Those thoughts crossed her mind at full speed as her feet propelled her through a grove of trees she couldn''t even see. She moved with difficulty, her boots burying themselves in the snow with every step she took, but her cinanthrope strength kept her going even in those conditions. The forest seemed to want to share her grief, dressing itself in pale, gray and dull tones. The reddish bark of the Valsaín pines looked brownish, and their leaves, once radiant green, had lost their luster. Even the snow that covered everything like a cottony carpet looked more gray than white. The culprit was the overcast sky that threatened more snow.
Exhausted, panting and so hot from running that she felt like taking off her coat, Sofia dropped to the ground. She sat by the spring-fed pond she had shown her friend weeks before, when they had just begun to know each other. Its water had not frozen except in a few small patches, and its surface showed her face’s distorted reflection. A fully human face, with watery eyes and flushed cheeks, without a single feature to give away her supernatural nature. Had she known that things would end up like this she would not have brought him to that place. In fact she would have been much more forceful in her rejection. Undoubtedly, she would have avoided everything she was feeling at that moment.
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Actually, she did know, but she didn''t want to admit it because doing so would only make it too real and she wasn''t ready yet. It was simply because, for a moment, she had allowed herself to dream of another life, one that she had been denied since the day she was conceived by a cinanthrope. Ever since she was a child Sofia had grown up knowing that the horrors of legends were real, that behind the shadows there were beings that appeared human but were capable of becoming nightmarish creatures. Her mother had trained her under a strict mindset focused on making her a huntress, and her entire circle, the only family she had ever known, had been friends from the guild.
In a few short years that whole world had completely fallen apart, leaving her lost and not knowing what to do. Not justbecause she had confirmed that she had inherited the blood of the children of the moon, but also because of Angel''s death. Sofia did not want that life, she never did. She didn''t want to know anything about cinanthropes, about hunters, she didn''t want to spend her whole life counting days until the full moon, keeping an eyeon the shadows and fearing being rejected because she wasn''t born human. She just wanted a normal life, she wanted to meet a special boy, have a date to go to the movies, have a first kiss, live together and argue about the order of the house, get married, have children and be able to give them what her own parents denied her.
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Dave let out a quiet sigh and gently wiped her cheeks with his fingers before letting one of his hands wrap around her face in a caress. Sofia looked up, but her gaze was so blurred she was barely able to discern his features, though she did catch a warm smile on his lips and a gaze so gentle it made her shiver.
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Sofia threw a handful of snow at him again. Dave tried to dodge it by standing up and jumping backwards, but it hit him squarely in the leg. Sofia threw her backpack to the ground and so did he. Then they started running around the clearing, throwing balls at each other, dodging, chasing and laughing openly. This time it was Sofia who charged at him, and he responded by opening his arms to embrace her. They both fell to the ground, sinking into a cold cushion of snow, side by side and with their gazes intertwined. Again their cheeks were flushed and their bellies quivered with feelings they didn''t quite know if it was just friendship or some other longing. Yet there was no surprise in their eyes as they met, and their lips, so close that they could feel each other''s breath, curved into a smile.
Then it was Sofia who decided to jump. She leaned toward her friend, noticing how the arms around her back tightened slightly, and left a warm kiss on his cheek. A kiss of friendship, of smiles and sighs, a kiss that Dave reciprocated with a tender smile and a soft caress on her cheek. It was all they could promise each other for the moment. Friends, but for them it was all they wanted and needed, because they both still had too many wounds to heal before they could think about taking a step further.