Page 2 of Love At First Roar
Overhead, an owl hooted low and mournful. She pressed a shaky hand to her wound. “Get a grip, Thorne.”
Something unseen brushed her shoulder. She whirled but saw only mist ebbing away. Panic flared hot then cooled into icy resolve. She couldn’t keep runningblind. She needed shelter, and she needed it before Elric tracked her signature here. Stars knew the bastard could follow a trail of her spilled magic like a hound on scent.
Drawing a breath, Cora pressed both palms to the earth. “Easy now. I’m not your enemy,” she told the woods. “Just passing through, promise.”
Magic answered in a soft sigh. Leaves rustled. The mist thinned. The root that tripped her earlier settled, sinking flush with the ground. Encouraged, she pushed a tendril of fae power outward calm, gentle, the way Papa taught when talking to bees.I honor your boundaries. Will you show me safe passage?
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then a faint glow sparked beneath her fingers that was gold, blue, gold again and it rippled across the trail, and faded. Cora’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you.”
She rose, wiping dirt from her palms, and limped toward the lake’s edge. The water reflected the moon with uncanny sharpness; standing so still, it felt like stepping up to a doorway made of glass. A narrow pier jutted five feet out. Beyond the water’s mirror sheen, on the far shore, she spied warm pinpricks—lanterns? Houses?
“A town,” she breathed, hope swelling. If she reached it, maybe she could beg supplies. Maybe even lose herself among strangers for a night before moving on. One step at a time.
The pier groaned under her weight. Boards flexed but held firm. Halfway across, she paused, staring at her reflection: pale hair tangled with leaves, green eyes wide as forest pools, freckles dusted across her nose like constellations gone rogue. She might’ve laughed if she wasn’t shaking.
“Great first impression, Cora.”
A ripple broke the water just behind her image. She spun, but moonlight danced on perfect glass again. Gooseflesh prickled along her arms. She’d sensed no creature, no magic signature. Yet the feeling of being watched returned, heavier than before.
“Probably fish.” Though fish, last she checked, did not send currents of raw power thrumming through the air.
Cora inched back to shore. The second her boots hit dirt, the pier boards stilled. She exhaled. “Okay.Okay.”
A rumble answered—low, feline, distant.
Every instinct screamedpredator. She turned slowly, scanning the tree line, but shadows lounged silent. Still, the hairs on her neck refused to settle. If a large cat lived here, she wanted no part of it.
“Shelter, then gone,” she whispered.
She trudged along the lakeshore, following the faint lantern glow on the far bank. Each step jostled her aching hip; each breath frosted in the chilled spring night. Thoughts drifted to warm taverns, cinnamon tea, friendly faces—luxuries she’d traded for constant flight.
Even so, a stubborn spark at her core refused to snuff. Hope, Mama called it. Stupid, Papa said, but smiled when he did.One day you’ll find a place that feels like belonging, sunshine. Wait for the hush in your heart—that’s how you’ll know.
Cora had laughed then, but standing now in this uncanny forest, she sensed an almost-hush—like the world exhaled around her.
A root curled gently across her path, as though guiding rather than trapping. She stepped over, murmured thanks, and limped on.
Ten yards farther, her vision blurred. The wound on her knee bled steadily, and whatever adrenaline kept her upright began to ebb. She tried to conjure light, but her power sputtered. It was spent, frayed at the edges by travel and fear.
“Just a little—” She pressed forward. The warm glimmer of lanterns doubled, tripled, swam. She blinked hard.
The ground heaved. She staggered, lost her balance, and collapsed against a mossy log. The forest’s hum crescendoed until it drowned her heartbeat. Mist swaddled her shoulders. A pulse that seemed ancient, resonant, passed through the soil into her bones.
Cora’s eyelids drooped. She fought, clawed for consciousness, but exhaustion clawed back harder. In her final lucid seconds she thought she heard boots crunching gravel, a deep male growl vibrating the night air, and the clean scent of pine and warm spice curled through the mist.
Then darkness claimed her, gentle as a lullaby.
2
CALLUM
Moonmirror Lake had been restless all damn week.
Callum Cross leaned on the weather-scarred railing of the ranger lookout, breath ghosting in the chilled spring air. The water below usually lay smooth as polished glass, but tonight ripples chased one another from shore to shore like some unseen hand kept flicking stones. A pulse, deep and rhythmic, throbbed through the Veil that wrapped Hollow Oak. He felt it on the back of his tongue, metallic, wrong.
“Something spooked you,” he muttered to the lake. “Show me what.”
