Page 73 of Craved By a Wolf

Hella frowned, her focus stolen away from Mort by the sight of a marking on her friend’s right forearm, one that was new. It was a circular design with symbols and what looked like a dragon and a stag in it. It wasn’t like Fenix to get ink. He didn’t particularly like the fae markings that tracked up his forearms and over his shoulders to reveal his lineage, so she couldn’t imagine him choosing to get more markings on his skin.

Without looking at her, he muttered, “Don’t ask. Unless you know ancient fae?”

When he glanced at her, she shook her head, wishing she did now because she was curious about the mark. Who had given it to him?

“There are probably a few in Lucia you could ask about that mark though.” She leafed through the first book, a particularly boring one containing very basic spells. She tossed some of the loose pages into an empty cardboard box and set the ones that warranted a closer look in a pile beside her.

She also dog-eared pages in the book, which surprisingly earned her a glare from Mort. He wasn’t a fan of folding the top corners of pages in books? She had never figured him for that sort of man. In fact, she had figured he had never read a book in his life. Was there more to Mort than met the eye?

“Lucia? That where your nymph boyfriend is? Does he know the language?” Fenix’s lips wobbled as he fought a smile and she scowled at him and added an eye roll when he tacked on, “Oops, forgot you traded up. Furry is more your thing now.”

“MacKinnon isn’t my boyfriend, and neither is the nymph.” She grabbed the next book, not wanting to talk about either the nymph or the wolf, and searched for a subject change. “And nymphs aren’t the only breed in Lucia.”

“I know. Sirens live there too.” Fenix pushed aside a stack of papers.

Hella jerked her chin towards the mark on his arm. “Sirens won’t be able to help with translating that mark, but the seelie might.”

“The seelie?” His gaze snapped to her and he bit out a ripe curse. “I’ve been trying to track an unseelie. I didn’t go to Lucia because I thought it was only home to—damn it.”

“Why do you think few people who go there come back?” She scoffed. “It’s not the nymphs and the sirens killing or capturing them.” Her mood took a sharp downwards turn as Ethyrian popped into her head, together with all the disgusting things he had said to her. She muttered, “Although the bastard nymphs do love taking captives.”

“You’re staying here until some of the heat you’re feeling in that fae town dies down, got it?” Fenix planted his right hand against the polished top of the table and leaned on it as he stared at her, his tone hard and unyielding.

Demanding.

Her lips flattened as her mood shifted again, darkening as she glared across the table at him, making sure he knew how little she liked the fact he had just issued an order to her. What was it with the men in her life these days? When had everyone started thinking they could boss her around and she would do as they wanted? She was getting tired of it.

But Fenix did have a point.

She was safer here.

She tried to think objectively, pushing aside her dislike of being told what to do. Rebelling against Fenix just because he had made an offer sound like an order was a sure-fire way of getting herself captured by Ethyrian again. Just like rebelling against MacKinnon had made her come storming down into a room filled with incubi in a far too sexy outfit.

Maybe she had overreacted. Just a little.

She pulled down a breath and denied her first reaction, the initial instinct to push back against Fenix, and huffed as she looked back at her book, and nodded.

He added, “Your boyfriend can stay too.”

That earned him another glare.

And the bolt of electricity that shot across the table to zap his hand as she pressed hers to the other side of it.

She smiled wickedly when he glared back at her and went back to her work, but it wasn’t long before she found her thoughts drifting to MacKinnon again. Fenix kept calling him her boyfriend, and although she knew he was only doing it to tease her, it was filling her head with questions she didn’t have answers to and she didn’t like it.

Like, what kind of boyfriend would the wolf make?

Was it even possible for them to date or would his wolf instincts keep driving him to take the next step with her?

Was she really his fated female?

That one stuck in her head, tormenting her by degrees, keeping her focus away from her work as she idly flicked through the book in front of her, not really noticing what was on the pages. What if it was all just a spell? How was she going to feel if whoever had cursed him lifted it and he discovered she wasn’t his fated one and no longer wanted anything to do with her?

There was no spell on her.

Meaning her feelings for him, whatever they were, were real.

Meaning she would get her heart broken if he left her.

---