Page 8 of Her Wolf Protector

What he really wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week, but healing took energy, so he knew he had to eat something before he went to bed. Thank Sienna for her forethought.

"I'll be right back, beautiful," Tate said, turning to look longingly at the bed.

Only to realise not only was the bed already occupied, but the beautiful woman in it was staring at him with big, wide eyes.

"Fuck."

SEVEN

Arwen wasn't sure if she was dreaming or awake. And that was before a hot, dripping, definitely naked man strode into view. Even in the golden afternoon light, she could see most of his body was covered in an angry, red rash, with welts everywhere except on his back. Some of them were bleeding, the blood mixing with the water that dripped down his legs onto the wooden floor.

What was wrong with him? Hives? Some monstrous form of chicken pox that had escaped from a lab? Or some horrible tropical disease so contagious it wiped out entire villages, leaving no survivors?

Arwen shrank deeper under the sheets, leaving only a tiny gap she could peep through. Because while she was justifiably afraid of whoever this huge, naked man might be and whatever contagion he carried, she was not fool enough to believe that if she hid her face, he'd go away.

But then she blinked, and he did disappear. In his place stood an enormous grey wolf. The sort of wolf that had lived in these forests when her father arrived, but had been hunted to extinction in Scotland in the centuries since.

He must be a wolf shifter, then.

He obligingly demonstrated by transforming back into a man. A man who was no longer dripping, though the welts remained. A little less angry, and not bleeding as profusely as before, but...ah, he'd turned into a wolf again. A truly magnificent creature. Then again, so was the man. Muscles upon muscles, but he moved like he'd earned them, not injected them. If she'd met him in a bar, or maybe one of the Mirror Academy balls up at Tremotino Castle, she definitely would have given him a second glance. Especially if he wasn't wearing a shirt, like now. His present lack of pants would have gotten him thrown out of a bar or a ball, but in the relative privacy of the cottage, she certainly wasn't complaining.

Of course, she should probably let him know he wasn't alone, but as a wolf shifter, surely his superior sense of smell had already informed him of that. That he chose to put on a show for her...from the stories her father had told her, this sort of thing was very much a part of fae hospitality. Fae weren't prudish like humans.

Or shifters, apparently. Because...wow. She couldn't remember the last time a man had left her heart racing quite like this. She was even a little breathless. And this bed was big enough for both of them...

"I'll be right back, beautiful," he said in a growl she felt right through to her core.

Be still her beating heart.

Except he didn't leave. He just sort of stared at her for a moment, then swore.

Damn. This definitely was a dream, then. Most likely drug induced by whatever else Ravenna had given her with Da's digitalin, because Ravenna was as much a Dylan Thomas fan as Da had been, with no desire to send Arwen gently into the dying light, or whatever the words were. If Ravenna had given her something to make her sleep, it would come with nightmares. And Arwen knew better than most that this was the point in the nightmare where you started running, or things were going to get worse.

She sidled across the bed, sliding out on the opposite side to Mr Sexy Wolf. Closer to the door, too. As long as the door didn't grow tentacles or teeth or something else even more trippy, she'd be out of there and on her way to the fae realm before he could blink.

Out the door, round the corner, until her bare feet touched icy white tiles, where she remembered leaving her clothes. She'd borrowed a worn t-shirt at some point when she'd stumbled out of bed to go to the loo some hours ago because she'd been freezing, but if she intended to go outside, she needed more than just that ratty borrowed shirt. She'd left her clothes in the washing machine, which had seemed the safest place to put the muddy mess, figuring she'd either be able to brush the dried mud off them in the morning. But a window full of suds was what greeted her instead – someone had set off the wash cycle on the washing machine, with her clothes inside. The only other clothes she'd found had been in the bedroom, now occupied by Mr Sexy, Angry Wolf.

No, not any more. He stood in the doorway of the laundry now, blocking off her access to the rest of the house. Definitely a nightmare, because what man willingly did washing? Unless he lived alone, which would make him a lone wolf. Packless. That was bad. Most wolf shifters would do anything to stay in the pack, which meant most lone wolves had been thrown out for one reason or another. She knew her mother had been an exception – she'd left her pack because watching everyone else shift when she couldn't had made her miserable, but she'd been the exception, rather than the rule. Her old pack leader and some of her cousins had flown all the way from New Zealand for her funeral, Da had told her. Not that Arwen herself remembered – she'd still been a baby then.

But this guy...

A lone wolf, yes, but he looked more shocked than angry. Which gave her the advantage.

This called for Ravenna's ordering-the-servants-about tone.

"You washed my clothes. Provide me with suitable replacements, and I'll go," Arwen said.

"I don't know if we have any more Spice Girls shirts. I'm surprised that one's survived his long," he replied.

Spice Girls? What? Arwen looked down and suppressed a groan. No wonder the t-shirt was tatty. It was probably older than she was. "Fine. Another shirt with fewer holes, then."

"You can take your pick of the spare shirts. I'm sure we'll have something in your size. It's pants that might be a problem. Most of the clothes here are for kids and you're curvier than even the teenagers. I mean, I keep a couple of spare sets of clothes here, because sometimes stuff gets shredded, but I'm...and you're..." He'd taken a moment to slide on a pair of shorts that covered the essentials but didn't leave anything to the imagination. If anything, it only highlighted his narrow hips and those well-muscled thighs, as well as the monster that nestled between them.

If this wasn't a dream...

"You'd be better off staying for dinner while the wash cycle finishes, and the dryer one, too. Then you can have your own clothes back, all clean," he finished.

"I don't see a dryer anywhere," she snapped.