Page 25 of Arranged Wolf's Nanny
Nicolas glanced around the room, “Anyone else coming?”
“Not tonight,” Dane said, rubbing Lola’s shoulders. “I’ve gotta be out on patrol tomorrow.”
“And I don’t want to,” Lola added with a helpful thumbs up.
“You go,” said Felix, “I’ll watch the kids. Take as long as you need.”
“Try not to get into too much trouble,” Daisy said, reaching up on her tiptoes to give Nicolas a brief kiss.
Rick turned away from them, his jaw working. In doing so, he caught Cassie’s eye, and she laughed with slightly too much bravado to be convincing. “I’ll come with you!”
If she expected him to laugh with her, she was in for a rude awakening.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Felix said, tucking her under his arm. “Even if you weren’t a human, you think I’d let you out in the wild with him in this state? I’m worried enough about Nicolas.”
Rick scowled. “I’m not a rabid animal.”
“Tell that to your face,” Dane said with a slightly forced grin. “Go on, go hunt down some deer or something.”
Rick hissed something insulting under his breath, but followed Nicolas out of the house anyway, not even registering the cold bite of the night air.
A bit of time in his wolf would probably make him feel better, loath as he was to admit it. But as he gave over tothe transformation, bones snapping and reshaping themselves within them, he realized too late what that meant.
His wolf was entirely preoccupied with the girl currently alone in his house, and he had to fight with every step to keep his eyes on the forest ahead of him, and not turn tail right back into her bedroom.
To comfort her or claim her, he couldn’t work out.
And that made him angrier than anything.
Chapter 7 - Rosalia
It had been three weeks.
Three painful, agonizing, terrifying weeks.
She couldn’t relax. Couldn’t sleep most nights. She lay awake for hours, staring at the canopy, flinching at any tiny sound or movement.
Logically, she knew she was being ridiculous. Rick had said he wouldn’t touch her, and he hadn’t.
But it wasn’t him she truly feared.
It was her father.
His shadow seemed to lurk in every dark corner, hiding behind every curtain, waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack.
She had disobeyed him. She hadn’t made Rickhappy. She’d jeopardized the whole marriage.
If she put so much as atoeout of line, then Rick would discard her.
And she would have to face her father.
She’d come up with a thousand hair-brained plots to seduce Rick. To run away from him. To collapse on her knees before him and beg his mercy. To shift into a wolf and tear him apart.
Perhaps it was her tiredness driving her to mania. Or perhaps it was the fact that she hadn’t left the house since the wedding. Even thethoughtof stepping out into the cold, vast expanse ofoutsidemade her want to scurry under her bed like a damned child.
Some of the pack females had tried to visit her. Daisy and Cassie, mostly. She had sat through painful conversations, her lips scraped back into a smile, until they had given up and left her to her silence.
Their visits were becoming less frequent, but their expressions grew more and more alarmed each time they saw her.
