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“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told me,” I admitted after a while.

“About what exactly?” He stepped over roots as if he knew exactly where they were, his heavy boots barely made a sound on the needle strewn floor. Not once did he stumble—unlike me.

“How you live your life and do so much yourself. I’m probably romanticising it, but it sounds like such a good way of living.”

Head tilted at me, Jules stopped.

“What?” I squirmed a little under his scrutiny.

“You live a good life yourself, don’t you? You have a job you like, your mother, your friends, and supermarkets...”

I chuckled. “Well, if you put it like that.”

“My life is good, yes. I love living in symbiosis with my forest. I protect it, and it keeps me safe and alive in return.”

“What exactly are you, Jules?” I asked in a whisper. I hoped he wouldn’t be angry or offended by my question.

“I suppose you would call me a forest god,” he said simply. “I am the, for lack of a better term, heart and soul of this forest. The shepherd.”

Don’t fucking faint, Nik.

The cute ginger I’d been dreaming—and wanking—about was a freakinggod?

“Okay.”

“My answer surprises you,” he stated.

“Yes, no. I don’t know. Okay, yeah, it does surprise me a bit. I knew you were magical; we’ve established that.” I shrugged. “But agod? I mean, I have zero doubt about it, but it’s not something I would have expected. Meeting an actual god.” I suddenly felt super aware of how rude I sounded. “Don’t get me wrong, please.”

Please don’t hurt me.

“It makes perfect sense. You are so gorgeous and regal, like, I believe you are a god, but—”

“Nikolai?” He interrupted me with a little laugh. “It’s okay. I didn’t tell you to intimidate you. You asked, and I didn’t want to lie. I’m bad at it, and it doesn’t make sense to me at all. And I did not want to lieto you.”

“Yeah, same.” I huffed. I had always sucked at lying. It made me feel like shit. I ended up spilling all the beans literally two minutes later. It ate me alive.

“I told you I am of Elven blood,” Jules explained, inviting me to keep walking. “In terms of my people, I am a sapling. In terms of your kind I would be considered a young man, like yourself, maybe.”

Oh wow, okay.He could live for what, sixteen hundred years, then?

That’s a bummer.

He’d still be young and hot, and I would be old and grey and wilt away without him caring too much.

“I see.” What else could I say?

He heaved a sigh.

“I would like to show you my home, unless you are too tired and would prefer to sit down somewhere.”

“What? It’s barely half ten in the morning. No, I’d like to see whatever you want to share with me.”

Let me have this silly hope that you and I could be more than friends for another couple of hours.

Although… even that might be a stretch. Why would a mighty creature like him even bother with afriendlike me?

I wasn’t so sure about that when a giddy Jules dragged me around his homestead by the sleeve. He gave me ‘Look at my pretty pebbles’ vibes.