Chapter 9 : Kisses and Kindness

Dawn’s POV

“So,” I cleared my throat as I began moving my equipment around. “I, uhh, went over your notes for the theme of the project.”

“What did you think?”

I nodded my head as I looked at him, affirming that I agreed with them. “They were pretty good, though I just haven’t worked much on animal anatomy, so when it comes to your part I might need a bit of assistance.”

Craig hummed as he pulled up some pieces of metal, they weren’t large enough to begin his sculpture, but they were big enough for him to twist and turn and smelt into decorative pieces for the larger one he would be creating.

“So, a wolf huh?” I asked as I organized my own things, and lifted my head up in shock when I suddenly heard a clanging sound from his side of the room. When I looked back I found Craig bending over to pick up some of the metal pieces he had dropped on the floor, there wasn’t any evidence of him tripping over anything, so he must have dropped it when he wasn’t paying attention. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he said too quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. What about wolves?”

“No, I mean, you just seem to include them in your pieces often. Like the one you put on display for the gallery, I mean, with… with the girl.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say I… see myself in them.”

“In wolves?” I asked and he nodded, giving me a strange look.

“Is that weird?” He asked with a slight quirk of his brow.

I shrugged. “I mean… a little? I guess a lot of people find similarities between themselves and animals. At the end of the day, we’re all just animals too, I guess.”

I didn’t miss the chuckle he let out at my words, and I felt my ears burning slightly, thinking I may have said something ridiculous. “You’re too right, Dawn Fairborn.”

The two of us were quiet for the next thirty minutes, each of us too occupied with our own ministrations on the studio to engage in talking. I needed to set up my machinery and my clay, as well as make sure there was a decent enough water source or figure out how to lug water up here if that wasn’t the case.

I let out a breath of air as I noticed a hose on the far side of the room, and realized that this was probably going to be the easiest location I’ve ever created a piece in. The tiled floors would make it easy to clean up any stray pieces of clay or dirt that managed to get flung while I was molding. I only just had to be careful not to slip and fall on the wet tile if it did come to that.

“Was this all you needed?” Craig called me over to look at the tablet in his hands, and I read over the list I had sent him one more time just to make sure that it had everything I had put on it originally. I gave him a thumbs up as I moved away again and went back to my station.

Unfortunately, as stocked as the studio seemed to be, there were only basic necessities like the water hose and some machines that we could use. If there was anything specific we needed, like my clay and Craig’s metal types, we would have to order that through the university’s website and they’d deliver it to us.

It wasn’t a draining thing to do in the slightest, if anything it only made our work easier for us, and I found myself marvelling at how well Coaliton seemed to run as a university once again. I felt a fire beginning to lick inside of my stomach, there was a need growing there to win the competition each and every second I spent working here. My resolve to do my best and win hardened as much as the clay in my hands.

Craig called my attention another hour later when he announced that he was going to head into town to get some more materials that the university couldn’t deliver, and I agreed to go with him in search of some supplies as well.

“A blowtorch?” Craig asked, surprised, and I shrugged my shoulders at him.

“You don’t use blowtorches?” I asked with a pop of my hip.

“Oh, I use blowtorches,” he pointed to the item in my hand. “But why do you use blowtorches?”

“Why do you use blowtorches?” I shot back and he rolled his eyes.

“To melt the metal, make it easier to bend.” He shot back and I nodded my head as I paid for the item.

“Well, I use them to harden the clay. Make them more stable.”

“Huh,” was Craig’s intelligent response, and I rolled my eyes at him as I pushed past him and out of the shop.

I followed Craig as he gathered some other things like bolts and nuts, wire of different kinds that I couldn’t even fathom using on my own designs. I found it increasingly shocking at how different and yet similar we seemed to be. There were instances like with the blowtorch where I could see a link between our two mediums, and other instances like nuts and bolts that I could never see adding onto my ceramics. It was like we were living on two separate sides of the same world.

When we got back to the studio after shopping, I was beginning to feel the fatigue start to creep up on my body. The couch on the side becoming increasingly more attractive as the hours ticked by and the natural light of the sun was accompanied by the lights of the studio. There was a warm glow that was cast into the white room now, and I paused as I turned to look at Craig as he worked.

He wore a mask on his face to protect his eyes from the licks of flame that were shooting around him, and I couldn’t help but admire his form from behind the flames as it seemed to accentuate every aspect of him. From the way his dark hair glinted to the way his forearms stressed and strained under the force of twisting and bending metal to his desire.

It truly was an art to watch him, and I found myself placing my head on the table in front of me as I let my eyes trail over the metal and his figure as he worked.

Craig’s POV

Having her watch me wasn’t as daunting as I thought it would be.

It seemed like I was more nervous when her wide eyes were on me than when they weren’t, no matter how much I appreciated her undivided attention. That was one of the many, many inclinations I had begun to have that she was someone important to me. Or that she was going to be.

Usually there was no mistaking this sort of thing, once one of us shifts at twenty-one and our wolf form becomes available to us, there is no surer thing other than our wolf about who our mate is.

And yet there I sat, with a woman I was so sure I would die for, not entirely certain whether she was my mate or not. I felt all the signs, every atom of myself pointed towards her like a lost ship glazing at the securing beam of a lighthouse. And yet, to her, I was both the lighthouse and the storm.

There was no way I could gauge exactly how much she knew about her pack without indirectly asking her, or even alluding to something as ridiculous as werewolf life. As far as I could tell, she didn’t know she was a shifter—h*ll, she wasn’t even aware as to the existence of shifters in the first place.

Asking her something like that could either result in the truth coming out, or her thinking I was completely insane. And given our rocky background that wasn’t something I was willing to gamble with right now.

I washed the sweat and tightness off from my hands after I pulled off my mask and gloves and walked towards her sleeping form. There was a soft fondness already growing inside of my chest for her, and I knew that it would be both my destruction and salvation.

There would be no happy ending for us, not really. Not if she knew the truth. But at least for now I could pretend we were both only just two university students attending a program together in pursuit of our dreams.

I lifted her up from the table she was leaning on and brought her to the couch, laying her down there as gently as I could without waking her up. I felt my heart skip a beat for a moment, or something close to it, when her hands wrapped around my neck and pulled me closer to her body.

Every piece of me was attuned to every piece of her, and I felt the hair at the back of my neck stand up as I felt the grooves of her fingers run across my collar bone, over the skin of my neck, cupping the back of my neck as her eyes fluttered open for a moment.

She just stared at me as I sat there, feeling a slight pull in my back as I was bent in an awkward angle over her, and then she pulled me down and her lips were slanting over mine. Soft, gentle, and innocent. Everything I was not, and everything she was.

A sigh left her mouth as she pulled me closer, and I gripped the top of the couch and the arm of it to restrain myself. She was half asleep, half awake. If she was fully by her senses then she wouldn’t be doing this. But there was a selfish part of me, the bigger part, the part that would always win with her, that told me to stay there for a moment longer.

And I did, before I pulled away.

Dawn seemed content enough with the short kiss, and she curled in on herself as she shut her eyes tighter and a soft sound escaped her. I looked for a blanket but found none, and instead lifted my jacket from the chair I had thrown it over earlier and placed it over her.

She was curled in enough for it to cover most of her, and the thick fur lining inside seemed to provide enough warmth to keep her content.

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair as I stared down at her.

Dawn Fairborn. You’re going to be the death of me.