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“I didn’t need any help,” I say stubbornly, hoping he can’t read the trembling lies in that statement.
I don’t want him to think I’m an easy target. First the shifters, and now him. I don’t know what he wants, but whatever it is, he won’t get it. I’ll fight him til the last breath in my body.
“Didn’t seem like it,” he corrects me.
“This happens often,” I say boldly, raising my voice a little, to make him believe that despite what he thinks, I had the entire situation under control. “They know what line they shouldn’t cross.”
That was exactly what I’d been afraid of tonight, that they would cross that very line and something terrible might happen. Him appearing was truly a God send, but I would rather die than tell a perfect stranger that.
“Are you sure?” he asks, tilting his head a little to the side, as if to take a closer, more intimate look at me and decide on something he’s not willing to divulge. His eyes are looking at me as if I’m dessert.
“Yes,” I snap. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to town.”
“You live there?” he is quick to ask.
I face him, keeping a safe distance. You never know.
“What if I do?” I ask back.
“You’re not a shifter,” he points out something we both know.
“How can you tell?” I ask, shocked.
Not even shifters can tell if someone else is a shifter or not just by looking at them. It takes more to know. Much more.
“I can tell a lot about you, just by looking at you,” he tells me, as if reading my mind.
This is where I’m sure that I need to go back. Gala and her pack of wolves are gone, but that doesn’t mean that I’m safe. This guy is another kind of danger. A threat. I need to get back. Right now.
I take a trembling step back.
“I really have to get back,” I tell him. “Someone will be looking for me.”
“Yes,” he nods, smirking at me.
I can see his scar more clearly now. Curiosity takes over me. I want to get closer to him, take a closer look, but I don’t dare diminish the safe distance that is between us. He can’t reach out for me from here. But if I get closer to him, I don’t dare think what might happen.
The story of his scar has to be mind-blowing. I’ve never seen anyone with something like that on his face. Yet, it doesn’t seem to diminish his wild beauty. In fact, it only makes it more striking.
Once again, I feel like my mind is an open book to him. Instead of me coming closer to him, he nears me. There is a scent about him that fills my nostrils to the brim. Earthy, musky. He smells like the woods, wild and ferocious. More dangerous than anything I’ve ever encountered before.
Then, why can’t I run away? What is keeping me frozen in this place, just waiting for him to devour me?
He is so close now that our noses are almost touching. I can feel his hot breath on my lips. It is spilling over me, tempting me to do… something. But what? I dare not act on any of the impulses, desires that he awakens inside of me.
Using the last morsels of common sense I have left, I manage to fight off his magic, and I pull back. He grins at this superhuman effort.
“Go back home, sweet human,” he murmurs so softly, that it sounds like a playful growl. The same kind that frightened Gala and her pack away.
I take another step back, feeling more bold. Maybe he’s a shifter from another town, come for an unannounced visit. I’ll talk to the leader about him. He’ll know.
“It’s late,” I say, as if my excuse to leave matters at all. He is still grinning.
I turn around and start running back to town, back through the beaten paths that I’ve taken so many times before, and yet now, they seem like a whole new path altogether.
I keep running until I am breathless, until I know that man’s grin isn’t following me anymore. When I finally stop, I see the outlines of the town, the houses, the street lights. It is a sight I know, a sight I recognize.
But, if that is so… then why does this path back still seem new and undiscovered?
