Page 45 of Fated Midlife Christmas
Her voice felt good inside his mind. It was yet another layer of their link that he cherished.That will work, as long as they don’t take the size comparison into account.
Amanda moved around a little so that they stood shoulder to shoulder. They’d stood together like this when they’d fought against Mary Riddle, but things were different now. She pressed her shoulder against his and studied their bodies. His back rose a few inches higher than hers, and his neck and legs were much longer.
They moved out of the shelter of the pine tree and further into the woods. They couldn’t walk next to each other there most of the time as they slalomed in between the trees, but their bear forms allowed them to be close enough that Lars didn’t mind.
Do you really mean it? About coming to visit?It was no small commitment, and as his own flight approached, he was reminded of just why Amanda had been intimidated by the distance between their homes.
Yes.Her mind-voice rang with certainty.I don’t know exactly when. I’ll need to change some things around and make some arrangements, but it’ll probably be good for me to take a break. I don’t let myself do that very much. That’s something I hope to get better at soon.
I’ll be there whenever you’re ready,he promised. He felt waves of warm pleasure that radiated from her mind to his.
I admit I’ve looked up a few things about Longyearbyen. It sounds like there are some really great restaurants.She paused as a squirrel went dashing through the leaf litter, its regular hops mimicking the sound of a person.
There are.Lars wanted to bring her home, to lie in bed with her on a snowy morning, exploring each other’s bodies and enjoying the peace that came with being together. He also, however, thoroughly enjoyed the idea of parading her around town, taking her to all the best establishments.There’s a great one in an old mining community. Technically, you can walk there, but they advise everyone to take a taxi. The servers will even call one for you when you’re done with your meal.
She turned to peer at him from under a twiggy branch. Deep red leaves still clung to it, curling at their edges and bringing out the highlights in her fur.Why?
His smile wasn’t the same in this form, but he felt the tug at the corners of his mouth anyway.Because otherwise, you need a gun to protect you from polar bears.
A dangerous neighborhood, for sure!
They ambled on for a while, leaving deep tracks in the fluffy snow, and then Amanda looked to her left. She lifted her front paws and dodged that direction, hurrying over to a small hillside studded with large stones.There’s another reason I like coming here.
What’s that?
I’ll show you.Amanda splayed out her front paws, dropping down so that her chest was on the ground and her backside in the air. She shoved herself forward with her back feet, sliding down the snow-covered hillside on her belly. At the bottom, she skidded to a stop just before she hit a tree.You want to try?
Lars didn’t need any encouragement. He sped down the hill on his belly, reveling in the cold snow against his fur and the wind in his ears. At the bottom, though, he continued to slide even once the ground had leveled out. He slammed into the tree, sending a cascade of snow down on his head and back.
Oh no!
But Lars was laughing.It’s only a little snow. I think I can handle it.To demonstrate, he nudged his nose through the air. Most of the white stuff that’d fallen on him whirled into the air, sparkling in the sun as it spun up and then fell down again into a neat little pile next to him.
Amanda stared at it for a long moment and then turned to him with a grunt.What the hell was that?
You like to have your fun in the snow, and I like to have mine.Maybe it was a good thing he couldn’t truly smile right now, or she’d see the mischievous grin on his face as he wiggled his claws. A clump of snow from an overhead branch plopped straight down onto the top of her head.
Hey!She shook it off, making her whole body quiver.Really, what is this? I know you work with energy, but I didn’t know you had magic!
I don’t, not really.He got up from the base of the tree and walked over to her, pausing to lick a few remaining flecks of snow from her nose.It’s more of an attunement to the ice and snow, a harmony with it that’s slowly built up over the generations in my family. More of a magic trick than real magic.
I still think it’s pretty special to have a connection to the earth like that.
He’d started to move past her, heading back up the hill so they could slide down again, but then Lars caught the softness in her eyes. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t listen to a single word without tying it back to their situation. Lars nuzzled the side of her neck, allowing himself to just stand there for the moment, absorbing what they had when they were together.
Do you want to see something?she asked after a minute. Her voice sounded heavy and a bit sad.It’s a bit of a walk still, but easy enough to get to while we’re on all fours.
I have plenty of energy left. I could walk all over this place with you.
She let her side brush against his as she led the way further southwest.In that case, you’ll have to come back sometime. We can look for the buried treasure.
Do I have to wear an eyepatch and a pegleg?he joked.
Only if you want to! The story goes that a pirate by the name of Thomas Veal was hiding out in this area back in the sixteen hundreds. He was still making trades and stashing silver while he was avoiding the authorities. He supposedly hid his treasure in cave called Dungeon Rock. Some guy came along a couple of hundred years later who was so desperate to find it that he even used a psychic to try to contact the pirate’s spirit. Obviously, that didn’t work, and neither did all the explosives he used to dig into the rock. The treasure still hasn’t been found to this day.
He liked listening to her as she told him the old legend.I’m not sure that’s true.
She stopped walking and turned around, her eyes questioning.
