I breathed deep at the sight of her soaping her long, rounded limbs, glad she couldn’t hear my heart race. Thankfully, the water grew milky with the soap as I did the same and scrubbed away the flower’s saliva. The sound in the back of her throat had me stretching a little further to show her a bit more.
“Come here, little viper,” I rumbled.
She blinked into her snake form, draping out of the tub in long, looping coils. If she thought that would put me off, she was dead wrong. I patiently gathered every inch of her into my lap, reveling in the glossy leather of her scales against me. As I poured her back into the water, she eased into human form. Taking the comb, I slicked her hair with more soap and combed the suds through the long, earth-colored strands. Her shoulders relaxing thumped my heart. I could do this—one act of love at a time. I just had to have enough faith for both of us.
Her delicate fingers traced my calf. “No one should be this big and this ripped.”
I chuckled. My arms, chest, and legs were fairly defined, but I didn’t have a six-pack. I was built for brute strength, not muscles for show. “My mother would also agree. Luckily I came out cub first.” I wouldn’t get lost in the feel of her hair in my hands. Or bend her back to me and feast on her mouth. I was in control, not my bear who was ready to rut with her.
“Did she feed you whole cows?”
“Of course,” I smiled, laughing at her shocked expression.
“Alive?” Evie asked, with only a slight hesitation.
“When she was home, cows were for the dinner table, deer were for our bears.”
She took a moment before she spoke again. “Your bear was the one who saved me. I would have expected you would have him out and about more.”
I tried not to let chagrin color my voice. “You want to see him? He scares most people. Even more than I do.”
“That teddy bear? He protected me twice and you can just lock him up like that?”
I didn’t think of it that way. I was keeping everyone safe from him, including my mate. “He’s still there, always.” Too much since he kidnapped her. I let my bear bleed into my eyes, the glow reflecting on her skin. She touched my cheekbone and my bear lunged, pinning her to the side of the tub, demanding her mouth. I wrestled with him, ready for her to shift in fright. Instead, she arched up into us, moaning into my mouth, swiping her tongue against mine. The taste of her undid me, urging me to mate, mate, mate. Her hand clutched my hair and my heart stuttered. It took every fiber of my being to rip away. Terrified I hurt her. Evie smiled up at me, completely relaxed—chest and cheeks rosy, but unharmed.
She huffed a laugh. “He’s welcome to have a bath with us any time.”
I wanted to laugh with her, but found myself rinsing us off. The intensity of my reaction just proved his animal instincts were not to be trusted. Evie was going to see quite enough of that at our next stop. She giggled as I tossed her around, dressing her and pitched her back into our bed roll, pretending to sleep as quickly as possible. I had to keep control of him to win her over. What if my bear ruined everything?
Chapter9
Ward
Letting her sleep for an extra half hour gave me a chance to gather my energy for the day ahead. In the calmest of times, the town of Acerni was an anomaly in the Harrowlands. With relics on the fritz and after my slip in the tub, I was nervous about what she would think of a settlement like this shifter-only enclave. I wanted to keep her in a good mood, but I couldn’t let her walk in blind. She needed to trust I would tell her even the hard things.
We headed out into a beautiful morning, sharing our bread and the last of the fruit juice Fallon sent with us as we walked. Maybe if I chewed slowly enough, we would reach Acerni without having to scare her.
“I thought I was the quiet one,” she said.
I licked my lips and didn’t find any gratification when she watched my tongue. “This near-ruin is the only way to the Elden Pass.”
“Okayyyy.” Evie narrowed her eyes like I was stupid.
Maybe I was. “It’s a shifter town—wolves specifically.”
“Should I stuff my pockets with bacon?”
I sputtered out a laugh. “We don’t want to attract that kind of unwanted attention. I can’t imagine these wolves begging. Some towns have a district where shifters settled and now congregate regularly. Acerni takes that a big step further. Only wolf shifters can live here.”
“Well, good thing we’re not moving here…” She grimaced. “Or is there something more terrifying you’re not telling me?”
I blushed, heat creeping up my neck into my cheeks. I didn’t want to keep things from her, but the pull to protect her, shield her from the worst of our feral nature, was hard to overcome.
“They don’t take kindly to strangers even passing through, shifter or not. We can’t linger. In fact, don’t look anyone in the eye. They take eye contact as a challenge for dominance. They chose to live here to be as close to their wolf as possible and can hold some extreme views and practices. Not all shifters are like that, of course. My territory is not like that. We treat every monster equally, under the law. My law.” I babbled in a completely ungracious rush of words.
She skipped ahead of me and put a hand on my chest. “Sounds like a party.”
“It’s not terrifying?”
