Page 26 of A Malicious Menagerie (Fangs & Fables #1)

The Truth

W hen I get ready for work the next day, I forgo packing a dinner so I can fit the blood bags in my floral-patterned lunch box. My stomach is such a mess of nerves and nausea that I doubt I could eat anyway.

I’m putting the box away in the refrigerator in the breakroom when a smug voice makes me jump. “So,” John says as I wheel around to face him. “What did you think of your first Mathis gala?”

He has his hands casually tucked in the front pockets of his cargo pants, and his expression is knowing in a way that sets my teeth on edge.

“It was… enlightening,” I murmur, moving to duck around him.

He shifts in front of me, blocking my exit. “You know he only invited you to be eye candy for his locker room buddies, right?”

“You know, I had figured that out,” I fume, still trying to get around him. “Given that I’m not an idiot and one of them grabbed my ass.”

I think I hear him murmur “lucky bastard,” and I swear I feel the lightest brush against my butt as I finally manage to squirm by him.

When I spin back around, he’s opening the fridge like nothing happened.

I open my mouth to call him out, but he beats me to it by grunting, “Stop stealing my damn yogurt.”

That pulls me up short. Did I imagine the whole thing? No, I’m not going to let him gaslight me. “I didn’t steal your fucking yogurt,” I snip, injecting my voice with steel. “And don’t touch me again.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, princess,” he replies innocently, but I can just see the smirk tugging at one side of his lips as he peers into the fridge.

The fucking nerve, I snarl internally, and I don’t bother telling him I’m going to the woods. I may not be able to stand the man, but at least we’ve worked out a schedule that keeps us from crossing paths more than once or twice a night.

Still, as I navigate the labyrinthine back hallways and emerge in the woods, the anxiety and tension I’ve been building for the past two days come flooding back. What will the wolf do now that I know?

When I arrive at the back of his enclosure, he’s waiting for me like always—as a wolf. He’s sitting rigidly, his yellow gaze intent and something like a grimace pulling at one corner of his muzzle. It seems that he’s been building some anxiety and tension of his own.

We regard each other silently for a hundred heartbeats, an unspoken battle of wills raging between us. Finally, I ask testily, “Are we back to this, then? You pretending that you’re just a wolf? That you haven’t been lying to me for weeks?”

He huffs a sigh before giving in, his bones and tendons snapping and realigning in a way that makes me wince with vicarious pain.

Still, I force myself not to look away as his body resumes the shape of the man I met under such inauspicious circumstances two nights ago.

Once again, I’m struck by just how big he is, over a head taller than me and twice as broad through the shoulders.

Unbidden, my gaze snags on the trail of dark hair arrowing from his formidable chest down the valley between his abs to that prominent V at his hips.

And despite my best efforts, I can’t help but look at his dick.

I mean, it’s right there, and it’s kind of hard to miss.

The man is not lacking in that department.

“My eyes are up here,” he teases. My blush blooms so quickly I feel lightheaded, and my muscles lock with abject mortification. Busted.

And after weeks of getting to know each other but not being able to speak, the first words we share aren’t about our friendship, or the secret between us, or the unfortunate events of the other night.

No, the poignant words that are going to start this new chapter of our relationship—whatever that chapter may bring—are ‘My eyes are up here.’

My panicked gaze flies up to his, and his amber eyes are alight with mirth as a smirk tugs at one corner of his lips.

Then, my gaze is drawn away from his and to his neck when I notice the raw red skin and older scarring branching out from around his metal collar, and I gasp in horror.

I raise my hand and start forward, intent on checking his burns, but I halt abruptly when I realize that I’d be touching a man, not an animal.

His full lips twitch behind his inky black beard. “Interesting how you were less scared to touch me as a wolf.”

His voice is reminiscent of a coffee grinder, low and deep and rasping as if he hasn’t had reason to use it in a long time. And if he’s been living as a wolf for God knows how long, maybe he hasn’t.

“I was more certain that you wouldn’t hurt me as a wolf,” I reply warily.

His eyes narrow. “You do realize how fucked up that is, right?”

I scowl at him and cross my arms defensively over my chest. “Is it, though? I don’t know you.”

He winces at that, and I feel a little flutter of regret before I ruthlessly snuff it out. “You know me,” he replies stiffly.

“I know the wolf,” I retort.

