Primals (Reverse Harem 1)

She doesn’t know what she is. And neither do I.

Worse, she thinks I’m responsible for what she is, when all I ever did was save her life.

A pain in the ass, alright.

I turn around, burying my fist into a tree.

It’s not enough to vent out my frustration, though, or the helplessness that I’m feeling for the first time in my life. Only one thing will.

Taking my pants off and tossing it over a branch, I crouch on all fours and suck in a deep breath. Then I start running, the wind whipping my hair back as my feet rise and fall off the snow without a sound.

I can only hope that when I return, Clarissa will have come to her senses.

THE BACK DOOR OF THE cabin flies open as the slippery knob escapes my grasp, a gust of wind pinning it against the wall. I close it behind me as quickly as I can, shoving most of the snow back out. As soon as I do, another gust of wind comes knocking while another rattles the window pane.

The storm has turned nasty now, its temper at its fiercest.

Thank goodness.

I hear Clarissa’s thought along with her sigh of relief. I turn around, finding her standing a few feet away in one of my sweaters, a spoon in her hand and an uncertain smile on her face.

At least, her temper seems to have waned. Her thoughts are no longer a murky sea but a stream, still flowing rapidly but finally back on course.

“For a moment there, I thought you weren’t coming back,” she says out loud, her thoughts practically singing with relief. “The storm has really picked up.”

I brush the snow off my arms. “It has but you shouldn’t have worried.”

“To think you don’t even have a shirt on you. You must be freezing cold.” She puts down the spoon and grabs the lantern from the kitchen table. “I’ll go get the quilt.”

“You don’t...”

But she’s gone, her footsteps and the light from the lantern fading down the corridor.

In the darkness, I walk up to the stove, taking the lid off the pot. Immediately, the fragrance of the rabbit stew assaults my nostrils, making my mouth water.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Clarissa says as she comes back to the room, draping the quilt over my shoulders. “I cooked a meal. Got hungry.”

I step away from the stove, a little wary by her change in attitude. “It smells good.”

She smiles. “Glad you think so. Well, I do know a bit about cooking. Now, you go on to the living room and warm yourself by the fire. I’ll bring the stew.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “Are you ordering me around?”

Clarissa places her hands on her hips. “And if I am?”

The alpha in me gives a low growl. The hungry man silently complies.

I walk to the living room, sitting on the rug in front of the fire. But not too close. The warmth seeps into my skin in seconds.

“Here you go.”

Clarissa hands me a bowl of stew then sits beside me with her own.

As she does, my eyes are drawn to her, feeling like I’m seeing her for the first time. Her light brown hair basks in the firelight, transforming into a sea of gold. Her bluish gray eyes remind me of a winter morning, the kind where you don’t know if the sun will finally shine or if more snow will pour down from the heavens. Her snub nose sits atop a pair of lips that are neither too full nor too thin, the lower lip fuller than the upper.

Conscious of my gaze, she runs her hand through her hair. “I washed all the blood off, didn’t I?”

I nod. There’s no trace of a head injury at all, the skin as unblemished as the day she was born.