A whisper of fabric again, softer this time. Then her voice, quiet and uncertain. “Okay.”
I wrap the blanket around her, careful not to touch more than I have to. She’s so small inside it, trembling like the fire can’t reach her fast enough.
My wolf goes still, watching through my eyes, all instinct and awareness. There’s no hunger this time, just something older, quieter.
Keep her alive.
She shifts in my arms, turning to face me. The blanket slips a little, brushing across my knuckles, revealing her smooth shoulder. She tilts her chin up, lips pale, gaze unguarded and trusting. The cabin narrows to the crackle of the fire, her small, trembling breaths, and the hammer of my own pulse.
I force my hands to drop, step back, and clear my throat. “I’ll make tea.”
I grab the kettle off the stove and fill it at the small sink. I set it back on the burner, twist the gas knob, and the blue flame blooms to life with a softwhoomph. Two chipped mugs wait on the counter. I drop a sachet of chamomile in each, the scent of dried flowers rising as the kettle begins to warm.
Across the room, she’s curled on the couch in front of the fire, burrowed deep in the blanket. Her knees are tucked under her, bare feet peeking out, skin still pale from the cold. Her blond hair has started to dry, falling in long, tangled waves around her shoulders. The firelight flickers against it, turning gold to copper.
The kettle whistles, shrill in the quiet. I pour the water into both cups, add a splash of scotch to mine, (more than a splash, if I’m honest), and carry them over.
“Tea’s ready,” I murmur, setting hers on the table beside her.
She doesn’t stir. Her head’s tipped to the side, cheek pressed to the couch cushion, lips parted slightly. Her breathing is slow,even, peaceful. There’s a smudge of pink frosting still at the corner of her mouth.
The wolf stirs.
Mine.
No.
The fire pops, the mugs cooling in my hands as I just stand there. I don’t know what to do with the ache tightening in my chest. She’s half my age, a stranger, a fox for fuck’s sake.
“Get it together, West.”
I take the leather armchair near the couch and drop into it. The cabin creaks in the storm and the fire crackles as I force myself to sip the scotch-laced tea and look at the flames instead of at her.
For now, the wolf is settled, satisfied that this mysterious fox is safe and alive, but the scents of cinnamons and sugar linger, warm enough to stir something I haven’t felt in a long, long time, and I already know sleep isn’t happening for me tonight.
CHAPTER 3
EMME
I’m warm.So warm. Glorious, bone-deep, impossibly warm.
A purr vibrates up my throat and slips out as I burrow into the thick blanket. Every instinct in me wants to shift, to curl into a tight little cinnamon roll of fur, put my tail over my nose, and sleep the rest of the day away. But even in my sleep haze, I know that would be a mistake. I’m not telegraphing to the Elders that I want a mate, and I’m sure as hell not letting fate intervene no matter how badly it wants to.
I inhale deeply, filling my nose with smoke, pine, a hint of whiskey. There’s something else, too. Clove and pepper. Distinctly male. Distinctly wolf.
Sugar dusted shit!
My eyelids fly open. There’s a fire glowing in the hearth, and the light filtering in through the snow-covered windows is soft and honeyed by morning.
This blanket isn’t mine. Neither is the battered leather couch. And the man sitting in the chair a few feet away—broad shoulders, silver threaded through dark hair, silhouette carved from stone—definitely does not belong to me.
Memories fall into place like snow sliding off a roof. The storm. The crash. The axe. The screaming. The punching.
The undressing.
I yank the blanket tighter around me in attempt to hide all my bits and the blush that’s creeping across my chest.
“Morning,” he says without looking away from the fire.
