Page 17 of Her Wolf Protector

"I didn't catch your name. Mr...?"

"Mortimer. Tate Mortimer. I live over at Wuffingas Estate, just outside of town. Who sent you?"

"The police..."

"Not the police. Scott wouldn't send a girl into the woods on her own. Not when he can call me."

Silence.

Then... "Fine. The girl's family. Her mother. She didn't think the police were looking hard enough, so she hired me."

"What are you?"

"I'm an expert tracker. A private investigator. I..."

"No, what are you? As the Wuffingas Pack Enforcer, on Wuffingas Pack territory, I'm asking you what you're doing trespassing on our land without permission. If you caught a girl's scent outside this cottage, you know you were entering property claimed by a wolf pack, so you're either stupid or something you think is a match for the most powerful pack in Scotland. So for the last time, what are you or will I have to fight you to find out?"

A sigh. "Fine. I can't smell the difference between a woman and a wolf. I had no idea this land belonged to a wolf pack. My client told me another investigator had tracked the scent to here, but no further. I'm a turkey vulture shifter. I specialise in aerial surveillance, scenting cadavers. I've flown over this forest twice, and I can't find a trace of anything bigger than a badger. The only cadaver I did find was the previous investigator, and his heart is just gone, so I know what's waiting for me if I screw this up. So either you've buried her deep or...I don't know. And the client won't pay me until I bring back the corpse's heart to prove I found her, and if I don't..."

And if that wasn't proof Ravenna had tried to murder Arwen, she didn't know what was. Her poisoned heart would be hidden away where the police would never find it. Good thing her heart was still beating, and Arwen intended to keep it that way.

The door shut, and the bitch's scent faded.

Wolf Man...no, he had a name, didn't he? Tate Mortimer, he'd said it was. Tate slumped onto a chair, and put his head in his hands.

Arwen whined to remind him she was still chained up. She gave him a minute before she swapped to growling, and then she'd graduate to ripping the chains out of the fucking wall.

"Sorry. I'll let you go, as long as you let her go, and she is going. She left me her card. I said I'd call her if I found your corpse. But I also told her if she wanted a heart she could take to her client so she could get paid, she should speak to Narine, the current pack housekeeper. She has a rather large number of frozen wild boar hearts, after some culling the pack did a few weeks ago. If she mentions I sent her for one of the hearts, Narine will give her one to give her client, and she'll give up the hunt and leave you alone."

Good.

"Want me to warm your lunch up again? It's gone cold."

Arwen slurped up the last of her soup and eyed Tate's bowl.

He shoved it in front of her. "Fine, have it. I'm not hungry any more."

Arwen finished Tate's meal and lay down on the floor. Her stomach might be full for now, but deep inside, another hunger ignited. And this one would not be so easily satisfied.

FOURTEEN

Tate tried everything he could think of, to try and teach Arwen to shift back into her human form, but nothing worked, and the distress on her face was nothing to the pain in his heart. That fate could give him a mate, but curse her so that they could never be together, like true mates...oh, now that was rich. Arwen was trying, too, he could see that. At first, he'd suspected that she was staying a wolf so no one would recognise her face from the posters in town, but the more despondent she grew, the less he believed it.

"You're not staying a wolf because no one will recognise you like this, are you? You know I'll let you hide here for as long as you need to. I'll keep you safe," he promised.

Arwen shot him a glare and shook her head. Then she closed her eyes, scrunched her body up and...nothing. Again. The heartbreak in her eyes when they opened again and she was still a wolf...

"Come on, let's go outside and play. Maybe even catch a rabbit for tea. It's a pity we don't get otters in this stream, or we could go fishing for one. They don't taste as good as rabbit, but after yesterday, I have a hankering for one..." Tate shifted back into his own wolf form, pushed open the door, and bounded outside.

For a moment, she nipped at his heels, before she swerved for the tarn. She surveyed the water suspiciously for a long moment, before she dunked her whole head in the freezing flow. She stayed submerged for what felt like an eternity, before she jerked her head up, a silvery trout clenched between her teeth. She devoured it in two bites, then stuck her head back in the stream – to wash the fish down with a drink of water, not to catch another, Tate realised with relief.

Until he remembered that the water was probably contaminated with something that had made them go mad. Was rabies waterborne? For the life of him, he couldn't remember.

But if he was immune to it, then surely his mate was, too. Even if she was trapped in her wolf form, she was still a shifter.

He should stop worrying and play, like he was supposed to.

She dunked her head in the water again and then shook, showering him in icy rain, before darting away.