I cut off the growl immediately and glanced down at myself. Why was I being so damn possessive of this invisible thing when I didn’t even know what it was yet?
Why was my werewolf side popping up and practically screamingMine!Inside my head?
Shaking that off, I murmured, “Sorry, Jed. I don’t… I don’t know why I did that.”
“That’s okay, but maybe we shouldn’t mess with whatever’s in there.”
I frowned at him. Yeah, I’d been worried a few seconds ago, but now, I just wanted to touch it. It was calling to me.
Maybe I should’ve been worried about that impulse—it was obviously magical, and there was no reason it wasn’t something bad—but I just… Ineededto touch it.
So without giving him a chance to take it away from me or change my mind, I reached into the box.
Jed yelled, “Stop!”
But I ignored him entirely.
My fingers wrapped around something long, like a cylinder, with ridges. It was wide enough at the base that I couldn’t wrapmy fingers all the way around it, but it felt like it got thinner the farther up I went.
What in the world?
This guy better not have given me some kind of invisible dildo or something.
I pulled it out of the box and gasped as a blast of magic hit me.
Right in the heart, taking my breath away.
Chapter Two
Lanche
My nerves were completely shot.
I still couldn’t believe I’d had the courage to give Dain my gift.
I should’ve talked to him about it first, but whenever I was around him, it felt like my throat dried up and words never came. I knew my face turned red—a big feat for a snow monster—and I spluttered like an incoherent moron, which only made the problem worse. The more I flushed and the more I spluttered, the more and more embarrassed I became, and the cycle just kept on going and going.
So… I’d come up with an idea.
I knew what Dain was to me, I could feel it in my soul, and I wanted him to know it too. I wanted to reach out to him. I wanted to connect with him.
But maybe giving him a piece of my magic was… too much.
Would he be okay with it? Would he even understand the significance?
I quickly drove to the Tower—the biggest building in the city where the king lived and the government worked—so I could check in.
I’d kind of hoped Dain would’ve opened the gift right away, but I didn’t blame him for waiting until the end of his shift—I’d waited around to listen in, so I’d heard him tell his vampire friend. I didn’t want to get him in trouble or anything so that was a good plan.
But since he’d waited, there was nothing for me to do at the bookshop. Which meant I had plenty of time to work on my own project.
After parking my car, I grabbed my bag of tools, including a small step ladder, out of the trunk, headed inside, went up to the reception desk to scan my temporary ID, then headed into the back courtyard.
Our king and theagusha—the king consort—had decided to add some decorations to the courtyard to get into the spirit of the upcoming holidays. They wanted something representing everyculture in the area, so I’d been hired to make an ice sculpture for my fellow snow yetis.
Sedoba—a territory in Gauhala—was always, always freezing, but especially so in the winter. So keeping an ice sculpture in the courtyard would be no problem at all. Plus, there were a ton of spells surrounding the building and courtyard itself, so I was sure it would be well-maintained for the next few months.
I was making a large snow yeti with snow swirling around them. Trying to get that movement within the solid and still ice was the biggest challenge, but it was one I enjoyed very much.
