I felt Wild’s arrival in the stone circle before I scented him behind me. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I glanced over my shoulder…
… to find him emerging from the standing stones in wolf form. Ash blond and grey fur and his unmistakable electric blue gaze. My stomach dropped at the size of him, as large as his human — just dropped down on all fours, with his teeth fully bared.
Run!My feet launched me forward before my brain could fully process the sight of him.
Wölfennites were naive. He hadn’t been wrong about that. But there was one hard fact we’d all been taught.
A shifted wolf was not the same as a human with a werewolf inside of them. Any wolf — even a beloved family member — was likely to tear you apart in lupine form.
The one thing — the most horrible thing — you could ever be in our hidden shifter community was caught somewhere in your human form with a werewolf who'd furred out.
Just in case I wasn't fully aware of how much danger I was in, Wild bared his teeth and snarled. Like the feral beast I'd suspected him of being this entire time.
Again, I had no time to plan.
I sped toward the hill as fast as my feet could carry me. But was it fast enough to get —
The wolf hit me with full force, tackling me from behind before I could finish that thought.
Naomi
One moment,I was running for my life, and the next, I was falling forward underneath the weight of the beast who'd chased and (easily) caught me.
And would probably tear out my throat as soon as I hit the ground.
Even worse, the fast-rising earth beneath me wasn’t a uniform soft mat of green like in the secret kingdom but a patched-together crazy quilt of rocks with just a few tufts of grass to cushion my fall.
I uttered one more ‘crap’ and braced myself for what would surely be a bone-breaking crash landing before I met my grisly end between the beast's teeth…
… only to gasp when a pair of strong arms suddenly wrapped around me and twisted me away from the rocky patch of ground.
“Oof!”
Instead of sharp, jagged rocks, I landed on top of Wild in his human form.
His completely naked human form, which he managed to aim toward a rock-free bank of grass.
Had he shifted in mid-air? Did he truly have that much control of his wolf that he could…?
Wild rolled me beneath him before I could finish asking myself that question.
“Was this what ye were desiring, Flower? A wee game of chase through Ireland proper to get yer heat engine started?”
I didn’t realize the skirt I’d been given had flipped up during my fall, arc, and tumble. Not until something hard pressed into the space between my legs.
That was when I remembered the task I'd started last night but hadn't finished. I'd been washing the strangely tight cotton briefs I’d been given to wear in place of my usual bloomers in the sink when Amanda had gone into yet another heat cycle. It was an understandable reason for not completing the small task, but it meant I wasn’t wearing anything underneath my skirts.
At all.
And Wild had shifted out of his clothes.
There were no barriers between our most private parts. Nothing to keep me from feeling the thing between his legs pressing into my most intimate space. Lodging against my folds. Pulsing…
Just like that, the tingling returned, a pool of molten disgust pooling in my belly. My breath caught, and my heartbeat moved up to my ears, drowning out all other noise so that I could barely hear myself answer Wild's insulting accusation. “It wasn’t a game. I was obviously trying to get away.”
"Trying to get away."
Wild was no longer a beast, but his mouth felt like a maw of hot breath and sharp teeth against my neck.
