A man and a woman were standing at the edge of the trees.
The man wasn’t the same as last night’s visitor. But they were both dressed similarly in leather and furs. Both were middle aged, the woman’s long hair showing strands of gray. The man had a heavy beard.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean any harm,” Arden said. She hastily gathered her paints and the wrapper of the granola bar she’d had for lunch. “I’ll leave, just let me pick up my things.”
The two stepped forward. Where the man last night had seemed neutral, not friendly but not really hostile either, Arden sensed definite hostility from these two. The man was scowling, and the woman’s mouth was set in a hard line.
The woman sniffed the air and declared, “She is human.”
Shifters, Arden thought. Her heart raced in panic. Worse, she heard crashing in the bushes, as if someone else was coming—or something, a whole herd of somethings from the sound of things.
“I’m leaving,” she said, now even more desperately.
“You don’t have to doanything.”
This voice came from the far side of the meadow, and even before she looked, Arden instantly recognized Baz’s deep, eventones, even slightly out of breath. He stumbled out of the woods with twigs in his hair and a tousled, sweaty look, as if he’d just been running.
That crashing in the bushes had been him, Arden realized. He’d come straight up the hill.
The two forest shifters turned their hostility on Baz. “You’ve brought humans to this place,” the woman said accusingly.
“I didn’t bring anyone. She brought herself.” Baz strode across the meadow to take up a stance between Arden and the two shifters.
Arden was frozen in place, kneeling on the ground with her hands full of hastily gathered art supplies. She stared up at him. Baz’s T-shirt clung to his muscular back with damp patches, and it was plastered with bits of leaves and twigs. He really had just run up the hill, but—why?
“You choose to make this human your affair?” the bearded man said.
There was a hint of a growl in Baz’s voice. “Sheismy affair. You will not touch her. Leave.”
“There may be trouble over this,” the woman said.
“Then there will be trouble. Leave.”
The two stared at Baz for a moment longer. Both sets of eyes gleamed, as if Arden was glimpsing something silvery-gold within them, perhaps the animals that lived inside them. Then, as one, they turned very suddenly and faded back into the woods. They went without making a sound.
Baz heaved a sigh and ran the back of his hand over his forehead. He turned to look down at Arden. For the first time, she was able to see his face more closely. His eyes were a striking hazel, and there was a light dusting of beard stubble across his chin, catching the sun. For a moment he just stared at her. Then he held a hand down to her, palm open and fingers slightly curled. An invitation.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“I ... I think so.”
He couldn’t possibly recognize who she really was, or he wouldn’t be so open and friendly. But there was no reason why he would, she supposed. Not here.
“I’m Baz—Sebastian, actually, but everyone calls me Baz. What’s your name?”
Here she balked again, her mind whirling through possible false names. But that was silly, and anyway, she would probably forget her alias immediately, or fail to respond to it, which would be far more suspicious than just giving her real name in the first place.
“Arden,” she said.
It was a rare name, but notthatrare. They wouldn’t guess, she told herself.
And it was impossible to think that Baz could pose any harm to her, in any case.
She placed her hand in his big, callused, capable palm, and let him pull her to her feet.
BAZ
The vision of loveliness—Arden!—cameup as light as a feather, as if she weighed nothing.
