Her chosen mate (The change series 2)

Chapter 8: Frost touched

Kai

I was still in shock from last night’s revelation. Natasha had told me she’d been crushing on me for years. As a flirt and a ladies man you’d think I would have picked up on it, but I never had, I didn’t have a clue she liked me like that.

I didn’t know how to feel about it, so I did what I did best, acted like she’d said nothing. We all ate breakfast together, Grayson and Lara kept messing about and winding one another up like they always did, while Leo and Amber were cuddling and acting more loved up than usual.

Charlie and Reese joined us halfway through, and Charlie sat next to Natasha. One minute I was fine, the next he tried leaning in close to her, being flirty like he usually was, and I found myself draping my arm across the back of her chair protectively.

I tried to play it off by acting as if I just wanted to whisper about going for a run later to her, honestly, I don’t know why I reacted like that, I just knew I didn’t want Charlie near her in that way.

I left my arm there until we were done eating, and then I grinned at her, “want to do some hunting?” Another body had turned up last night, so Grayson allowed us to finally go check it out. When he looked at me coldly, I quickly said, “uh, I mean investigating!”

I scraped my chair back, making everyone wince and pulled Natasha up to come with me.

We left together, and I tried to ignore the fact she seemed more quiet than usual. I knew it was a d.ick move ignoring what she’d said, but I wasn’t ready to deal with it, Grayson would probably kill me if I so much as contemplated the idea.

We walked on foot, so we could sniff as we went along. We reached the town and sniffed around there too, but there was no sign of a mutt having ever been here, it didn’t mean they weren’t though, with so many humans around, and perfumes, fast food, diesel and so on they could easily hide their scent among it all.

Natasha pulled her jacket tighter around her, the air was bitterly cold even though the sky was clear and the sun was out, and it was f.ucking summer time. It was odd.

It only got more odd as we looked around. “Kai,” Natasha gently tugged on my arm and pointed towards the parked cars. They had a light layer of frost across the windows and roofs and when we looked at the lamp post beside one of the cars we watched as frost slowly crept along it before our very eyes.

I looked down at her and murmured, “I’m not so sure it’s a mutt we are dealing with.”

I pulled my phone out and called Grayson. After I’d explained, I practically heard the eye roll in his voice as he reluctantly said, “a witch.”

A witch had helped us deal with wendigos once and even though we weren’t the only supernaturals out there he still found it hard to accept for some reason.

He put the phone on loudspeaker and Amber’s voice came down the line. “I know a little about witches and I have a few witch friends, I’ll ask them if they know anything about this sort of phenomenon.”

“Thanks babe, what do we do in the meantime, want us to come back?”

Grayson answered, “no, stay in a motel for a few nights, keep close by and look out for any new strange s.hit, if it’s a witch we won’t be able to sniff her out, she’ll smell like any old human. Look for someone wearing a black cloak, a pentagram necklace, probably black eye makeup and—” I heard someone being thumped then Grayson yelping and then Amber snapping, “don’t be so stupid! She more than likely will be dressed just like anyone else, you’ve been watching too many horror movies.”

I listened to them bickering for another few minutes and when they were still at it, I hung up.

“Motel then?” Natasha asked. I nodded, and we walked around some more, looking for any new odd occurrence before finding a motel to stay in for a few nights.

I booked us a room with two beds and the lady booking us in decided two beds meant I was free to flirt with. I flirted a little, but I wasn’t really interested right now.

We headed to our room and I kicked the door shut. “We don’t have clothes or anything,” Natasha said.

“I’ll message Amber or someone to drop some off.”

She shyly sat down on the edge of one of the beds. I felt as awkward as she did, so I asked, “want to get some food?”

“Yes!” She practically jumped up, eager to leave the tension in the room.

We went to a steakhouse across the road and as I ordered our food and drinks the waitress flirted with me, for the first time in my life I didn’t reciprocate.

I looked at Natasha, I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed before, whenever someone flirted with me, she got jealous, not so obviously, but she’d grow even more quiet and withdrawn, she’d wring her hands self-consciously and would have an almost sad look on her face.

We ate our food, but when Natasha went to pick her glass of lemonade up, the glass began to frost, spreading out like a spiderweb from underneath her hand. She yanked it back and pulled her jacket tighter around her.

It was cold, but I noticed she had been acting more cold than everyone else, I touched her hand and jerked mine back. “f***k! You are ice-cold to the touch, you feeling alright?”

She shivered, and her teeth began to chatter. “I’m a l—little c—c—cold.”

S.hit, something wasn’t right.

I quickly asked for the bill and paid for the food. I had to help her up, she was shivering so hard. “Come on, babe, let’s get you out of here.” I got her back to the motel and called Grayson again. “Something’s wrong with Natasha.”

“What the f***k do you mean?” He asked.

“I’m not sure, she’s shivering like crazy, like she’s freezing, when she touched a glass it started to frost over, her teeth are chattering so hard, what do I do?”

Amber came on the line and said, “get her in bed and get her warm, my friend said it’s a frost witch, they are rare and very dangerous, did Natasha somehow ingest any of the frost?”

I looked at her and she nodded. “I l-licked m-my paw after t-touching t-the frosted l-leaf.”

Amber heard her and said, “ok, it should be ok as long as you can get her warm, as warm, no actually, as hot as possible, you have to burn it out of her to sound dramatic, use your body heat, get her wrapped up in the covers, next to a fire if possible.”

“Alright, thanks, I’ll keep you updated.” I hung up and luck was with us because there was a fire place. I turned it on and grabbed the covers off the bed, and sitting down on the floor, I pulled her onto my lap and wrapped the covers around us.

I wrapped my arms around her, holding her as tightly against me as I could, then I pulled my shirt off, body heat would be better and faster. She shivered against me and snuggled in closer, tucking her head under my neck.

She slowly started to warm up, but it wasn’t enough, I moved us as close to the fire as possible and at some point she fell asleep in my arms. I sat there for hours, not daring to move in case she grew ice-cold again.