Page 41 of Marked by the Demigod

The bar linebacker tries to flail to get the bartender's attention for a bit, and Aimes scrolls on her phone, more bored than anything, only looking up when another body slides into her booth next to her, and...

And it's Jake. Iakov. Whatever.

They stare at each other, then he hands her a glass of champagne. "Figured I'd buy you a drink."

She sets it down, delicate, on the booth table. "I had one coming already."

His lips purse for a brief second before relaxing. "I was in the area, thought I'd say hello." And his voice is low, accented like before.

"In Maine?" She sips the champagne to control her expression, her heart suddenly pounding. "What happened to never seeing me and letting me die alone?"

"Katya tell you that'd happen?" He drinks from his own drink, which thankfully looks like a whiskey.

Aimes nods, staring down at the champagne stem, her heart pounding. "I'm just surprised." The moment stretches on, and there are a million questions racing through her mind. "Why the fuck are you in Maine?"

His face is unreadable, but she thinks - thinks - that she might detect a hair of discomfort in it. "It's my stretch of the woods." He glances around at the crowd, as if the crowd is what is unusual here.

"Canada?" She ventures a guess. The champagne seems to be much drier and much fancier than she's used to. "There's not much up there, and Montreal's not that impressive from what I know about you."

He shrugs, the thin lines of his shoulders smooth. "It can be impressive."

She takes another sip. It's her second drink and things just seem a hair too perfect in the tiny overcrowded bar in upstate Maine.

"Then impress me."

His eyebrows flash up, then he smiles, wide and sudden, and it's like her heart stops from the beauty of it. He shifts closer, leaning in, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Do you really want to be impressed?"

Her heart pounding, she nods, and --

In a blink they're outside, and she stumbles.

Snow crunches underneath her shoes, and her feet immediately get soaked in her cheap flats. "Jesus Christ, what --"

"Easy," he says. It's so quiet, so very quiet, and his voice seems startlingly loud, echoing around the crystalline hills. His hand slips down into the small of her back.

There's trees all around them, like they appeared in the middle of a forest untouched by humanity. Her breath puffs out in the air in short pants, and she whirls to face him.

"Where are we?" The cold bites into her skin on her cheeks.

The hand on the small of her back dips her towards him. "Not that far away." He smiles, wide, and slips off his suit jacket and drapes it across her shoulders.

There's even snow on the tips of the pine needles above them, like it's some sort of Christmas propaganda from the Victorian era. She clutches the suit jacket to her, and it's far warmer than it should be.

And he's looking around, his smile lopsided, as if this is beautiful and not a nightmare for someone who didn't dress for it. "Here, be still, listen." He slides his hand up and down her back.

"What am I supposed to hear?" It's silent, so silent, like the very air is turning to ice and--

Off in the distance, faint, fainter than anything else, there's a dim calling sound, then an even fainter reply. It's not quite a roar, not quite a bark or a howl, but something lolling between. "What is it?"

He gives her a crooked smile, incandescently happy, as if lit from within. "Arctic wolves, calling for each other. Only place in the world you can hear it now."

And it's beautiful, it really is, but she can't feel her toes and her nose stuffs up. "How'd you bring me here?"

He gives her a sharp look, a quick one-two-three, then grabs her arm. Without even a blink they're back in the booth in the tiny inn in Maine. No one even noticed they were gone.

He leans in close. "Impressed much?"

Pain blooms in her toes, as the blood floods back into them, hot and sudden. "I think you froze my feet."

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