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When the injury was fully sealed up, Juniper’s light flickered off. Her chanting stopped, and her eyes returned to their normal color. She stumbled to her feet and turned to Rowan, her breath hard. Her forehead was covered in sweat, and she wiped it with the back of her hand.
“I have done what I could to keep it alive, but it still needs to be treated.”
“No problem,” Rowan replied. He still felt amazed. “We can take it to the rangers’ hut a few miles from here. They are skilled healers. You already saved its life.”
Rowan stepped backward, transforming back into his human form. Even after all these years, transforming always left him with a queasy feeling. Juniper turned around as he quickly got dressed, turning around in time to see him pulling on his black T-shirt.
“Alright then. All that’s left is you, buddy.” Rowan bent down and grunted as he picked up the buck, slinging it over his shoulder as if it weighed the same as his empty backpack. The animal croaked softly but offered no resistance.
Rowan caught the look of surprise on Juniper’s face as he carried the animal. “What? What’s wrong?”
Juniper blushed hard and shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing is wrong. It’s just…well, I didn’t expect you to just lift it like that. That’s all.”
Rowan cocked his head to the side in amusement.Did she find that attractive?He chuckled quietly, storing the information somewhere in his mind. He shifted the weight of the buck on his shoulders and looked up the road they had come.
“Well, we better get moving now. We have quite the journey ahead of us.”
Juniper nodded, and together they began the long hike out of the woods.
Chapter 7 - Juniper
Juniper followed close behind Rowan as he led the way out of the forest. She was tired but refused to complain. Rowan had barely broken stride, despite walking with a full-grown buck on his shoulder.
She tried to put some space between herself and Rowan, but she could not stop thinking about how strong and reliable he was as he carried the injured animal.
Juniper caught herself staring at him multiple times, despite how hard she tried to ignore his very existence. She loved the way his back muscles twitched with every movement he made, his powerful arms balancing the heavy beast.
She stumbled over a half-buried rock as she watched Rowan, crying softly as she collided into him. He spun around in alarm, concern in his eyes.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Juniper replied with suffocating embarrassment. “I tripped on something.”
Rowan raised a brow. “Alright then. You ought to be more careful, Juniper. We’re almost at the rangers’ hut.” He shouldered the massive deer once more, then turned around and kept walking.
Juniper nodded and made a face at Rowan’s back. She felt like a fool, stumbling into him as she had done.You ought to be more careful. Well, he was a genius at stating the obvious, wasn’t he?
Juniper knew that her anger at Rowan was unjustified. She was truly frustrated with herself. She was sure that she wanted nothing to do with him. Especially not after how he had shamed her publicly.
And yet? The first time she had seen him after so long, and they’d ended up having sex! And now, she couldn’t take her eyes off the man as he leaped easily over logs with an animal that was twice his body mass draped over his shoulders.
Her coldness to him seemed pretentious to her, when put under a microscope. Cold when he was looking, glued to him when he turned away.
She wondered how she was supposed to concentrate on their investigation if she allowed herself to get so distracted by him when they worked together.
Juniper saw a thin trail of smoke in the sky up ahead and let out a sigh of relief. True to her guess, they rounded a bend through a stand of trees and arrived at a large clearing in the middle of the forest.
There was a stout, well-built hut in the middle, and an outhouse behind and to the side. There was a medium-sized animal pen, with the fence connected to the wall of the hut. A small barn completed the buildings in the large space, everything looking very organized.
“Here we are,” Rowan announced. His breathing still sounded uncannily even and Juniper ignored how that discovery made her feel inside.
“Hullo!” Rowan called loudly.
A man, who Juniper assumed was a ranger, opened the front door and peeked outside the hut. He had on a thick fisherman’s jacket over an equally thick checkered shirt. He had on faded jeans, and a pair of sturdy leather boots to complete the look.
He still had a spoon in one hand, and Juniper concluded that she and Rowan had probably disturbed the poor man’s lunch. He had an impatient look on his face as he stepped out of the hut fully.
He glanced at Juniper with shock written all over his face. His eyes narrowed and she rolled her eyes. Yeah, the townfolk still did not like her. He remained silent, although Juniper was certain he had wanted to speak, before turning his attention to Rowan. “Ah, Alpha Rowan,” the ranger said. “What’s that you got there?”
