28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
~Felix~
My jaw clenched tightly to keep it from dropping when Evalina walked out of her room, freshly changed and ready for the day. She wore another pretty dress, this one a pale yellow that reminded me of morning sunshine, and her long hair had been pulled back into a braid that fell over her shoulder and hung half-way to her waist. More than ever, she reminded me of the fairy in the story my mother used to read me, and the idea that I should be the lucky man who got to be the hero in her story filled me with both pride and a deep, profound desire unlike anything I’d ever known.
Keeping my distance until we got to know each other better was going to take all the self-control I had.
“Will you be warm enough?” I asked, my voice sounding gruffer than usual before I cleared my throat. “There’s a bit of a chill in the air.”
I wore a long-sleeve shirt and jeans that seemed a lot warmer than her dress, however pretty it might be.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured me. “This fabric is warmer than it looks and we won’t be standing still. Let’s go.”
She seemed eager to get started, almost as eager as I felt, and I chose to take it as a compliment. “This way.”
Side-by-side, we walked down the stairs and out the back door of the pack house. As she got her first glimpse of our territory, Evalina’s lips parted, a soft sigh slipping through them that sent blood rushing straight to my groin. “It’s beautiful here.”
“It is.”
My eyes remained trained solely on her as I said it, taking in the way her cool blue eyes sparkled in the morning light and the sun played with the red highlights in her hair, and when she glanced up and found me staring, a sweet blush crept up her cheeks.
I cleared my throat. “Your world is beautiful too, in a different way.”
“It can be,” she agreed. “I suppose I know more about the ugly things that balance it out. Here, everything looks beautiful.”
Her eyes darted down to my chest with her final words before returning to my eyes, the blush in her cheeks deepening, and the seed of hope in my heart grew a little bigger. Was I fooling myself in hoping that she already felt something for me?
“We’ll head west first, to the lake,” I suggested. We were supposed to be looking for portals, and without having any direction about where to begin, we may as well begin with the most scenic spot in our territory. I had a feeling she’d like it.
Evalina followed my lead, her shorter legs rushing to keep up with mine until I remembered to slow my pace. “What are these trees? They’re so tall!”
Her neck craned back as she gazed up at the towering pine trees above us.
“Those are ponderosa pines. I used to climb them as a boy.”
“All the way up there?” Her mouth gaped as she leaned so far back to look, she looked ready to fall over.
“As far as I could get. We’ve also got some Douglas Fir trees, like those ones there.” I pointed out the bushy evergreen trees in the distance. “And these with the yellow leaves, they’re aspens. The leaves will be falling off soon.”
I’d never cared all that much about trees before, but having Evalina hang on every word made me wish I knew more than I did.
Thankfully, a small patch of mushrooms distracted her, and she slipped away from me to inspect them more carefully, kneeling in the dirt in her shimmering, flowing skirt. “We have these! Or something very much like them, anyway. We eat them. Are these edible?”
“Mushrooms in general are, yes, but I’m not sure about those,” I admitted, rubbing a sheepish hand over the back of my neck. “I never learned the difference.”
Wide, round eyes stared up at me. “But what if you eat the wrong ones? Won’t you get sick?”
“Yes, so I just don’t eat any of them.”
She considered that for a moment before nodding in understanding. “Your cooks know which ones to use, then. You don’t gather them yourself.”
“Actually, no one gathers them unless you count driving to the store in town to pick some up.”
Apparently, there were too many unfamiliar words in that sentence for it to mean anything to her. She stared at me so blankly that I had to laugh.
“I’ll tell you all about it eventually. For now, don’t go eating anything unless it comes from our kitchen and you’ll be fine.”
Evalina stood up again, getting to her feet so gracefully, it almost seemed like magic. “I think our lives are quite different,” she said quietly as she fell back into step beside me. From her tone, I couldn’t tell if she meant that in a good way or not, but I knew what it meant to me.
“I think so too. It’ll take us a long time to learn everything about each other, which is kind of exciting, don’t you think?”
A sweet smile spread across her face as she glanced up at me again, but it vanished again a moment later as the lake came into view and an expression of awe replaced any other trace of emotion.
“Oh! Felix, this is…”
She trailed off, unable to find the word, and I looked out over the familiar vista, trying to see it for the first time again through her eyes.
With the trees falling away behind us, we could suddenly see the sky, wide and high and blue, with mountain peaks rising in the distance beyond the water and many more miles of forest. The fall colours had turned the trees heading up the foothills a mixture of yellows and oranges with the occasional red dotted through the ever-present evergreens. The blue of the lake sparkled only a few shades darker than Evalina’s eyes and a few lazy, puffy, white clouds completed the tableau.
“Magical?” I suggested teasingly as I gave Evalina a gentle nudge, her lips still parted in wonder as she stared at the scene in front of her. I loved how she found such delight in things I took for granted, like the shower that morning, and I loved how knowledgeable she was about her own world and the things in it.
The view was nice, sure, but to me, she was the most awe-inspiring thing I had ever seen.
“It’s magical,” she agreed, breathlessly and unironically.
“Let’s take a picture,” I suggested, suddenly wanting to capture the moment to remember it. Years from then, we could look back and remember how we felt when everything between us was new and limitless.
Since I didn’t expect her to know what I meant, I didn’t wait for a response, pulling my phone from my pocket and setting it to selfie mode. Evalina gasped when she saw us reflected in it, but slowly, that incredible smile spread across her face again when she realized it showed her in real time, and I snapped a photo of both of us beaming with the glorious Montana wilderness behind us.
“You froze time,” she whispered in awe as I showed her the static photo, and when she glanced up at me that time, her eyes full of such delight, I couldn’t hold back any longer.
My lips found hers, pressing firm against them in a kiss that sent the sparks of our mate bond exploding through my body, a cascade of desire and fulfillment, promise and satisfaction, and everything in between. Her scent surrounded me, sweet and warm, as every nerve in my body ignited.
For two long beats, she did nothing.
My little fae mate stood there, her eyes still wide open, her limbs unmoving and her mouth frozen against mine while my heart pounded, afraid to take things further as I waited for her verdict on what I’d just done.
Luckily for me, something truly magical happened next.
Her slender arms reached up to wrap around my neck and she pulled me tighter, her lips pushing back against mine, and every problem or worry I’d ever had completely fell away. With her in my arms, the world seemed utterly right.