Page 20 of Forget Me Not
“Do you recognize me?”
More nodding.
“From here?”
He gestured behind him, she tilted her head to the side for a minute, confused, then shook her head no.
“From The Glass?”
Nod.
“Okay, I’m going to take my coat off. I can see you don’t trust me. I get it. I’m virtually a stranger. I’m going to give you a reason—show you that you can, okay?”
He unzipped his coat, slipping out of it easily and tossing it next to him on the ground. Syve watched him warily, but nodded. She could not imagine what he could possibly show her that would make her trust him.
She flinched, her eyes wide as saucers. He had kicked off his boots and was actively undoing the button on his jeans.
“Trust the process. I’m not a creep, I promise. It’s just…jeans are really expensive, and I just bought these…”
He blushed—actually blushed—and then dropped his pants to his ankles. Syve stumbled back, blinking rapidly as she tried to figure out how she wound up here—in the woods as adeerwith apants-less manin front of her. A pants-less man, who must be one with the forest if his thighswere anything to judge by—thick as the tree trunks andclearlywhat she needed to be focusing on at that moment.
“You can trust me, because I’mlikeyou. Not only that, but we’ve met before.”
He pulled his shirt over his head as he said it, exposing a very tan, fit chest underneath, spackled with dark hair that sheabsolutelydid not need to be appraising. There was seriously something wrong with her.
The sudden exposure of his chest succeeded in stalling Syve’s brain long enough for the man to toss his shirt on top of his coat, kick his jeans and boots over to the pile and then shift.
Where once a man stood before her, now stood a large—reallylarge—smoke gray wolf. The exact same smoke gray wolf from her dreams—her dreams that were not dreams. Syve stumbled, all of the little puzzle pieces finally setting themselves in their places. Instead of acting rational, or as rational as one could be in her shoes, she turned around and ran.
It was easy to zip through the trees on cloven hooves. The extra legs made her nimble, and she was able to dash around trunks and over logs with hardly a thought. A deep growl behind her reminded her that while she may have been able to outrun a man, she was not sure if she could outrun a fucking wolf. She could hear twigs snapping behind her as he gave chase. It triggered a primal part of her, and she found a fifth gear, running even faster.
Syve had gone hiking in these woods a lot before Erhard died. Her late husband had loved being in the woods, which one would expect from someone who chose to work as a cartographer and wildlife photographer, and they had spent a majority of their weekends out hiking, camping, or justexisting.
She had not been outside of town since the accident. Though, even if she had, her sense of direction was awful. She had no idea where she was or where she was running to. As soon as the mausoleum was out of sight, she was as good as lost. A quick yip both confirmed her pursuer remained and almost distracted her enough to make her trip. Who knew a wolf could make such a cute, innocent sound while literally chasing you through the woods?
Sunlight shone through more easily, as the pines began to thin, but before Syve could consider what that meant for her, she broke through the trees and skidded to a stop. In front of her was a calm lake that mirrored the peak of the mountain inclining away from its shores. She would need to backtrack and skirt the lake to the left or scale the rocky incline to her right if she wanted to keep moving forward—or whatever counted as “keep the wolf to your back”.
Before she could make a choice, she heard another low growl and looked over her shoulder just in time to see the massive silver wolf leap out of the trees, tackling her into the dirt. Syve stared up into a panting mouth of dagger teeth, the edges of her vision beginning to fade to black. When hehuffed down at her, hot air bursting across her face, she let the darkness take her.
Bastien
Syvewentlimpbeneathhim, and Bastien mentally smacked himself as he quickly scrambled off her. Clearly he’d, once again, not thought hard enough about his actions. Obviously, she would run from him after he stripped almost naked, then shifted into a full-blown wolf right in front of her. He intentionally followed her in human form to avoid freaking her out, then he went and freaked her out anyway.Good job, dumbass.
Bas began pacing beside her limp body. Should he wait here for her to come to and hope she would be willing to…what? Follow him somewhere to talk? Buck naked in the middle of the woods? Did he actually have a plan at all when hefollowed her into the cemetery? She blazed out of that alley and all rational thinking had gone out the window.
What was it about this woman that possessed him? Why was he so invested in her wellbeing when he didn’t evenknowher? Mates were a fantasy. They were just as much a myth as unicorns—much to Del’s dismay. There was no physical, spiritual or metaphorical hold Syve could have on him.
Yet, there he was.
A crow cawed somewhere nearby, startling him, and he halted. His gaze landed on the far bank of the lake, the same lake he had been intentionally avoiding for two and a half years. Adrenaline flooded his brain.
Was he thinking before acting? No.
Was he going to do it anyway? Yep.
Fifteen minutes later and only halfway back to the mausoleum, regret began to sink in. Here he was, naked as the day he was born, tromping through the frigid woods, carrying an unconscious deer. Her warm body and the exertion kept him mostly warm—except for the tips of his ears, his feet and his dick, which had absolutely receded so far into his body it was probably aligned with his spine.
Bas almost missed the gentle vibration in his arms, mistaking it for his own shivering, until it happened again more insistently. He stopped walking, loosened his hold slightly before pinning his eyes onto the nearest tree. This was about to getso muchworse.
