Page 13 of Forget Me Not (The Shifters of Timberfall #1)

Syve

“Please! Please, wait!”

Syve hesitated, steps slowing a fraction, but did not stop threading through the pines. She hadn’t noticed that she was being followed.

“Please, I’m not here to hurt you. You’re…you’re Syve, aren’t you?”

Deer, meet headlights. Slowly she turned her head until she could see a familiar man standing just inside the tree line, crouched low with his arms raised like he was approaching a scared animal. Which, she realized, he technically was.

Recognition dawned on her and she tentatively took a few steps back toward Timberfall. It was the man from The Glass—the one Aimi said worked at Hal’s.

Syve was beyond baffled at this point—how did he know? Why was he here? How did he know her name ? Why did he follow her? How was any of this possible? Why was she a fucking deer right now? How was he not freaking out too?

He knew.

He knew .

But how?

Was he like this too? Did he share the secret like her parent’s friends? But…her parents’ friends had been killed over this. Was he dangerous?

“Syve, I won’t hurt you. You’re freaking out right now, aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

He kept talking softly, but stopped trying to come closer.

That was probably because she had unwittingly closed the gap by another three feet on her own, she realized.

Syve turned her head, effectively giving him as much of a side eye as her current form could manage.

She decided to listen for one more minute, if he didn’t say anything convincing, she would resume the flight portion of her emergency response.

“It’s not safe to shift in town, so either you have no control, or you are in danger. Based on our previous encounters, I’m going to put my money on the former?”

This garnered him her full attention. He noticed and continued, “Are you in danger? ”

Syve shook her head frantically and when his face lit up, she realized she had officially blown her cover.

“Good. That’s good. And you can understand me. That’s also good.” Relief flooded his features, his body relaxing so wholly he almost looked like he was going to sink to his knees. She took another step closer.

Why did she do that?

“Alright. Let’s start with the easy questions. Is that okay?” he asked gently, never taking his cool, gray eyes off hers.

She mentally calculated the chances she could outrun this man if he was indeed a threat, and stopped walking completely when they were a stone’s throw apart.

The odds were in her favor, as long as he was unarmed…

She shook her head to keep herself from spiraling into another full-blown panic attack, which more or less just shook her entire body.

Human reactions and movements did not seem to translate one-to-one with her animal body.

With that in mind she concentrated on her movements to deliberately nod.

“Yes, yes? Yes! Okay!” The man sighed, running his hands through his wavy black hair as he stared at nothing in particular—she could almost see the wheels turning in his mind.

“Would I be correct in assuming that you have no control?”

Another nod.

“You shifted on accident then…Can you shift back?”

She aggressively shook her head ‘no’ and he sighed .

“Will you let me help?” He stepped forward and she immediately retreated. “Okay, okay. I’ll stay right here.”

She nodded.

“Do you recognize me?”

More nodding.

“From here?”

He gestured behind him, she tilted her head to the side for a minute, confused, then shook her head no.

“From The Glass?”

Nod.

“Okay, I’m going to take my coat off. I can see you don’t trust me. I get it. I’m virtually a stranger. I’m going to give you a reason—show you that you can, okay?”

He unzipped his coat, slipping out of it easily and tossing it next to him on the ground. Syve watched him warily, but nodded. She could not imagine what he could possibly show her that would make her trust him.

She flinched, her eyes wide as saucers. He had kicked off his boots and was actively undoing the button on his jeans.

“Trust the process. I’m not a creep, I promise. It’s just…jeans are really expensive, and I just bought these…”

He blushed—actually blushed—and then dropped his pants to his ankles.

Syve stumbled back, blinking rapidly as she tried to figure out how she wound up here—in the woods as a deer with a pants-less man in front of her.

A pants-less man, who must be one with the forest if his thighs were anything to judge by—thick as the tree trunks and clearly what she needed to be focusing on at that moment.

“You can trust me, because I’m like you. Not only that, but we’ve met before.”

He pulled his shirt over his head as he said it, exposing a very tan, fit chest underneath, spackled with dark hair that she absolutely did not need to be appraising. There was seriously something wrong with her.

The sudden exposure of his chest succeeded in stalling Syve’s brain long enough for the man to toss his shirt on top of his coat, kick his jeans and boots over to the pile and then shift.

Where once a man stood before her, now stood a large— really large—smoke gray wolf.

The exact same smoke gray wolf from her dreams—her dreams that were not dreams. Syve stumbled, all of the little puzzle pieces finally setting themselves in their places.

Instead of acting rational, or as rational as one could be in her shoes, she turned around and ran.

It was easy to zip through the trees on cloven hooves.

The extra legs made her nimble, and she was able to dash around trunks and over logs with hardly a thought.

A deep growl behind her reminded her that while she may have been able to outrun a man, she was not sure if she could outrun a fucking wolf.

She could hear twigs snapping behind her as he gave chase.

It triggered a primal part of her, and she found a fifth gear, running even faster .

Syve had gone hiking in these woods a lot before Erhard died. Her late husband had loved being in the woods, which one would expect from someone who chose to work as a cartographer and wildlife photographer, and they had spent a majority of their weekends out hiking, camping, or just existing .

She had not been outside of town since the accident.

Though, even if she had, her sense of direction was awful.

She had no idea where she was or where she was running to.

As soon as the mausoleum was out of sight, she was as good as lost. A quick yip both confirmed her pursuer remained and almost distracted her enough to make her trip.

Who knew a wolf could make such a cute, innocent sound while literally chasing you through the woods?

Sunlight shone through more easily, as the pines began to thin, but before Syve could consider what that meant for her, she broke through the trees and skidded to a stop.

In front of her was a calm lake that mirrored the peak of the mountain inclining away from its shores.

She would need to backtrack and skirt the lake to the left or scale the rocky incline to her right if she wanted to keep moving forward—or whatever counted as “keep the wolf to your back”.

Before she could make a choice, she heard another low growl and looked over her shoulder just in time to see the massive silver wolf leap out of the trees, tackling her into the dirt.

Syve stared up into a panting mouth of dagger teeth, the edges of her vision beginning to fade to black.

When he huffed down at her, hot air bursting across her face, she let the darkness take her.