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"Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself.”
Torben paces in front of the house. I hope I haven’t interrupted his work again.
Vane opens my door, but it’s Torben who helps me out of the car. “I’m sorry to impose at such a late hour. I should have waited for the morning?—”
“Don’t worry about a thing.” Torben’s voice grows deeper, more gravelly. His eyes lose the golden glow they were earlier. Instead, they bleach into an ice cold blue.
Torben grows and shifts before my eyes. Nothing too drastic when seen bit by bit. But the end result is nothing like what he was earlier.
Gone is any trace of humanity in his features. The brown suede-like pelt of his skin becomes a blinding white shag. His musculature strains his clothing to the point I’m convinced there’s some kind of advanced technology holding every bit of thread together.
The horns that curve over his head are more prominent this way, along with his large, swishing tail, sharp fangs, and long claws.
He looks like an absolute tank. If I were to see something like that barreling toward me in the middle of a battlefield, I’d shit myself before crying and begging for mercy.
This is what they mean when the old war stories speak of snow beasts being the white death.
Out of the corner of my eye, Vane edges his way around the far side of his truck. His gaze firmly on the snow beast in front of him. Smooth, soundless, no sudden movements…everything I’m not.
The thing is, I’m also not scared. At least not of Torben.
In fact, I kind of wish we were close enough friends that we could snuggle together.
He looks like he’d be the best snuggle buddy around.
I hold my hand out to him. “Would you mind showing me to my room?”
Torben sniffs at my proffered hand, and in a few blinks, bit by bit, he contracts back to the form he was earlier. The hand that takes mine is the soft brown I’m more familiar with. “Come. Let’s get you rested. You can tell me all about it in the morning.”
Chapter Seven
THE REASON
Torben
She did not run.
Val stood before my primal form and did not run.
In fact, she seemed to revel in it, smiling up at me even as I struggled for control.
It was that smile that soothed me back to my normal form. That let me know that she was not in immediate danger.
It is also the undeniable proof that she is my mate.
Mine.
“Would you mind showing me to my room?” she asks.
Mind? I would insist upon it. “Come. Let’s get you rested. You can tell me all about it in the morning.” I glance at the wulver. “I shall return in a moment.”
The self-appointed sheriff of Avalon Vale has much to tell me, but he’s smart enough not to in front of Val. “Take your time. I need to make a call anyway.”
I escort Val toward the cottage that would be her home for the next few weeks. I never realize how exposed the courtyard is, and how the wild underbrush can conceal hidden threats.
Nevermind that the house is suspicious of outside threats and alerts me to danger. One can never be too careful.
Val raises her face skyward when plump snowflakes glide through the air. “This place looks like a winter wonderland. Does it always snow this late in the year?”
