Page 43 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

I wasn’t the most verbose person, but I truly didn’t know what to say, so I kissed the tip of his nose and rolled onto my more comfortable side. I kind of expected that to be it, but then his strong arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me flush against his chest.

It was… lovely. He was like a radiator exuding heat that made me completely forget the cold rain outside. I slipped into slumber, sweetly embraced and enjoying the rush of blood coursing through my body.

A girl could really get used to this.

17

VANESSA

Ifloated up to consciousness gently in rolling waves that were happy to let me take my time—so unlike the normal rocketing to wakefulness whenever my alarm clock shrilly demanded I rise immediately for a work shift.

Slowly, I let my eyes slide open ever so slightly. Through the crack in my curtains, I saw the rain had stopped and that it was the next day. Very early, but still after the dawn, nonetheless.

I sat up equally slowly, but even with my careful and lackadaisical movements were, my muscles twinged. Oh, yeah. I was sore, but I liked it.

Apparently, I was learning all sorts of things about myself.

I glanced over my shoulder. Leo was out cold, head tilted back on the pillow, snoring lightly. Some people would be turned off by that, but I found it very cute. Domestic in a way. It was hard to believe that not all that long ago Leo had been stuck in the body of a wild animal, and I had been completely alone.

Funny how things changed.

As quietly as I could, I slipped out of bed and went to my dresser, sliding out the second drawer to grab one of the oversized T-shirts I liked to sleep in. They were surprisingly hard to find considering I was a tall, plus-sized woman, so I treasured and hoarded them. Once I was the barest requirement for decent, I went downstairs. I waited until I was in the kitchen before I began to hum, lest I accidentally wake Leo up before he was ready. I wanted him to sleep however long his body needed.

“Hey there, babies,” I cooed as I fed my cats.

Surprisingly, none of them seemed ticked at me over the fact that someone else had taken over their usual spots in my bed. Well, Mudpie was purposefully looking out the window rather than giving me her normal morning headbutts, but for her, that was a rather low-key display of chagrin. Chagrin I knew would ease with a full bowl of food.

Well, that and maybe a couple of treats.

Once my furry trio was taken care of, I went about cooking breakfast. Normally, I would just eat whatever leftovers I had from the night before, but I figured it had been ages since Leo had a full brekkie spread, so I went all out.

As all out as far as I could afford, anyway. Feeding Leo in his wolf form had wiped out of a lot of my funds and all of my frozen protein, and his human form wasn’t exactly easy on my budget, either. Still, even though I was broke, I could make a ton of great pancakes with a cheap box-mix plus added vanilla extract and brown sugar. Eggs had come down in price enough for me to fry up nearly a whole carton. Frozen sausages went on sale more often than not, too, and I still had two small boxes of them.

No bacon, sadly. I’d been spoiled by a roomie in college sharing thick-cut bacon with me before I dropped out, and now it was the only thing that would do. Unfortunately, it was insanely expensive considering the average price of most of the things on my grocery list, so that would have to wait for another time. Perhaps after my tax return?

Granted, that was a long way off, considering I’d filed as soon as I could and used it to expand the garden. Sure, while a lot of the stuff I bought was a heavy investment, it saved money in the long run since I got a lot of food out of it. Especially since grocery prices, particularly fresh produce, kept getting higher and higher.

Even without delicious bacon, though, I was pretty proud of the plethora of pancakes, eggs, sausage, and greens. Even with his crazy wolf appetite, I couldn’t imagine that Leo would still be hungry after the meal. If he was, then... well, was it possible for a wolf shifter to be on food stamps? Otherwise he was going to quite literally eat me out of house and home.

Government assistance or not, I plated up everything on two of the largest platters I had, then hunted through my cabinets until I found the serving tray I’d bought when I first moved in, hoping to have multiple guests for tea and garden hangouts. While that had never panned out, I was certainly glad to have it now.

From there, I got the rest of the plates, utensils, and accoutrements that we needed, even grabbing the expensive maple syrup I only used on the most special occasions. It was from upstate New York and incredibly expensive compared to the cheap artificial syrup, but it was worth it.

Once I was sure I had everything we could possibly need, I headed upstairs. It wasn’t exactly a smooth journey. The plates I had stacked on the tray rattled slightly with each step up the stairs, but I figured if I accidentally woke Leo, he couldn’t be mad for too long considering I was bringing him food. I also took special care to watch out for my pets. The last thing I wanted to do was to trip on one of them and send everything in my arms spilling onto the floor. While I liked to think my trio were remarkably well behaved, sometimes cats were just going to cat, and it was better to be cautious than to pay the price for hubris.

Thankfully, I made it up to my room with the tray intact. I said a silent thank you to myself for leaving the door cracked enough so I could push it open with my foot rather than trying for the doorknob. I was pretty sure if I tried to pull that maneuver off, the tray and all the food would be on the floor. That would be a true tragedy.

“Mmph?” Leo murmured, face half-buried in the pillow. In my absence, he had rolled over to find me, his arm stretched across the space where I’d slept. He had his nose buried in my pillow. Such a simple little thing, but it made my stomach flip. Had he missed my presence so much that his unconscious body had tried to seek it out? That made my heart soar.

“Hey there,” I said softly, just in case he wasn’t actually ready to wake up yet. “I got some food if you’re hungry.”

Normally, I was very much a no-food-in-the-bedroom girly, if only because it was so easy for me to rot there when I was depressed and build up huge piles of gross garbage, but there were exceptions for everything, and this definitely seemed like an appropriate time to make one.

“Hmm?” Leo said a bit more clearly, rolling over and cracking his eyes open. It was quite amusing to watch them go from bleary and half-lidded to wide open the moment he realized exactly what I was holding.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Goodness, his voice had that early-morning, low rumble that some people had right when they woke up, and it made my toes curl in the slippers I had put on while cooking—fuzzy things I only wore because my kitchen floor was freezing.

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