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Ruby

O nce upon a time, the Big Bad Wolf made a terrible mistake.

Spoiler: I’m that wolf. And the mistake is currently lying on top of me.

His breath is hot against my neck—sweat-slick and sweet like damp earth after a summer storm.

I shouldn’t be here, sprawled across Percy Porkwell’s Egyptian cotton sheets while his tusked mouth works its way down my collarbone.

But when you’re a wolf in heat confronted with one of the gorgeous heirs to the Porkwell empire, sometimes your body makes really stupid decisions before your brain can catch up.

And my brain is scrambling to catch up.

“You like that, don’t you, Little Red?” Percy grunts, his fingers tangling in my hair. For a second, something in his eyes—uncertainty, maybe?—betrays the cocky facade before that familiar smirk returns.

I hate that fucking nickname.

Even more, I hate that brief glimpse of something real behind his pig-prince act. It’s easier when I can pretend he’s nothing but a corporate drone with good bone structure.

I hate how he and his brothers think it’s hilarious to reference fairy tales that demonized my ancestors. But my back arches, betraying me as his thumb brushes against my nipple.

“Don’t call me that,” I growl, though it comes out more like a whimper.

Pathetic.

He snorts—literally snorts—and the sound should repulse me.

Instead, my thighs clench involuntarily.

Damn these hormones.

Damn this heat cycle.

And damn Percy Porkwell’s surprising skill with those fingers.

“Whatever you say, Ruby,” his voice drops an octave, rough around the edges. “Or should I call you Ms. Wolfhart when you’re writhing underneath me?”

I scoff even as my hips buck against his. “Don’t flatter yourself, Porky. I’m not writhing.”

His tusks glint in the dim light of his penthouse bedroom as he grins. The room itself is annoyingly perfect—minimalist black and chrome, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city he’s helped reshape.

“Give it time, little wolf.”

The worst part isn’t that I’m naked on this trust-fund pig’s bed. The worst part is how desperately I want to be here, despite knowing better. Three generations of wolf-kind warning me about the Porkwell brothers, and here I am, giving the middle one access to parts of me no pig should ever see.

What would my fellow activists think if they could see me now? I, Ruby Wolfhart, who once chained herself to a tree in the Moonpaw Heights to stop the Porkwell bulldozers, am now willingly pinned under one.

His mouth dips lower, trailing wet kisses down my stomach, and I have to bite my lip to keep from howling. The bastard knows exactly what he’s doing, and each move is calculated like one of his precious architectural designs.

The Porkwell’s built half this city—literally—and Percy acts like he’s building me too, brick by shuddering brick.

“You’ve got that look like you’re about to lecture me,” he murmurs against my inner thigh. “Relax. I’ve got you.”

“Maybe I’m plotting your demise,” I say, my claws slightly extending and digging lightly into his shoulders. Not enough to draw blood—I’m not stupid enough to leave evidence—but enough to make him grunt in that delicious way that sends sparks racing down my spine.

“Murder fantasy, huh? Kinky.” His lips nudge higher between my legs. “Let’s see if I can make you forget all about it.”

The first touch of his tongue makes my eyes roll back.

Shit.

Percy Porkwell should not be this good at going down on a wolf.

It defies natural law.

I grip his sheets, catching sight of the Porkwell Corp logo embroidered on the corners—because, of course, this narcissistic pork chop even monograms his bedding.

The same logo I’d seen on the bulldozers that flattened Moonpaw Heights last spring.

Hundreds of wolves displaced, generations of history buried under concrete.

All while Percy probably sipped champagne in some boardroom.

The same company that’s bankrolled every anti-predator bill in the last decade.

Yet here I am, moaning as one of his two thick fingers pushes inside me while his tongue does unspeakable things to my clit.

“God, Ruby, you’re soaked,” he groans, and the vibration against my most sensitive parts nearly launches me off the bed. “Is this all for me, or is it just because you’re in heat?”

I grab his head and tug, perhaps a bit too roughly. “Do you ever shut up?”

“Make me,” he challenges, those beady eyes gleaming with something dangerous and thrilling.

So I do, clamping my thighs around his head and shoving his mouth and tongue right back into my dripping heat, muffling any last words he might have prepared. His tusks rub against sensitive flesh, and the obscene friction sends me reeling.

I came to argue. Not ride his tusks like I’m at a damn amusement park, but here we are.

My hands fist in his hair, pulling him deeper, which only seems to encourage the bastard. He groans against me, the sound so carnal that I have to stifle my own cries. I could leave him there forever, lost between my thighs and never coming up for air, but that feral part of me demands more.

