Page 31 of Craved By a Wolf

And eyed it suspiciously.

“What else will it reveal?” There was worry in those words as he glared at the potion and then her.

“Keeping secrets?”

He scoffed. “No.”

Which was a definite yes.

“It’s not a truth serum.” She bent over and looked under the counter, found an old pink teacup with a chip in it that she had used in her fortune-telling days, and straightened. She set it down on the counter in front of him. He curled a lip at it, as if asking him to drink from such a delicate, feminine vessel was insulting. She sighed. “I’ll only know if you’re cursed, and the other active ingredients will work to restore your strength. We can go from there.”

She smiled sweetly at him when he still looked as if he would sooner die than drink the potion.

“Trust me.”

The wolf huffed but downed the potion, and she grimaced with him as it oozed towards his mouth. Maybe she should have added a dash more vodka to loosen it up further. He pulled a face, and she was sure he might vomit, but then he swallowed the last of it. He slammed the flask back down on the counter and covered his mouth with his other hand, his skin paling, and tense seconds passed as she waited to see if the potion was going to come back up.

Hella edged to her left, out of the line of fire, just in case.

He finally lowered his hand from his face, swallowed again and aimed a scowl at her. “Couldn’t make it a wee bit more palatable?”

She shrugged. “A potion is what it is. Not all of them taste like candy and flowers.”

Most of them didn’t. She had been made to take many potions during her education and nearly all of them had tasted disgusting, ranging from old sweat to vomit. Although, the vomit tasting ones were usually because they had come back up, their consistency turning her stomach.

The wolf cast a look at his bare body and then her, an air of expectation about him. “Well?”

She waved him away. “Give it a minute. Spells take time to work.”

Like the one built in on a delayed timer.

She was about to check the list of ingredients, worried that she had missed something or it had called for snake milk and not frog spawn, and then crimson symbols shimmered over every glorious inch of his body.

She hurried to catalogue as many of them as she could, aware she only had a few seconds to read them. Interlocking glyphs made up of circles and hexagons laced with runic symbols and slashes glowed against his skin and then were gone, and she only caught a few of them.

But it was enough for her to know the truth.

“You’re not lying. You are cursed,” she said, casting him a look that she knew revealed the depth of her surprise because his scowl deepened, his handsome face hardening as his jaw flexed.

“I told you as much,” he barked.

She almost regretted the second half of the potion now, because she really wanted to know who had done this work on him and why.

“Now will you accept me?” The wolf’s gaze darkened and he reached for her.

And locked up tight.

His eyes widened, horror and dismay flashing across them, together with a look that called her a lying bitch.

He looked horribly as if he thought she had betrayed him.

“Why?” he uttered, that word like a knife in her chest, slashing clean through her as the urge to apologise to him shot to the tip of her tongue, guilt pushing it there.

She didn’t get a chance to tell him she was sorry.

He disappeared with a faint pop.

Hella stared at where he had been, acid churning inside her, a feeling she was beginning to associate with the wolf. What was it about him that made her feel terrible about the things she did? She had never had trouble doing this kind of thing before, had always been ruthless when it came to retaining her freedom and living her life the way she wanted. The wolf wanted to take that freedom from her.

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