I ground my teeth, fighting the urge to look anywhere but at her. I glanced again at the deer I could just see through the window. My gut twisted with fear. “Everyone in town’s… unavailable.” The word felt bitter on my tongue. I didn’t want to resent them for their inability to help when they might be in need themselves, but I felt angry anyway. “The sheriff, the deputy—even Liz—they’re all busy with something big in town. No one’s coming. You’re stuck with me a little longer.”
The dread in my voice was too obvious, even to my own ears. Her brows lifted in surprise, her voice gentle. “Is that… a problem?” At least she didn’t sound hurt, that was something. I didn’t wanther to feel like I was rejecting her, silly as that was, but I’d killed last night, and that could have been her.
My gaze betrayed me. It dragged to the window—past her—to the deer in the snow: ice-clear, delicate, frozen in a moment of fear forever. My chest squeezed so tightly, it felt like I was breaking in two. “Yes,” I snapped, before I could stop myself.
She startled, blinking up at me, and I hated the look of shock in her eyes. Hated that I’d put it there. My throat closed, my words rough as gravel when I forced them out. “It’s not you. That’s on me. I’m not safe to be around.” That was as much as I could give her—more than I was willing to admit out loud. The shame of my failure was too strong, backed by centuries of ridicule from my own kind. My family had shunned me, kicked me out; I was a laughingstock. They didn’t even care that my power was deadly, just that I couldn’t control it.
I shoved her phone toward her on the counter. It buzzed faintly, the screen flickering to life as the charge took hold. She understood the dismissal, her lips pressing tight, and turned her attention to the phone in her hands. Her fingers moved quickly as she unlocked it and scrolled to a number to dial. I could see there were dozens of missed notifications, but she ignored them.
I should’ve walked away when she started the call; given her privacy. That would have been the decent thing to do. But she’d listened to my calls. She hadn’t pretended not to hear, that made it fair game, didn’t it? And gods help me, I wanted to know more. Like a glutton for punishment, I wanted to know everything about her.
It connected instantly, and a woman’s voice all but burst through—loud, frantic—words tumbling over themselves in relief. I didn’t have to guess to know who that would be: her mother. “Mamma, I’m fine,” Bianca rushed to reassure her, her voice warm, soothing. “No, no, really, I promise. I found shelter—yes, yes, I’m inside, safe.”
She talked fast, almost too fast, as if she could outpace her mother’s panic. Her free hand moved as much as her lips did—fluttering, shaping words, cutting the air, as if she could sculpt her meaning with her fingers. When she laughed, it was breathless—a nervous little trill—and her hands went to her hair, brushing it back before flicking wide again, as if to underline her sentences.
I leaned against the counter, arms crossed tight to keep them still, watching her in the glow of the morning light. She looked alive in a way I never had, light poured into a body too small to contain it. I knew, as sure as I knew the cold in my bones, that she’d never be safe with me, and I wanted to keep her anyway.
At first, I only half-listened, letting her voice wash over me while I pretended to busy myself at the counter. Then something shifted in her tone—her warmth cooled, and her laughter stuttered into silence. My head lifted, ears sharpening on the words bleeding through the tiny speaker.
“Mamma, slow down. What do you mean, investigation?” Bianca’s voice was tight now, trembling at the edges. The other voice—her mother’s—was harder to catch, but clear enough to my sharper hearing. She was saying things about the police, a massive Search and Rescue operation. It did not surprise me that rescue teams were already out combing the hills for Bianca,but this wasn’t just about her, it seemed. The name Kevin dropped several times. I straightened, every nerve awake.
Bianca’s lips parted, her eyes wide, glossing with something that might be tears. I wanted to hiss in anger that she might be upset about another man, but she had a kind heart, so there was no need for jealousy. I had no right to that kind of feeling anyway. “He didn’t…come back?” she whispered, echoing her mother’s words. A pause, then, sharper: “No, I don’t know where...” Her hand pressed to her forehead as she paced in a small circle on my rug. “Yes, I’ll stay put. I promise.”
The call ended abruptly, her shoulders slumping under the silence that followed. She lowered the phone slowly, as if it had turned into something heavy. When she finally looked at me, her expression was grim, horrified. “Kevin’s missing.” The words were brittle, like glass. “The idiot. He took off on that snowmobile and… he never came back.” I had not been there, but I could vividly picture what it had done to Bianca to see the bastard drive off and abandon her—possibly to certain death—though from the sound of it, that had not been his intention.
She had clearly known this man for some time, though, and she cared about his fate. Swallowing roughly, her voice rose in pitch. “We have to—” She bit her tongue, cutting herself short. Color rose in her cheeks, not from warmth, but embarrassment this time. “Sorry. That’s… that’s not your problem. I’ve already imposed too much on you. I’ll wait here until someone can come get me, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
Her attempt at a polite smile was worse than any frown: too thin, too sad. In the hollowness of her voice, I heard something else—she didn’t want to go. Not really. My chest lurched, a surge of something hot and wild cracking through the ice in my veins—joy.
