Luke jerked awake from strange,uneasy dreams that had a vaguely foreign cast, as if his mind was not entirely his own. He had to look at his hands to make sure they were human hands, with curls of light brown hair on the backs, and not paws.
It gradually dawned on him that there was enough light in the cabin to see. Inga was asleep on the top bunk across from him, quiet except for faint, slow breathing. A shiver of motion in a corner made his heart lurch again, until he realized it was Rogue, up and pacing around.
“You need to go outside, fella?” Luke asked softly. The dog stopped and pricked his ears, then trotted to the door and looked expectant.
Luke rolled out of bed, moving carefully to avoid disturbing Inga. He had slept in his clothes, so all he had to do was shove his feet into the borrowed boots. The heavy bar across the door took more work, but he got it wiggled out of its sockets with making too much noise and quietly opened the door onto a crystalline morning.
The dog shot off to do its business. Luke stepped behind some rocks, relieved himself, then stretched and looked around.
He’d only gotten a vague sense of the place last night. In the newly risen sun, it was truly beautiful, a small sheltered cove framed by rocky hills. The little cabin was the only man-made thing in sight, aside from a scattering of surrounding infrastructure like the broken-down wooden dock below.
The air was brisk, but Luke found that living on an ice floe as a polar bear had changed his relationship with cold, even now that he was back in his human form. He wasn’t uncomfortable, merely energized.
The path down to the cove and the dock was nearly vertical, even steeper than the one they had descended last night. Another, less intimidating track led off to the left, so Luke decided to find out what was that way.
“AWK!”
Well, now he knew where the griffins were. They looked pretty cozy in a nest just above the trail. Last night he had been too out of it, and then it was too dark, to really get a good look, but they didn’t especially improve by daylight. The babies were in that awkward gawky-cute stage, and the parents were ... something. That he had now seen. One was part raccoon and part seagull; it was at least sort of cute. The other looked like a mash-up with an opossum, and it was many things, but cute wasn’t one of them.
“Leave it, Rogue,” Luke said to the dog, who looked fascinated with the nest. The griffins hissed at him and puffed up their fur and feathers. Luke hadn’t been sure if Rogue knew the “leave it” command, but whether from that or simply reading his master’s body language, the dog fell in obediently on Luke’s other side.
Luke dug his fingers into Rogue’s heavy black ruff. The dog panted happily.
“You’re a good boy. A really good boy. I don’t know what I’d have done without you all this time.” Gone completely feral,probably. Rogue had given him companionship, something to take care of, and a reason not to just jump off the iceberg and swim until he sank.
Which, in the end, was more or less what he had done anyway.
Luke tensed. Yesterday his memories had been a confused jumble. Today they were a little clearer, and he remembered that he’d left the ice floe to escape. He had been found.
Surely they wouldn’t come all the way here looking for him, would they?
Luke blew out his breath. He couldn’t be in a safer place, at least for now. There was a lot of ground to cover, a lot of places to look, and if he happened to see anyone suspicious, he could simply hide. As far as he knew, they had no way of tracking him other than through basic detective work.
As far as he knew ...
Luke looked down sharply at Rogue. Then he went to his knees and ran his hands over the dog’s shaggy body. Rogue panted in his face.
“Are you microchipped anywhere, boy? Are we?” Luke twisted around frantically to look down at his own body. Then he got hold of himself and breathed slowly and evenly.
Rogue nuzzled up against him, licked his face once, then pressed himself to Luke’s chest until he calmed down.
“It’s okay, boy,” Luke murmured. He scratched Rogue’s ears and got to his feet. “We’ll deal with that later. Right now let’s get the lay of the land.”
The path went to a small spring, bubbling up in a pool surrounded by rocks and moss. A metal cup hung on a hook beside the water’s edge, its purpose obvious. Luke washed his hands in the outflow from the pool, then dipped up a cupful of water and drank. It was cold and good. Rogue lapped the swift-running water where it trickled down the hill.
Luke was slightly taken aback by a gargoyle sculpture, about as tall as his knee, planted on the hillside just above the spring. It looked like it was made of coarse stone or concrete, slightly weathered from being outside. Its carved eyes gazed serenely out to sea, as if it stood on guard.
He drank some more water. Slowly his rapid pulse, still elevated from earlier, started to ease.
He had the oddest sense that nothing bad could happen here. This place feltgood.
It had been a long time since he’d had that feeling.
The door to the cabin opened and Inga came out, yawning. Seeing him, she came over to the spring, pausing along the way to greet the griffins with a cheerful whistle. They chirped at her.
“Good morning,” Inga said when she was close enough that she didn’t have to shout. Her hair was out of its braid, loose and flowing in tangled golden waves. She was wearing an oversized men’s plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, unbuttoned down to her mid-chest (which meant he could see she wore a T-shirt under it, but no bra). The tails fell down her jeans-clad legs to mid-thigh.
“Morning.” Luke tried not to get too fixated on the way her hair blew across her face, or the flex of her movement beneath the loose shirt. From her perspective, he was some random guy she had found on the beach, and it wasn’t like he had anything to offer anyone right now other than danger and pain. Well, okay, he did have one thing. “Drink?” he said, holding out the cup.
