Page 12 of Sweet Giant

I exhaledwith relief the moment Mastorr closed the door behind him. He was gone. For now. I shot an anxious glance out the window. It would be dark soon, and it was freezing out there. The drive to Newhalem took an hour in the solar truck, but thanks to Mountain, I no longer had any transportation.

Walking back to town on foot wasn’t an option. Even if I did that, what would I do once I reached civilization? Sure, I had a credit card I could use for…wait.

No, I didn’t have a credit card. Not anymore. Mountain had driven away with my groceriesandmy purse.Fucking hell.That meant my fake driver’s license and passport were gone too. I really despised that bastard.

My sense of desperation increased. I had no money, no means of communicating with the outside world, and there was very little food left in the cabin. Enough for two weeks if I rationed carefully.

And if that weren’t stressful enough, I also had a Sasquatch admirer. A big forest beast who just so happened to believe I was his fated mate.

Stranded. I was stranded in the North Cascades on the verge of winter.

A frightening thought struck me.

Would I have to depend upon Mastorr for my survival?

I didn’t like the idea. He thought we were meant to be together, and I didn’t want to do anything to encourage him. I also didn’t want to feel like I owed him anything.

That was how things had started with Mountain. He’d lived in the same apartment building as me, and when he’d overheard me arguing with the landlord about how I was two months behind on rent, he’d handed the landlord a wad of cash and told the man to leave me alone. A week later, when Mountain asked me on a date, I couldn’t say no.

The rest was history.

At first, he’d treated me like a queen and made me feel special. Made me feel loved. After just two months of dating, I’d truly believed he wasthe one, and when he asked me to move in with him, I eagerly accepted.

I never should’ve revealed my big secret to him, never should’ve shown him mymagic. Regret welled in my heart as I recalled the night everything had changed. He’d come home with a knife wound to his thigh, an injury he’d gotten while providing security at a nightclub. I’d placed my hand on his leg and concentrated, and the next thing I knew, his injury was healed completely. Until that moment, I’d never healed a person. Only the sickly and injured animals at a shelter where I’d worked.

If I could go back in time, I would never allow Mountain to pay my rent, and I would never accept that first date. And I sure as fuck wouldn’t have revealed my gift to him or anyone else.

My coworkers at the shelter used to joke that I had a ‘healing touch’ because all the animals in my care made astonishingly quick recoveries, but they never knew the truth. The doctor who’d run a blood test and confirmed my status as a half-Vaxxlian had warned me to be mindful of who I told about my healing powers, so I’d kept it a secret… until Mountain. Until I thought I was in love.

Stupid stupid stupid.

I rose from the couch and tested my legs, thankful that my nerves had passed enough that I could easily walk again. Also thankful that my limp was gone. When Mountain had thrown me to the ground, I’d landed hard on my left hip, but the pain had finally faded.

I moved to the window that faced the stream. To my shock, Mastorr was already returning. I counted five fish dangling from his hand. Wow. That sure was fast. He noticed me in the window and paused in his tracks. A huge smile spread across his face and he waved at me before resuming his trek up the hill.

Heated pulses besieged my core as I remembered every lurid detail of the little peep show he’d put on for me. He’d purposely showed me his hardening cock, as well as his butt and his huge balls when he’d bent over.

I still couldn’t believe he’d done that, and I wondered if it was some kind of weird Sasquatch pre-mating ritual. Like a horny rooster doing the shuffle-dance around a hen he wanted to hop aboard, I mused, remembering the chickens Nana had kept in our tiny backyard.

Well, I had no plans to let Mastorr hop aboard. No matter how attractive I might find him or how strangely erotic witnessing him bend over and show off his rather sizable scrotum had been. Nope, not going to happen.

I watched as he disappeared around the side of the house, presumably to get a fire going underneath the carport. I heard the porch creaking under his heavy footsteps and realized he must be collecting the firewood that was stacked there. The cabin used solar energy for heating, though if the energy stores became depleted, there was also a woodstove in the living room I could use, hence the reason for the stacked wood. I hadn’t needed to use the woodstove yet, but I expected it would become necessary during the height of winter.

The thought of being snowed in without proper supplies was daunting. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if I might be safer at the communal cavern where Mastorr lived. But no. I couldn’t agree to let him take me to his home. If I allowed it, he might never let me leave.

I was done being a prisoner.

A shudder gripped me when I remembered his injuries. The three blaster shots he’d taken. I suspected they hurt more than he’d let on. I hoped he would be okay.

Moving to another window, I peeked at the carport and sure enough, Mastorr was there building a fire. He’d also moved a large, flat rock underneath the carport and had placed the fish upon it, presumably to use as a work area as he cleaned and gutted the fish. Huh. Looked like he knew what he was doing.

Against all reason, I found his actions… touching. He’d gone out in a snowstorm to catch fish for me (while injured), and now he was building a fire and getting ready to cook. He was going to a lot of trouble on my behalf.

I wished I could heal his injuries. I wished I could safely reveal my secret to him. For a reason I couldn’t fathom, the thought of him in pain was unsettling.

I glanced at the kitchen. Maybe I ought to offer to cook the fish in the oven. Surely that would be easier. I walked onto the porch, ready to tell him to come inside, only to find he’d already gotten the fire going. He’d also arranged rocks around the fire, building them up like a wall, and was placing long, thin branches that were stripped of their bark over the circular area. A makeshift grill.

Whoa. His survival skills impressed me.

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