AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Run?”
He released me, stepped back, and shifted forms. The motion was smooth and graceful, and the long, curling fur on his wolf form looked far softer than I expected.
He nudged my knee with his nose, and I stared at him.
He bumped it again a moment later, seeming to grow impatient.
I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me, because there wasn’t a chance in hell that I could keep up with him if I ran.
The wolf made an impatient noise and ducked his head beneath my arm. I sucked in a breath as he rocked his body smoothly, using the momentum to put me on his back.
I buried my fingers in his silky fur. Surprisingly, there was no more pain at all where he’d bitten me. When I looked down, my eyebrows shot upward. I found a jagged crescent marking that shimmered silver on my completely healed skin, instead of blood.
The shifter—Ivaylo, he had said, pronounced ee-vay-low—lifted his head to the sky and howled.
A group of wolves appeared in the trees. They moved like ghosts, and looked like them too with fur in shades of gray, black, and white.
They slowed, a few of them snarling.
Ivaylo snarled back, and the golden glow around him rippled—and spread tome.
Warmth swelled inside me, and I sucked in a breath at the sudden hit of…
Lust?
It had to be lust.
It was completely foreign, and entirely unappealing.
But damn, it was strong.
The snarling wolves quieted.
One seemed to bow his head toward us.
Ivaylo howled again, and then took off into the trees.
Wind rushed against my face and through my hair, blowing it out behind me as I squeezed my eyes shut. I pressed my chest to the wolf’s furry back, fighting the awful mesh of panic and lust that warred within me. The lust was fading quickly, but I didn’t look to see if the glow on my skin was doing the same.
Soon enough, the lust was gone entirely. Strangely, the panic I’d been feeling followed it.
After a bit, I peeked my eyes open.
The trees around us seemed to be changing more the further we ran. Though they still had gnarled black trunks and long, spindly branches, I started to see a few blood-red leaves growing on them.
My attention remained on the trees and forest as we ran. The leaves seemed to be growing thicker, though they did so slowly.
The wind in my ears and against my face grew strangely peaceful as time passed. Ivaylo showed no sign of stopping, but I wasn’t necessarily eager for him to stop. The running made me feel calm, and when he stopped, we would inevitably have to talk about what he'd done, why he’d done it, and whatever else was going on in his world.
We did take a few breaks, but they were short, and we were moving again quickly after each one.
My eyelids grew harder to keep open as he continued to run. Eventually, I fell asleep on the back of the wolf who hadclaimed me.
We were still runningwhen I woke up. The trees above us had changed much more, and were now loaded with large red leaves, mostly concealing the sky. My stomach rumbled loudly, and the wolf beneath me growled.
He couldn’t have been growling at my rumbling stomach, could he?
That would be ridiculous, to say the least.
