Page 21 of 3 Shifters to Break a Curse

“Better?” he asked.

“Almost,” I said. “Can we go sit outside?”

Ezra smiled. “Absolutely.”

Ezra helped me up. His hands were incredibly soft for a shifter who lived in the middle of a forest, off the grid. Not at all what I would have expected.

My attraction to him pushed through my racing thoughts. I wondered what his hands would feel like on various parts of my body.

The second I realized what I was doing, I pushed those thoughts as far back in my mind as I could make them go. I couldn’t afford to allow myself to be carried away by wonton thoughts.

Love and sex were what got me into this mess, in the first place. My history showed I was broken in some way. I attracted all the wrong men. Even I couldn’t ignore that there was a possibility that they were good to start and somehow changed for the worst because of me. I, despite all efforts otherwise, turned men sour. I ruined them, and Ezra was just too sweet and kind for me to do that to him.

When we stepped outside, I sucked in a deep breath of the fresh air. It had to be three or four in the morning. The fresh carried an icy chill that nipped at my exposed skin. Frost started to cover the grass, glistening in the fading light of the moon. But stepping out into the colder weather worked wonders, especially when coupled with Ezra’s magical tea. Well, I felt a major change with my anxiety anyway.

I still wasn’t convinced Jared wasn’t lurking in the shadows, far out of sight, observing me sitting on a porch with another man. I wouldn’t have put that past him, and I half expected him to show himself. And with Luke and Rin away from the house, gathering my things for me, this would have been the perfect time to make an appearance.

There was no way Ezra would be able to protect me and defend himself. Not against Jared.

I worked to swallow down my nervousness as I sat down on the stairs leading up to the porch.

Ezra sat next to me. “How’s this?”

“Better,” I said. It wasn’t entirely a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth as well.

“Too stuffy inside for you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, not at all. I just have an affinity for nature, so when I’m out among the trees and fresh air, I start to improve more and more.”

“A nature witch,” Ezra mused.

“It sounds more glamorous than it is,” I said. “But I do love what I do.”

He nodded. “That’s good. It’s always good to know what you love.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, wrapping my arms around my legs. I still stared into the shadows, watching for any movement.

We were silent for several moments. Lost to my thoughts, I couldn’t help but imagine the destruction to the cabin if Jared were to show up. I wouldn’t put it past him to burn the entire place down. That led me to remembering thinking about the care and time that must have gone into building the house.

“I also love your home,” I said. “I can tell the place took quite a bit of time and patience.”

“Thanks,” he said. “My cousin, Guy helped me build it.”

“That is amazing,” I said. “Where is your cousin now?”

Ezra shrugged. “In the city.”

“Oh.” Hearing that got me thinking about how badly I needed to make it to Washington.

“He and I belong to the same clan,” Ezra added. “He works in construction and stays busy. That’s what made his help so useful.”

“How come you didn’t decide to live with them?” I asked. “The clan, I mean.”

Ezra pulled a piece of frost-covered grass from the ground and twirled the blade between his fingers. “I suppose we both wanted something different. Our clan supports us. We show up to meetings every now and then. So long as we don’t end up breaking rules, we’re free to live our lives as we choose.”

Shifters had a number of rules to live by. The biggest one was not exposing themselves to the human world. There were some caveats to that rule, such as finding a mate. But it had to be undeniable.

I didn’t know much else about the shifter world. What I had gathered was through Savannah. She worked with the Shifter Outlier Task Force, which was a sort of secret policing division who governed the laws of witches and shifters.

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