Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
When I went into my bedroom afterward and saw Cole’s clothing laid out, I was stunned. I stood there surveying the utter chaos that covered practically every surface of my room.
“What’s with your face?” Cole asked as he sauntered in, closing and locking the door behind him.
“I normally leave that open,” I told him.
“Well, I’ll open it later.”
I squinted at him, confused.
“Since, perhaps, I might want to attack you in here.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t have much experience with this.”
“With what?”
I gestured between the two of us.
“How?”
I looked around for somewhere to sit down, but the question was where.
“What’re you doing?”
“It looks like an armoire exploded in here.”
“A what?”
“Like a chest of drawers.” I pointed at mine.
“I need one of those.”
“I’ll make you one. I made that one.”
“You made that?”
I nodded.
“Ondine’s right, you’re good at everything.”
My smile came out quickly.
“So, yeah, I’m slowly hanging stuff up.”
“I see that.”
He squinted at me. “I’m getting there.”
“No, it’s fine, I just… It’s all very similar.”
“I’m sorry?”
I cleared my throat. “I’ve just never seen so many pairs of cargo pants, and long-sleeved T-shirts, and white crew socks.”
“Construction,” he said, exaggerating the word for me. “You get that you’re involved with a guy who works with his hands, right?”
I chuckled. “But why is everything the same color?”
“No, no. Those are very different shades of khaki, brown, and gray.”
“Of course. How crazy of me not to notice.”
He suddenly dropped the basket of socks he was carrying and darted around the king-size bed to me.
“No, go back to your side. You’ve got a million more things to put away. I cannot sleep in disorder.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” He grinned at me, and the heat in his eyes made my stomach flip over.
“I’m serious.” I barely got the words out.
“Here.” He moved his pants, throwing three pairs on top of two others, clearing a spot so he could sit down on the bed and patting the space beside him. “Now go on with what you were saying.”
“What was I saying?” I asked as I took a seat next to him.
The lazy, sexy grin, the way his muscles moved under his T-shirt, the gold skin of his throat, the way his hair kicked out over his ears and at the nape of his neck… All of it really made me want to touch him, and it was hard to focus.
“That you don’t have experience with what goes on between two people, and I want to know how that’s possible.”
What was I supposed to say?
“Listen,” he said gently, softly, sliding a hand around the side of my neck. “Don’t figure it out in your head, just tell me.”
“You’re gonna think I’m nuts.”
“No. You’re not a wolf and you’re not human. Since I’ve met you, I’ve seen my brother possessed by a ghost, I’ve met a siren, I’ve learned that you have fae on your land—which I want to know everything about, by the way—and most amazing of all, I have found out that my mate is a mythical creature. So just tell me.”
I took a quick breath. “At first, when I came into being, I felt the drive to do one thing, and that was to find evil, judge it, and punish it. That was my sole purpose.”
“Okay.”
“And I only had the one form that you saw.”
“Which is beautiful.”
“Most people have been terrified of it.”
“Of a glowing green wolf?”
“I’m a dog, actually.”
He scoffed. “I don’t think so.”
“Fine. A glowing green wolf.”
“Speaking as one who turns into a wolf, I can say with authority that you’re beautiful.”
“What color is your wolf?”
“I’m black with the normal yellow eyes. Evan’s are blue, and he’s black too.”
“I look forward to running with you both.”
“Yeah, me too. I really can’t wait.” He choked a little, like the thought had caused a surge of emotion. “But go on about what changed.” He tugged me close, rubbed his face in my hair, and inhaled deeply.
“Sometimes, when I was prowling through the hills, I’d see people who were running from others. One night, there was a woman carrying a baby, and there were a lot of men chasing her. When they caught her, they stripped the baby, and the wind was cold, so it was screaming, and then they stripped her to… You know.”
“And you slaughtered them all.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And once she was dressed, and she had the baby all wrapped up, I led them to a home where an older woman lived.”
“Did she take them in?”
“She did, and all winter I brought the three of them wood for the fire and game, but they needed a small barn for some animals and had no way to build it…and so I changed.”
“You became a man.”
“Yes.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I—see, I was one thing for a long time before there were even people. I was formless, just wind, and then when the goddess decided that wickedness needed punishment, suddenly, I took on the form you saw.”