by chance a time or two, she hadn’t noticed anything out of place or unusual. If it weren’t for the fact that she felt watched, she would have believed that he had left. It was only late into the night that she felt his absence. Strangely, it made her heart ache.
Chapter 40
Selvans watched the female picking her way through the snow around her house tending to her regular routine. After weeks driven nearly to madness by the pull of his instinct, he had been surprised to scent someone familiar.
Diana.
He had scarcely believed it and had followed his nose until he came across a bundled figure moving as lightly as a silvanus through the snow. He thought to stalk after her and follow her unseen for a time, but to his surprise she had stiffened and turned, glowing blue-green eyes piercing the distance. If there had been any doubt that she was no longer human, that alert, luminous stare had confirmed it.
Initially, he had debated on turning away and leaving, but he had been unable to. Instead, he had found himself following her to her dwelling where he shadowed it until he found an appropriate spot to make his nest in a large tree overlooking her home. Settled there, he was able to observe the activity in his newly claimed territory comfortably at his leisure.
At first, it bewildered him that she ignored his presence, but as the days passed, it turned to frustration and then anger. How dare she ignore him! She was the unasked-for presence in his life, and she pretended like she didn’t even notice the lack of him when the only time he felt any measure of peace was now that he was by her side. It was infuriating, and it was oddly amusing and admirable watching the female move about her daily life as if their threads in the weave of fate had never touched.
Sometimes, though, he was certain that her eyes strayed to his nest when he wasn’t intentionally concealing himself from her awareness—she was still a young immortal after all. He would catch her gaze turn toward him, and slowly it would light up as if she were reluctant to allow her true nature to shine through. After nearly two weeks of trailing her in her daily work, in her hunt through the woods and her ventures to town, he fell upon the reason. She was pretending to be human.
He couldn’t fathom any reason that she would carry out such a charade. Although she kept herself well covered when she was out of her home, he caught a glimpse of her transformation as she passed a window. She had been uncovered, without even her blanket draping around her, hiding her away.
At first, he couldn’t help but stare. He had found Diana beautiful as a human. Seeing her with long, elegant tail and a dark velvet of fur over her body took a bit of getting used to. But beneath it all, he saw the same female who haunted him. Yet she hid herself away, her tail bound to her body, like a butterfly newly emerged from its cocoon, still afraid to spread its new wings to fly. Human in appearance or not, he found he wanted to crawl over her and clutch her to him in rut. It was highly inappropriate to feel toward someone who was a virtual stranger, but his instinct dogged him.
The gods must have cursed him. Even now, his mother’s last words to him haunted him with their taunting lilt. To feel such need for a female whose presence brought death to the Eternal Forest was a jest of the highest gods made at his expense. He didn’t know what lesson they sought to impress upon him…Humility, perhaps. If so, it was terrible.
His tail lashed behind him impatiently as his eyes tracked her movement, eager for her to finish and return indoors where he could selfishly watch over her, but his ears pricked at the sound of crunching snow as an unfamiliar scent of sweat and spice filled his nose. Grimacing, Selvans turned, his body tensing with a predatory stillness as he caught sight of the human male approaching the house. A low growl rumbled in his throat and Selvans dropped from his nest as he cast an illusion over himself.
Though he still appeared much the same, his antlers and tail would not be seen, and his ears would seem more correct to the human norm. Striding through the snow with