Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
I’d never been in the Wilds in the daylight.
I’d only ever seen it in the darkness—either under the silvery moonlight of my dreams or the few shadowy glimpses I’d managed to steal while struggling for consciousness the night Tauren brought me home. Since then, I’d been kept inside as I recovered from my injuries.
But since Calindra had given me a clean bill of health and we wouldn’t be leaving to confront Tauren’s dad until after sunset, I decided it was time to step outside and see the forest for the first time.
And the view did not disappoint.
From the moment I walked out of Tauren’s door, I was surrounded by stunning beauty, painted from a palette of lush greens and browns more varied than I ever thought possible.
Above me, ancient redwoods, some thousands of years old, stretched up to the heavens.
At their roots were dramatic hillsides carpeted in ferns.
A soft wind drifted and swirled through the broad, flat leaves of laurel and huckleberry, filling the air with a beautiful, subtle perfume.
I stopped after only two steps, my mouth hanging open and frozen by the overwhelming natural beauty, not sure how to process it all.
But my indecision didn’t last long.
“Holy shit,” I muttered to myself before quickly turning back toward the cabin. “I need my camera.”
Tauren was leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed over his massive chest.
“What’s that?” he asked, as I pushed past him to get to the shelves in the corner.
“It’s my camera—a tool for taking pictures,” I explained, impatiently slinging the strap over my neck and pressing the power button. Even after the beating we’d both taken escaping from Franklin, it was still in working order. And even more miraculously, it still had over half a battery left.
The view screen came to life, illuminating with the last snap I’d taken—a grim composition of the long, barren road leading to the stark concrete wall.
“See,” I said, turning the camera just enough for him to see the image.
Judging by the sound that rumbled out of his chest, he was impressed. “And that’s what you do? Take pictures?”
“That’s my job.” I nodded, already rushing back outside. “I’m a photographer.”
Tauren’s heavy footsteps followed me into the small clearing in front of his cabin, but I barely noticed. I was too wrapped up in all the gorgeous sights in front of me.
“You just take pictures of whatever you see?” he asked over the sound of the shutter already firing away.
“Not always.” Not even most of the time. “I earn most of my money taking portraits of people and their families for a studio in the city.”
“And you’re able to feed yourself with this work?”
“Oh my God.” I laughed. “You sound like my mom when I told her I was planning on majoring in photography. She wanted me to go into tech like everyone else, but I’d rather gnaw off my own foot than sit at a desk all day.”
“And what do you do with pictures like this?”
“Nature photos, you mean?” I shrugged. “I try to sell them to publishers or people online, but there aren’t a lot of buyers.”
“Why not?”
“Lots of reasons,” I said, taking a flurry of wide shots, but finding myself disappointed when they didn’t capture the true majesty of my surroundings. “But the quick answer is people in my world don’t value art much right now.”
I scanned the landscape, looking for something smaller and more intimate to zoom in on. But with so many gorgeous choices, it felt almost impossible to make up my mind.
That’s when I spotted a cluster of tiny yellow flowers running along the base of twisted rhododendron.
Simple. Unique. Beautiful.
And like nothing I’d ever seen in the city.
I rushed toward it.
“But you still chose this job?”
“Of course—urg.” Grunting, I lowered myself down onto my stomach to get a head-on angle. Once I was in place, I looked up at him from the mossy forest floor and smiled. “I absolutely love it.”
The skepticism faded from his eyes, and a brighter emotion took its place. “I can tell,” he said.
Once I was satisfied with my flower shots, I simply rolled over and started taking pictures of the canopy far above my head.
“I mean, just look at this place. I bet I could stay here for a hundred years and not capture all of its amazing beauty,” I said, not caring how awestruck and enchanted I sounded.
“This isn’t anything special.” He sounded amused. “It’s just the outer rim of my pack’s territory. I could show you places so beautiful, you’ll think you’re dreaming.”
“Really?” I sat up. “Where?”
Tauren gazed down at me thoughtfully for a moment. “How about a waterfall? One that cascades down a hundred-foot cliff and crashes into a sky-blue pool below.”
My heart raced with excitement. “Can you take me there?”
“Of course.”
“Can we go now?”
“Sure.” A hint of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “It isn’t far—less than a mile away.”
He offered me his hand, and I took it without hesitation.
