Page 11 of A Secret Crush Valentine's

It was a river.

“Water,” Damon said.

That was all he managed to get out before his legs gave way beneath him, and he toppled forward, hitting the snowy riverbank.

“Urgh,” he groaned.

A pair of dark shapes appeared in the corner of his vision. And then they drew closer, coming into focus. It was not a hallucination.

Two men stood gazing at him from the other bank. Well, more like a man and a boy. The man had to be in his late twenties at least, with dark skin and a mustache that reminded Damon of Dick Dastardly fromWacky Racers. The boy was slightly shorter. He looked about Damon’s age, with short, silvery hair and hooded grey eyes.

“We have to help him,” the boy said to his companion. “He’s already half-dead.”

“I’m not so sure we should. Grim Jim might not—”

“You helped me, didn’t you?”

The man’s eyes narrowed for a moment, but his expression soon relaxed. “Of course, Jan.”

Damon blinked at the duo. “Who… are you? Call… 911.”

The boy chuckled. “Man, have I got news for you.”

***

The trees gave them cover, or so Damon wanted to believe. It was small consolation to imagine, if only for a moment that here, deep in these woods, no one could see them. But 15 years of living as a Collector had taught him otherwise.

It certainly did not help matters that, as they trudged among the trees, Julia kept grilling him about his time on Frost Mountain. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before she asked for his resumé.

“So,” she said after minutes of traveling in silence.

“So,” he replied, keeping his expression as even as he could.

“Been up to anything interesting since you got here?”

Like stealing items and kidnapping shifters for the most dangerous man on Frost Mountain?He shrugged. “There’s a lot you can do in 16 years.”

He thought she might prod him some more. To his relief, she simply nodded, glancing up through the trees at the sky as it turned copper. It was almost nightfall. The woods were mostly silent, although he heard the occasional sound of smallanimals scampering about. Not for the first time, it occurred to him to shift into dragon form and fly the rest of the journey to Caprichor, but something told him that shifting now wouldn’t be a good idea.

“You’re right,” she said, jumping a little as a twig snapped under her feet. “I’m just surprised to see you, to be honest. For a while… I thought you were dead.”

I thought you were, too.

He wanted to say the words, but they were lodged in his throat for some reason. Just looking at her made him want to freeze completely. Only years of learning to perform under pressure kept him from turning into a block of ice under her blue-eyed gaze. He felt a tug in his stomach, but it was hard to tell whether it was from unease or simply his body urging him to give in to his desires and pin her against the nearest tree, kissing her for all he was worth. He wondered what those lips of hers tasted like. Over the years, she’d become incredibly attractive, more than he’d ever imagined.

The memory of her standing naked before him flickered across his mind. Almost reluctantly, he dragged his focus from the titillating image of those bare curves and distended nipples and how they would feel grazing his torso as he kissed her.

“…it’s been so crazy these past few weeks,” Julia was saying. “I might have ended up losing my mind if I hadn’t seen you. What a weird coincidence, isn’t it?”

Damon forgot to respond. Coincidence was one way to put it, but Damon’s mind, which had been working overtime ever since she had revealed herself to him, had already made connections. Time wasn’t as simple on Frost Mountain as it was back on earth, but he guessed they were roughly in the middle of January, which meant Valentine’s Day was only weeks away. That was the first thing that sent pinpricks up his spine. Thesecond was that it was around this time, 16 years ago, that he’d lost Julia.

A coincidence was a concurrence without an instigator. This time, Damon couldn’t shake the feeling that fate was toying with him. He could imagine some cosmic being tossing Julia into his path like,Here, buddy—it’s the woman you’ve loved since high school. Now you get to be with her. Well, except the thing is, you actually have to kidnap her in exchange for your freedom. Ta-da.

Yup. Definitely waist-deep in crap.

At the very least, this was a shocking turn of events. Nothing could have prepared him for what was happening right now. Hours had passed since he’d found Julia, and he was still struggling to process it all, especially the fact that she was a shifter. It was almost ironic how he’d processed something as impossible as Frost Mountain but was having trouble making sense of everything from her presence here to the fact that she was a snow leopard shifter.

Then again, it was this snow leopard shifter who’d watched him from the stands and made his heart skip during football practice.

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