Just one day after being offered a place on Maple Grove, at least for during the week, Dani Barnes had accepted and been moved into a tiny one-bedroomed cottage that labored under the slightly pretentious name of Paradise Roses. She could see why it had got that name - wild roses had been trained to climb all over it, in many different hues, but it still felt a little arrogant to call a tiny little house paradise. Still, embarrassed or not, she had a few things that needed doing to make the house livable, not least of which was stocking the shelves.

Unfortunately for her, her truck decided to have a temperamental hissy fit on the way to the city, refusing to go any further than a couple of miles away from the Grove itself. Knowing better than to try and fix her truck in the gathering dark, Dani slid out and locked up, turning to walk back to the Grove. She could go hungry for one night, and maybe Mr. Granger would give her a lift to retrieve her truck in the morning.

Rhy'Din born and bred, she was fully aware that there were some highly unpleasant things in the woods that bordered the city, but she was hoping that they generally avoided the road. No such luck. She was still half a mile from the Grove when she heard the thudding echo of paws keeping pace with her, not just on one side, but on the other as well, hidden in the shadow of the trees. Panic flared, but she did her best to stay calm. Don't run, she told herself. They can't resist a runner.

He wasn't one of the things in the woods, whatever they were. He wasn't even sure what it was that had drawn him here, except for a feeling that someone was in danger. It wasn't like reading someone's thoughts or hearing them call for help, so much as a feeling of fear and urgency. There were other feelings, too. Things he'd always tried to shield himself against. Something was hunting in the woods, that he knew. Something dark and dangerous. Not evil, necessarily, but something hungry, with little regard for human life. He wasn't so much interested in killing as he was in protecting. What was the point of possessing abilities such as his if he could not put them to good use, helping those who were unable to protect themselves" It was what his mother would have wanted him to do.

Dani had moved herself into the middle of the road, her stride unconsciously quickening despite her best efforts not to give whatever it was a target to chase. There were at least two of these things shadowing her in the trees and, brave though she was, she knew that without a weapon of some kind, she was easy prey. The gates to the Grove were still too far away to reach without risking being dragged down ....but the decision was made for her as a low growl erupted from the woods to her left. Panic took over, driving her forward into a sprint as she cried out in fright.

And then, as they say, there was light. It was a strange kind of light, bright but not blinding, which seemed to be coming from somewhere in front of her, shining like a beacon in the night, guiding her forward into its safety and hopefully chasing the monsters in the dark away.

Squinting into the unexpected brightness, Dani forced herself onward, flinching as jaws snapped barely an inch from her calf. But the owner of those jaws was loath to dare the source of the light, the pack breaking off even as the girl slowed, bent double to gasp for breath in the glow.

Whoever or whatever was the source of that light didn't wait to make sure that he'd frightened the predators off, but sped forward, sweeping the girl up into his arms before the pack regrouped and before she had a chance to protest. "Hold on!" he warned as he sped onward, turning back the way he'd come, back in the direction of Maple Grove.

Breathless, Dani still managed to let out a loud scream as she was lifted off her feet, kicking her feet and flailing her arms for all she was worth. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, it seemed - so she wasn't going to be eaten, but she was apparently being kidnapped by an unidentified glowing person. That was not good.

It might have been better if he'd had time to explain that he was rescuing her, not abducting her. Hopefully, she'd recognize the path that led back to the gates of Maple Grove, but he sensed the danger that was still lurking in the darkness behind them and did not dare stop there or risk them both being attacked.

Security on the gates of the Grove apparently recognized the glowing runner as one of the family, and since he was a Granger, there was no real concern about the fact that he was bearing a screaming, kicking girl over his shoulder. The concern came about the fact that he was running, and shadows behind him were chasing.

He could have shouted for the guards to open the gates, but by that time the shadows chasing them might catch up, and abilities or no, he was only one man. "Hang on!" he shouted again to the girl. "I'm trying to save you!" he added, in hopes she would stop wriggling and realize he was not a threat.

