Page 3 of The Chosen Fae

But something else garnered her attention—something she couldn't see, yet she swore it was watching her.

Then, to her relief, she willed herself to shift back and ended up in her wolf form. She shook off the excess water from her fur and returned to her den to sleep the rest of the night and ponder the strange experience she'd just had.

As much as Stone hated to admit that he wanted to see the lone female wolf, he had come again to observe her bathing in her pond in her fur coat until she had turned into a beautiful golden-haired fae.

He'd been so shocked that he couldn't believe his eyes until she turned back into her wolf, and he immediately recognized her.

Which made him wonder if he could do that too. And why hadn't he already?

As a fae, she was slim, but well-toned, and he couldn't help but be impressed. When the fox had appeared, he'd feared it would give him away, but then the fox dashed off, and his secret remained thus.

Then she shook off the excess water from her fur and returned to her den to sleep.

He reluctantly left her glen to return to his own, bathed as a wolf as she had done, and nothing happened! Why couldn't he turn into a fae also? As many as he had seen moving through his territory, he thought he must be one also—a wolf and fae in one.

Disgruntled, he finished bathing and returned to his den, vowing that if she could do it, he could too.

The next day, fae arrived in Stone’s glen, dressed in regal clothes. Royalty, he assumed. He’d seen them come through here before, knew their scents, but they weren’t wolf shifters like him. They were dragon shifters. He thought he should chase them out of his territory, but they never stayed for long, and they didn’t eat his food.

Not until that day. One of the men said, “Ena, do you want to fish here?”

She smiled at him and shifted into a dragon, startling Stone. He was already watching them through thorny shrubs and could imagine being incinerated if he startled them. He hated hiding on his own land when this was his territory. But they outnumbered him six to one, and he didn’t have a death wish.

All the fae turned into dragons and swooped down into the pond, his pond! To fish. He was so angry, but he couldn’t do anything but watch or leave. Didn’t they have a lake, pond, or another fishing source, like the ocean, that they could access? He couldn’t fish in the sea, as they could!

To add insult to injury, they brought in their catch but didn’t eat it raw. They turned into the fae and began setting up a campfire to cook the fish! A firepit, rocks surrounding it, kindling, and then logs. One of them shifted into his dragon and blew dragon fire onto a pile of twigs and logs.

Before Stone could stop himself, he hurried out of the brush and growled.

Everyone turned to observe the wolf, a yearling that didn’t seem all that powerful. He couldn’t even shift into the fae to tell them this was his territory and the fish were his.

They had the nerve to smile at him.

“He wants some of our fish,” Ena said. “Cooked or raw?”

All of it was his!

She cooked it for him and then tossed it to him. He caught it as a dog would, and he was annoyed at himself all over again. But he swallowed his pride, ate the fish, and waited for another.

They all laughed.

“He’s a growing wolf,” one of the men said. He tossed him a fish.

Despite not liking that they had stolen his fish, he chowed down on the second one, realizing he was really hungry and maybe their arrival had been fortunate for him. He spent a lot of energy hunting for food all the time. And they had gone deeper in the pond so they were able to get bigger fish.

Then they began to eat their cooked fish.

“This must be where he’s living,” Ena said. “But he seems to be alone. He’s kind of young to be on his own.”

“Don’t tell me you want to take him home with us.”

“I don’t take home every stray critter I find, Brett. Besides, he’s a wolf and needs to be living in the wild. Dogs and cats are domesticated, so no problem.”

As a wolf, Rune was getting ready to fish for lunch, the easiest way she could catch them. When she saw the smoke from the glen bordering hers, she thought it was odd since she hadn’t seen Stone turn into a fae, and he couldn’t cook anything as a wolf. Concerned it was a forest fire, she headed to his glen and saw Stone eating cooked fish, surrounded by regally dressed fae—royals, she assumed—at a nice-sized campfire, a stone ring around it and a log and twigs piled up, golden-orange flames licking at the air.

Stone was greedily eating up the fish they tossed to him, catching them mid-air. She was so surprised to see him having a meal with the fae when he was such a lone wolf. Did they realize he was a shifter who couldn’t shift? Probably not.

But she was glad to see that there wasn’t an out-of-control fire in his glen, just some fae enjoying a campfire meal. She’d worried he would need rescuing.