she really been crying? God... She wiped her cheeks, grasping the strap of her backpack tightly.
The car stopped.
The men got out.
Jamie almost puked.
Her car door opened, and the one that had spoken to her was standing there, waiting for her to get out. The other one was getting her suitcase from the trunk. A couple of yards away, hidden behind some looming trees, was a cabin. One light was lit, showing through one of the many tinted windows. A curtain swung back into place, and the light in the room showed a large, dark figure move.
Suddenly, she wanted to run. To scream. To find her mother and clutch onto her. To cry.
But her mother... If she was going to be happy, Jamie had to do this. She had to be strong. The worst that had happened to her in her life was bad grades, and that had hardly been something to cry over. She wasn’t going to start now.
With a strong resolve, she wiped her cheeks and squared her shoulders, stepping out of the car. The men started to walk along the dirt path, rolling her suitcase behind them. She drew in a deep breath, smelling the musty, fresh scent of the world around them and shuddered.
The extent to her wildlife knowledge was what she had learned in a month of girl scouts before she, and her mother, realized that she was too sensible to be selling cookies and learning how to make cotton dolls. Her feet crunched branches, crinkled leaves, and carried her to her doom.
Jamie stared around her as she got closer to the house. Shadows ran through the forest, dancing in the darkness. They taunted her, called out to her. God, this was probably what her mother had wanted to take her to several years before. Wasn’t it.
The door was opened before they were on the porch. Seconds after it was opened, they were already on their way to the car. Headlights flared, unlike last time, and then they were backing out. Her stomach rolled with acid as she stood there, several feet before the open door.
Because of the light that now poured out of the wooden cabin, she couldn’t make out the features of her new ward. Hair was close to the head, so she assumed it was a man. His large figure filled the doorway, and the hand he held out seemed like it was passing through another dimension and reaching for her.
Drawn, almost as if in a trance, Jamie held out her hand slowly. The second their fingers touched, she yanked her hand back and gasped. It had almost hurt, the tingling sensation that had flown up her arm. Like a static shock, but ten times as powerful.
His hand dropped, and he cleared his throat. “Come in.” He stepped back, holding out his hand as if he would grandly allow her entrance.
At the deep sound of his voice, Jamie almost fell over from dizziness. Her fingertips, in the place that he had touched them, almost burned. He was almost twice her height, and, as she got a better look at his face, almost twice her age. But that wasn’t what stuck with her. It was the black as midnight hair. The pale amethyst eyes. The large, bulky frame and the utter power that radiated from him.
As she walked in wearily, staring at him with wide eyes, she noticed that he was oddly...silent. He held himself with arrogance. He held himself with a quiet strength and reserve, as if he were a king of some sort. The settings around them completely belied that thought, though.
Forcing herself to stay quiet, to not run away screaming her ass off, Jamie looked away from him and stared at the inside of the cabin. Everything was made out of wood. Besides the plaid curtains that reached the floor and swept up dust particles, the lamps were fashioned as the rest of the place was. The room was closed off, three more doors branching off to separate rooms of the house.
She wondered which one she would be sleeping in...if she was even sleeping in the house, that is. Would he set her outside? she thought numbly, turning pained eyes back to him.
Only to find him staring at her with an unreadable expression.
Jamie recoiled.
“You had a long ride. I’ll show you to your room and then you can sleep. Tomorrow, we will talk.” She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but he had a soft accent that she couldn’t place. God, he was