Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 65066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“We’ll have to be on the run for a little while. Make sure the vampires think you’re dead, and I’m too devastated by your death to hunt. We’ll run for a bit, but then I’m gonna take you to my place up north.”
“Really?” she asks, her eyes shining.
“It’s not much,” I caution. “Just a cabin the woods, in the Sierra Nevadas. No one around. Just you, me, and a bunch of trees.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
I shake my head. This fox. So cute. “You excited about that? Living in the woods with a grumpy bear?”
“Yes,” she repeats, and laughs breathily as I tug her hair. “Yes. I’ll go anywhere, Grizz, as long as it’s with you.”
Epilogue
Grizz
I sit in the old dentist chair, a half smile on my face. Jordy’s got her sketch pad out and she and the tattoo artist are poring over her designs.
“I was thinking the mountain right here.” She uses her hand to map out the placement on my body, “and the giant saguaro with the paw prints at the bottom.”
“What sort animal is that?” The artist asks. “Wolf?”
“Fox,” Jordy corrects. She glances at me and I wink at her. Her hand is still resting on my bare chest, and I capture it and place it more firmly over my heart. She wrinkles her nose at me.
“Let me see what I can do.” The artist takes the sketch and studies it, rubbing his goatee. He’s not as good as the one in Tucson, but he’ll do. We’ve been running for over a month now, with no sign of trouble. Tomorrow I’ll take her to my cabin in the woods, but first I want to imprint my memories on my skin.
The artist turns away, and I take the opportunity to haul my mate into my lap.
“Grizz,” she protests, until I kiss her breathless. I squeeze her ass through her jeans and she rubs against me, the public place forgotten.
“Love you, Kit,” I tell her, because I promised myself I’d say it out loud and often.
“I know,” she whispers back, and wriggles off me before the tattoo artist returns.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yep.” I keep Jordy’s hand in mine as the artist starts to prep the area. “You gonna cover up all my scars?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “Scars make us who we are.” She lifts my hand and covers the spot above her left breast where she bears the scars that made her who she is.
I stroke the spot through her shirt. “What about tattoos then?”
“The marks we choose tell us where our heart is. Who we belong to.”
Satisfied, I relax back into the seat. With each breath I inhale her scent. By the time the needle starts to buzz, I’m in a trance, surrounded by Jordy.
In a few hours, I’ll walk out of here wearing her mark on my skin, but I don’t need a tattoo to know who I belong to. The moment we met, she owned me. The ink on my skin is nothing compared to the marks she left on my heart.
The End