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2
Savannah
Ishouldn’t be here, in this stranger’s home, I think as I stand under the shower, scrubbing at my skin. The hot water draws the cold out of my bones, but the black mud is stubborn, clinging, and my mother’s dark warnings flood back to me. He could jump in the driver’s seat right now and drive me off someplace. Abduct me. Do anything he likes with me. There’s no one to look out for me, to wonder where I’ve got to. Unease prickles in my stomach as I wonder if I’ve just done something real dumb. Something even worse than being rejected and abandoned.
But it doesn’t feel like that.
As I watch the mud pour down the drain, I have the weird sense that it’s my old life draining away from me. I have no reason to trust Beau, except it felt like he was supposed to find me here.
Last night, when I skidded down that riverbank, I thought I’d tumbled into the mouth of hell. The blackness had risen up to receive me. To swallow me whole. I don’t remember falling asleep, but awful nightmares terrified me all night long. I dreamed that I was already dead, sunk down to the river bed, tangled up in the weeds and stones.
And this morning, Beau Matherson brought me back to life. I was like a primordial creature wallowing in the mud, and he dragged me out and gave me a second chance.
His voice—a low, vibrating growl. A powerful voice made soft. It broke right through my nightmares. I opened my eyes and saw a sight I know I’ll never forget:
A river god. A massive, broad-shouldered man, towering over me, water droplets glistening on him like gold dust. His clothes all soaked and clinging to him. Dark, wet hair hanging in his eyes.
And what eyes. As true as the brightest sky, burning through the darkness. Burning with worry for me.
As he took me in, he rubbed at his short beard, scattering more golden droplets, and my heart flipped. No one has ever worried about me before, in my whole life.
That’s not me feeling sorry for myself. That’s just how it is. Life was hard on the territory. If you don’t look out for yourself, no one else is going to.
And when those burning-sky irises locked onto mine, I thought, reborn.
I was being reborn right here.
Just now, I wrote the word in my journal, and it seared through the pages.
He might have come to hurt me, to do those awful things my mom had warned me about. But when he lifted me up from the bank and led me here so gently—like I was a horse and he was afraid I was going to bolt—he felt like my savior.
Then he stripped off his shirt. His glorious body cast in gold by the morning light. Muscles like a river of boulders, tattoos adorning him like blessings.
When I look at him, I can’t breathe. Dizziness trembles through me, and little sparks of fire light all over my body.
I want to stare at him all day long. I want to press my mouth to his skin. Feel its velvet, inhale his warmth.
I’ve never felt like this before, never desired another person before.
Frigid.
That’s what they called me. That’s why I was rejected—that and the fact I couldn’t shift. That ugly moment seared into my mind for eternity.
Stripped bare, my body on display to the whole pack, for the first time since I was a little cub. And my intended, an alpha-in-waiting, walking around me in a circle.
Sniffing me.
He said I didn’t smell right. That I had no scent.
Everybody laughed at me.
Then he told me to shift. I’ve never shifted before. My mom told me it would happen when I met my mate, but it didn’t happen with him. I tried and tried till I hurt all over, and he laughed his ass off at me, and everyone else joined in, calling me names.
Frigid bitch.
What do you expect from a halfling?
I wasn’t a real wolf and they knew it. Too soft, too chubby, and I didn’t smell right.