Even though he was simply helping me up from the ground, that familiar rush of heat spread through me at the contact. What was happening to me? After only a few days together, my body was struggling to tell the difference between a sensual touch and an innocent one.
Though I was starting to think that, when it came to Tauren, there was no such thing as an innocent touch.
All it took was one brush, one glance, and suddenly I was fighting off a fever.
Damn. Why did I have to get stuck with such a freaking hot alpha? It really made it hard to keep my head screwed on straight.
Just like Tauren said, it didn’t take long to get to the waterfall.
He started off, leading me through the trees. There wasn’t a trail—at least not one that I could see. But that didn’t seem to matter. Tauren knew where he was going.
He wound through thick redwood groves and fields of ferns that rode all the way up to his shoulders. I did my best to stay close, but I kept getting distracted. I couldn’t help it. There were too many gorgeous things to photograph.
The world Tauren was walking me through was nothing short of divine. Soft green moss carpeted fallen trees and draped over branches. Shafts of golden sunlight shot through the canopy, illuminating the fine layer of morning mist still hanging in the air. All around me, the world seemed to glow.
Everything was so magical, I half-expected to catch a tiny fairy or wood sprite peeking out from around a mushroom or through a patch of clover-like sorrel.
“Do you think I’m the first kirre to photograph the Wilds?” I asked, clambering up on a stump to capture a whole miniature forest that was growing out from the top side of a seemingly endless toppled conifer.
“I’m sure of it,” Tauren said.
After a few dozen shots, I looked over to find him leaning against a boulder, arms crossed and patiently waiting for me to finish.
“Sorry,” I said, jumping down onto the surprisingly soft forest floor. “I’m sure this is boring as hell for you.”
Tauren pushed himself off the rock and, in one long stride, moved in front of me—so close that I had to crane my head back to look him in the eye.
“Not at all,” he answered. “This is the first time I’ve seen you happy. Did you know your eyes light up when you’re taking these pictures? Your passion makes you even more beautiful.”
Beautiful?
“Are you trying to make me blush?” I ducked my head down.
But Tauren hooked his thumb under my chin and lifted it up again.
“I’m not trying anything, Hannah,” he said. “I’m just telling you what I see.”
Not knowing how to respond to that, I was left standing there in front of him for far too long, pulled in by the magnetic force of his dark eyes.
Eyes that just like this deep, endless forest, were far too easy for an inexperienced girl like me to get lost in.
“I guess we should probably get going if we want to get to this waterfall before sunset,” I forced myself to say.
He kept his gaze steady on mine for one more breath before a smile pulled at his lips.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re close. The pool is just on the other side of that rise.”
Tauren took my hand, lacing his fingers with mine, as he turned to lead the way up a steep hill.
“I’m fine to walk on my own,” I assured him, more affected by the simple touch than I wanted to admit. Besides, so far, I’d been doing fine over the dense but relatively flat land we’d been covering. “I know I’ve been broken these past few days, but I’m not made out of glass.”
The words had barely left my mouth before my heel slipped on a loose patch of fallen needles, and I found myself crashing toward the ground. Tauren didn’t hesitate. In a flash, he swung me up into the safety of his arms.
“I know,” he said. “But the path gets more rugged from here. If you’re not used to navigating the Wilds, it can be dangerous.”
After that fall, I wasn’t in a position to argue.
“I’m sorry you’re stuck taking care of a klutz.”
“Klutz?”
Up here in his arms, it was fascinating to get an up-close view of the lines and angles of his face as they pulled together in interest. It seemed the more I looked at him, the more attractive his hyper-masculine features became.
“Someone clumsy,” I explained.
His eyes flashed my way. “You’re not used to being taken care of, are you?”
“I get by on my own,” I told him.
“But you’re not alone anymore.”
Because he was my mate.
The unspoken thought hung in the air between us. And just like every other time, I wasn’t sure how to react to it. Deny everything and fight back? Surrender to the fear that I was losing my mind? Or give in to the seductive heat that had already seeped into my blood?
“I’ve never been alone,” I informed him. “I have plenty of friends and coworkers back home. And I still see some of my mom’s family every few months.”
“But no one you’re truly connected to,” he replied with full confidence. “No one close.”
“What makes you think that?” I asked.