Page 14 of Forget Me Not (The Shifters of Timberfall #1)

Bastien

Syve went limp beneath him, and Bastien mentally smacked himself as he quickly scrambled off her.

Clearly he’d, once again, not thought hard enough about his actions.

Obviously, she would run from him after he stripped almost naked, then shifted into a full-blown wolf right in front of her.

He intentionally followed her in human form to avoid freaking her out, then he went and freaked her out anyway. Good job, dumbass.

Bas began pacing beside her limp body. Should he wait here for her to come to and hope she would be willing to…

what? Follow him somewhere to talk? Buck naked in the middle of the woods?

Did he actually have a plan at all when he followed her into the cemetery?

She blazed out of that alley and all rational thinking had gone out the window.

What was it about this woman that possessed him? Why was he so invested in her wellbeing when he didn’t even know her? Mates were a fantasy. They were just as much a myth as unicorns—much to Del’s dismay. There was no physical, spiritual or metaphorical hold Syve could have on him.

Yet, there he was.

A crow cawed somewhere nearby, startling him, and he halted. His gaze landed on the far bank of the lake, the same lake he had been intentionally avoiding for two and a half years. Adrenaline flooded his brain.

Was he thinking before acting? No.

Was he going to do it anyway? Yep.

Fifteen minutes later and only halfway back to the mausoleum, regret began to sink in.

Here he was, naked as the day he was born, tromping through the frigid woods, carrying an unconscious deer.

Her warm body and the exertion kept him mostly warm—except for the tips of his ears, his feet and his dick, which had absolutely receded so far into his body it was probably aligned with his spine.

Bas almost missed the gentle vibration in his arms, mistaking it for his own shivering, until it happened again more insistently. He stopped walking, loosened his hold slightly before pinning his eyes onto the nearest tree. This was about to get so much worse .

Syve’s body rippled against his as she shifted but remained limp. Still unconscious, but now a human. A very naked human.

At least this meant she would be easier to carry with her weight distribution more agreeable.

Bastien shifted his arm away from her ass to the back of her knees as quickly as he could without dropping her, and without looking down at her.

Having managed to stop directly in the center of one of the few snow drifts that still lingered in the shadows, Bastien’s feet now felt like clubs as he resumed walking.

He had been ignoring how, and where, she was pressed against him—she was unconscious and, all arguments aside, he was not a complete animal.

A gust of wind picked up—cold air doing what it does best. Club feet or not, the second she shivered, he took off running.

He refused to let her get frostbite or hypothermia because of him.

Because he had chased her all the way to the damned lake.

He had to slow down when they reached the back side of the mausoleum, carefully checking for any potential witnesses before quickly ducking inside.

The interior of the tomb was far warmer than the outside air, the lack of wind and the heat of the persistent sun creating a giant oven out of the stone walls.

Hurrying to the back wall, Bastien crouched down, careful to keep his eyes on the hanging lanterns as he laid Syve down on the cushioned bench.

He blindly reached for one of the many blankets he had stashed.

Once she was covered, he slipped back outside to grab his clothes, begrudgingly donning his frozen pants before returning.

As soon as he was back inside, he swapped his cold, dirt-covered shirt for a clean one from his stash—but froze with it caught around his biceps when he glanced at the woman.

Long auburn hair, now horribly tangled from the wind, framed her pale face.

It wasn’t the kind of pale that came from hiding indoors—just genetics.

One thing was certain: the doe who haunted his nights was also the hazel-eyed woman who plagued his days.

Bastien turned the page and then turned it back, already having forgotten what he had just read.

He was having a hard time focusing with Syve’s gentle snores—not that the snores themselves bothered him, but the fact his mystery woman—and mystery shifter—were one and the same.

Oh, and she was sleeping naked, five feet away from him, because he had tackled her and knocked her out.

With his luck, she would wake up, freak out again, and he could not imagine how this situation could get any worse.

A small groan from the corner made him snap his book shut and jump to his feet, back pressed against the wall.

Syve opened her eyes.