Page 23 of His Undercover Wolf

My eyes flashed open,something had caused me to wake. The room was dark, the sliver of light that peeked around my curtains was absent indicating daylight hadn’t yet broken.

I snatched the cell phone from my side table, powered on the screen to check the time, and groaned on seeing it was 3.21 am. I’d been asleep for less than an hour after my sexual gymnastics with Otsana had left me exhausted.

Flopping back on the pillow, I reached for Otsana, patting the mattress and finding she was no longer in bed. Hearing a noise from downstairs and thinking she had gone down to the kitchen for a glass of water, I switched on the side table lamp and dragged myself from bed.

Crossing to my large chest of drawers, I pulled one open, and took out a pair of sweatpants that I pulled on. Clothes were strewn over the floor from the previous night, and I made a note to fold them when I came back upstairs.

I made my way down to the kitchen, and on hearing the soft click of the laundry door closing, I frowned. I wondered where the hell Otsana was going. Her clothes were on the floor of my bedroom with everything I’d worn to dinner, so unless she’d managed to find another of my shirts, the woman was stark naked.

In the laundry, I pulled on a pair of joggers I kept there and grabbed a previously worn t-shirt I’d thrown in the washing machine. Before leaving the house, I set the alarm, and didn’t bother locking the door behind me.

Once outside, I checked the grounds, and although the light was dim, there was no sign of Otsana. I stood in the front yard, peering up and down the street and trying to figure out where the hell she had gone. Surely she wouldn’t have walked home, more than a mile away, while she was naked. Maybe she was sleepwalking?

A flash of silver across the road, about fifty yards away in the trees bordering the park caught my eye and I set off jogging in the direction. When I came to where I’d seen the flash, I worked my way through the trees.

Surrounded by tall trees, the almost full moon barely visible and unable to penetrate the growth with its beams, I was barely able to see a hand in front of my face. I stayed still, listening, and wishing I’d had the presence of mind to grab the torch off a hook by the laundry door.

I remained still, hearing rustling from every direction as creatures of the night were now on the move, headed back to the safety of a burrow beneath ground or the hollow of a log where they would spend their daylight hours sleeping. Maybe it was one of those I’d seen on the move, but if that was the case, it still didn’t answer the question of where Otsana could have gone. My instincts insisted she was somewhere in the park, but where…and why?

I set one hand on my hip and carded the fingers of the other through my hair while deciding on what my next move should be. Knowing the chance of me finding something in the inky blackness was low, and the chance of me becoming lost was extremely high, I headed back to the house. Following another check around the property, just in case I’d missed something, but finding nothing, I dropped into a chair in a darkened corner of the veranda.

Staring off into the distance, I noticed the horizon beginning to lighten, but it would be another hour or so before dawn broke which was usually when I made my way into the office. Today I would be late.

While waiting, my thoughts drifted to Otsana. The woman had turned my life on its head in less than a day and I knew stuff all about her.

A silvery flash emerging from the edge of the tree line drew my attention and I watched in fascination as a beautiful wolf slinked into the light, wary of everything in its vicinity.

The animal was black with wide streaks of silver, reminding me of Otsana’s hair. A chill danced down my spine on making the comparison. The beast stood on its back legs, stretching to full height, and raised its arms toward the moon. I waited for it to howl like I’d seen in sci-fi movies, but the wolf stilled, seeming to pay homage to the sparkling disc overhead. I wondered how long the animal had been roaming the park and why I’d never seen it before.

What happened next had me scooting to the edge of my chair and not only questioning my eyesight, but also my sanity. I watched as the beast transformed from a stunning wolf/dog…whatever it was, into Otsana!

As the naked woman crossed the road, I stood. When she saw me, she stopped short, frozen in place. I looked over her naked body, the one I’d fully explored a few hours earlier, but realized now I knew nothing about, before walking toward where she stood.

“Xavier,” she whispered.

“Come inside,” I snapped.

I took Otsana by the hand a little roughly, and when she called out in pain and attempted to pull it away, I eased my grip and apologized.

In the laundry I tore off my t-shirt and pulled it over Otsana’s head, covering her nakedness which was a major distraction, and we needed to have a serious conversation.

I tugged her through to the kitchen, where I flipped on the light, pulled out a chair, and asked her to sit. Although, the tone of my voice made it sound more like an order and I saw Otsana stiffen in defiance.

“I need to fetch my clothes and purse from upstairs. I’ll walk home.” Otsana started to the staircase, but I pulled her back, and pushed her down into a chair, admittedly a little roughly.

I felt like I’d entered an alternate universe and was not angry, but highly annoyed with Otsana’s deception. We’d barely met but her almost unbelievable ability to shift into a wolf was something I should have been told.

I sat in a chair at the end of the table close to Otsana. “You’re not leaving here until I get some answers.” I pointed toward the front of the house. “What the fuck did I just see out there?”

Otsana dropped her head into both hands for a few moments and when she looked back up, her eyes were clear and defiant. Fuck, she was gorgeous.

“I’ve just signed the death warrant for my pack.” Her voice was soft and had a tone of sadness.

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“When you tell your friends about what you obviously saw, the authorities will come looking for me and they will round up all my close friends and family. When our blood is tested, they’ll note the wolf gene in us and we’ll be locked away to be studied as oddities. Once we are of no further use, we’ll be exterminated so we are not a threat to society.”

“Back up…Are you saying you have never had your blood tested so this gene you talk about has never been witnessed?”

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