Chapter 5
Three days have passed since Dr. Miller left my cabin, leaving me with a beast that, against all odds, is recovering at an unnatural speed. Thor no longer just stands; now he patrols the house. His steps, though heavy, are eerily silent, and his eyes follow me everywhere with a fixed intensity that makes me increasingly nervous.
Tonight, the sky decided that the snow wasn't enough; a hurricane-force wind has begun to lash the wooden structure. The roar of the forest is deafening. I am in the kitchen, attempting to invent a dinner out of the remaining pasta and a bit of butter, when I hear an electrical crackle resonate from the roof, followed by a bluish flash outside the window. A transformer has blown. Instantly, the cabin is plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness.
"Damn it!" I exclaim, dropping the spoon with a clatter.
The silence that follows is sepulchral, broken only by the frantic pounding of hail against the glass panes. I stretch my hand forward, fumbling for the edge of the countertop. I know I have candles in the nook near the fireplace, but to get there, I have to cross the entire living room.
"Thor?" I call out in a whisper. "Don't move, boy. I don't want to trip over you."
There is no response. No bark, no growl, not even the click of his claws on the wood. That absence of sound unnerves me more than the darkness itself. I advance carefully, shuffling my feet so as not to stumble. The air feels different; it's denser, charged with a static electricity that makes the hair on my arms stand on end. When I reach the center of the room, I touch what I think is the back of the sofa, but when I take another step toward the hearth, my foot catches on something solid. I lose my balance.
"Ah!" I let out a yelp as I pitch forward.
I brace for the impact against the hard floor or the rug, but instead, my hands collide with something warm, firm, and smooth. It isn't Thor's coarse fur. It's skin. Human skin, burning and soft, covering muscles that feel like forged steel beneath my weight. My heart stops. My nose sinks into the crook of a neck that smells exactly like the dog—forest, snow, and rain—but the texture is unmistakably that of a man. A pair of powerful arms wrap around me out of pure instinct to keep me from hitting my head, crushing me against a broad, bare chest.
"WHO ARE YOU?!" I scream with all my might, panic exploding in my chest like a grenade.
"What...?!" a masculine voice, deep, rasping, and laden with absolute confusion, thunders near my ear.
The scream is mutual. The man releases me as if I were burning coal, and I roll across the floor, desperately scrambling away from him. My lungs refuse to function. There was a man in my house. A naked man where my dog should be.
"Stay back! I have a weapon!" I lie, my voice cracking, as I crawl backward until my spine hits my bedroom door.
"Where am I? Who are you?" The man's voice sounds disoriented, as if he is waking from a thousand-year slumber. I hear the sound of his heavy footsteps on the wood, approaching where I am.
"Don't take another step!" I manage to stand, finding the doorknob to my room behind my back.
In a frantic motion, I throw the door open, duck inside, and fumbled for the emergency flashlight I always keep on the nightstand. When I flick it on, the beam of light sweeps across the living room. What I see makes me let out a sob of pure terror: there is no trace of the dog anywhere. But in his place, standing by the cold fireplace, is a man of terrifying beauty. He is tall, with incredibly broad shoulders and defined musculature that looks sculpted from marble, fashioned by the angels themselves. His hair is dark brown and disheveled, and he is completely naked except for a bandage. A bandage that looks exactly like the one I put on the dog; it's stained with fresh blood, but the most shocking thing is his eyes. They are blue. The same electric blue, intense and wild, identical to the dog that had begged for my help in the snow—the same dog who, ungratefully, has chosen this exact moment to disappear, likely wandering off around the cabin.
"You... who are you?" I whisper, lowering the flashlight in shock.
"My head... it hurts..." He staggers, bringing a hand to his temple. His eyes focus on me and, for a second, that protective gaze the dog usually gives me is reflected in him. "You're the one who smells like lavender..."
Where the hell is Thor? Why did you decide to leave right now?!
"Don't speak to me!" Panic takes control again. I cannot process what I am seeing. I have a goddamn man in my cabin, naked. Is he an intruder who killed Thor? I don't know for sure; I only know I need protection. And Thor was supposed to be the one protecting me.
The man advances toward me, reaching out his hand as if trying to soothe a frightened animal, but his size and his nudity only make me retreat further into my room.
"Stay right there!" I scream.
Driven by adrenaline, I take advantage of the fact that he is slightly dizzy and tripping over the rug; I leap out of my room and shove him with all my strength into the guest room—a space so small I'd turned it into a storage closet for junk and old things. I slam the door shut and turn the key in the lock, hearing the metallic click that separates us.
I lean against the wood, panting, my heart threatening to hammer its way out of my chest.
"Let me out!" The man strikes the door with his fist; the sound is like a cannon blast. The wood groans but holds. "I don't understand what's happening! Where are my clothes? Where am I?"
"Shut up! I'm calling the police!" I yell at him, even though I know I have no signal and no power. But apparently, his foolish brain hasn't registered that fact.
"I'm cold, woman! Open this damn door!" His voice shifts from confusion to an authority that makes my knees tremble; he speaks like someone accustomed to being obeyed.
"Well, for starters, if you were cold, you wouldn't be walking around undressed, you pervert! Do you think it's funny to break into a woman's house alone and strip down? For what? What was your intention?"