Page 10 of Big Bad Wolf

Shit. Once more, I’m cornered by the big, bad wolf and there’s nothing I can do about it.

The wolf moves until its forelegs bump up against the nest of blankets. It lowers its head, close enough to my seated position that I can feel its breath against my skin before it can touch me. It’s so hot it sends another chill skittering down my spine.

“Hold on there, Fido,” I mutter, more for me than for it. “Take it easy…”

If it understands English, if it understands ‘human’, it gives no sign that it does. It certainly doesn’t take it easy. Instead, it leans in until it has its nose pressed to my cheek. The chill of it is as much of a shock as the fact that it doesn’t do anything except sniff my skin repeatedly, its inhales and exhales competing against the frantic thudding of my pulse.

“Oh, hell no,” I whisper, the words barely leaving my mouth before it moves again, dragging its snout along my jaw, down the line of my throat, inhaling deeply like it’s savoring my scent now.

Eau de woods with a hint of sweat and some pants-wetting terror. Yum, yum, Fido. Don’t I smell tasty?

The wolf must think so because it’s nosing at my cleavage and, from the way its tail is wagging in a way that is entirely too doglike, I quickly amend my thought from ‘it’ to ‘he’. So he’s a big ass wolf. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s male. Putting a woman in your bed, then burying your sniffer in her tits as soon as you’re both awake? I had a pervy foster brother when I was twelve who did that and more to me, and a laugh catches in my throat when I realize that I would much rather face off against Fido than ever let Joe Russo get his grubby paws on me again.

At least I don’t have to worry about the wolf shoving up my nightgown like Joe used to…

Once he decides that my cleavage passes his sniff test, the wolf moves his snout lower. His breath is even hotter against my skin. I feel it through the flimsy material of the nightie. His nose brushes over me with a focus that feels too intentional to ignore as he makes his way down to my hip.

“This is not happening,” I mutter.

He doesn’t respond to my voice. Doesn’t stop, either. The wolf keeps going, even lower, and suddenly I start to have second guesses about whether or not I’d prefer a wolf or a sixteen-year-old prick who couldn’t keep his hands—or his dick—to himself when the wolf climbs into the nest with his two front paws and shoves his snout between my closed thighs.

I yelp, the sound louder than I intended as my body jerks on instinct, trying to get away from the cool, damp nose. “Hey! No—no, that is not—no!”

Again, he ignores me. His tongue flicks out, sandpaper-rough against my suddenly overheated skin, and the sensation is so unexpected, it short-circuits my brain for a second. A moment later, it hits me that the wolf just licked my inner thigh, way too close to my groin than I’m comfortable with, especially with my panties having been left behind at the village hostel.

He does it again, inching a little higher.

“What the—!” This time I shove the wolf, my palm hitting solid muscle as I push at his head. “No! Bad wolf!”

The big beast goes still. He lifts his head, cocking it slightly as though something I said finally makes sense in his animalistic brain. He whimpers under his breath before backing up so that all four paws are on the solid floor.

And that’s when the air in the cabin shifts.

At first, I don’t quite understand what’s going on. It’s like the space around us has gone tight, folding in on us as the wolf’s body moves in a way that it definitely shouldn’t. The beautiful brownish red fur recedes some, but not all of it. His limbs shift. Bones crack softly as they realign, the body in front of me reshaping itself into something else in the matter of seconds.

He was a wolf. Now? He’s something human, yet something not.

I stare up at him because what else am I supposed to do?

The wolf has turned into a man. Kind of. More of a wolf-man, I’d say, and if my fairytale has suddenly become a horror film with the running and the chasing and the wolf turning out to be a… a… a werewolf, that makes more sense than anything else I’ve seen in Blackmoor so far.

Hell, they say seeing is believing, and I’m still staring.

CHAPTER 4

WOLF

First off, I was so fucking right. The wolf is definitely a dude, and a giant at that. He’s gotta be pushing close to seven-feet-tall in his bare feet—or, you know, paws since the fur and the claws and the shape are definitely more paw-like than feet—and that’s including the slight hunch to his broad shoulders. He seems like he’s been carved from a slab of marble, muscle upon muscle, with patches of the same pretty red fur clinging to his chest and his shoulders before trailing down his arms and covering the lower half of his legs.

His human-ish fingers end in claws. Thick black claws that look impossibly sharp, each digit flexing slightly as he gets used to this shape. Behind him, something swishes, and I almost pass out when I realize that it’s his tail.

Oh my God, oh my God⁠—

I jerk my head up before the little black dots start swimming at the edge of my vision again. His face is the most human part of him, besides standing on two legs instead of four. His features are strong and defined, from the jaw that could cut a sheet of paper in half, it’s so damn sharp, to the same brilliant gold eyes I saw on the wolf; as if I’d had any doubts that this wolf-man is the wolf, I swear I could recognize the beast by the eyes alone. His mouth, though… oh, Jesus. Look at those fangs.

Is that a smile or is he bearing those inch-long suckers at me? I can’t tell, and all I can think is that I really am playing the part of Red Riding Hood, he’s truly the big, bad wolf, and I’m well and totally fucked.

He looks down at me as though he’s waiting for something.