Page 15 of Fated Guardian

Nolan’s reaction is immediate. His eyes go hazy, and he fights back a growl.

Wait a second. I know that reaction. I know what shifters do when they look like this.

Does Nolan find me… attractive?

I’m about to say something to him. I don’t know what. But I do know that I want to tell him something.

Nolan looks away. “Do you want to work on the rest of the wards today?”

I groan. “Yeah, I suppose we should.”

It was exhausting, moving the aspen trees around. It was an old grove, and it never really wanted to move, but I asked. I showed it images of the pack. Of the shifters in there. Of the pups, and the fox shifters who frolic through the market whenever it pops up. I told it all about the people who live here. And, eventually, it moved.

“What… um… what does it do?”

Nolan looks over at me. The lust has faded, and curiosity is in its place.

Well.

My heart sinks a little bit, but I know that shifters often feel lust without necessarily any… value behind it. Curiosity is good, too. I like curiosity. I can handle that.

“I can talk to the plants,” I say, spelling it out clearly. “So, I asked the grove to make a boundary. It will send me messages about who crosses it.”

“And that’s the ward?”

I shrug. “That’s the word I use for it. I think that mages might have a different way to make a ward, but it’s the same concept. Something crosses the ward, the ward tells you someone crossed it.”

“So it’s not a barrier?”

I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t think the trees would be happy about that. They’re meant to let things pass by. Not keep things out.” Nolan stares at me. “You can’t make a living being do something that’s against its nature.”

“That’s true,” he says, smiling softly.

I crunch on the toast again.

“So, while you don’t mind if I would go out and hunt for some breakfast…”

“I’m going to be here. Eating the strawberry jelly and sourdough toast that I made from bread, which is just flour, yeast, salt, and water. The wheat was a gift, so were the strawberries, and I’m going to enjoy them because I get energy from the plants around me.” I smile at him.

Nolan smiles back. My heart skips a whole beat.

“That sounds like a plan.”

I finish the toast and stand, pushing in my chair. “Shall we do the south ward?”

“We shall. I think we can drive to that one.”

Oh. “Um. I’m not so good with technology.”

Nolan watches me.

“It’s like… a thing. I can’t have a cell phone. I don’t even really have a lot of electricity here. The plumbing works pretty well, but that’s about it,” I sigh.

His eyebrows rise. “Well. How well can you hold on?”

“To what?”

“Something wolf sized. Wolf shaped. Just generally… wolfy.”

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