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It was possible I’d told him when I was down for the count. I had a nasty habit of babbling in my sleep. My old roommate used to love to film it and post it online. Not exactly how I’d wanted to go viral but that wasn’t important right now.
“I’m Lars.”
“Lars?” It sounded familiar, but my brain was still busy processing the surroundings and the company to recall it.
His eyes darkened with disappointment. “I work onThe Mating Gamesecurity crew.”
“Right! Lars.” I’d only seen Lars a handful of times, since my episode had yet to film, but I’d been assured that security was watching over me. When I’d seen him in the past, he was usually with Hugo, the wolf that Bibi refused to admit was her boyfriend—to add to the regularly scheduled drama of the show.
And Lars had been much more human than he was right now.
I needed to say something more than that. Awkward. He saved my life.
“You look…different.” Ugh. No, that wasn’t it either. “I didn’t recognize you.”
Now it was all coming back to me. Every other time I’d seen Lars, he was tall, lean, with shaggy hair and a beard, but it wasn’t thick and full like it was now. Much more human. Don’t get me wrong, I was never disappointed when he showed up at HQ. Almost everyone who worked for the show was a shifter. I had always assumed Lars was a shifter too. Until now, I had no idea what Lars shifted into. Usually, that information was shared right away, but with him, it hadn’t been. Since I was new to the show and I’d been trying to play things cool, I had been too embarrassed to ask.
It was time to get over that right now.
He sat up, and were those…muscles under all that fur?
Of course they were. He was a powerful creature, and he’d felt pretty solid when he’d been cuddled up beside me. I could always run my hands over that soft fur to find out...
The muscles between my thighs pulsed at the thought.
Was it still called Stockholm Syndrome when the captee threw herself at her captor?
“I stay this way all winter,” he explained, running his hands over the fur on his chest. In the middle of it, there were hints of the same leathery tan skin that covered his face. “I can’t shift back to my human form until after the last frost of the spring.”
Which wouldn’t be for weeks. Maybe even longer at this altitude.
Wasn’t sure what that meant for me.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“I knew you were close, and then I knew you were in trouble.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
“Is my car nearby?” Maybe I needed to ask more specific questions.
He shook his head. “Couple miles away.”
“Did you see the snow fall on my car?” The chances were slim that he was right in the area when the dumb human drove into a natural disaster, but it would make sense.
He shook his big head. I couldn’t get frustrated with him. He wasn’t human. Even the most human-like shifters weren’t totally like us. They had a different way of viewing the world, led more by instinct than anything else. But Lars was different than the other shifters I’d met since I’d come to Sunset Springs. He could speak to me in his animal form. That was fascinating. And even like this, his face had a lot of human qualities. But Lars wasn’t human, and I couldn’t expect him to play by human rules.
“Then how did you know I was there?”
He shrugged. It was kind of adorable. “I could sense you.”
My lips parted to respond, but I only had a racing heartbeat in response. Other contestants onThe Mating Gamehad described Lars as being a little odd and otherworldly, but he didn’t have to drive it home right out of the gate.
“Do you have surveillance cameras?”
He shook his head. “There’s no electricity out here.”
Of course there wasn’t. I hadn’t gotten off the bed yet, but the cavern appeared to be literally in the side of the mountain, so this wasn’t a big surprise.
