Page 62 of Stubborn as a Shadow

“Why do I have to stay here if you are going out?” His bottom lip popped out in a little pout.

“Cold doesn’t hurt my shifted form. I’ll be right back.” Then I faded into the shadows and slipped outside before Morgan could say anything else.

Clouds clogged the sky, so the soft, diffused light bounced off all the white surfaces, which meant there weren’t many dark shadows. I still found enough to jump between though, but it wasn’t as easy as usual.

I checked the highway first.

It was quiet, which wasn’t all that surprising given the amount of snow. People wouldn’t be traveling anywhere today unless they had to. The highway corridor created the perfect wind tunnel, making the road conditions treacherous. With all the fresh snow, it’d be a nightmare to drive in this.

I scanned the road. Yeah, I doubted the bike would get through those deep drifts either.

Wait… There were solid drifts.

I jumped from tree to tree along the cutline of the ditch. There wasn’t a tire track to be found.

Fuck.

They must have shut down the highway like they’d been threatening. And since this wasn’t a primary thoroughfare, I had no idea when anyone would be out to plow it. I suspected the locals would prioritize clearing the larger highways first.

Although, if we couldn’t get out, no one else could get in either.

That should have sounded like good news, except that also meant I was trapped in a cabin with Morgan.

How the hell was I going to keep my hands off him? Or his hands off me? How was I going to fight my attraction to him, particularly when we were all alone out here? In just one night, we’d already proven we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves in our sleep.

What would it be like after another night. Or another?

If I didn’t know better, I’d think the way the snow glittered under the almost nonexistent sunlight was a sign that the Eternal Magic had a hand in this.

23

BURNT SOUP AND LIES

MORGAN

“Right.” I nodded when Nelson finished outlining his survival plan.

He’d been bustling from one task to another since he’d returned from his exploration of the area. A fire, much smaller than the one last night, danced in the hearth, and we had made a full inventory, such as it was, of the cabinets. And now we needed to find more food and supplies.

“So, we’re on level one of the pyramid,” I said.

“What?” His forehead scrunched up in the most adorable way.

“You know,” I said. “Maslow? Hierarchy of needs and all that jazz?”

I hoped we’d fly through levels one and two, so we could get to three. After that, who cared? We could stay on level three indefinitely. Surviving was important, and safety too. But give me some lovin’.

“Right,” Nelson said slowly. He waved toward the kitchenette. “There isn’t enough here to survive on for long,so I’ll need to search the other cabins. While I’m out, I’ll also need to find more firewood and bring in more snow to melt for drinking and cleaning up.”

“You mean we.”

“Huh?” He was so cute when he frowned. I wanted to pinch his cheeks.

“You aren’t leaving me here while you do all the work,” I said. “I might be full of rainbows and bubbles, but I’m not actually made of air. Not that there’s anything wrong with air,” I amended, remembering that his shadow form was pretty much exactly that.

“It isn’t safe,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

I looked out the window. The shallowest drifts were higher than my knees, and it wasstillsnowing. “I think I can go outside for a bit. No one is coming to find us in this.”