t control it.”

“Gideon—”

“Five years ago, a hunter came to Wolf Hollow. Ephraim Holt. He knew what I was before I knew he’d found me. Followed me into the forest one night. I tried — God, I tried not to—” He touched his side, where a thin silver scar ran along his ribs. “He got me with this first. In the struggle, I caught his arm. A scratch. It was enough.”

He was silent a moment. “I carried him home and told the town a wild animal had attacked us both. I wasn’t even lying.”

“Then who is Marcus Vane?”

“Holt’s partner.” The name came out like a curse. “He returned to town days later, found his friend dead and me spinning stories about wolf attacks. He’s been hunting me ever since. And he uses anyone he can — anyone desperate enough to believe him.”

“Henry.” Margaret’s voice was barely a breath. “He hired Henry.”

“He filled your brother’s head with stories of monsters hiding among honest folk. Henry followed me. He saw what I become.” Gideon’s hands fisted in the blanket. “Unlike Holt, he didn’t confront me. He broke into the assayer’s office and stole silver to make bullets.”

Margaret closed her eyes. “The theft. The official record.”

“The charge was legitimate,” Gideon said quietly. “But I kept him imprisoned longer than the crime warranted. I had him transferred to the territorial prison — to keep him from spreading what he knew.” He met her eyes. “I was afraid, Margaret. Afraid of what would happen if this town learned what walks among them. They took me in when I had nothing. They made me theirs. And I repaid them by lying to their faces every single day.”

“Because you loved them,” she said. “Because you were protecting them.”

“Because I was a coward.”

“No.” She took his hand, and he flinched like she’d touched a wound. “You are a man who has spent his whole life alone out of fear of hurting the people he loves. That’s not cowardice, Gideon. That’s the most lonely thing I’ve ever heard.”

He stared at their joined hands. “No one has ever known what I am,” he said, “and not tried to kill me.”

“I know what you are.” She lifted his hand to her cheek. “Do you fear me too?”

“I should.” His voice broke. “But instead I find myself hoping. Hoping for things I’ve never dared—” He stopped, and when he spoke again it was barely a whisper. “The wolf has known you since the moment you stepped off that train. It knows your heartbeat. It circles the boarding house at night just to be near you. And I—” He swallowed. “I want you in ways I have never wanted another living soul. Not merely as a man desires a woman. I want your voice in these walls. I want to lay down the burdens I have carried alone since I was a child.”

“You’re not fully human,” he added, bitter. “My bite kills. What kind of life could I offer you?”

“That should be my choice.” She leaned forward and kissed him — not with hunger, but with understanding. With acceptance. “I came here for Henry,” she whispered against his mouth. “But I stayed for you.”

He made a sound like a man drowning, and pulled her close.

And through the thin walls of the cabin, neither of them heard the horse coming up the road.

The door slammed open.

Marcus Vane stood in the doorway, a gun in his hand — and in the other, the collar of a small, terrified girl with two braids.

“Good morning, Sheriff,” Vane said pleasantly. “I believe it’s time the town met your true self.”