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Chapter Thirteen
Ash
The next morning,Ash woke up with long hair in his face. That was usual, except this hair smelled distinctly feminine, like its owner used strawberry shampoo, which Hunter certainly didn’t.
Then Cora moved slightly in his arms, her curves soft against his body, and the night before came flooding back to him.
He grinned and sank his nose further into her hair.
* * *
Ash wasthe first one up, which wasn’t unusual. Hunter wasn’t a late sleeper, but he did value his time in bed a little more than his mate, who considered sunrise a perfectly valid starting point for his day.
It was all right. He didn’t mind having the time to make coffee and have some time to himself. Of course, this morning, he was mostly thinking about the night before.
About an hour later, he could hear Hunter and Cora talking as they descended the stairs, Hunter wearing pajama pants and no shirt, Cora in one of Hunter’s old t-shirts, which fell just above her knees.
Guiltily, Ash remembered tearing her skirt off of her the night before.
Oops.
“Who wants coffee and pancakes?” he asked.
“Me,” said Cora, obviously still a little sleepy.
“Anything from the creep?” Hunter asked.
Ash shook his head. The first thing he’d done, as soon as he’d woken up, had been to patrol the perimeter of the cabin, both outside and inside, but there hadn’t been anything. Not a scent, not a hair, not the faintest clue that Neil had been anywhere near the house.
Instead of making him feel better, it made him feel worse. He knew exactly how to deal with someone who tried to hurt Cora, but what about when someone refused to even show themselves?
How was he supposed to deal with that?
“Maybe he wants us to let our guard down,” Hunter said.
“Or maybe he’s just going to keep sending me these weird notes and pictures and never actually try anything,” said Cora, opening the fridge and taking out some orange juice. “Is it cool if I have this?”
“Sure,” said Ash.
“If that’s all he’s going to do, we need to figure out how to prosecute him for it,” Hunter said, sitting at the table with his coffee. “It’s at least harassment, right?”
We could prosecute by ripping his throat out, Ash thought.
“Harassment won’t get him much more than probation,” he said out loud. He poured some of the pancake batter he’d made earlier onto a griddle. “The law isn’t really set up to prevent crimes like this from happening, just to punish the ones that do.”
“Let’s talk about this after breakfast,” interjected Cora. “I’m safe for now, right?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely.”
Ash flipped the pancakes, and he could hear his own stomach growl.
“Tell me about the cabin,” she said. “Did you two build it?”
As they ate, Ash told her all about his grandparents.
* * *
