Page 5 of Scarlett's Wicked Wolf
Please not hers.
I stagger upright, the chill forgotten as my vision sharpens to a predator’s clarity. My nose twitches. Her fragrance threads the air, bright citrus and warm skin with a whisper of magic. It’s on my skin, in my lungs,in me. Still blooming.
Ibither. I know I did. Not just a bite. A claiming.
She’s still alive.I’d know if she weren’t. Severing a bond like this would open a canyon in my chest.
I can feel it. Feelher. A low tug deep in my core, magnetic and undeniable. A heartbeat not my own echoes faintly through my chest. Weak but present.
A mate.
My mate.
Christ, did I leave her alone in my cabin?
I scrub a hand over my face as jumbled memories return to me. The bite did something to me, made me feral, and I knew I needed to gain some distance from her while I got myself under control.
But now…
She needs me.
I walk to the back of the cave and rip open the stone-stashed trunk where I keep spare clothes. Sweatpants. Hoodie. Shoes. All the trappings of the man I’m supposed to be when I’m not ruled by fur and fang.
I pull them on with shaking hands. My cock is still half-hard, and the shame of it makes bile rise in my throat.
This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.
This isn’t how I’m supposed to be.
When I stumbled into Fable Forest, it wasn’t because I belonged here.
I was a guy who avoided parties and minded his own business until my brother, Hewit, shoved a red plastic cup containing Dr. Karloff’s Frankenpunch into my hand at the Halloween gathering in Screaming Woods and said, “Live a little.”
One sip of the punch and my life flipped inside out. The fever hit. Bones broke and reformed. Fur tore through my skin as I snarled at the moon. Hewit changed too. Then everything else changed—people, rules, the whole goddamn map of my life. A new world jostled its way into ours, and I didn’t recognize either.
Everything I knew was gone. Including my brother.
One minute, I was human, forgettable. The next, I was a fucking wolf. Ashifter. Not born of pack or magic or prophecy, but a mistake of science.
So I ran. I left Screaming Woods, the people, the world I knew, and came here. Deep into Fable Forest. To disappear. To learncontrol. To keep everyonesafefrom what I’d become. A cabin for the man. A cave for the beast.
And for the most part, it worked.
Until her.
I remember every detail now. I caught her scent before I even saw her. Orange blossoms and magic. Somethingmeantfor me.
Then the flash of red. Her cloak. She was too bright to belong in the forest’s dark heart. A woman with green eyes and hair that gleamed russet and gold.
The moment I saw her, everything inside me snapped into focus. My instincts surged. The wolf in me knew. Herecognizedher. Not as prey, but ashis. Asmine.
ThenI saw him—the other wolf. Scarred, twisted, and red-eyed. He was a danger to her—that’s all I knew, all I could sense in his sickly aroma. The rot in his scent made my hackles rise before he even lunged at her.
I fought him savagely. Drove him off, but not before he left her bloodied and limp on the forest floor.
She was dying. I could smell it. Too much blood. No time.
I remember sliding my snout down her face and licking her neck. I remember the powerful explosion of pleasure that burst along my long tongue as I tasted her for the first time. It oozed from her pores; a taste made only for her mate.
