Blue petals in one pile. Purple in another. Yellow, too crushed, but I try anyway.
I'm still wearing it.
His mouth on my throat. How he said again.
Blue. Purple.
Nugget clucks softly and settles against my knee. Warm weight. Feathers tickling through the fabric.
"Yeah." A beat. "I know."
I keep sorting flowers.
The purple pile is bigger than the blue. That's good. Purple dyes beautifully. I'll have enough for a curtain. Something small.
Outside, a wolf howls. Low and long. The pups answer it, all of them, overlapping.
Nugget presses harder against my knee.
"Yeah," I say again.
I sort flowers.
Chapter 13
I left her there.
Against the tree. Blood on her clothes. Flowers crushed in the dirt. I left her there and I'm walking and I can still feel her on my hands. The slick heat of her. The sound she made when she—
My cock twitches and I want to put my fist through a tree.
Keep walking. Still half-hard, getting harder the more I try to shut it down. Don't think about her hands. Don't think about—
Stop.
I stop. Actually stop walking, hands braced against a trunk, breathing hard. Two hundred paces. Maybe less. Not far enough.
She's on me everywhere. No clothes—shifted and never shifted back—so it's just skin. Her scent ground into my chest where she pressed against me. My hands. My stomach. The blood from the humans mixed with her sweat and the sharp salt of—
I should wash in the stream. Should—
I bring my hand to my face instead.
Fuck.
My whole body shudders. I can taste it—underneath the dirt and the copper. She came against my hand. Wrapped her fingers around me and stroked until I—
My forehead drops against the bark. Rough. Grounding. Not enough.
I want to go back.
Turn around. Find her against that tree. Push her trousers the rest of the way down and—
No.
I shove off the trunk. Keep walking. Faster. Running. Blood still pooling hot and heavy. Her hips rolling against my hand. The sound—desperate, high, wrecked—when my fingers curled.
Want her. Still.