"I can run for myself!" she yelled back at him, but her flailing did limit itself as she scowled. He could have just said that to begin with, she thought to herself, lifting her head to cast her gaze into his wake. Oh yes, those were sharp teeth all right.

"But can you jump?" he yelled back, not bothering to wait for an answer before taking an impossible leap off the ground into the air to soar over the gates that protected Maple Grove from such creatures as those in pursuit, as if those gates were nothing more than hurdles in a race.

So much for her calming down. She felt his muscles bunch as he pushed up from the ground, and screamed again, absolutely certain that they were going to crash into the ground and end up as bloody pulp instead of safe and well. When that didn't happen, and she realized he was back on the ground with her still slung over his shoulder, she started to assert herself again.

"Put. Me. Down," she protested, pushing at the shoulder beneath her diaphragm.

He did as she asked without argument or complaint, not expecting so much as a "Thank you? for helping her. It was only once he set her down that she got a clear look at him, or as clear a look as she could in the moonlight. He was tall with blond hair; green eyes shining in the moonlight - looking as human as she was, though clearly he was something more. He looked back at the gate and the growling going on beyond it. "Go on!" he called as he stepped closer, shooing them off with the wave of a hand. "Be gone with you, and do not return."

Despite her hammering heart and wild-eyed shock, Dani was in enough control of herself to recognize that one, he was no longer glowing, and two, he was handsome. Young and handsome. And he had saved her life. He hadn't been obliged to; he hadn't even been anywhere near when she'd started to run in the first place. "Who are you?"

Before he had a chance to reply, the guards at the gate answered that question for her. "Evening, Mr. Granger," one of them greeted him, almost as if what they'd just witnessed was nothing out of the ordinary. "Will you be heading back to the compound now?"

"I think so, yes," the young man replied, turning to Dani. "I'm Zachary," he told her. Zachary Granger, apparently.

Confused by the ease with which the guards accepted his presence and identified him, Dani's brows drew together as she met this Zachary's eyes. "Right," she said slowly. "Well ....thanks. But next time, I'd tell the person in advance you're on their side before you pick them up."

She hesitated, digging into her pocket to pull out her key. "Because I don't know anyone here except the people who pay me to distract their kids every afternoon," she offered a little ruefully. "And because now my mom and dad are married, they don't need me around. I guess my evenings are gonna be kinda quiet here."

Her answers didn't make much sense to him, and he shook his head in confusion. "Distract' I was told you are helping care for them," he pointed out first before moving on to address the question of her parents. "Why would your parents not need you around" Don't they love you?"

"That's why I was hired," she explained to him, smiling at his confusion as she unlocked her door. "They needed an extra pair of hands, and sometimes that means I look after the babies, but most of the time, I make up games to play with Emily and Ben. I've got the energy to wear them out, so why not pay me to do it?" She shrugged, sighing softly, automatically inviting him into her house with a single hand as she pushed inside. "And my parents ....they've been without each other for over a decade. I'm not a cute kid anymore, I'm an adult. I'm in the way."

"Have they told you this?" he asked, taking a step forward, but unsure if he should follow her inside. He had learned the hard way not to make assumptions where other people's feelings were concerned. He had also learned to keep his a lid on his abilities where other people's thoughts and feelings were concerned unless, like tonight, in the case of dire necessity.

"No," she conceded, pausing as she glanced back at him. "Well, come in if you're coming, I'm not chatting on the doorstep." She shucked out of her jacket, heading for her kitchen to have another rummage in the hope that there'd be more than ancient tea bags in the cupboards. "They don't need to tell me. I see the way they look at each other, and I know that their lives will be easier if I'm away from them and they think I'm happy in my life. It's a small price to pay."

"And are you?" he asked, as he followed her inside. She had invited him, after all, and what else did he have to do' He had no friends, and like her, he was old enough that it was unlikely anyone would worry or come looking for him. "Happy, I mean."

