Her hair was just short of shoulder length, chestnut brown at the roots tapering into blonde, framing a perfectly heart-shaped face with a trace of freckles. She had small, capable hands and a compact, buxom figure beneath a flowered blouse and a pair of grass-stained jeans that hugged her curves deliciously.
She was—perfect. Baz felt as if some previously unknown part of him had clicked into place the moment he saw her. If this wasn’t the feeling ofmate, he couldn’t imagine what else it could be.
“I’m so glad you were here,” she said. “Um, are they going to come back?”
“Not right now.” Just being this close to her sent his heart into overdrive. He realized he’d been holding her hand a little too long to be polite, and hastily dropped it, then realized he was probably coming across deeply weird. “Uh—do you want me to help you carry anything?”
“Oh.” Arden’s gaze dropped to the art supplies scattered around her feet, most of which she had dropped when Bazhelped her up. “Uh ... no thank you. Just let me pack this up real quick.”
She crouched to gather her things. Baz handed her an open sketchbook with a half-finished painting of the meadow.
“Is this yours?” he asked, and then could have kicked himself.Duh. Who else would have painted it, the flower fairies? “I mean, it’s really good. It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks,” Arden murmured. She kept her head down, her hair falling forward to hide her face, and closed the sketchbook quickly.
The sound of twigs snapping in the bushes made Arden gasp, and Baz moved quickly to interpose himself between her and whatever was coming through the woods toward them. What emerged from the woods turned out to be a sweaty, red-faced, disgruntled-looking Lexie.
“What in the world is the matter with you? You just took off running like you had a werewolf motorcycle gang on your tail. Fern’s the one who’s supposed to have the uncanny hunches, not—” She broke off. “Okay, wait, who’s this?”
“Lexie, this is Arden,” Baz began.
“I can speak for myself, thanks.” Arden straightened up, hands full of art supplies, started to hold a hand out, and almost dropped a paintbrush. “Hi. Lexie, right? It’s nice to know your name.”
“Uh, you too, I guess.” Lexie gave her an odd look, then turned to Baz. “Who is she?”
My mate,his brain promptly responded. But Arden looked like she was half a step away from simply running off into the woods, and he could hardly blame her; first she was threatened by wild shifters—he still would love to sink his teeth into their throats for scaring her—and then she had to deal with Baz and Lexie closing in on her. He knew that he and his cousin could be a lot to take.
“The wild shif—er—wild clans were hassling her,” he said. “Arden, do you want to join us for lunch? It’s the least we can do to make up for the scare you just got. We’ve got lots of food as long as you don’t mind sandwiches and hot dogs.”
Lexie frowned at Baz. “I need to talk to you.”
“In a minute.”
“Now, Baz.”
“Why don’t you go ahead of us,” Baz told Arden.
“Uh ... okay.” Arden gave them both an odd look. She had finally gotten her art supplies stuffed back into a small day pack, which she slung over one shoulder and then headed for a path into the woods that Baz hadn’t even noticed before.
They followed her into the cool, shady edge of the forest. Baz looked around for signs of other shifters, inhaled deeply in case his blunted human senses could detect them, but there was no one. The woods lay still and quiet in the heat of midday, with nothing but birdsong and the rustling of Arden’s footsteps on the path in front of them.
“Okay, now you can tell me what’s going on,” Lexie half-whispered, gripping Baz’s arm. “You’ve been acting weird and skulking around ever since we got here. Where on earth did she come from? She’s human, right?”
“I think so,” Baz whispered back. “I’m pretty sure she’s been living in one of the cabins at the edge of town.”
“What?” Lexie’s voice rose, making Arden glance back at them. With a tighter grasp on Baz’s arm, she leaned in to whisper, “And how long exactly have you known about this?”
“I didn’t know for sure,” Baz retorted in a fierce undertone, wrenching his arm out of her grip. He hadn’t meant to put some alpha “push” behind it, but he must have, because Lexie missed a step, stumbling where there was nothing to stumble on. “So yeah, I’ve been investigating on my own. I didn’t want to bring it to the rest of you until I found out more.”
“You know, maybe Declan has a point about you,” Lexie muttered, not looking at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You should’ve told us, Baz.”
“You’re right,” he said, which seemed to derail her irritation. “And I’ll keep it in mind for the future. But at the same time, it doesn’t make sense to get everyone worked up over what might have been a passing hiker who was long gone. I saw a few signs that could’ve pointed to someone staying here, or meant something completely different. YouknowDeclan’s a loose cannon at the best of times. And if there was danger, Fern would have told us.”
“Okay ... true.” Lexie shoved her hands in her pockets and nodded ahead of them, where Arden’s two-tone hair glimmered in the sunlight piercing the leaf canopy overhead. “So who is she?”
