Warm. Soft.
And a heartbeat.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Rhythmic, comforting, she ran her hand along the large pillow, fingers gliding through soft . . . fur. Because she’d felt it before, this feeling. Lying in the woods, pressed close to the wild beast she’d come to recognize as her companion.
Thump-thump.
When her eyes opened, she wasn’t surprised to see black fur beneath her own fingers and, for just a moment, she deluded herself into believing that they’d never left the ground of the forest. That, among the threes, lying in lush green grass, she’d fallen into a deep sleep at his side.
Thump-thump.
That everything past that moment—the scramble of chaotic events now flooding her memory—was just a strange, vivid dream. It wasn’t real, she told herself. None of it, she decided. Not
