The stag took her breath away, the fudge and toffee hues of his coat richer than she remembered and his roar speaking directly to her heart. As the sun descended behind the pines, his neck muscle and chest mane shone bright with rain and dying daylight, his antlers bathed in an ethereal glow, and his gaze was so intensely upon her that a gasp escaped her mouth.

His head tilted in an invitation slowly. How stupid would it be to accept? It seemed potentially dangerous, highly unpredictable to say the least, not at all something Michelle would do.

She swallowed and glanced back over her shoulder. Her grandpa was inside, waiting for her, and so was his friend, Mister Greyhound, a hot meal, and dry clothes. All the safety and comfort this world had to offer.

But the stag ... the stag turned away from her and started walking, his light slowly distancing from her. His pull on her was almost magical, as if an invisible thread sprang from his antlers and looped around her waist so he could drag her along.

There was nothing ordinary about this stag and though not believing in such things, Michelle could feel in her bones that this was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. She had an obligation to herself—and to science for that matter—to find out the truth about this creature.

It was for science and science alone, she told herself, that she opened mister Greyhound's umbrella again and yelled inside, "You two get started without me. I've got some paperwork to finish at the clinic." Without waiting for their reply, she slammed the door with the heel of her boot and hurried after the vanishing light.

Instead of leading her deeper into the forest as she had expected him to, the stag skirted the edges, just a few rows of trees inward but all the time moving farther away from her grandpa's house.

She had no idea where he was headed but the amount of adrenaline rushing through her veins made her feel more alive than she ever had. Doubt nudged her brain. Something about stupid people doing stupid things for stupid kicks? But she kept going, for science.

Soon, it became terribly dark, the stag's light in the distance the only thing guiding her. The rain didn't make navigating the protruding tree roots any easier.

"Wait a minute, please?" she called after him while searching her pocket for her cell phone. If she didn't want to sprain an ankle, she needed some light to know where to put her feet. She fumbled with it for a minute, meanwhile darting one eye to the stag and back, afraid to lose him. Miraculously, he obeyed her call and waited for her just a few trees ahead. Seeing him there made her breathing a little calmer. She turned the cell in her hands, swiped, and tapped till a bright white light shone into the darkness. Then, everything happened at once.

A body of unbridled energy slammed against hers, lifted her from the ground, and spun her in a whirlwind. As her phone flew from her hand, her screams were stifled, all sound and breath lost to the wind by sheer velocity. Her head swam with a tingling sense of magic and her stomach lurched. The gyrating force controlling her was unbearable. What the hell?

Just as she thought she was going to lose consciousness, she fell face down to the ground. Well ... not exactly. As her fingers started feeling their way and her head stopped twirling, she became painstakingly aware that she had not landed on the ground. Under her fingers were rockhard muscles and her forehead rested on warm skin.

She had landed on top of him. The stag, no longer being a stag.

His arms wrapped protectively around her and his lips moved against the top of her head. "Sorry bout that. Are you alright?"

She couldn't answer him, her intellect trapped in her raging emotions.

The stag cleared his throat and said, "I couldn't let you use that light here. They would see you from miles away."

Who? Who would see her? Her voice still failed her. She should get off him, probably. As far as she could tell, he was as naked as the day they met and this time, this time ... she was pressed against him. She grasped at straws trying to make sense of what had happened. He had shape-shifted while spinning her in a whirlwind, flung her phone into the darkness and then used his half-human body to break her fall. And now he was cuddling her and whispering into her hair? Huskily at that. The audacity!

She wanted to be outraged.

She should be, but in truth, she was more aroused and perhaps a little panicky.

Slow breaths, Michelle! she told herself. Deep breaths not shallow breaths. Deep, deeper,  dammit!

While her body was utterly failing her, hyperventilating and not very far from crying, she flattened her hands on his glimmering wet pectorals—what else was she to do?—and pushed herself up.

In stark contrast to the ferocity of his whirlwind attack, he helped her to her feet with the grace of a doe. After gently guiding her to sit against a tree trunk, he pulled her hands in his and breathed with her till she calmed down. Apart from the rain and their breathing, the night was quiet and the forest dark.

"I'm Ansel," he said in that rich baritone, but today he didn't sound commanding. Today, he sounded ... caring.

"Michelle," she croaked, her voice worn out.

"Nice to meet you, Michelle. Here." He returned her phone to her, the device cool in her hand, the brief connection with his fingers tingling hot.

She marveled at the peculiarities of the man before her. Illuminated antlers protruding from a floppy mass of light brown hair. Next to the antlers, velvety, pointy ears turned like periscopes while he listened to the sounds of the forest. His face looked quite human with the large, intense eyes of a deer.

"So," she muttered, "I suppose we're even now?"

He frowned, not understanding, so she elaborated,  "I hit you with my truck and you hit me with your ... what was that?"

Understanding dawned on his face, his intense gaze lighting up for a short moment. "Me. I'm afraid, that was all me. Shifting is what I do." His voice was very matter-of-fact as if it didn't occur to him to take pride in being this force of nature, which was most definitely what he was. "And I didn't do it to get even. I'm not interested in things like that. Come on, we have to go now. We've got a fair bit of hiking ahead."

Oh she wanted to go with him, so desperately curious, but her grandpa. Grandpa would be worried by now. "Another time perhaps. I really should head back."

Ansel shook his head. "It's not safe, not yet. I'll check first thing tomorrow morning."

"What do you mean, not safe?"

He pulled her to her feet. "We really should keep going. I'll explain later."

She didn't like the sound of that. "That's not how this is going to work. Explain now or I'm on my way."

Ansel sighed and ran a hand through the mop of hair between his antlers. "There's a wolf in your house and it's probably there to kill you."

This night couldn't get any weirder. She laughed at the idea. "A wolf? In my house?"

"Keep your voice down!" he hissed, pretty much in the same way he had chastised her after the accident. So they were back at that now? It was definitely too late for that. She wouldn't stand around idly in the chill of night while being treated like a schoolgirl. "That's it, Ansel! I'm going home."

"Oh no, you're not."