Where the Heartwood Sleeps - sneak preview
For a brief heartbeat, Logan didn’t hear anything coming from outside. Cautiously, he leaned closer and pressed his ear to the cold wood. Snow shuffled and shifted.
The spirit groaned and muttered, “Shit. He’s here. I don’t have a choice.” That raspy voice rattled through the door, something dark and dangerous echoing beneath it. “Let. Me. In.”
Before he could stop himself, Logan wrapped his hand around the doorknob. His chest tightened. The pull sang. He squeezed his fingers, the weight of the brass knob making him lightheaded. Then, he turned the knob.
Behind him, the fire snapped, “No, wait! Don’t—and, you did.”
Logan threw the door open. It all happened so quickly. He hadn’t meant to open the door, but he had. He had, and now, he had to face the consequences of letting a spirit into the cabin. Outside, darkness clung to the freezing landscape. Snow blasted inside around him. The air smelled sharp and cold and fresh.
The pitch of early nightfall haloed a mountain of a furious man. But he wasn’t quite a man. Not in the traditional sense.
Logan’s stomach dropped into his shoes and blood rushed up to his face so fast he almost fainted. “Uh.”
The spirit—because he was, in fact, a spirit—scowled at him from beneath thick, dark lashes. Red hair cascaded down his shoulders to mingle with a collar of dark russet fur. The collar wrapped around sun-kissed, golden-freckled shoulders and draped down his back like a cloak. His chest was bare, and the sight left Logan speechless. Cut gems strewn about his hips, fastened in place by glittering golden chains, glinted in the firelight. A sash of midnight blue with golden embroidery wrapped about his hips beneath the chains and stones.
A white-tipped russet tail swished behind the man, making the gemstones shimmer. Snowflakes coated his tail and shoulders.
The spirit didn’t wear pants, just the embroidered sash. Honeyed skin disappeared beneath soft fur at his navel, his thighs melting into the long, powerful legs of a fox. Black paws were half-buried in the snow. One of the spirit’s legs was covered in ice and frost.
Only then did Logan realize the wind had picked up to a low scream, snow whipping beyond the ring of light pouring from inside. The path he and his mother had shoveled that afternoon was long gone.
The spirit growled, low and angry. When his lips pulled back, they revealed sharp, canine-like teeth. Pointed ears dipped against his skull, and his dark pupils narrowed to slits.
“You.” A hand tipped in dusky, paw-like fingers pointed at Logan.
Logan parted his lips to ask, but before the words spilled out, the man leapt through the door and pinned him onto the wood floor. A clawed hand grabbed Logan’s throat, another one raised back. Dark claws extended, and Logan—
Thank you all for reading! Keep an eye out for more about Where the Heartwood Sleeps and the upcoming preorder campaign!