He growls, and honestly, the sound is so similar to one that he’d make in his other form that I don’t even flinch. “I am the wolf.”

“It was just easier when the worst thing you could do to me was kill me.”

His dark brows furrow. “What can I do to you as a man that I couldn’t do as a wolf?”

Disturbingly, the first thought that comes to mind isn’t the obvious one. No, my first thought is ‘break my heart.’

“I’d rather be alone in a forest with a wolf than a man,” I hedge, echoing a debate about bears I’ve seen on social media. It feels somehow both too accusing and too vulnerable to say the word ‘rape.’

Though, honestly, if he were to make a move on me like that… would I actually stop him ?

Wanting to move on from the awkward topic, I add, “And it doesn’t help that I told you things I never would have admitted if I’d known you understood, but I don’t know anything about you.”

“What do you want to know?” he asks immediately, no hesitation, his eyes intent on mine.

“O-oh,” I stutter, taken aback. I didn’t come to school having done this particular homework assignment. “Well, umm… Maybe we could start with your name.”

Suddenly, he grins, revealing very human-looking teeth. But weren’t his fangs longer when I saw him last? “You never named me?” he asks. His tone is teasing but also… not. Despite his grin, his eyes are watchful.

“I… no.” I wrinkle my nose. “I didn’t think it was my place. I mean, I named my childhood cat, but she was… not like you.”

“There’s no one like me,” he agrees, his chest puffing up. I burst out laughing.

“You might be right about that,” I agree, unable to keep my gaze from drifting down to trace his abs despite the lingering embarrassment heating my cheeks.

“It’s Chase,” he says, and I glance up at him. He quirks a crooked smile, revealing what might be a dimple under all that scruff, and his eyes are bright.

“Chase what?”

“Chase you, if you like,” he says with a low growl that makes a shiver coast down my spine and a warm ache pulse between my thighs. “But I mean it’s my name. Chase.”

“Chase,” I repeat, trying it out and thinking it suits him.

Another rumble coasts from his chest at the sound of his name, more a purr than a snarl.

My heart twists when I think that no one has likely used his name in a long time.

And speaking of… “How long have you been here?” I ask, gentling my tone.

He shrugs, a small smile playing at his lips. “How ‘bout a date?”

My jaw drops. Did he just… ask me out? Now? Here? “How would that even work?” I blurt.

He blinks innocently. “How would what work?”

“Us. Going on a date, when you’re stuck in here? ”

Now, he grins wolfishly. “Well, I was only asking what today’s date is, but I accept. I’d ask your place or mine, but our options are limited.”

I’m caught somewhere between exasperated, flattered, embarrassed, and incredibly tempted. Before my good sense takes a back seat to my hormones, I snip, “Is this you avoiding the question?”

“How can I answer if you won’t tell me the date?” He cocks his head in that way that was so cute and curious when he was a wolf but is more flirtatious and devastatingly sexy when he looks like this.

I almost don’t want to tell him. If our positions were reversed, I’m not sure I’d want to know, and I don’t want to be the reason he loses his good humor.

But he asked, and underneath the teasing, he looks starved for the information.

So I rattle it off. “Fuck,” he snarls, his expression darkening abruptly.

He rubs a hand over his face before pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s been over a year and a half.”

My jaw drops. “A year and a half?!”

“Missed my little sister’s twenty-first birthday,” he grumbles quietly, almost to himself. “I’ll never hear the end of that… or likely the start of it, either.”

“You have a sister?” I ask, eager to hear more. Eager to hear everything about this fantastical man in this impossible place.

“Two, actually,” he says, a small smile fighting through his desolation. “Both younger. The younger one, Tori, is fourteen… or sixteen now, I guess.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six… no, I’d be twenty-seven as of last week.”

A distressed squeak escapes me unbidden, and I unconsciously step closer, my hand coming up to grip one of the iron bars. “Your birthday was last week and I didn’t know?! I would have made a cake or… or a meat pie, or something…”

Suddenly, his warm hand engulfs mine, holding me to the bar, and I’m shocked into silence.

His skin is tan, a shade darker than mine except where pale scars leave silvery tracks across the back of his hand and starbursts across his knuckles.

His palm and fingertips are rough with calluses that catch and scrape against my skin.

He has squared knuckles and long, blunt fingers, and he could easily fold my whole hand neatly into his palm.