Page 19 of Her Wicker Guardian

The air catches halfway into my lungs.

Shannon moves to stand beside me, and he turns toward her. Blair sets her cup on the ground, and his eyes track it. Janet makes a small noise, and he looks at her next. Every sound draws him.

He takes one step backward, then another.

“Everybody stay where you are,” Laura murmurs.

Her calm hospital-HR voice works on us even if it doesn’t work on him. None of us moves. His shoulders have gone rigid, the green fronds along them drawn close, and he keeps putting more distance between himself and every sudden sound we make.

My breathing slows. Whatever else he is, he doesn’t seem to be a threat.

“Don’t crowd him.”

“I have no intention of crowding him,” Shannon says.

Janet’s gaze drops for half a second before snapping back to his face. “Oh.”

Blair looks at her. “What?”

Janet gestures vaguely downward. “He’s…”

Blair follows the gesture and blinks. “Ah.”

It takes me another second.

He’s naked.

There’s recognizably male anatomy between his legs, surprisingly unobtrusive at rest on a body his size, formed from a compact weave of fine willow. A soft patch of green moss grows where a human man would have pubic hair. I stare a second longer than I mean to, because apparently the fire didn’t just rearrange a bear into something vaguely human. Whatever happened, it made all of him. And he’s undoubtedly male.

This is probably not our most urgent problem.

“We should cover him,” Laura says.

I glance down at the gray sweatshirt I pulled on after sunset. It’s old, soft from too many washes, and big enough that the sleeves reach halfway over my hands.

“I’ve got one.”

I unzip it and shrug out of it.

The man watches as I hold it where he can see. “This is for you.”

His eyes drop to the fabric. Words may mean nothing to him, so I point to the sweatshirt and then to my waist. I tie the sleeves around my hips, undo them, and hold it out again.

He waits before reaching.

His hand is much larger than mine, with long articulated fingers made from finer willow. His fingers miss mine by less than an inch as he takes the sweatshirt.

The breath I’m pulling in stops halfway.

For another second my hand stays where it is, empty now, while his closes around something that was against my body a moment ago. He studies the fabric, sniffs it, glances at my waist, then wraps the sweatshirt around himself and ties the sleeves at the side the way I showed him.

I’d already started preparing myself to demonstrate again. I don’t have to.

Shannon exhales. “He understood you.”

Janet looks at my bare arms. “I have an extra sweatshirt if you want.”

“I’m okay,” I tell her.