She raised her head, her posture changing from defeated to determined. Her feet were planted shoulder-width apart, pointed toward me. Sheexpected me to run. I promised myself I wouldn’t. Whatever she was going to tell me was going to irrevocably change us, but I was prepared.
“Magic exists, Shana,” she said simply.
“I know,” I answered, relieved that was all she had to say.
Her eyes widened. “You do?”
I smiled. “Did you think I could have traveled as far as I have and not run across it? Believe in ghosts I’ve seen with my own two eyes since we were young? Of course magic exists.”
She huffed a laugh. “Okay, true. Well, it’ll be best if I just show you, then.”
“Show me what? Are you a witch?” I playfully replied.
She started stripping down, and my confusion ratcheted up a notch. It was freezing cold, and I was terrified of her catching frostbite.
From one moment to the next, she went from a human to a large wolf. I couldn’t tell what color her coat was due to the lack of light. I thought I was going to pass out. Not from fright, but from excitement. I always wondered if shifters existed. Charlie was a werewolf. What was this life?
She took a step toward me, and I took that as a sign to get closer to her. I fell to my knees, petting her neck. Her temperature had changed with her shift. Her fur was incredibly soft, her coat thick. She nuzzled into me, and I wrapped my arms around her tight. We stayed like that for long moments until the snow finally got to be too much for me.
“You’re beautiful, Charlie. I need to know everything,” I said as I stood up. I grabbed her clothes off the ground, and we padded back to the house.
By the time we reached the house, she was bipedal, but in a sort of human-wolf hybrid form. As I opened the door, she was back to her beautiful, naked self.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“For what?” I asked.
“For not freaking out. I thought you were going to run for the hills, and I was trying to prepare my instincts not to chase.”
I laughed as I handed her clothes back to her. “I’ll let you chase me any day,gioia.”
“Oh,mon coeur, does that mean you want to try this again?” Her voice was hopeful, but small, and I never wanted her to feel small again.
I echoed the sentiment I’d thought earlier in the day. “I thought I could live without you. I was so wrong. You’re stuck with me.”
She smiled. “Wait until I show you the worlds. Get ready for an entirely different landscape photography experience.”
I scrunched my brows. “Worlds? As in plural?”
Instead of answering, Charlie pulled me into another breath-stealing kiss.
CHAPTER 01: DEVON
“Hey, Devon, when’s that thing you’re doing again…Devon?” My eyes snapped over to my friend Matt, sitting on the bench beside me while we finished our coffee from the hotel lobby. He’d caught me staring again. It wasn’t the first time that weekend, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
“Huh?” was all I managed to say. He grinned knowingly as his eyes slid over to where I’d been looking. The hot guy I’d been ogling was walking away. He wasn’t the only one I’d checked out that weekend, but he was definitely the one I’d looked at the most. The jawline beneath his trimmed beard was perfectly sculpted, his smile would light up the dark, and his muscles rippled under the casual shirts he wore without even a flex. And his ass…
“Yeah, you’ve definitely got to get back out there, Dev,” Matt said with a laugh. “You better not back out on this. You look thirsty as hell.”
I looked away from Matt but refused to look back at the guy, feeling a blush heat my cheeks. The hotel we were in was nice, and not somewhere either of us would have been staying if we weren’t contracted to do the electrical on the new wing. The lobby was open to the top of the building, with balconies circling it up the entire fifteen floors. There were boutique shops, a couple of restaurants, and a bar on the first floor, with an elaborate staircase leading to the second, where even more amenities and the start of the guest rooms were. It seemed a little excessive, but it was nice to stay there.
I liked travelling for work. The jobs always paid well and I got to see new places. I hadn’t travelled a lot growing up, so it was all new to me. The hotel we were in was only about two hours away from home, but being there at the same time as a firefighter convention? Well, that might not have meant anything to Matt, but it certainly wasn’t harming me. Besides maybe getting distracted too often.
I finally looked back at Matt. He was holding his phone up with a grin, the ad he’d talked me into replying to when we were both drunk was pulled up and taunting me.Wanted: Queer individuals interested in stranger sessions.Underneath the picture of a camera and a little info was the nameSadie’s Strangers.
“You know, I don’t know if-” I started.
“Oh, hell, no!” he cut me off, “You already signed up. This poor…Sadiehas everything all set up by now. Isn’t it this weekend? You can’t just back out, Devon.”
