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BELLA
Part of me felt that I had barely met the man who was meant to be my mate. Another part felt like I’d known him all my life. Reconciling those parts of myself was not as simple as rejoining the pieces of a metal donut. How could I possibly want to run to someone and away from them at the same time?
Whatever the case, I already knew Luke well enough to see the tension in his jaw, to sense it rolling off of him in waves.
Even the mighty guardian was scared of something.
Soft moonlight bounced in a haze between the trees ahead. I wondered if it was the light from his cabin. We must not have been too far from it when the hellhound had shown up and ruined our plans.
Maybe that had been a good thing. If I’d barely been able to resist him in some random cave, I didn’t stand a chance in a cozy little cabin.
“So you and the other guardians, you just live in the woods?” I asked.
“Officially, many of us have jobs as park rangers,” he told me with a smile. “We work those jobs as part of our cover for being here, and to actually protect the wildlife.”
“Do people really come here to camp?” I asked dubiously. It seemed awfully cold and remote, and there was a strange lack of scenery for a mountaintop.
“Believe it or not, they do, occasionally,” he told me. “But the witches at the school do a good job of keeping a haze over the mountain so that it doesn’t photograph well. These days we find that’s what hikers are most interested in.”
“Oh yeah, social media,” I said, nodding and trying to imagine an Instagram worthy shot on this mountain. He was right, the mist made it hard to capture anything dramatic.
“For the most part, the forest remains untouched,” he went on. “Which is a good thing, since we don’t want innocent hikers wandering around here. Especially not now.”
I thought about the idea of the hellhound coming across a family of helpless campers and suppressed a shudder.
Ahead of us, the vegetation had thinned, and the path opened suddenly onto a small meadow. Moonlight bathed Luke’s home in soft glow, and I was amazed to see that it wasn’t some weird little camp cabin, but a sturdy and charming cottage with a cedar shake roof and windows crisscrossed with diamond shapes.
“It used to be a hunting lodge,” he told me as he led me to the door. “I’ve made some changes over the years.”
I could hear the pride in his voice. He clearly loved his house.
The pieces of the puzzle that was Luke rearranged themselves in my mind. I was embarrassed to have thought of him as a feral thing, curling up in caves and huddling around campfires.
He opened the round-topped wooden door and we stepped inside.
A fire was already crackling in an enormous stone fireplace, and I questioned the safety of having a fire going while he was out walking in the woods, even as I soaked in the warmth. But that was probably just the city girl in me.
The floors were a pumpkin color, with wide planks. An oversized leather couch and chair sat across from each other by the fire, looking appropriately-sized for their owner.
What surprised me was the artwork. The walls were covered in colorful paintings, and wood carvings adorned the built-in bookcases, which covered nearly every wall.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, trying to take it all in at once.
“Warm yourself,” he told me. “I’ll grab some drinks.”
I nodded and stepped over to the fire to warm my hands. The mantel was a huge piece of finished wood. Now that I was closer, I could see the tiny trees and animals carved along its surface.
I looked around the room again with fresh eyes. Luke must work with wood. A hunting lodge would not have had a need for so many bookcases. There was a window seat at every window. And even the table and chairs in the dining area were roughhewn with a satisfyingly heavy look, just like the mantel.
The exposed beams of the ceiling were beautifully finished, with strange and lovely symbols carved into them.
I wondered how long this had taken him to complete. How many hours had he spent alone in this house, making it beautiful for himself?
“Mulled wine,” he said, carrying out a tray and placing it on the table. “Good for a cold night. Do you want to sit, or see the house first?”
“I want to see the house,” I said quickly.
Mostly out of genuine curiosity, but partly because I didn’t want to consider what came next once we stopped moving.
