Page 185 of His Hungry Wolf

“She’s from Jamaica? I’m from the Bahamas,” I said happy to hear that someone was from nearby.

“I thought you said you were from New York City?” Titus asked.

“He spent his summers in the Bahamas,” Cage explained.

Titus just stared at me in the rearview mirror after that. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I felt the road being paved for him to think I was the freak everyone saw me as.

“Have we seen all of the falls?” I said wanting to change the topic.

“Not even close. I’ve only been taking you to the ones that didn’t require much walking.”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I could walk a bit,” Cage clarified.

“You sure?” Titus asked doubtfully.

“I don’t think I could do a two-mile hike, but we could go further than we have.”

“Alright then. Let’s get to it,” Titus said restarting his truck.

Titus drove for another twenty minutes and then parked the truck by the side of the road.

“How far is the hike?” I asked him.

“About a half a mile. Maybe a little less.”

“Are you sure you’re up for this? We don’t have to,” I said checking in with Cage.

“I’m fine. Really.”

I didn’t want to tell Cage he couldn’t or shouldn’t do it if he said he was fine. I had a hard time believing that someone who had an injury like his could hike a half-mile on it. That seemed crazy. But I had to trust Cage. No one knew how he felt except him.

The hike to the river was a snowy wonderland. We got quite a bit of snow in New York and Central Park was always nice in the winter. But I had never seen anything like this.

The deeper we got into the woods, the more snow-covered the trees became. It was beautiful. I hadn’t imagined that places like this existed in real life.

The only sound I heard was the crunch of the snow under our feet. Past that, there was a light whirring as the breeze cut through the trees. It had to be one of the most relaxing experiences ever. I could feel my wolf thinking about running through the snow. I wasn’t about to let him out to do it, but it energized me as we hiked.

With Titus leading, I continuously looked back at Cage to see how he was doing. He seemed fine just as he said he would be. I wasn’t sure how.

The only reason I would be able to do it was because I was a wolf shifter. It caused me to heal faster than other people did. Could Cage be a dragon shifter like his father? But, if he was, wouldn’t he know it by now?

I shifted for the first time within a minute of being born. Were dragon shifters different? Or, was Cage just a bad ass human with an incredibly strong will?

“This is it,” Titus said leading us into a clearing.

I looked at the sight ahead of us. Forty feet away was a frozen lake that was a hundred feet across. At the far end was a thirty-foot high rock face. Stretching from the top to the bottom of it were icicles. It looked like a curtain made of ice. It was incredible.

“Wow!” I said unable to wrap my mind around the beauty of it.

“This is amazing,” Cage said as blown away by it as I was.

“Come on. Let me show you something,” Titus said ushering us forward.

Titus approached the edge of the frozen lake with us in tow.

“Is this safe?” I asked never having walked on ice before.

“Sure is. This has been frozen for the season. What you have to look out for is grey ice. When it’s blue it’s solid. When it’s snow-covered like this, you have to be careful, but for the most part, you’re fine.”