AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You were sure of yourself, huh?” Clara said.
“I just knew that you couldn’t resist my boyish charm,” Dillon replied.
23
Clara
Dillon was quiet during the hike to the picnic spot. Clara tried talking to him a couple of times but got one-word answers.
They got to a clearing in the woods. The floor was grassy, and it was surrounded by tall trees that provided shade from the penetrating sun.
“This is beautiful,” Clara said.
“I like to come here sometimes just to relax and think,” Dillon said.
Clara asked Dillon a question, and Dillon didn’t answer. She repeated it, and he said, “What?”
“What is up?” Clara asked. “You seem to be very distracted.”
“I’m fine,” Dillon said. “I guess that I’m just tired.”
“No, it’s more than that,” Clara insisted.
Dillon sighed and said, “I guess I’m a little preoccupied. A couple of shifters were visiting Ivy Springs. They decided to come up here on the mountain and apparently, they shifted. Now, they are missing. Their clothes have been found and there was some blood found on a rock.”
“Oh, no,” Clara said.
“The parents had called the ranger. He is a regular human. From what I understand, he just blew it off as them getting lost. He called in the search and rescue, but there is no sign of them.”
“Is the ranger a hunter?” Clara asked. “Could he have had something to do with the couple’s disappearance?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Dillon said. “He just doesn’t take the legend about the war very seriously. A lot of people don’t. Really, I think that it’s only the shifters, the Faisons, and the hunters who think that there is any merit behind the war. Everyone knows about it, of course, but they just think that it is folklore. Most people believe that the legend is just a way for the Faisons to earn money.”
“Does the portal to the shifter world really exist?” she asks.
“Yes, it does,” Dillon replied.
“Do shifters who live in different parts of the human world know about it and know where it is?”
“Some do and some don’t. I have no idea who knows about it and knows the location,” he says. “But every once in a while, someone from a different part of the country shows up and wants to enter the shifter world,” Dillon said.
“This is still very hard for me to process,” Clara said. “I’ve seen you and Charlie shift, but I still struggle with all of this.”
“I can understand that it is a shock,” Dillon said.
They fell into a comfortable silence for a few minutes, and then Dillon leaned over and kissed Clara.
The kiss was sweet and gentle. It was different from the passionate kisses that had taken her breath away.
“I guess we had better get you back down the mountain so that you can go get Zeke,” Dillon said.
Clara looked around her as they walked back down and shuddered. The sunlight streaming through the trees and the happy chirping of the birds were in direct contrast to the idea that evil hunters, who liked to kill people for pleasure and simply because the people were different, were lurking about. She wondered if they were being watched as they hiked down the mountain.
She stopped by the house to pick up Reno who greeted her happily at the door. She picked him up, cuddled him, and asked, “Are you ready to go get Zeke?”
The puppy yapped once in response.
During the trip to Colorado Springs, Clara’s mind traveled back and forth from the war going on in Ivy Springs to dealing with John. Both of these issues stressed her out. At one point, she discovered that she was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white.
