But there is a feeling. It’s soft and subtle, like someone very large is holding their breath.
“I don’t know what you really look like,” I continue, “but my brain seems to think you’re… well… big. And covered in hair or fur. And probably have eyes that glow in the dark.” My cheeks heat. “And if I’m being honest,” I whisper, “I don’t find that scary anymore.”
I can barely bring myself to say the next part.
“In fact… the idea of a hulking creature with russet-brown fur that gleams like redwood bark in sunlight, and warm amber eyes that glow faintly gold in the dark… I don’t know what that says about me.”
It says a lot. Too much.
I exhale shakily. “If you’re out there, I won’t run.”
Silence. A deep, encompassing silence that feels full instead of empty.
I nod to the night, feeling foolish, brave, and tired all at once. “Good night,” I murmur.
I go inside, close the door, turn off the lamp, then crawl into bed.
Sleep comes slowly, but when it does, I dream of tall shapes in the dark, gentle eyes gleaming gold, and a warmth that feels like being carried through the forest by an ancient, impossibly kind presence.
Something real.
CHAPTER NINE
BOONE
Three mornings have passedsince my idiocy reached previously uncharted heights, and I’m still mentally kicking myself hard enough to bruise.
I should have blurred.
My Phasing Blur should have kicked in the instant Elias looked directly at me. That’s what itdoes: It keeps humans from seeing more than a fuzzy shimmer, a heat-haze silhouette, a convenient smudge their brains happily explain away. It’s instinctive. Automatic. Part of the built-in survival magic that’s kept my kind hidden for millennia.
But when Elias turned and looked right at me—lookedintome—there was no blur. No distortion. I just stood there like a lumbering idiot in the middle of the open woods with my entire eight-foot self on display.
Worse, Iheld eye contact. Held it like some needy stag in mating season.
Why didn’t my instincts protect me?
I know why.
Nature Sense—my ability to feel disturbances in the forest from miles away—doesn’t just pick up danger. It picks up… resonance. Presence. Intent. And Elias has always registereddifferently from every other human I’ve ever sensed. As if his existence hums on a frequency my instincts lean toward rather than away from.
Which means on some deep, ancient, inconvenient level of my being, I didn’twantto blur. My core instincts—supposedly designed to protect my species—chose the worst possible moment to take a day off.
Out-freaking-standing.
I scrub both hands over my face and let out a groan that scares a squirrel off a nearby branch.
And then there are his words.
I’ve tried not to replay them, but they replay themselves anyway, curling around my ribs with every memory.
I keep thinking about you.
If you’re out there, I won’t run.
The idea of a hulking creature with russet fur and glowing amber eyes… I don’t know what that says about me.
By the roots of the oldest redwood, when he said that—when I listened from the trees like an absolute menace—it took every ounce of self-control I possess not to go to him. He believed it. Believedme. Believed in what he saw.