That feeling was as ridiculous as it was dangerous, but I couldn’t hide it from myself. If she had to stay put for now anyway, the least I could do was ease her mind, couldn’t I? I forced my voice to be steady and low when I said, “We’ll search for him.” Maybe those manners were starting to come back to me at last. Yeah, okay, I was a danger to her and others, but the storm had passed. I should help while I could.
Her head snapped up, blue eyes wide and startled in her pale face. Pink began to glow again in her cheeks, this time definitely a blush of pleasure. Relief, bright and obvious. “After we eat,” I continued, as if the decision were already carved into stone. “And dress properly. It might look clear now, but it’s still freezing hard out there.”
Her lips parted, a soft sound of surprise escaping her throat. She blinked, almost disbelieving, then nodded once, small and hesitant. I turned away before she could see how much that tiny nod unraveled me.
Chapter 9
Bianca
The shower had been bliss, hot water sluicing away the last memories of being cold and fearing worse. The water even made me forget, just for a moment, that Kevin might not have been as lucky as I had been. I felt scrubbed clean, renewed when I stepped out of the large shower stall and dried myself.
Ísarr had also left clothes for me to put on, and I was pretty grateful for some clean things to change into, even if they were too large. Wrapped now in a flannel shirt and thick sweater, I felt cozy and comfortable. They drowned me, the sleeves falling past my wrists, but they were warm, and worse, they smelled like him. Pine, a bit of smoke from the wood stove, frost, and something sharp I couldn’t name. Every time I moved, the scent rose up to tease me, a reminder of whose clothes I wore. And I liked it, so much.
Horns, bluish skin, that perpetual scowl—none of it mattered. I couldn’t fight how drawn I was to him. If anything, all those strange edges only made him more magnetic, more impossible to ignore. I mean, the guy was a real, honest-to-God dragon in his spare time. I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around the fact that I’d just walked onto the porch this morning and discovered him napping in the yard like that. It was... surreal, a little terrifying, but he was so nice beneath the gruff that it was hard not to like him.
While I was showering, he’d made bacon and eggs. The plate waited for me on the counter, still warm, and I wolfed it down,pretending not to notice how it tasted better than any breakfast I could remember. I dug in hungrily while he slipped away for his own shower, but the plate was so full I wasn’t even halfway through by the time he got back. Blue hair lay damp against his neck, his skin still steaming, and his chest deliciously shirtless. I couldn’t help but stare—ogle, actually—as he strode from his bathroom to his bedroom to grab a fresh shirt.
Stacked with tight muscle, he was impressive as hell, and definitely, very much not human. Not only did his skin look blue, but his shoulders and arms held the faintest hints of snowflakes, like he’d gotten lightly dusted by snowfall on his way home, naked. It was very sexy and very exotic. That whole dragon thing was definitely growing on me. I was very glad he had his head turned and could not see me stare.
Selfishly, I was just as glad that the roads were so bad I couldn’t leave yet. Though privately, I had to wonder—since he was a dragon, couldn’t he fly? Not that I’d make that suggestion and cut my time short out here. I was finally having a real adventure, the type I’d always dreamed of as a young girl. Although, perhaps, my fantasies now were turning a bit more steamy than younger me would have expected.
It tied my belly into knots when we silently headed for his front door, and he fussed over extra scarves and hats for me. There was a basket on a shelf that he pulled all kinds of woolen things from, and I was grateful to tuck his bigger black cap over my self-made pink one. I tried not to read into things too much when his eyes lingered on my mouth and his calloused thumb brushed along the edge of my cheek. I definitely wanted to believe he was flirting, just a little, though.
I needed the extra scarf he’d pulled around the lower half of my face. It was windy outside, and the air was cold, colder than it had been early this morning, it felt like. Maybe I’d just been far too distracted by the massive dragon I thought might have been snow art at first. There was still a huge impression in the front yard, with randomly collapsed piles of snow and a section of tail still almost entirely intact. It was more evidence that what I’d seen was real. A dragon, a real dragon.
My eyes went to his face, to the frown that furrowed his brow as he stared at the piles of snow himself. He had not put on a hat, but he’d taken the ridiculous hard hat from somewhere and hooked it to his belt. Now I could see the truth: he’d slammed his horns through the plastic to make the ‘disguise.’ His neck was also bare above his coat, but I had a feeling the cold didn’t bother him at all. His blue hair lay azure-bright against his neck and shoulders in gently curling strands.
“Let’s go,” he grunted, and leaped off the porch. Then he halted abruptly, turned back to me, and held out a hand. My belly definitely did a happy dance then. My fingers tingled through my gloves as I slid my hand into his and let him help me down the slippery steps. Then I was knee-deep in snow, and we set off.
