“It’s beautiful here.” Ivy’s soft voice coming from close to him had him whipping his head towards her. She smiled down at him. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She hadn’t. Much.
Her hazel eyes sparkled and he could see in them that she had meant her words, and she thought his valley was beautiful. It was, and it was probably even more beautiful to someone like her, who had likely come from a city life.
She moved away again, snapped a few photographs and looked at each one. Trying out angles?
He tensed when she moved closer to him, and his gaze tracked her as she passed him, stopping only a metre from him. Her fine dark eyebrows pinched, her shell-pink lips pursing. He was about to ask her what was wrong when she lifted the camera and took another shot. Her eyes lit up when she angled the camera away from her and looked down at it. Happy with the picture?
She crouched again, resting her elbows on her knees, her camera clutched in both hands, ready to lift into place.
He tried to keep still for her, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop himself from tapping at his leg as he watched her, the energy coursing through him too much to contain.
Another hour passed, and the mist cleared, and he caught the disappointment in her eyes as she gazed at the river, the sparkle that had been in them dying as she rose back onto her feet and lowered her camera. Her shoulders lifted in a long sigh.
“The bears won’t be coming today,” he said, and she looked at him, the flare of disappointment in her hazel gaze growing brighter as she locked eyes with him.
“Do they really come?” She scanned the river, and the woods on the other side, a look of longing on her pretty face.
Rath nodded. “Sometimes. Something must have spooked them today.”
Him.
He was restless around her. The bears were probably picking up on it and steering clear of the creek.
He should have watched her from the cabin instead, keeping his distance so the bears would show up. He wasn’t sure why he had come with her, had positioned himself in the open, and hadn’t hung back so she could get her photographs.
And go.
A growl curled through him at that thought, his animal instincts rebelling against it in a way that left him cold as something hit him.
His cougar side wanted her.
He wanted her.
It wasn’t going to happen. She was human, a complication, and he wasn’t looking for a female. He didn’t need one in his life.
“Can I stay a little longer?” She fidgeted with her camera, her eyes fixed on it, but they nervously flitted to him when he looked at her. “I drove for days to get here, and then trekked for almost two days, and camped in the woods overnight. I swear, I’ll move on in the morning.”
Rath frowned at the way she said that, making it sound as if she was talking about doing something other than marching her backside to her vehicle.
“Move on where?” He sat up now, a feeling stirring inside him, one he didn’t like.
She looked up river, towards the mountains and the glacier. “This is definitely bear country, and I’m sure I can find some.”
He growled inside at that, his cougar side clawing at his skin, pushing for freedom, the thought of her out there in that wilderness, alone and vulnerable, rousing it and instincts long forgotten—a deep need to protect.
He shoved onto his feet, moving so fast she startled and gasped, and loomed over her, so close to her that she had to tip her head back to keep her eyes on his face.
“I thought we’d been through this?” he snapped. “It’s dangerous that way. You might end up hurt.”
“Attacked?” She swallowed hard and her golden skin paled. “Do you see cougars around here?”
Rath smiled wryly. “All the time.”
“Really?” Her hazel eyes widened and darted around, and he swore her cheeks paled further. “I know how to handle bears, but cougars…”
“It’s not the cougars who will hurt you.” He moved a step closer, just a few inches, but enough that he could feel her heat, drowned in the scent of her, and his damned cougar side stopped frantically clawing at his skull, pushing him to shift and force her to remain. “It’s the grizzlies. It’s grizzly country up that way.”
He was talking shifters, ones liable to attack her on sight, or worse, capture her and keep her.
He looked at Cougar Creek and huffed.
Although, it was a fucking awful time for her to stumble onto his land too.
It wouldn’t be long before the males started gathering, and any available female in the vicinity, even a human female, would provoke their instincts to fight for dominance so they could mate with her.
Soon, she would be in as much danger here as she would be if he let her go upstream towards the glacier and the bear shifter pack that called that area of the valley home.
He dropped his eyes to her and stared at her as she looked at her surroundings.
For the first time in three decades, desire stirred in his chest, tore through his muscles and flowed through his veins, and had his cougar side shifting beneath his skin, hungry for a female.
Hungry for her.
Scratch soon.
She had been in dangerous waters from the moment he had set eyes on her.