"No." It was an odd contrast to hear the word and see the bright smile that covered her face as she said it, aware of the strangeness in confessing that to someone she knew nothing about. "I'm scared, mostly. Alone in the world for the first time. But it's all about growing up, isn't it' Can't lean on my mom forever."

"I was scared, too, when I first arrived here," he confessed, though as yet, she knew nothing about him, aside from his name. "My mother used to tell me that if life was too easy, it would be boring."

"That's what scares me, though," she admitted reluctantly. "So far, it's all been really easy. What am I going to do when it gets hard" I nearly got myself eaten tonight because I didn't want to bother anyone by calling from my truck."

"You are not alone, Dani," he pointed out. Though he didn't really know her very well, he now knew enough about her to make that judgment. "Here, at Maple Grove, we are a family. All of us, together. We help each other. We look out for each other. There are some living here who are not of our bloodline, but they are still family. And beyond Maple Grove, you have family who loves you. Why must you insist on being alone, on doing things alone, when there are so many around you who are willing to help?"

For the first time, her expression grew guarded. "Because people who help usually want something, and I don't have anything left to give," she said warily. "Nothing I'd give in payment, anyway."

"Do you think I helped you because I want something from you? Because I expect something from you?" he asked, looking a little indignant, hurt even, that she might think such a thing of him, though he reminded himself again that she didn't know him.

"That isn't the kind of help we were talking about," she said sternly. "If you're going to take offense, then you can just go, because I don't open up to strangers and then let them scold me over a misunderstanding."

"I only want to understand," he told her. For the first time in a long time, he opened his heart, opened something inside him that reached out to her without her knowing it, to feel what she was feeling, to try and understand. It was different from the feelings of fear he'd sensed from her before. That had come to him without his even trying, like a cry for help in the night. This was different, but if she truly wanted him to leave, he would abide by her wishes.

If she truly wanted him to leave, Dani was more than capable of making it very clear to him. "It's hard to explain," she said quietly, leaning her hands against the kitchen counter, looking down at the marbled surface. "People who paid for my tuition wanted something from my mom in return for it; people who helped me get the textbooks I needed wanted paying for helping me out. I learned a long time ago that help doesn't come without a price."

"And what happened to those people?" he asked further, sensing there was more to the story than what she was telling him.

"They got what they wanted," she said, her tone just a little flat. "They got to look down on me, and on my mom, and they got to order us around just because they thought they were better than us. But we needed their help, so we let them. I don't ever want to do that again."

Even after six months on Rhy'Din, he still didn't know everything there was to know about the place or its people, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what someone might have wanted from her mother. "But where are they now" These people?" he asked, a little confused.

"Oh, I have no idea," she admitted with a shrug. "Some of them still hanging onto their Daddy's wallet until they manage to catch themselves a rich husband. Mom's last nightmare got a bullet to the brain last summer - richly deserved, I might add. They're not around us anymore. But ....Well, the lesson was learned."

"A bullet?" Zach echoed. That sounded serious. No, more than serious. She was obviously angry about all this, but he didn't completely understand the situation and was starting to wonder if he really wanted to know.

"Bad man got shot for being a bad man," she simplified - possibly a little too much, but Zach seemed to be struggling to understand that just because a problem was gone, that didn't mean it hadn't left echoes behind. She laid a hand against her hip. "I wish I could offer you something," she sighed, glancing around her kitchen. "I can probably do you a glass of water, but that's about it right now. Just have to hope my truck isn't permanently dead."

It wasn't so much that he was having trouble understanding the problem, which seemed to be resolved, as he was the situation, but he didn't want to get be too nosy. He could have read her thoughts, but that wasn't something he wanted to do without her knowledge or permission either. "I'm okay. I should probably be going anyway before someone starts looking for me," he said, though that was hardly likely.