Page 186 of His Hungry Wolf

It reassured me that Titus knew so much about frozen lakes. It was probably something every kid growing up here knew. I couldn’t imagine all of the ways his upbringing was different than mine. Was Cage’s upbringing more similar to Titus’s?

I looked back at Cage seeing if he disagreed with Titus’s assessment of the ice. When he didn’t react, I took what Titus said as fact. I followed Titus’s footsteps onto the ice and within a few feet, he looked back and corrected me.

“You never want to walk in a line on ice. Spread out. It reduces risk,” he said.

I didn’t see the logic in that, but I listened and stepped out of his cleared path. To me, Titus having walked on it was proof that the spot was strong enough to hold us. But, he grew up here while I spent winters on a tropical island. What did I know?

The further we got across the lake, the more I realized that the ice curtain in front of us wasn’t a wall. It was a group of staggered icicles that appeared from a distance to be one piece. More amazing than that was the cave that was hidden behind it.

“It’s a different experience in the summer when all of the water’s flowing. But when everything is frozen over like this, I think it’s something special,” Titus said leading us through a gap in the icicles into the cave.

Standing within and looking around its ten-foot depths, I was awestruck. The sight was hauntingly beautiful.

“It’s like we’re in one of those survival movies,” I said trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing.

“I could see that,” Titus agreed. “Could you imagine Hollywood coming here and shooting a movie? That would be something, wouldn’t it? This town has so much potential. All it needs is someone to recognize it and give us a chance.”

“Maybe marketing could be something you study at University,” I told him. “You definitely have the personality for it. You’re selling us on how great it is here.”

“That’s something worth considering,” Titus said with a smile. “I’ve never thought about that.”

“You should listen to Quin. He’s pretty smart,” Cage said grabbing my attention.

It felt amazing to have a boyfriend who said nice things about me. How lucky was I? Everything I knew about him told me he was a great guy. I mean, he spent his free time playing flag football in the park with 10-year-olds. Who did stuff like that?

I smiled at Cage and reached for his hand. He took it and smiled back at me. It wasn’t a blushing smile. It was one that told me he was content. I liked seeing that. I always had so much running through my mind that it was hard to find peace.

We sat in the cave and enjoyed the scenery for over an hour. Half of it was Titus answering my question about what it was like growing up here. He was a talker. That was fine, though, because he was easy to listen to. But nothing he said made me think that there was anything unusual about this place or the people in it. It was just a typical small town.

“It’s getting late. You guys must be pretty hungry,” Titus said finally running out of things to say.

“We could head back,” Cage said checking in with me.

While we were sitting, he had pulled me into his arms. I could have stayed there forever. But, the only thing we had to eat all day was Dr. Sonya’s sandwiches. I was okay with that, but Cage was a much bigger guy than I was.

“Yeah, let’s head back,” I agreed. “But, this was an incredible tour. The town is breathtaking.”

“Thank you! I’m glad you liked it. Remember, tell people,” Titus joked as he got up.

“Or, you can tell them yourself when you start at East Tennessee next semester,” I reminded him.

Titus laughed. “Right. There’s that.”

With Titus again taking the lead, I kept hold of Cage’s hand and followed the group. I kept wondering what it was like walking in Cage’s shoes so I did the next best thing. Finding his footprints in the snow, I matched our steps.

Being nearly 6 inches taller than me, his steps were longer. I had to bounce a bit to keep up. Leaping forward to match his stride, I lost my footing and slid. Slipping out of Cage’s hand, the ice came at me fast. I hit the ground with a crack.

I couldn’t breathe. The water was too cold. My face was going under. It was all happening too fast.

Once I realized what was going on, I started to panic. As soon as I did, I shifted. My wolf was now tangled in my clothes. Trying to free itself we started to roll.

Losing its grasp on which way was up, my wolf paddled its paws until its snout hit something hard. It was the ice sheet. It had swum past where I had fallen in.

It was so cold. Its heart pounded uncontrollably. We were going to have to calm down. How could we, though? Everything in us screamed for us to take a breath.

Forcing him and myself to slow down, we heard something. People were yelling. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but looking up, we could see their blurred images. One of them was pointing away from us. He was trying to get us back to where I fell in. They were pointing us towards the opening.

Turning around, my wolf forced its quickly freezing limbs towards the hole in the ice. The shadows above got larger. Something entered the water in front of us. It was someone’s hand. It latched onto my wolf’s paw and dragged us towards the opening.