Page 64 of Mistletoe

“I am noble in spirit and in deed.”

She laughed, the gleeful sound ringing out in the cold. He sucked in a breath, not from the stinging cold, but from something even more concerning: affection.

Beautiful and kind were accurate descriptions of Emma, but those qualities were inconsequential. She treated him like a lifelong friend, someone she knew well, even when he did not know himself. He wanted to be the kind of man who deserved such affection. Such love.

Without a word, he removed his stolen deputy’s coat and placed it over Emma’s shoulder.

There. He nodded in satisfaction.

“Oh, you didn’t have to?—”

“I did,” he said, stopping any attempts to refuse the coat.

She pulled the coat more tightly around her shoulders and dipped her head down to the collar as if to hide her smile, which was a shame. The world needed more smiles.

The goat was exactly where Emma said it would be, curled up in a tight ball under the trees by the edge of the creek.

“Buttercup, you come here,” Emma said, striding toward the goat with confidence.

Buttercup did not raise her head or acknowledge Emma’s presence. It was odd. Hal was far from a livestock expert, but all the goats had seemed lively to his untrained eyes.

“Emma, wait?—”

He heard the creature before he saw it. An almost undetectable shift of a white pelt on white snow, the body lower to the ground than a goat and much sleeker, tensing to pounce. It growled only a moment before lunging.

He rushed to Emma, knocking her out of the way. The creature latched onto his arm. Cloth tore. His skin burned from slicing claws. Teeth as sharp as needles sank into his flesh.

Rage filled him. This thing, this creature that stank of mud and had skin that felt like sandpaper, did not care whose blood it drew. It attacked the first body and that was very nearly Emma. Images of her bleeding out into the snow clouded his mind. This creature had to end.

He grabbed it at the throat, at least what felt like a throat, and tore it away, his arm screaming as claws cut into him. Feet thrashed, claws swiped at the air. A tail—no one warned him about the tail—whacked his injured arm, sending a fresh wave of agony through him.

The pain was nothing. He had years—centuries—to master pain. What truly hurt, what drove him beyond reason, was the need to prevent it from hurting Emma.

Bleeding, calling out his name, dying in the snow. Those images wouldn’t leave him. Blood did not calm him. The creature squealed, now understanding that its life was near the end, and thrashed.

He wouldn’t lose her.

He wouldn’t.

Emma

Hal wasn’t Hal, but he was. Horribly, he was completely himself and was exactly the thing her parents warned her about.

He was a monster.

The equinox wasn’t until tomorrow. He said he felt in control, yet he tore the wolver limb from limb. Blood splattered the ground. Him. Her. Even the poor goat. That was not control.

“Hal?” She took a step forward.

He turned at the sound of her voice. His eyes were… empty, void of thought or emotion. His lip curled back in a snarl.

“Hal?” Emma stretched out her hand, then pulled back. She hesitated for a moment, torn between the need to grab Buttercup and the overwhelming instinct to run.

She ran.

Her feet both slipped and sank into the muddy ground, somehow allowing mud to work its way into her boot. Her eyes stung. Her calves burned. Her lungs burned. Neither compared to the ferocity of the shame that burned in her.

Behind her, she heard Hal’s roar.

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