Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MILO
The moment Calder burst through the trees and rushed toward me, every instinct in my body locked tight.
My pulse slammed hard in my throat.
For a second, my brain tried to insist this wasn’t happening—that none of this could possibly be real, that I’d misunderstood what I saw in the clearing yesterday.
Then he sped up.
There was no misunderstanding then.
My grip tightened around my camera. Not that it would help me much. The bear spray sat buried in my pack several feet behind me but even if it had been within reach, the idea of using it on something Calder’s size suddenly felt ridiculous.
He ran, fast enough that instinct screamed at me to move, but I didn’t.
Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was the same strange logic that had kept me here after seeing him the first time. If Calder had wanted to hurt me, he’d have done it already.
Still, my body braced for impact as he closed the distance between us.
Then he bent sharply in front of me.
For one stupid, blinding second, I thought he was reaching for me, until something exploded out of the open camera bag near my feet. It was nothing more than a flash of gray fur, claws, and the sound of furious squeaking.
I blinked.
Calder’s hand moved faster than my eyes could properly follow. Long fingers closed around a squirrel just as it launched itself out of the bag.
The squirrel twisted indignantly in his grip, tail lashing wildly while tiny, useless teeth snapped at the air. Calder looked down at it with something dangerously close to annoyance before turning slightly away from my equipment and lowering his hand toward the ground.
The moment he opened his fingers, the squirrel hit the grass running.
It streaked away in a blur of gray and disappeared up the trunk of a nearby oak, claws scraping bark as it climbed.
For a moment, I just stood there staring.
My pulse was still racing from the sight of Calder charging across the clearing.
All that adrenaline, the certainty that I was about to die—all because of a squirrel.
I let out a breath so slowly my chest ached with it.
“Oh,” I puffed, because apparently that was all my brain could manage.
Then I got my first proper glimpse at him. His eyes weren’t… animalistic. Not really.
Up close, they looked almost molten in the morning light—amber layered with darker tones of melted chocolate beneath, steady and focused in a way that made my stomach tighten unexpectedly.
Real.
That was the problem—nothing about this felt dreamlike anymore. I could hear him breathing, could see the subtle movement of his shoulders when he adjusted his stance. Heat radiated from him into the cool morning air, noticeable even from a few feet away.
Real enough that part of me still wanted to retreat.
Instead, curiosity nudged fear aside.
I cleared my throat, suddenly aware that he’d been studying me just as closely. “You weren’t going to attack me,” I stated.
It wasn’t really a question, more like a realization I’d arrived at several seconds too late.
Calder watched me for a moment before answering. “No.”
The word came out low and rough but perfectly clear. There was nothing uncertain about it. No confusion, no hesitation. Just quiet confidence subsiding into the space between us.
We stood there for quite some time.
The forest carried on around us—birds calling deeper in the trees, leaves rustling softly overhead, water trickling somewhere beyond the marsh—while the two of us remained fixed in place, studying each other like strangers who had stepped into the same impossible moment.
Up close, his composure was evident.
He stood secure in the grass, balanced and steady, all that size and strength held under quiet control. Nothing in his posture suggested panic or aggression. If anything, he looked more sure of himself than any human I’d ever met.
The heat radiating from him was easier to notice now that we were standing this close. It wasn’t overwhelming. In fact, it was welcome through the chill in the air.
I found myself noticing details I probably shouldn’t have been focused on at all—the scar near his forearm, the texture of the dark gray fur across his shoulders, the cord around his neck disappearing beneath it.
A smooth stone rested against the center of his chest, dark and distressed from years of wear.
My attention snagged there for a second.
It wasn’t merely another piece of jewelry. It was important.
Calder had stepped between me and a bear yesterday.
This morning he’d crossed the clearing at full speed because of a squirrel in my camera bag.
Realization slammed into me. None of this should have felt normal already.
But standing this close to him, curiosity overpowered fear.
“Can I ask you something?”
His attention rested fully on me again. “You already did.”
The corner of my mouth twitched before I could stop it. “Fair point.”
I hesitated briefly, then went with the question that had been circling through my head since yesterday. “Are there more like you?”
Calder’s expression didn’t change, but something in his posture tightened almost imperceptibly. “There are many things in these woods you have not met,” he said calmly.
It wasn’t exactly an answer.
I considered pressing further, but something told me Calder wouldn’t appreciate it. So I chose my next words carefully. “Do they all watch people from the trees?”
That got a reaction.
Not a dramatic one, nothing more than the faintest narrowing of those amber eyes. “No.” The answer came easily.
I folded my arms and waited.
A breeze flowed through the clearing, stirring leaves overhead. Somewhere deeper in the woods, a bird called once before the sound faded into silence.
Calder broke eye contact, his gaze drifting into the trees for a moment. Then his eyes returned to mine. “Only you have held my attention.”