Page 11 of Lost Touch

…Except for the door leading out of the laundry area at the back of the house. I knew it had to open to the outside by the window beside it.

My hand hovered over the doorknob. I hadn’t been outdoors since Drew brought me home, and I didn’t remember leaving the prison. Only a faint peachy-gray light filtered in through the window. It didn’t look particularly inviting.

I realized I couldn’t even remember what fresh air would feel like on my face.

And suddenly I couldn’t wait one second longer to know.

The door wasn’t locked, so it opened with one motion of my hand—and a blast of cold, pine-scented air, unfiltered and as fresh as I could’ve imagined, smacked me in the face as it swung wide.

I rocked back on my heels, my cheeks and nose tingling oddly from the chill.

When I opened my eyes again after a moment of dizziness, I took it all in: pine branches gleaming with dew, small birds rustling around, grass and a few sprouting wildflowers, a stone patio area with a couple of chairs and a Weber grill.

It didn’t seem real.

Heedless of my bare feet, I stepped out onto the flagstones. My breath plumed up in front of my face, and a little brown bird hopped away and then took flight, twittering in irritation.

I could take a step, and then another, and—keep walking. In any direction I wanted. Keep going until I got to Canada, or Arizona, or New York. Of course, I’d get eaten by actual wolves or something long before I made it.

But Icould.

For the first time in—however long since I’d been kidnapped in the first place, whatever number of months or years that might have been—I took a deep, cleansing breath, all the way down to the bottom of my lungs, and held it for a count of five.

And maybe if a massive black wolf with glowing eyes hadn’t slipped out from between a pair of pine trees and stood staring at me, I’d have let it out just as calmly.

Instead, I coughed, choked, wheezed, and stumbled back against the side of the house with a thump.

Oh, fucking God, I wouldn’t even need to try to make it to Canada to get eaten, I could do it right here.

The wolf took a step forward, cocked its head, and then stopped, letting out a sound between a whine and a growl.

I started to get a little bit of sanity back. Aside from my lizard brain, which kept screaming something like,Freeze! No, run in the house! No, hit it with a rock!, none of which seemed like useful advice, the rest of my mind managed to start spinning again.

Drew. Maybe? That would be fine. Or one of his relatives. Maybe not so fine.

Either way, the chances of a real, non-shifter wolf lurking in an alpha werewolf’s yard seemed pretty damn slim.

“Drew?” I quavered.

The wolf bared its teeth, and my heart skipped three beats and tried to jump out of my chest—but no, it wasgrinningat me.

And nodding, a totally un-wolflike gesture that took away the last of my fear.

Also a totally ridiculous gesture given the upraised furry ears on top.

Since laughter might have been suicidal, I kept that part of my reaction from showing. This wolf might be Drew, but he still had absurdly large, pointy teeth.

“You stay up really late,” I said. “Or get up really early? I didn’t even smell any coffee in the kitchen.” Jesus, fresh coffee. My mouth watered. And then I remembered. “Not that I’d enjoy it if I drank it. Do you think it’d at least make me feel more energetic? You don’t think they, like, shut off my caffeine receptors, right? That’d go beyond cruel and unusual and into unthinkably sadistic.”

Drew-the-wolf nodded again, vigorously, his ears twitching.

The sudden burning heat of my face against the chill of dawn made me feel like my skin might explode off of me.

I’d been babbling like a moron. And not only that, I’d been asking him questions. While he was a wolf.

“I guess you can’t answer me,” I continued, even more stupidly. “I mean, could you? Are wolf mouths capable of creating the sounds necessary for the English language?”

Whatever I’d forgotten about my previous life, I thought it was extremely unlikely I’d ever seen a wolf laughing before. Well, now I could cross that off my bucket list. The sound coming out of Drew’s entirely lupine mouth would’ve terrified me if I hadn’t known who he was.

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