Page 207 of Shifting Hearts 1
The rustles grew louder,closer.Something brushed my hair. I broke into a run, stubbornly trying to outwit a forest god who tracked my progress with ease, rumbling his disapproval in grasping twigs that plucked at my cloak and snared my hair when my hood fell back.
So engrossed was I in my defense of Dagan’s wrath, knowing in my heart that he meant well, cared even, in his own stoic way,that I barely noticed the forest’s end. I burst out of the trees a panting mess, my cloak barely covering my naked legs, my unruly hair likely sticking out at all angles.
Which was exactly how Gran found me, a wild child standing at the edge of the trees, just beyond Dagan’s protective shield between the forest dwellers and the rest of the world.
Maybe I was one of them now. Or maybe I was about to blow our fragile, new found trust all to hell.
“Sweetheart. What are you doing here this early?” Gran’s bushy gray brows lowered in a hard frown that changed her soft, grandmotherly face to something far more formidable.
This is where I get my stubborn streak.At least enough to defy Wolf. He’d be so angry when he woke and found me gone, and it was too hard to admit that Dagan’s quiet disapproval hurt.A lot.
“And what are you wearing?” The eyebrows dived lower with the sort of disapproval I could deal with.
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” I muttered, attempting to tug the twigs out of my hair that stayed just as stubborn as me. I cast the forest a side eye, unsure if Dagan could see me outside the edge of his realm.
And now I sound like them.
“Perhaps. Now, why did your mother send you through alone and at this hour? When did you get up?” Gran shooed me inside the house, pulling the door shut as a blistering icy blast whipped into the small, stone cottage and she flicked the lock for good measure.
The fire that was never out raged cheerfully in the stone fireplace. I sighed, stepping closer, and pulled my cloak apart to ease the frostbite nipping at my toes. “I went last night,” I murmured, not really thinking.
“And you just got here?” Gran snapped, picking at the corner of my cloak. “Where are your clothes, Bryn?”
I stared at her guilty, heat that had nothing to do with the fire behind me crawling up my chest in an unspoken admission. “I–” I faltered. “I fell asleep,” I whispered, omitting most of the night, my aching legs, and running, running, running.
“Did you.” She fixed me with a hard stare. “And you survived.” Her tone was flat, and that was most definitely not a question.
“Yes?” I grimaced.
“Hmmph.” Gran made a rude noise at the back of her throat and turned away from me, but not before I spotted a shadow emerge from the corner of the room.
“Wolf?” I frowned, taking a step closer.
So did the shadow.
But when he emerged, this wolf wasn’t gray and lush and beautifully marked like my Wolf. This man was covered in coarse, sparse black hairs that left him half changed and half…
Not.
The effect was grotesque. More so when he smiled, exposing a mouthful of pointed teeth in a partially transformed snout that left him something far more than otherworldly.
Horrific. Monstrous.
And I realized how generous and kind my lovers of last night were.
I ached for them both in different ways than I had in both their arms and wished I never left.
“Such a pretty morsel,” he rasped through a ruined throat. Scar tissue created a bald spot where fur should have grown. “I was here for the new children, but you…you might do nicely.” He licked his lips.
“Gran?” I twisted, flattening my back to the hot stones encasing the fireplace. Fear rippled through me as my mind refused to acknowledge what I saw, put it into a logical pattern.
Run run run run run
A snort not unlike Wolf’s met my eyes. Thick, pale gray fur flowed over a mutating shape to become far more canine, but those eyebrows…those were utterly recognizable, and completely Gran’s.
Wolf isn’t my only adversary.
If he ever had been one to start with. I should have trusted him, and Dagan, and taken the kids away from this place, not waltz straight into it and refuse to recognize what was right in front of me.
