Chapter 1 #2
“Thank you for shopping at Sleepless Books,” I called out after they’d paid and began walking out of the store.
“Your snow yeti guy left you something,” Jed said in a sing-song voice as he made his way over, obviously done with his customer as well.
I sighed and turned to him. My gaze followed his gesturing arm, and I eyed the foot-long box wrapped in beautiful silver paper covered in snowflakes with a light blue bow wrapped around it. “Uh…”
What in the world? Why would he, or anyone, give me a present? Honestly, that was just super weird. The man barely spoke to me on any given day, but he was buying me gifts? What the hell?
Jed smirked. “You have to open it.”
Before I could respond, another customer came over to check out, so I rang her up before turning back to my vampire friend. “I don’t have time for that right now.”
“Oh, come on. You can take a break for two minutes to open it.”
“Actually, no. I can’t. Not right now. I’ll open it after my shift.”
He sighed, sounding exasperated and annoyed. “Fine. I’ll set it in the breakroom for now.”
“Thank you, Jed.”
He shot me a grin and wink, proving he wasn’t actually mad at me, then scooped up the box and walked into the back of the bookstore.
He was probably going to be bugging me about this for the rest of my shift. Luckily, I only had a few hours left.
After I finished my shift, Jed didn’t miss a beat. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the breakroom, pointing at the mysterious gift.
I sighed and walked over to it. I stared at the pretty wrapping for a moment before I noticed a little tag hanging off the big bow in the center of the box.
I read the tag.
For my beautiful werewolf.
Yours Truly And Forever,
Lanche Rudolphus
Okay, that was the sweetest card ever. Seriously, how could he get any cuter? He’d called me beautiful. Gah!
I didn’t let my lips twitch even though, as usual, when it came to Lanche Rudolphus, they wanted to smile.
I picked up the small box. It was heavier than I expected—what in the world could be in there?
—and something jiggled inside. My stomach fluttered in excitement.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d received a surprise gift like this.
I mean, sure, Anton—who was much more than my boss these days—always exchanged with me, and we did a gift exchange thing with my coworkers, but that was different. I knew what to expect with those.
This was… a complete surprise.
I felt my lips twitch again as I pulled the pretty blue ribbon off, set it aside, and slid the lid off the box.
Instead of tilting up into a smile, my lips tilted down into a frown as I peeked inside.
Nothing.
Empty.
The box was empty.
I lifted the lid to look under it to make sure whatever it was wasn’t stuck to the bottom of it, but nope. Not there either.
What the hell?
“Well?” Jed bounced on his toes. “What is it?”
With a sigh, I turned the empty box toward him so he’d stop pestering me.
As I moved, it felt like something heavy shifted inside.
“It’s empty.” Jed sounded even more disappointed than I felt. “What the hell? Why would Lanche give you an empty box?”
I frowned at him and shifted the box again, and again, I felt a heavy weight shift.
My brow furrowed. “Uh… what the…?”
“What?”
“I feel something moving in there.”
Jed got that excited puppy look on his face again. “Really? What is it?”
I shot him a look because… really? How the hell should I know? It was fucking invisible. I moved the box a little more vigorously, and the thing made a lot of noise, hitting the sides of the box. Jed’s eyes grew more excited, and the old-as-dirt vampire bounced on his toes.
“Pick it up, pick it up.”
I sighed in resignation and reached for the inside of the box, but paused just before my hand went in. “Uh, what if it’s something… bad? Or like, something sharp?”
Jed rolled his eyes. “You’re a werewolf, Dain. What could possibly harm you that wouldn’t be fixed in a few minutes with your natural healing abilities?”
I blew out a breath. I supposed he was right, although I didn’t necessarily want to test my healing abilities. What if there was wolfsbane in there or something? I was naturally allergic to the stuff, and it took a hell of a long time to heal from it.
Not to mention the pain.
I wasn’t a fan of pain. I didn’t want to get stabbed or something, even if I’d heal from it quickly. Healing didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a motherfucker.
“Do you want me to do it?” Jed reached for the gift box, and I yanked it away from him, my heart pounding.
It made no sense, but I absolutely did not want Jed—or anyone else—touching this… thing, this present.
I didn’t know why, but every instinct inside of me was saying this thing was only for me.
Jed’s eyes widened, and he held his hands up, backing up. “Hey, it’s cool. I’m not gonna touch it, Dain. It’s safe. I promise I won’t go near it again unless you want me to.” He grimaced. “Right. I know you don’t want me to, okay? I’m gonna stay right over here.”
I was confused by his overreaction to me moving the box away for a few seconds until I heard growling.
Growling that was coming from me.
What the actual fuck?
I cut off the growl immediately and glanced down at myself. Why was I being so damn possessive of this invisible thing when I didn’t even know what it was yet?
Why was my werewolf side popping up and practically screaming Mine! Inside my head?
Shaking that off, I murmured, “Sorry, Jed. I don’t… I don’t know why I did that.”
“That’s okay, but maybe we shouldn’t mess with whatever’s in there.”
I frowned at him. Yeah, I’d been worried a few seconds ago, but now, I just wanted to touch it. It was calling to me.
Maybe I should’ve been worried about that impulse—it was obviously magical, and there was no reason it wasn’t something bad—but I just… I needed to touch it.
So without giving him a chance to take it away from me or change my mind, I reached into the box.
Jed yelled, “Stop!”
But I ignored him entirely.
My fingers wrapped around something long, like a cylinder, with ridges. It was wide enough at the base that I couldn’t wrap my fingers all the way around it, but it felt like it got thinner the farther up I went.
What in the world?
This guy better not have given me some kind of invisible dildo or something.
I pulled it out of the box and gasped as a blast of magic hit me.
Right in the heart, taking my breath away.