“Local teenagers used to use it as some kind of dare – go up and spend a night in the haunted house – until their parents caught wind of it and started forbidding them to go. Not that that ever stopped any of ’em, but none of ’em would ever last a full night up there anyway. They were always running screaming back into town before dawn.” Eula laughed again. “These days everyone keeps their distance!”
“Oh, I see.” Natasha nodded, but she didn’t reallybelieveanything Eula was saying – she knew only too well how easily the rumor mill got started in small towns. “Thank you for the sandwich – I really appreciate it. Are you sure I can’t –?”
“Sure’s sure,” Eula said, nodding. “Anyway, one bite of that and you’ll be back. Call it advertising.”
“That’s really generous of you,” Natasha said. “And, uh, thanks for the warning. About the haunted house.”
“You weren’t planning on going up there yourself, were you?” Eula asked, raising her eyebrows skeptically. “Not that you’d have any reason to, I guess.”
“No, no.” Natasha shook her head.I mean… if that’s the same place Kieran is staying in, then… but no, hauntings aren’t real. It’s just some teenagers with an overactive imagination.“None at all.”
“All right then, well, you take care of yourself,” Eula said, dismissing her with a wave of one thick hand. “And don’t be a stranger.”
“No, of course not. Thanks again.” Natasha turned away with a wave, but to be honest, her mind wasn’t really on the sandwich, despite her hunger.
No matter how much she tried to tell herself that hauntings weren’t real, she couldn’t put the way Kieran had just disappeared into thin air out of her mind.
No… it couldn’t be… could it?
She shook her head.
You met him over beans! Ghosts don’t go to supermarketsorbuy beans!
But try as she might, the unsettled feeling thatsomethingwasn’t quite right here wouldn’t leave her – she just had absolutely no idea what it could be.
Chapter 4
All right. This is going to go fine.
Even as he thought it, however, standing in front of the tarnished mirror in the ever-so-slightly…rusticbathroom of his uncle’s house, Kieran had to admit he was not exactly filled with confidence.
Yesterday had almost ended in disaster. At first, he’d been overjoyed by the fact that Natasha had just happened to stumble across him – and didn’t seemtoocompletely put off by the fact she’d found him sleeping in the woods, after his griffin had just randomly decided that some little cave would be a cozy place to bed down for the night. In fact, she’d seemed kind of… happy to see him?
Kieran felt a pleasant buzz of hopefulness surge through him as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to arrange the unruly mop it had recently become. It grew fast, and he hadn’t really thought it was a great idea to go to a barber while his griffin was apparently in such an unstable state. In most situations, getting up and finding a quiet place to hide until it let him resume his human form was, if not convenient, then at least mostly possible. Getting up and running out of the barbershop with the plastic cape still attached and his hair full of shampoo suds and/or half-cut was less easy to achieve, so he’d just left it to grow.
Hopefully Natasha won’t mind. She’s so stylish and put together that I feel like a bit of a plain Jane next to her.
Kieran shook his head, laughing at himself a little.
That’s hardly the thing you should be worried about right now!
He hoped she didn’t think he’d been rude, running off the way he had yesterday after barely saying goodbye to her. But he hadn’t exactly had much choice – he’d felt his griffin trying to force its way to the front of his mind, and there was no way he could let Natasha see his griffin form at this stage. Not when he hadn’t yet been able to explain… well, literallyanythingto her yet. If he hadn’t been able to beat his wings and take off into the skies in the moments before she’d turned around, she would have found herself staring at a mythological beast in the middle of the forest, with the person shethoughtshe was getting to know nowhere in sight.
Regardless of how hard it might be, I have to tell her soon. As in, today,Kieran thought, feeling his jaw tighten at even the idea of revealing such a thing about himself. He’d never had to think about it before: either the people he knew were shifters themselves and didn’t need anything explained to them, or they were people who didn’t need to know, so he’d kept the secret to himself.
She is our mate. She will accept us as we are.
His griffin let out a little growl from inside him, its golden eyes narrowed to annoyed slits.
And you can just be quiet. You’re not helping anything,Kieran snapped at it as he turned away from the mirror. It wasn’t like he was going to look any different – or any fancier – even if he stood there forever, so he’d just have to hope Natasha didn’t mind he was dressed in jeans, a slightly worn button-down shirt, and the battered leather jacket he’d had for so many years he’d forgotten where it even came from. Needless to say, if he’d known he’d be meeting his mate during this trip – and that his mate would be sorefined– he would have packed for the occasion!
At least I managed to get a relatively decent night’s sleep last night,he thought as he headed out the front door, locking it behind him, though he really doubted any robbers would be making their way up here to loot anything from the mostly completely bare rooms.
Hehadfound some evidence there’d beensomeonehanging around the house, though – empty candy wrappers and a pair of old sneakers, obviously belonging to a kid judging by the size, and even a couple of cigarette packets, with most of the cigarettes still inside. He’d thrown them all in the trash as part of the general cleaning he’d spent yesterday doing, but it was obvious the house had become a bit of a hangout joint for the local teenagers, and Kieran couldn’t really say he blamed them – Natashahadsaid Girdwood Springs didn’t have a huge amount of stuff to do. An abandoned house was probably an overwhelmingly tempting place to explore. As long as they hadn’t trashed the place, Kieran couldn’t really see the harm in it.
And at least he hadn’t heard any more of the mysterious clanging and banging that had freaked out his griffin so badly the night before. Whatever it had been, it hadn’t come back.
It probably really was just the house settling,he told himself as he headed down the drive – he’d left himself plenty of time to walk into town.It’s the start of spring, after all, so it’s getting warmer. The wooden beams are probably expanding, shaking off the winter chill.
