Page 51 of Research with Rivals
Her cheeks pinkened, and her heartbeat accelerated. To my utter delight, that new development had started as soon as I was in sight. It was funny that her heart beat faster in my presence, and mine relaxed in hers. When I’d seen Evelyn standing on the edge of town, impatience a familiar cloak around her, the twist in my chest had loosened. I felt like I could breathe for the first time in hours.
I didn’t mind her reaction to me, though. The twitch of my wolf’s tail said he didn’t mind her racing heart, either.
She bit the inside of her lip, sucking at it while she thought something through. I didn’t care how long it took. My attention was glued to her mouth, wondering what it would be like to have the focus that corner of her lip currently had.
The tips of my ears grew warm. Then she was staring at me with the look she usually reserved for the researchers who told her blood magic wasn’t real magic. I shook myself, sure that I had missed something.
“Did you hear me?” she asked.
“No.”
“Well, that’s fine. I apologized for imposing my time-keeping standards on you and your life, where they have no business. I won’t do it again.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Did that count as the apology?”
“No,” she said flatly. “You missed that. All you get is the summary. Now, shall we go?” She gestured toward the road leading out of town.
I glanced around. We were just off the main path. We could easily step farther into the woods to shift. It was unlikely anyone would see her animal, as it was dark and the trees were thick between here and Compass Lake. She didn’t wait for my response, though. Her question was rhetorical. She turned and walked toward our destination.
“It’s a half-day’s ride to the Crossroads Inn. You won’t make it there tonight on foot.”
“I can sleep on the side of the road,” she called over her shoulder.
Impossible female. I pulled one of the cinnamon candies from my pocket. Sasha was learning how to shift, so I had plenty to share if Evelyn would let me. I jogged to catch up with her, turning so that I offered them in my palm as I walked backward in front of her. “You know there is another option.”
She looked down at the candy. Something like surprise flashed across her face briefly.
Did she think I was going to shift and leave her to walk? “Why did you wait for me if you thought I was going to leave you here?” I asked.
She crossed her arms again. “Because I said I would.”
My wolf growled within my chest as our picture of Evelyn became clearer. I’d been impressed at the library with how easily she stated what she wanted: the Vesten historian position. The more I studied her, the more I thought that was a fluke—an anomaly, said in a moment of anger toward me because of her belief that I’d considered the position mine from the start.
Setting aside that slip, her usual behavior was becoming much easier to understand. I suspected she didn’t handle disappointments well. She said as much with how she’d spoken about her father this afternoon at the tavern. Her go-to was not to expect anything from me—not to set herself up for disappointment.
I wanted her to expect something from me.
I dropped the candies into her palm and reached for her shoulders to halt her progress. Surprisingly, she let me. “We can run together. I can … help you.”
She looked up at me through her lashes, and my heart skipped a beat. The look was there and gone so quickly Iwondered if I imagined it. Her eyes narrowed instead, and she angled herself away, suspicion coloring her features. I let my hands fall from her shoulders as she crossed her arms over her chest again. “You don’t know if it will work.”
“You’re right.” I shrugged, but I knew she had used the hard candy I gave her yesterday. She wasn’t wearing her sweater when I arrived at the library. “The candy worked for the heat, didn’t it?”
She flushed. If she had figured that out, I was confident she could use the same method to force her shift.
“It will work for this, too.” I paused. “It won’t help you control it, though. You have to accept your veil cat on your own.”
Her eyes narrowed further into slits. “I can—” She cut herself off, apparently not willing to attempt the lie that she could control her shift. I considered that progress between us. “What does it entail?” she asked.
The side of the road wasn’t the right place for her to attempt this. I gestured toward the trees. “Let me show you.”
“You want me to follow you into the dark wood?” At least she was openly mocking me now instead of glaring at me with suspicion. “You’re a predator.”
I couldn’t express how quickly the wolf in my head was up and actively prowling in my mind. My lip curled. “I’ll only chase you with permission.”
Her spine straightened, and her heartbeat raced again. It had almost settled from when she first caught sight of me on the road. This, along with the dilation of her pupils, had my wolf pacing. She liked the idea of me chasing her.
It’s just the blood magic.
