"Nothing." Sebastian batted his eyelashes.
She shooed us from the kitchen with a dish towelprimed to whip at our backsides. The movement was maternal and completely foreign to me. My mother wouldn't have cared enough to inquire about my plans for the day.
"Have fun," she called as we ran through the dining room. The laughter in her voice mostly kept it from sounding like a threat, though the undercurrent of, "Or else," pushed me to run a little faster.
"One-hundred and one." Sebastian whistled. "I know some centenarians, but they're all in some sort of assisted living. They're not cooking meals at a ski resort."
I didn't know anyone who had lived that long. It made me think about my dad's family, which always made me twitchy. Did they know about me and my siblings?
Now, another question crept into my consciousness. Were they wolves like me?
I tucked my hat and gloves into my coat pocket for the first part of our hike. I couldn't see his eyebrows through his ski mask, but I could feel Sebastian frowning at me.
"What?" I asked.
"It's ten degrees out here."
"The sun is warm."
He snorted as we turned onto the path that led into the woods and higher elevations. "Whatever."
I couldn't explain it. I'd expected to be miserable, same as I had been at Colorado's higher elevations during the winter, but the longer we stayed at the resort, the more I liked our walks in nature. The scents and sounds were all so interesting.
It was still frigid in the shade, though. After less than a minute of sidestepping branches and walking through clouds of exhaled mist, I'd had enough.
Sebastian laughed when he saw me in my stocking hat and gloves. "I feel a little better now."
"You feel it too, right? The cold doesn't affect me as much as it did before." I tucked my hands into my coat pockets more to give me something to do than to keep them warm.
"Before we became wolves?" His coat rustled as he shrugged. "Maybe. It's still cold, though."
"That's because you grew up in Hawaii," I teased.
"Not always."The first time I'd heard his voice in my head when we weren't wolves, it had freaked me the fuck out. Now, it was commonplace while we walked.
Intrigued, I said,"Tell me more."
He shared stories of the summer before his mom's illness, and how everything changed afterward."She got sick, but I got better. My asthma and allergies disappeared almost overnight. She lost weight, and I gained it. He noticed, but he didn't say anything."
"He, your father? Or Dr. Bunting?"
"My father."The hair at my nape bristled. I considered myself a good judge of character, but I'd been wrong about Ivan Paska."Dr. Bunting wasn't around back then."
"I'm really sorry."Through the invisible phone line connecting our minds, I shoved my regret for the mom joke I'd made on the space station toward Sebastian. I didn't know if it worked that way, or how it worked, exactly.
One moment, Sebastian hiked a few meters aboveme, and the next, he stumbled back down the trail. We collided, and he wrapped me in his arms, burying my face in his puffy coat.
"I don't know what you just did," he said, "but thank you."
"I'm sorry," I whispered against his chest. "I know you loved her."
"You don't love your mom?"
"It's … complicated." She gave me life. I loved her the same way I loved all my foster parents. They fed me, clothed me, and kept a roof over my head. They kept me alive, and I was grateful, but the moment I left their sight, they forgot all about me.
One day, Sebastian would do the same. Pain lanced through my chest. When had my feelings for him become this strong? The thought of him returning to his fancy life in Hawaii while I went back to Colorado filled me with dread.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
