Page 13 of It’s A Little Bit Bunny (Fangs on Ice #4)

Twelve

Jules

A ll through Friday I busied myself with the last preparations. I tried not to imagine how I would feel if Saturday passed without Nikolai showing up. Yet before my inner eye, I saw myself sitting alone at the kitchen table, eating a lonely slice of the pie.

He will come. He promised.

But what was a human promise worth? I didn’t know their kind well enough to say, and also… who could blame a human for lying to someone like me ?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nikolai stayed away from the old man who had changed before his eyes until he resembled this .

I was a youngling in Elven years and more than a head shorter than my old man mask; I was tiny compared to him. A sapling next to a grown tree. I supposed Nikolai wasn’t old in human years but in the prime of his young adulthood.

My beautiful human. I hope I get to see your face again.

Sleep didn’t come easy that night. I laid awake for hours, hoping and praying—although no gods existed that I believed in—to the trees I’d known for all my life to bring him back to me.

Eventually, I fell into a restless sleep.

I woke bleary-eyed and brewed some coffee. I hadn’t told Nikolai that I went to the human world a few times a year, heavily disguised, to stock up on the things I could not make myself. Like coffee. A wanderer had once left a metal jug of the beverage behind in his terror, and I had been hooked on the drink ever since.

I baked the rhubarb pie, loving the homey smell that filled my kitchen. If he didn’t come, at least I would have pie. And because it was still so early, I whipped up a batch of cookies, too.

At barely ten, a deep thrumming ran through my forest.

No. That can’t be.

But how could it not? My forest never lied.

I hurried to the front door, wrenched my boots on, and grabbed my coat. Two minutes later, I was out the door and shrugging into the sleeves of my coat as I walked across the yard.

I spotted him near the arch.

Tall and broad-shouldered, his golden hair gleamed in the morning sun.

He wore another zipper jacket over a shirt that hugged his muscular chest like a second skin.

“Jules!” he called as soon as he saw me. He raised a hand, relief showing on his handsome face.