Chapter One
Dain
“The snow yeti’s here… again,” Jed, my boss’s fledgling and an old as hell vampire, whispered into my ear. Ever since his father found hisviramore—his soulmate—Jed had becomeuber interested in my love life. And the love life of everyone else around him, including his siblings.
It was the most ridiculous thing because the vampire kept gossiping.
What kind of vampire gossiped this much?
Especially one as old as Jed?
And he wasold. I didn’t know exactly how ancient he was, but I knew it was at least a few thousand years… and yet, he acted like a gossipy twelve-year-old. Sigh.
And why in the world was healwayshere?
Did he even work here?
Sure, his sire owned the bookshop, but come on. Whyyyyyy did he have to poke at me so much?
I shot him a glare. “Don’t you have a job to do… somewhere else?”
Jed just grinned at me and whisper-sung, “That yeti’s checking yououuuuuttt.”
I sighed and shook my head even though my heart did a little flip. Maybe if I ignored him, he’d lose interest and go away—Jed, not the yeti. I kind of… liked the attention the snow monster was giving me, if I was being honest with myself.
We hadn’t talked much, but he’d been coming in almost every day—every day I worked—and buying books. I always tried to meet him at the cash register when he was ready to check out so we could talk, but the man was so damn shy. Every time I asked him a question, his entire face flamed, like it was the most embarrassing thing in the world.
It was actually really sweet.
And cute.
And the man was hot as hell, at least in his human form, so add in that blushing face, and phew… I was lucky I hadn’t passed out from the hotness yet.
This wasn’t the first time I thought about it, but I’d really love to see his monster side.
About fifty years ago, the magical community was still in hiding, so nearly all of the supernatural species had some kind of human form—at least the ones that’d integrated with humans. Which meant that we had a lot of different kinds of shifters, at least here in Gauhala, including snow yetis, or as some would call them, abominable snowmen.
I’d never seen a snow yeti in their shifted form up close, but I’d seen the pictures. And every time I did, all I could think about was hugging that furry body tight and resting my cheek against its soft fur.
Which was… probably super weird, but I supposed that was what I got when I was forced to hang out with quirky thousands-years-old vampires all the time.
Jed sidled up to me and spoke quietly out of the side of his mouth. “Don’t look now, but he’s looking over here.”
Of course, I turned my head to see.
Jed grabbed my arm. “I said don’t look.”
I rolled my eyes at him, removed his hand from my arm, and casually turned around, feigning to search under the cashier’s counter for something or other.
My eyes immediately went to the very tall and thick man staring at the bookshelf directly across from me. His hair hung down over his shoulders and was as white as I imagined his yeti coat was. His build was big and bulky—I was a big guy, and he seemed like a giant to me—and so much like a big giant teddy bear that it was hard to hold myself back from jumping into his arms and demanding a hug.
Not that I would ever do that, even if we knew each other well. I wasn’t exactly… huggable. If my resting bitch face wasn’t enough of a deterrent, my grouchiness was—just ask any of my exes.
But despite his humongous size, his face was sort of cute. Sweet, even. And he was so, so, so damn shy. He barely spoke more than three words to me every time he came in.
Normally, I had zero patience for crap like that, but when it came to the big, giant snow yeti, I found it sort of… endearing.
Not that I would ever in a million years admit to that out loud. Especially not to Jed.
