5. Evan

Chapter 5

Evan

I peeked out the window and watched as Holden stripped down to his bare skin and then took off into the forest at a run. I was about to head to the kitchen when Holden disappeared and a brown wolf appeared in his place, a stark contrast against the blanket of white snow surrounding him. My jaw hung open as I watched the wolf run into the shadows of the woods.

He’s a wolf. An actual wolf shifter.

I’d never met one before, but I knew several reindeer and rabbit shifters. There were also a few moose and bear shifters back home, but they rarely came into the village. Too much singing and factory noises for them to hang around in their shifted forms.

Being a wolf explained a lot about Holden. His loner lumberjack persona was in line with how a lone wolf might act. If they weren’t part of a pack, they tended to lose their sense of community and sometimes drifted too far away from their humanity altogether.

A smarter elf might have been scared by the revelation, but it was obvious to me that Holden was a good man. Not everyone cared enough about strangers walking alone in a storm to bring them home. I didn’t worry that he might have lost touch with his humanity in an important way. But it might have meant he wasn’t looking for a mate and certainly not one who was an elf.

Suddenly, my impromptu adventure to find love was looking more like the biggest mistake of my life. But I couldn’t change things in the middle of the night, so I just had to move forward and figure out my next move.

As an elf, I had magic flowing in my veins that helped me create, but I couldn’t change into anything big and strong like a wolf. I would always be small and petite. Weak. Not at all what a powerful alpha like Holden would be attracted to.

That sobering thought made me frown. There was a small possibility that no one back at the North Pole had noticed I was gone yet. But if they did, I would likely be banished for leaving without approval. That could either mean spending the rest of my days as a permanent figurine or…worse. I wasn’t sure what that worst-case scenario might look like, but I definitely didn’t want to find out.

I let the heavy curtain fall over the window and shuffled to the kitchen. One thing I did know about shifters was that they burned a lot of calories in their animal forms, and when Holden came back, he would likely be very hungry.

Despite the sadness in my chest, I hummed a merry little tune as I got a big pot of water boiling and retrieved two hares from the icebox outside. I had imagined he meant some kind of store-bought cooler with foam insulation, but it was literally a metal cage planted in the snow that kept at least a month's supply of meat and fish frozen.

Apparently, wolves were good hunters because it was packed to the top. I pulled out two rabbits and headed back into the warm cabin.

Once I decided to make Holden a delicious meal, my body went into autopilot, pulling down spices, chopping vegetables, and throwing them all into the pot of boiling water. My magic knew what to do, making sure the seasoning was exactly right and there was more than enough to feed a hungry wolf.

Stew generally took hours to make, but my magic helped increase the heat high enough that by the time Holden returned forty minutes later, every dirty dish had been washed and put away, every surface in the house had been wiped free of dust, and the small dining table was set with mismatched plates and utensils that made me smile every time I passed by it.

It wasn’t surprising that Holden didn’t care about things like decorating or having a full set of matching dishware. But he definitely noticed the changes that had happened to his home when he walked in and tossed the jacket that he didn’t bother putting back on over his coat rack. “Wow, what happened here?”

At first, I wasn’t sure if he was angry, and I froze with the ladle in my hand, poised directly over the pot. “I just tidied up a little bit. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, sure…” He cleared his throat and stepped out of his boots. “You didn’t have to do that.”

I shrugged and poured a regular-size serving into one bowl and a heaping serving with a lot of meat and potatoes in the second bowl.

Holden appeared just behind me, leaning over my shoulder to take a big whiff from the steaming pot. “You did all this while I was gone?”

“Yeah, it’s no big deal. I work fast.” I took both bowls to the table and placed them on the plates I’d already set out. “How was your run?”

His head immediately turned toward me and his eyes narrowed. “How do you know I went for a run?”

I didn’t like to lie, and withholding this bit of information didn’t seem like it was necessary. “Um, well, I saw you shift. And I think that’s really cool, by the way.”

He took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest, putting some space between us. “You know about shifters?”

Trying to keep things casual so he didn’t freak out, I nodded and placed the plate of rolls I’d taken out of his bag in the center of the table. “Yeah. We have reindeer and moose shifters where I come from. Some smaller animals too.” I tried not to acknowledge that I had some friends who were rabbit shifters. I was sure his wolf would know the difference between a regular rabbit and a human shifter rabbit, and we weren’t actually about to eat someone who was now on the back of a milk carton. “But I haven’t met a wolf before.”

“Oh.” His shoulders dropped and he relaxed a bit. “Exactly where in Canada are you from?”

Oops. Apparently, I was back to lying. “Way up north. A little village that you’ve probably never heard of.”

He shook his head, obviously knowing I wasn’t telling the truth, but he didn’t press me for answers. Instead he dropped down into the chair and reached for a roll. “Well, whoever taught you how to cook up north did a helluva job. This smells amazing.”

I felt ten feet tall, almost double my actual height as I soaked up his praise. I’d never gotten much of that before. Elves were modest and service-oriented. We didn’t do things for ourselves or to get accolades. We were raised to serve the children of the world in whatever capacity Santa deemed fit. And the positive attention from such a strong and handsome alpha made me giddy with joy. “Thank you, Holden. I hope you like it.”