The werewolf leaned down and licked a stripe up Kit’s face.
“What the fuck?” Kit said, hand moving to his soaked cheek. “Ugh. Werewolf slobber.”
The werewolf whined.
Kit rolled his eyes. “Oh, really?You’rethe one complaining? I stink like wolf, now.”
Instead of looking chagrined, the werewolf almost seemed to smile at that. Maybe Kit should have considered the bared teeth a sign of aggression, but he was pretty sure the werewolf was just being friendly.
In its own way.
“Are you going to let me get up?”
This time, Kit stopped the werewolf before it licked him again, hand pushing its face away.
“No,” he warned. “No more licking. It’s disgusting.”
Now the werewolf looked abashed. At least, as far as Kit could tell. He was probably projecting.
Kit edged out from underneath the werewolf, keeping a hand on its snout to stop it from following. It didn’t move, which made Kit’s task a lot easier. Kit had supernatural strength, but he hadn’t come across a werewolf before. If it came down to a head-to-head fight, he wasn’t convinced he’d be the one walking away.
Free of the werewolf, he stood, brushing off debris from the forest floor. Now that they both stood at their full heights, Kitfound that the werewolf reached almost to his head. It was far wider than him, shoulders and back thick with muscle.
Kit tried (and failed) to ignore theotherpart of the werewolf’s anatomy that insistently demanded his attention. He coughed delicately to cover up his shock. “Well. I bloody hope that’s not for me.”
The werewolf didn’t reply. Of course, it—he—didn’t.
“I’ve lost the plot,” Kit said. Because here he was, standing in a forest, attempting to converse with a werewolf.
Whilst said werewolf rocked the biggest boner Kit had ever seen.
“You should put that thing away. You could take someone’s eye out with it.” He now hoped the werewolf couldn’t understand him, because the alternative was mortifying. Best to move on, just in case.
“I don’t suppose you can point me in the right direction of Anstruther? Would only be fair, considering you stalked me through the forest.” Kit flicked a piece of dirt off his shoulder to punctuate his point.
The werewolf yipped, pawing at the ground. Kit sighed. This was nuts. The werewolf wasn’t some spirit of the forest, ready to shepherd him home.
If it evenwasa werewolf. Not that Kit had seen one in person before. He’d spotted—from a distance—some mer in the North Sea when he’d been island-hopping around a decade ago, but the only supernatural beings he’d encountered were other vampires. Every species was insular. Keeping their existence a secret was a priority, their numbers too low to risk dealing with other creatures, let alone the threat that humanity posed.
The werewolf started moving, taking a few steps before looking back at Kit.
“Do you want me to follow you?”
The werewolf jerked his head in what Kit considered a nod. Kit followed as the werewolf trotted ahead of him. Now and then, he would turn his head around, as if to check that Kit was still there. It was quite nice, in a way. It was almost as if the werewolf cared.
Kit gnawed on a fingernail, unable to believe that his night had turned out this way. And all because he’d run off to have a tantrum over Shaun sending him a friendly email asking him to visit.
Kit scrubbed a hand over his face. He needed to get over himself.
The werewolf chuffed, grabbing Kit’s attention.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m still following you. Don’t worry.”
He watched the werewolf’s form as it loped along, muscles powerful in motion. The furred parts of the werewolf looked like they’d be soft to touch, but the fur didn’t appear to match that of a normal wolf. On closer inspection, the fur was present all over his body; thinner in places and more of a decoration in others. Thick black fur concentrated around the neck like a ruff, and the fur on his legs made it look like he wore fuzzy leg warmers.
Which brought Kit’s gaze to the werewolf’s tail, which swished behind him with sass. Kit snickered to himself, and the werewolf paused in its tracks.
“Your tail is far fluffier than I’d imagined one might be,” Kit explained.
