Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
I thanked the land for lending me its power, thanked the wards for holding, feeling them, like locks, all clicking into place. They needed to be shored up, and I promised I would.
Safe, the land said.
Safe, I answered.
Leaning back, lifting my hands from the dirt, I stood up, unsteady for a moment, before I found my balance. Once I was ready, I staggered by the pool of blood next to the enormous cat grooming himself, and made it back to the police car, slipping around the side to the still passed-out chief of police.
Wiping dirt into the back of his head, into his scalp, on his face, and over his neck, I whispered words of healing, breathing into his throat. In the process, I inhaled his scent. He smelled like leather and green tea and citrus, and I took that moment to press my nose into the side of his throat.
“What’re you doing?”
I jolted away from him, sitting up and staring into those midnight-blue eyes of his. “Oh, well, I was checking to make sure that stag didn’t hurt you.”
“The what?” he growled, trying to sit up.
I helped him, and between the two of us, we got him leaning against the SUV’s driver’s door. “A deer came out of the woods on that side,” I said, pointing to where the vargr had been, “and ran right into you and knocked you into your car.”
He was squinting at me. “That didn’t look like any deer I’ve ever seen.”
I widened my eyes, trying to look both amazed and surprised, hoping he’d let it go and take what I was saying at face value. Most people did. It normally worked. “Really?” I added, like I was stunned.
“Knock it off,” he ordered, surprising me by slipping his hand around the side of my neck and really looking at me, studying my face. “Are you hurt?”
“Why would I be hurt?”
“I dunno,” he said softly, and I’d never heard his voice sound like it did now, low and sultry, with concern thrown in as well. “Seems like you had a fright.”
He was far more perceptive than I’d given him credit for, but really, he was a policeman, so being observant and sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others came with the territory.
“And we both know that wasn’t a deer,” he insisted.
“Fine.” I sighed as his hand moved. I immediately missed the warmth. I realized I needed a hug badly. I’d had more than a fright, I’d been terrified. I hadn’t let the creature see that, but now, running it back in my head, I started to shake. The fact that the temperature was dropping and the wind had picked up was not helping in the least. I felt like I was freezing. “I just didn’t want you to go running off into the woods, chasing a bear or a wolf. We need our predators around here.”
“The only bears in New York State are black bears, and they’re omnivorous,” he explained like I was five. “I know that wasn’t a bear, and so do you. What are you playing at? That couldn’t have been anything but some kind of wolf and—what’re you doing?”
I was on my knees, slowly scooching closer. I couldn’t help it—heat was rolling off him, and I wanted that. And I knew, of course, it wasn’t just the heat. There was something else, something beyond him being a carved specimen of male beauty. He smelled amazing, and I wanted to kiss him, badly, but there was a deeper need, nearly an ache, to simply—
“Oh, hey, where did you come from?”
Argos walked over and gracefully stepped onto the chief’s leg. The chief started petting him, which Argos clearly enjoyed. He particularly liked the scratching behind his ears, if the motorboat purring was any indication.
The bad part was, I wanted the affection he was getting. I would willingly take the petting. The good part was, the chief’s focus moving from me to the cat gave me the moment I needed to wake up from my own delusion.
He had no interest in me. If he had, my obvious need for comfort would have been his opening to offer me some. I needed to accept the fact that he was very straight. I remembered hearing the buzz go through the crowd the day he was introduced by the mayor, and the consensus was that he was very handsome and definitely marriage material.
Rolling to my feet, I told the chief he should go home.
“What? No. I need to talk to you about that wolf. It might have been rabid.”
“I can assure you, it wasn’t a wolf,” I said flatly. “And you’re in far more danger from that cat than from whatever that thing was.”
He looked at me like I was nuts as Argos made himself comfortable in his lap.