He would wake up in a short while and he'd be cold again.
Alone.
The real Astrid wouldn't offer him cotton candy and she wouldn't hold him in the surf.
She would look at him with fear and suspicion on her precious face. She would be protected by a white wolf that hated him as much as he hated himself.
The real Astrid would never spend the time it took to tame him.
Not that it mattered. He had a death warrant out on him. He didn't have time for the real Astrid.
Didn't have time for anything other than basic survival. Which was why this dream meant so much to him.
For once in his life, he'd had a good day. He only hoped that when he woke up, he'd remember it.
Astrid led him around the arcade, playing games and eating junk food Zarek told her he'd only read about online. Even though he never smiled, he was like a child in his curiosity.
"Try this one," she said, handing him a candy apple.
Astrid quickly learned eating candy apples with fangs wasn't an easy thing to do.
When he finally managed a bite of it, she looked up expectantly. "Well?"
He swallowed it before he answered. "It's good, but I don't think I'm willing to repeat that experience. Not good enough to make up for all the work it takes to get to it."
She laughed as he tossed the apple into a large white garbage can.
She took him inside the arcade so that she could teach him to play Skee-Ball, one of her favorites. He was amazingly good at it.
"Where did you learn to throw like that?"
"I live in Alaska, princess, land of ice and snow. There's not much difference between this and tossing a snowball."
She was surprised at that. She had a funny image in her mind of him playing in the snow, which would be completely out of character. "Who do you throw snowballs with?"
He rolled another ball up the ramp and into the center circle. "No one. I used to toss them at the bears so that they would get mad and come close enough for me to kill them."
"You killed little bears?"
He gave her a droll look. "They weren't little, princess, I promise you. And unlike rabbits, you can make more than one meal off them and it doesn't take as many hides to make a coat or blanket. In the dead of winter, there's not a lot to eat. Most times before there were grocery stores it was either bear meat or starve."
Astrid's chest tightened at his words. She'd known it wouldn't be easy for him to survive, but what he described made her want to reach out and hold him close. "How did you kill them?"
"With my silver claws."
She was aghast. "You killed bears with a claw? Please tell me there are easier ways to do that. Spear, bow and arrow, gun?"
"It was long before guns, and besides, it wouldn't have been fair to the bear. He couldn't attack me from a distance. I figured he had claws and I had claws. Winner take all."
She shook her head in disbelief.
She had to give him credit, at least Zarek was sporting about it. "Didn't you get hurt?"
He shrugged nonchalantly, then tossed another ball. "Better than starving. Besides, I'm used to being cut up." He gave her a mischievous look. "Want a bearskin rag, princess? I have quite a collection."
She didn't find any humor in his question.
Her throat tight, Astrid wanted to weep from what he was telling her. Images went through her mind of him all alone, wounded, dragging a bear that outweighed him by at least ten times through the arctic snow just so that he could eat.