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Prologue - Caelan
Autumn's End
The three consecutive chirpsfrom my phone, hidden deep in the depths of my red flannel shirt under a thick winter parka, cut through the dead silence of the woods, startling the deer I had been waiting for since before dawn. The thing spooks and dashes quickly out of sight, back into the thicket it had come from.
My sigh may be somewhat melodramatic, but it is bloody cold and my fingers are aching from their hold on my hunting bow in the near freezing air of the morning. Hunting with the bow was a little more complicated, but the inhabitants of Whisper Woods have extremely sensitive hearing and aren’t fans of guns. And I do like to stay on the good side of the inhabitants of the Woods. I’m only here by their good graces, so I try to be polite.
Falling back into my little hidey hole, and resting up against the nearest scratchy tree, I rip my glove off and dig into my pockets to pull out my phone. My fingers are almost too cold to unlock it, but I manage somehow, and find the alerts fromHook’d, a dating app I downloaded a couple of weeks ago one night, alone in my cabin after a couple too many beers. One just on the good side of tipsy selfie later, where I somehow managed to showcase my thick beard and the chest hair peeking out of my standard plaid flannel shirt to its best advantage, and a half-assed bio later it was done.
The app catered mainly to beings, but there were a lot of humans—mainly being-chasers who got off on the rush of being with a supernatural creature. Luckily for my gay ass, it is extremely queer orientated. Not that I was a being-chaser, it’s just that, well, I kind of straddle a bit of a weird grey area. And honestly, I just wasn’t overly fussy about my partner's status. Shifters,vamps, fae, fauns. It’s not like I slept around a lot, but with the world full of wonderful beings, why limit yourself?
Not that everyone was into mixing like that. The people of my small backwards hometown sure weren’t. Which is why they weren’t big fans of mine. My great-grandfather had been a wolf shifter from a pack that lived here in the Woods. He’d fallen in love with my great-grandmother after he had wandered into her family homestead bordering the Whisper Woods.
There had been some stories of some slight stalking before they had gotten together, but I had been reassured, many times, that it was all quite romantic. Something about them being bonded mates, more than just regular species matehood.
I had my sincere doubts considering bonded mates were something from the legends of the Before Times. Stories kids are told about beings, and non-beings, being destined, compelled even, to be together and were blessed by the magic of the Whisper Woods. Either way, it was a long time ago and frankly I tried to not think about my great-grandparents’ sex lives.
My local town’s aversion to beings is also why I had cast my net wide and hadn’t put a distance preference on. The small town of Whisper Wells tolerated me. Sure, I had some friends in town, but mostly they preferred when I kept to myself. Unless they needed me or my shit, that is.
But winter is on its way, and it gets awfully lonely when the snows drift in and I am cut off from the world on my property at the edge of the Woods. Most years the isolation doesn’t really bother me, but there has been a niggling feeling growing that maybe this year it would be nice to have someone to chat to when things get dark and lonely around here.
You looking for some sausage for those buns?
OMG. That was terrible! Just pretend I never said that!
Hi.
I huff a quiet laugh in a small puff of foggy breath and settle back into my spot, ignoring the frigid frost seeping through my pants to bite my ass.Glitterballzwas obviously trying to make a cute riff off my handleHotDogBuns, but it is definitely more interesting than the boring “what’s up” messages I usually receive. Quickly, I click on the tiny thumbnail to check out his profile.
Shit, my breath seizes in my lungs as his picture fills my phone screen. This guy ishot. More than hot. He is very obviously naked, his back to the camera, the cleft of his ass just visible in the shot. Long and lean, his back muscles on glorious display as he twists just enough to glance over his shoulder, his eyebrow arched like he knows exactly what the viewer is thinking. The sides of his silvery white blonde hair are closely cropped, and he is crowned by a riot of curls that seemed to fall artfully into his face.
His skin though, it's his skin that makes my body throb with unexpected wanting. I have never seen such pale, smooth skin. So pale it glows with the sheerest purple pearlescent sheen. Shadows dance across his back, highlighting the muscles rippling beneath. The sight of such unblemished perfection makes me want to bite it, mark it, to leave my imprint on that unbroken skin.
The only mar on the perfection is two gashes on either side of his spine between his shoulder blades. Completely entranced, I trace one finger down the lines of his spine, almost feeling the heat of his skin beneath and another alert chirp from my phone. Stunned momentarily, I fumble my phone, dropping it into the soft leaf mulch below.
“Fucks sake,” I mutter as I swipe my phone up off the rotting leaves and dust it off. There is another message, but I quickly jump into his profile to check him out. He is only a year older than my twenty eight years old, his profile much more filled out than mine. Which wasn’t a challenge.
He lives in the Loqueaur City, so definitely not close, like the other side of the country not close. And he is a fae. Which is kind of obvious from his iridescent purple skin and the pointed ears. Before I can drool too much, I flick over to my messages, eager to see what he had to say next, a small thrill zipping through my veins.
Seriously though, what’s with the name?
I can’t help the small grimace and eager blush that creeps over my cheeks.
Hey
Never apologise for offering a man sausage.
I just kinda wish that I could say there was something funny or witty behind the name.
I needed a handle, my great-grandfather was a wolf shifter, so there was the whole dog/ wolf thing, and there was a pack of hot dog buns in front of me when I signed up.
It wasn’t the greatest story, but a handful of laugh emojis immediately lit up my screen.
Well, at least you are honest. I like it.
So you are part shifter?
Does that mean you’re going to eat me on the full moon?
