Page 61 of Stubborn as a Shadow

I held my breath.

He didn’t wake.

I stared at him for another long minute. He always had an air of innocence about him, but seeing him asleep took that to the next level. His body and face were relaxed and motionless, something that he rarely was when awake. It was as if he couldn’t stop himself from dancing and smiling and laughing until bubbles rocketed out of his mouth.

Even when that asshole shifter had stalked him across the parking lot, his smiles were always right there, as if eagerly waiting to surface again. His whole modus operandi seemed ready to embrace every speck of joy in life—even when things were shitty—but was it all an act? Was he more bothered by his circumstances than he pretended?

Was this some kind of survival strategy?

I’d been around long enough to know that people reacted to stress and fear in a lot of different ways. Yeah. That had to be it, right? His over-the-top cheerfulness must be a coping mechanism. No one could be this damn happy all the time, right?

Without conscious thought, the tendrils of my shadow form unfurled toward him, brushing over his cheek, as if to reassure him he wasn’t alone. He wiggled closer to my feather-light touch.

What the fuck was I doing?

I yanked my shadow away. I was already staring at him like a creep. I didn’t need to fondle him in his sleep too.

I sank deeper into my shadow form and jumped across the room to the window. Anything to get some space between us before my shadow surrendered to temptation and reached for the cute little unicorn again.

Snow plastered the glass, but what I could see through the gobs of white wasn’t promising. I jumped into the shadows by another window.

Everything was white. Absolutely everything. I grimaced.

And although the worst of the blizzard seemed to have passed, it was still snowing. Puffs of snow swirled to the ground in lazy spirals. Weak sunlight pierced through the clouds enough that I could see the pristine white all around us. The snow blanket glittered like pixie dust, a sure sign it was bitterly cold. Our footprints from the previous night were long gone. I couldn’t see the bike beyond the snowdrift that enveloped us. Hell, I could barely see the cabin next door.

I swallowed hard.

We couldn’t be trapped here. We just couldn’t.

I needed to get Morgan to Willow Lake. To safety. To a place where he’d have his own room and his own damn bed.

Behind me, the bed groaned. Then Morgan groaned louder.

“It’s morning?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. He looked around the room and frowned. “Nelson?”

“I’m here,” I said, shifting to a more solid shape. I didn’t go all the way back to my human form though. I didn’t want to use too much magic until I knew I’d be able to replenish it.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have used it when I got out of bed either. But waking Morgan had seemed like an even worse idea.

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s still snowing. I don’t think we can leave yet.” Neither of us was dressed for the cold either. If we tried to leave on the bike now, we’d risk frostbite or worse. I couldn’t let Morgan be hurt. Not when it was my fault for bringing him here to this cabin. If I’d chosen a different place, we might still have cell service. We might have already been picked up by Gage and the others.

I’d fucked everything up.

“It’s still snowing?” Morgan sat up, looking more alert suddenly. He grinned.

Grinning like that before coffee should be outlawed.

“We should build a snowman.”

That was so far down my list of things to do that if I were to write them all out, it wouldn’t have made the first or second or twentieth page. But he looked so damn eager I almost agreed. I obviously needed to get away from him, to get some perspective and think clearly.

“It’s too cold,” I said. The smile fell off Morgan’s face, and I felt like an ass. “I’m going to check the bike and the conditions on the highway.”

“I thought you said it was too cold.” He crossed his arms. The blanket had fallen away when he’d sat up, and now he was shivering.

“Stay under the blankets until I get back.”