It demands all of him.

So I relent, pulling him up my body and crashing my mouth against his.

He tastes like me, like a wolf, and the primal part of my brain—the one currently driving this terrible decision—howls in approval. His large frame presses me into the mattress, and I wrap my legs around his glorious body.

His erection prods insistently against my thigh, impressive enough to make me reconsider some wolf supremacist rhetoric I may have casually tossed around at pack gatherings. Percy Porkwell might be a pig, but there’s nothing small about what he’s packing.

He’s about to enter me when a noise from the hallway makes both our ears prick up.

“Percy? You home?” A gruff voice calls out, followed by the distinctive sound of the front door slamming.

We freeze, my legs still wrapped around him, his hardness still throbbing against my inner thigh. Percy’s eyes widen in what might be the first genuine expression I’ve seen on his smug face all night.

“Shit,” he hisses. “It’s Hamilton.”

The eldest Porkwell brother.

The CEO.

The one with the most reason to despise wolves—particularly this wolf, considering what happened between us at the city council meeting last month.

“You said they were going out of town after the gala!” I whisper-yell, shoving at Percy’s chest.

“They were supposed to be!” He scrambles off me, nearly falling over in his haste. “Ham wasn’t due back until tomorrow.”

Great. Just great.

One Porkwell brother between my legs and another was about to catch me in the act.

The headlines practically write themselves: “Wolfhart Pack Representative Caught in Pig’s Blanket.”

My alpha would disown me.

The wolf preservation committee would revoke my advocacy credentials, and my grandmother would resurrect herself to die again of shame.

“I need to hide,” I say, gathering my clothes.

“Hide?” Percy says, surprised, tossing me my bra. I catch it just before it hits my face. “You’re not some dirty secret, Ruby.”

The irony that I am his dirty secret is not lost on me. But self-awareness takes a backseat to indignation when you're a naked wolf scrambling for dignity.

“Percy, please,” I whisper urgently as heavy footsteps echo down the hall. “Hamilton will literally kill me if he finds me here. And probably you, too.”

He knows I'm right.

During a heated debate about the Wolfstone development project, Hamilton Porkwell once threatened to turn me into a fur coat.

Public record.

Multiple witnesses.

He gestures toward his massive walk-in closet, and with a growl of relief, I dart inside, pulling the door shut just as the bedroom door swings open.

“Percy? You in here?” Hamilton’s voice is closer now, laced with that signature Porkwell condescension.

Through the slats in the closet door, I watch Percy yank on a pair of silk boxers—monogrammed, naturally—before his brother’s hulking silhouette appears in the doorway.

“Hey, Ham!” Percy’s voice is an octave too high. “Thought you were in Boarstone until tomorrow.”

“Meeting got canceled.” Hamilton sniffs the air suspiciously, and my heart nearly stops. Pigs might have poor eyesight, but their sense of smell rivals even wolves’. “What’s that scent?”

Percy coughs. “Probably my new cologne. Timber and Wild Berries. Just trying it out.”

I roll my eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t make a noise. Timber and Wild Berries? Really?

Hamilton grunts, unconvinced. “Smells more like a kennel.”

I bite my tongue to keep from snarling. A kennel?

Fucking asshole.

“Anyway,” Hamilton continues. “We need to discuss the Wolfstone project before tomorrow’s board meeting. The zoning commissioner’s being difficult.”

Of course he is.

Commissioner Vance is a bobcat shifter—and one of the few left in the city government who hasn’t sold out to the Porkwell’s. He’s also a longtime friend of my cousin’s mate, which means he actually listens when we raise environmental concerns.

They’re planning on bulldozing the last protected wolf habitat in the county. It’s literally why I confronted Percy tonight before things got… complicated.

Crouched in Percy’s closet among tailored suits that probably cost more than my apartment, naked except for my hastily donned panties, I’m struck by the absurdity of my situation.

How the hell did I end up here?

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

I came to argue, threaten, negotiate—anything to save Wolfstone. Not to end up nearly fucking the enemy.

But the truth is, the moment I caught his scent, I was already losing.

My heat didn’t just make me want—it made me burn . And the only thing that could put out the fire was Percy’s hands, Percy’s mouth, Percy inside me.

It didn’t matter that he was the enemy.

Maybe that made it worse.

I could’ve walked away. Could’ve said no, even through the haze of instinct and heat-slick desperation.

But I didn’t.

And now I’m hiding in a damn closet, still aching for him.

My mind rewinds to just a few hours ago, when I was still clothed, dignified, and hadn’t yet discovered what Percy Porkwell could do with that mouth of his…