Page 63 of Craved By a Wolf

“Not going to tell me?” she whispered, her voice faint, and she swallowed hard. Almost looked at him.

He stepped back and rubbed his tired eyes as he tried to focus on remembering the details of what had happened when the witch had cursed him. When the fog in his head only thickened in response, he began pacing. Every step was a chore but he couldn’t keep still, even when he felt ready to drop. Her scent had him wired, aching for her, and there was no way he was going to be able to think straight when she was in the room with him and he could still taste her on his lips.

Could see the blush on her cheeks that told him she had liked that kiss.

“Another kiss, lass,” he husked and stepped towards her, keeping his voice gentle and his movements predictable, calm, so he didn’t scare her off. “I felt better when you kissed me.”

She frowned at him. “You sound like an incubus now… feeding off pleasure.”

Something crossed her eyes, something she wouldn’t say, and he didn’t like that she had compared him to that nymph king in her mind.

“I’m no nymph. I’m no incubus,” he barked and swept his hand out, sending one of the books flying and ripping a gasp from her. She hurried around the bench table to retrieve it and he didn’t miss how she chose to go the long way around, avoiding coming closer to him. He growled as his fangs punched long from his gums and dug his claws into the wooden slab that separated them as he turned on her. “This wasn’t my choice. This is your fault. You did something to piss off that witch and I’m paying for it.”

She flinched and tucked the book to her chest, averted her eyes and kept them away from him. Her shoulders sagged beneath her very plain black dress, the kind he had never imagined seeing on her. It wasn’t corseted, or stylish, or short. No silk or ribbons or that sheer stuff the first dress he had seen her in had on it. It was one drab piece of cotton that reached all the way to her ankles and covered her arms too, and it struck him that it was a disguise—a desperate attempt to remain hidden from the nymph.

And yet she hadn’t changed the colour of her hair.

Because she hadn’t found the courage to actually leave this place.

He looked around at the small lodgings, at the brown paper bags in the corner that had little white tickets stapled to them and the black sack next to them, and the paper plates and plastic cutlery on the ancient woodworm-eaten sideboard. He recalled the witch he had seen in the street and the pieces fell into place. Hella hadn’t left this place since he had left her. Witches had been bringing her food and things she needed. She had spent weeks in these cramped conditions, staring at the same four walls, while he had been running through glens and swimming in lochs and doing his best to forget her.

“Why didn’t you come to me, lass?” He carefully edged towards her, his tone softer than he had ever heard it as he held her gaze and saw in her eyes that things had been hard for her here, that he wasn’t the only person who had been suffering. “I can protect you. You know that.”

The softness that had been in her eyes was gone in an instant as they narrowed on him. “For what price? A set of fangs in my neck and a mating mark? The invisible shackle of a bond?”

He reared back and glared at her, but no denial bubbled up from his heart and it pissed him off. He tried to tell himself that he wouldn’t have made such a demand, he wouldn’t have set such a high price for his protection, but it was a lie. If she had come to him before he had reached his lowest point and Gregor had advised him on how to win a mate, he would have tried to force a bond on her. He would have made the same mistake many wolves did with their fated ones.

“Hella,” he whispered and held his hand out to her, trying to be soft and show her that she was wrong and he had changed. “I’m not the same as I was. Come with me now. Let me protect you.”

She shook her head. “I can protect myself.”

He cast a pointed look at her home. “Is that why you’re still hiding from the nymphs? I dinnae see you parading around town as you were when I met you. You’re a shadow of the female I saw that day.”

She glared at him, her lips settling in a mulish line, and slammed the book down on the table. “And you’re a shadow of the male who came to my aid. How are you meant to protect me when you’re so weak?”

He stepped back, bracing his left foot behind him as she delivered that blow to his pride. Weak? He was an alpha. He wasn’t weak.

His head turned, the entire room spinning with it. Fine, maybe he was a little weak right now, but there was a way to fix that. He palmed his forehead, easing the pain there, and tried to think of a way to convince Hella to do what he needed her to do—surrender to her attraction to him.

She must have taken his silence for anger or hurt, because she whispered, “I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to find a way to help you.”

“You know how to help me,” he growled and her cheeks flushed, her pupils dilating and telling him she was well aware of the one way she could save him. He rounded the table, surprise rolling through him when she didn’t move away this time. She didn’t look at him either. She kept her head bent, her eyes on her hands where they rested on top of the tome she had slammed into the table. He lifted his left hand and reached for her, gently laying his fingers on the other side of her jaw. “I need you, Hella.”

She angled her head away from him.

He let his hand drop from her face and huffed. “You’ll let every male in this town between your thighs, but no’ me. You dinnae need a king to be a whore queen.”

She flew at him, striking him hard on his right cheek, the sharp slap making his ear ring.

“I deserved that.” Kin sighed and closed his eyes, all the fight leaving him and despair sweeping into his soul to replace it. “This… this isn’t like me. I’m tired, Hella. Afraid. The gods only know how many hours I have left.”

He remembered what Gregor had told him. He couldn’t stand on her. Meaning, he couldn’t order her around and trample her, forcing her to do what he wanted. He needed to stand beside her instead, supporting her and taking care of her without caging her. He wanted to do that, but time was against him. If he had all the time in the world, he would use it to court her properly, to take her on dates and take things slow, and would probably stumble every damned step of the way, but he would do it.

If he had time.

Her hand dropped to his chest and he looked at her, into eyes that glittered with a look he couldn’t name but one that gave him hope. He had never felt as exposed as he did in that moment, as if his words had stripped him bare and revealed him to her. An alpha shouldn’t fear anything, but he did.

He was soul-deep afraid of dying without ever knowing if this beautiful witch was his fated one.

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