~ SASHA ~

The look on his face—the sheer joy—sucked her back into that day when she’d given herself to him. The last time she’d seen that expression was afterwards, then they lay curled up in her tiny bed and he was holding her.

“Thana?” she asked stupidly.

He nodded, his eyes sparkling. Then he looked away from her to scan the gorgeous purple-blue, snowcapped mountain across the valley, the forest sprinkled in snow that reminded her of a Christmas scene, and that rushing river on the valley floor.

The place was stunning.

And bracingly cold.

Which was when she realized that Zev had changed his clothes. Instead of the skintight shirt and dark jeans, he was wrapped from head to toe in furs.

His bright blue eyes peered out at her from under a fur hood and when she looked down even his feet were in some kind of boot moccasin made out of animal skin.

With his eyes so wide and flashing that grin, he looked… feral.

He didn’t notice how off-balance she suddenly felt, he was too busy staring around them, smiling. “I’ve wanted to bring you here for so long, Sasha. I can’t believe it’s finally happening.”

“Where is here, exactly?” she asked hesitantly.

He tensed then and it took a minute for him bring his gaze back to hers. “It’s… nowhere you’re familiar with,” he said. “And I can’t tell you how to get here because you won’t be safe if you know. Just… just trust me, being here makes you as safe as it’s possible to be in my world.”

Something about the way he said that rang in her ears.

She opened her mouth to ask him exactly what he meant about his world, when a muttered, “Shit!” and the sound of a rock clattering as if it had been dislodged and fallen down the mountain, made them both startle.

Zev whirled to look down the trail from the cave mouth so quickly she didn’t even see him move, shoving her behind his back, one arm back to keep her behind him and away from the edge of the fall. He half-crouched, silent and still, watching.

Sasha put a hand to his back, her heart pounding. If whoever was out there could made Zev scared—

“Sorry!” the voice called quietly. A deep voice. Deeper, Sasha thought, than she had ever heard. “Don’t be scared. It’s only me. And I’m alone. I didn’t know you were here. I wasn’t going anywhere! I was just stretching my legs!”

Zev’s shoulders relaxed and he straightened, shaking his head. “Yhet?”

A head appeared from behind a tree that hugged the trail down the mountain, then a hand that waved.

Sasha didn’t breathe. Something was wrong. That tree was huge and this man… it had to be a trick of the perspective… the trail leading down and the tree growing up—

Then the man stepped out into the trail and Sasha’s mouth dropped open.

He was the largest man she’d ever seen. He had to be over seven feet, maybe even eight. His eyes were a warm, light brown, almost gold, while his hair that had once obviously been brown was turning gray. He wore it in thick sideburns that pushed out from his face like tiny hedges, thick and wild to match the thatch of hair on his head that seemed to grow in every direction.

When he waved, his hand was the size of a dinner plate. He gave a beaming smile and his teeth, though square, were so large she was reminded of the time she’d watched a horse yawn.

“What the…” Sasha breathed.

“Zev?” the man said, his bushy eyebrows climbing high. “You’re back? Holy shit! Zev!”

Zev raced the short distance down the trail to throw himself into the arms of the huge man and they hugged like family.

But Sasha felt faint.

Zev was massive. Well over six feet tall and broad and muscular with it. He always made her feel tiny—which she kind of liked. But this man…

Zev’s head didn’t even reach his shoulder. And he was so broad—though clearly in good shape, his massive shoulders tapering down to what, for him, must have been a trim waist, though he dwarfed Zev.

The two men stepped back then, clapped each other’s shoulders, and Zev almost fell over with the force of the man’s thump.

“It’s so good to see you, Yhet!” Zev said, his eyes shining and cheeks pinched into high rounds by the size of his smile.

“You too, Zev, you too. I have to say, I didn’t expect to find you out here! How long has it been?”

A shadow passed behind Zev’s eyes, then. “Three years,” he said, and his smile died. “I’m so sorry, Yhet, it was—”

“Ah, don’t worry, don’t worry,” the massive older man said, waving his huge hand as if to shoo off a fly. “Just don’t tell the others I was out here. I wasn’t going anywhere! I was just walking.”

Zev cut the man a look, but his smile came back as he shook his head. “Well, whatever, Yhet, it’s just really, really good to see you, man.”

“You too, you too. And… and who’s your friend?” Yhet asked, finally turning his golden eyes to Sasha, whose stomach twisted in fear when the huge man approached, scanning her from head to toe. Then his nostrils flared and his smile faded.. “Zev…. You brought a human?”