He’s going to kill me.
My back splits and my dressing gown tears as my wings burst from my shoulders. I flail desperately, dark spots exploding behind my eyes, my lungs screaming for air.
In my panic, a violent surge of magic explodes through me like a current. The nightstand rockets into the air and crashes into Fox’s head, exploding in a shower of wooden splinters. Fox yells, the force of the blow knocking him backwards. His fingers finally loosen and he recoils.
“Aurelia?” Fox mumbles, sleep and angry confusion in his voice. “Fuck!”
I feel myself falling, then sharp pain as I crash into the stone floor and collapse onto my hands and knees coughing and choking. My lungs heave, each breath a knife-scrape against my crushed windpipe.
Fox stumbles backward and I hear him fumbling for the oil lamp on the wall. The sudden flare of light reveals that, like me, Fox’s wings are out. They’re enormous and white, several shades lighter than his hair, and stretched taut across the small room quivering with each of his ragged breaths. His expression is a mixture of confusion and horror—pupils contracted, jaw slack and throat bobbing as he stares down at me, raking both hands through his hair. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I look up and I try to answer, but my throat only manages a raw scrape of air and I double over again, gagging.
“Fuck,” he curses again, dragging a hand over his face.
Fox turns toward a wash basin and pitcher in the corner. He pours a glass of water from the pitcher and bends to hand it to me. I take it eagerly, the cool liquid soothing the raw heat in my throat. It takes several long minutes, but finally I can breathe again. I lower the glass and look up at him.
Fox is crouching in front of me, forearms on his knees, wings folded behind him like an enormous bird of prey. At this angle, our faces are almost level, and I can see every facet of his guilty expression. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, eyes darting between my face and my wings. “Do you need…something?”
I shake my head, smiling weakly, and push up into a kneeling position. “Not permanently, I’ll be fine in a minute.”
“I thought you were…I don’t know. I was asleep.” His eyes snap to my wings again, and he looks almost like he’s in pain before he shakes his head, loose blonde hair falling into his face. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I gesture vaguely across the room, and Fox glances back over his right wing to the smashed potion bottle on the floor surrounded by the splinters of his nightstand and a puddle of smoking crimson liquid. His brows furrow in confusion.
“It’s my healing potion. I heard you got hurt.”
“I’m fine,” he says roughly.
“I can see that, but I just wanted to see if I could help.”
He glances at a clock on the wall and then back to me. “In the middle of the night?”
“I didn’t realize the time.” My cheeks heat. The longer I sit here and the more my breathing returns to normal, the more the fear for my life is evaporating and being replaced by embarrassment. “I’m going to go. Sorry about this, I’ll just…sorry.”
“Wait!” Fox straightens up too, grabbing my arm. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m fine, really,” I half-whine.
“Let me see,” he growls, turning me around to face him again.
Fox’s eyes go straight to my throat, obviously searching for damage, while I find myself coming face to face with his bare chest. My eyes widen.
I’d nearly forgotten that he was naked. That fact didn’t feel all that important moments ago while he was strangling me, but feels relevant now that we’re standing so close together, the pads of his thumbs now running up the sides of my neck as if feeling for lumps.
I don’t mean to look—really, I don’t—but my eyes betray me, darting downward over his body.
With clothes on, Fox is merelybig. Without clothes, though, it’s hard not to focus on exactly where that bulk comes from. He’s obviously tall, with long arms and legs, and a slightly shorter torso. His shoulders are broad, so that even without all his muscles he would probably appear sturdy rather than gangly. As it is, there isn’t a hint of softness anywhere on his body. Every single muscle seems to stand out, like I could trace each one individually.
Earlier, when he lifted his shirt to wipe his face, I caught a glimpse of the very bottom of a tattoo. The tattoo doesn’t surprise me—they’re common all over Ellender—but I amsurprised at the intricacy of all the ink. His entire right arm and shoulder is covered in twisting black patterns. The patterns connect to the outline of an enormous wolf’s head on the left side of his chest, stretching down to cover his ribs.
My gaze traces the pattern, and I follow it over his arm, across his chest, down his ribs, and then lower. The tattoo stops halfway down his torso, but my eyes have a life of their own and keeps traveling downward, until—oh, Gods.
He’s not aroused at the moment, but even so, his size is… intimidating. Proportionally large compared with the rest of his body, I suppose, but still. I’ve seen a handful of cocks in my lifetime, but my limited experience hasn’t prepared me to see one this big. A fleeting, ridiculous thought crosses my mind about the logistics. How the hell does it fit?
I ponder that, trying to imagine how tall a woman would have to be to comfortably allow Fox to fuck her. Taller than me, certainly. Maybe some positions would make it easier? I wonder…
Fox’s cock twitches, and I suddenly realize that I’m staring. Likereallystaring. Worse, his fingers have stopped tracing over my neck, as if he finished his inspection, so there’s no way he didn’t notice me noticing. Heat floods my face, and I jerk my eyes back up to his.
