Page 1 of Scarlett’s Wicked Wolf (Filthy Fairy-tales #1)

Scarlett

Something is in the forest.

It stalks the edge of my sleep and haunts my dreams. Massive. Breath-stealing. The shape of its hunger cuts through every dream like a blade.

And it’s always coming for me.

Every time I close my eyes, I see it: a silhouette stitched from shadow and fang, golden eyes like twin suns burning through the mist. Each dream ends the same way—with me pinned beneath it, breathless, helpless… and disturbingly aroused.

I shake off the shiver that teases down my spine, tightening my nipples into tingling points.

I need to focus. Today, I need one thing: asarum canadense, also known as wild ginger.

The protection charm around Ruby Cottage is nearly spent, and I need more to reinforce it.

I’ve already put it off for too long. The only place it grows potent enough is in the heart of Fable Forest.

Where my visions tell me I should never go.

But that pull I’ve pretended not to notice has become a private furnace.

A fire in my blood and a yearning in my soul, as if I’m part of a destiny greater than myself.

Every night lately, I’ve woken with my hand between my thighs, gasping on the precipice, amber eyes bright behind my eyelids as my release hovers…

And then I wake, the throb in my core unsatisfied, as if my body is waiting for another’s touch to free the lust coiled inside me.

I blow out a frustrated breath. Note to self: I do not have time for cliffhanger orgasms.

But the feeling won’t leave me. That sense of eyes watching. Of someone… something waiting. A whisper of fate slithering through the branches of the forest.

“Scarlett,” Grandma says without looking up, needles quieting mid-click. “You’re thinking about the forest.”

Her eyes rise to meet mine as she sits in her armchair by the fire. They’re my eyes, too, sharp and green, but hers have decades of laughter and worry tucked into the corners. Her silver-streaked red hair is pulled back into a low twist, and her spine straightens like a bowstring pulled taut.

I pull on my long red leather cloak and lift the hood over my braid. “I need wild ginger,” I say lightly. “Just one plant. I’ll be back before dark.”

“Do you really need to go? Alone?” Her voice is soft, but a steel edge rides beneath it.

I nod, schooling my expression into mild and sensible. “Yes. It won’t take long.”

She doesn’t speak right away. Just watches me with the same expression she wore when I was ten and tried to summon a wind spirit with nothing but confidence and a broken pendant.

Finally, she sighs. “Well, if you’re going that way, stop in to see Wendy. She’s probably running low on supplies again, what with all those children. Let me pack a basket, just in case.”

It’s not a suggestion. It’s an anchor—one last attempt to tether me to safety. Or at least slow me down. Grandma knows the herb doesn’t grow anywhere near Wendy’s house. She’s hoping the detour will keep me from venturing deeper into the forest.

But she also knows I’ll go anyway because we need to strengthen the protection spell.

Two women gifted with the “sight” living in a remote cottage in Fable Forest are always at risk from those who would use our visions for their own purposes.

Besides, I’m as stubborn as she is and would do anything to keep Grandma safe.

I wait while she fills a basket: jars of plum jam that catch the light like garnets, a crock of flour, a wedge of hard cheese wrapped in waxed paper, and a still-warm nut bread perfuming the kitchen with cinnamon and toasted pecan.

She tucks in three mismatched wool socks and a spare set of needles with a mutter about idle hands.

“Are you sure you’ve packed enough?” I tease.

“She’s my sister.” Grandma presses the handle into my palm. “I’ll always help her.”

“I know.” I squeeze her papery-soft hand. “Like you help everyone.”

Her brow knits, lips pressing into a thin line as if she senses something she can’t put into words. “Don’t lose yourself out there.”

It’s an odd choice of words.

Not, “Don’t get lost,” but “Don’t lose yourself.”

My stomach does an odd little dip, but I shrug it off. It’s not unusual for Grandma to talk in riddles.

Pressing a kiss to her soft cheek, I head into the forest.

The path to Wendy’s is well-worn and quick underfoot, the soles of my boots brushing past mushrooms and moss as birdsong gives way to wind through the trees.

The trees are thin and tall, their leaves already turning gold and crimson with early fall.

Squirrels dart between roots, and birds call above, careless and wild.

Somewhere, a woodpecker taps a measured tattoo.

Fable Forest always feels like it’s waiting for something. Most days, I don’t think about it, but today, that waiting feels like a heartbeat in the ground.

By the time I crest the hill and see the familiar shape of the giant shoe, I’ve managed to calm the looming sense of premonition to a distant flicker in the back of my mind.

Wendy’s home is exactly what it sounds like—an old magic shoe, worn and leathered, patched and stitched into livability.

Children pour out like marbles from a jar in a jumble of shrieks, mismatched buttons, and questionable haircuts.

Wendy is outside when I arrive, wrangling two toddlers into coats and shouting at a third who’s climbing onto the roof like a feral goat.

“Scarlett!” she calls, eyes wide and grateful as I approach. “Oh, stars above, is that bread?”

“And jam,” I say, holding up the basket.

Tears prick her eyes, and I barely have time to set it down before she throws her arms around me, murmuring thanks into my shoulder. Her hair smells like lavender and smoke.

“Come inside,” she says, grabbing my hand. “Please. Just for a minute.”

The inside of the boot smells like apples, sweat, and overcooked carrots.

Children tumble across the worn floorboards, and toys are scattered like a battlefield.

A smear of red paint streaks one wall—and not just any paint.

A crude, anatomically correct but optimistically sized penis adorns the kitchen wall like some kind of abstract warning.

Wendy sees me glance at it and blushes furiously. “Oh, that’s… It’s art. Milo found the paint. We’re, uh, working on boundaries.”

I stifle a laugh and nod solemnly. “Of course. Very avant-garde.”

Wendy talks while she bustles, telling me stories of the kids’ week—ghost chickens, exploding pie crusts, a mysterious howling from the well. I smile and listen, offering advice where I can, but my thoughts are already drifting.

The herb. The forest.

The amber-eyed beast in my dreams that doesn’t feel like a stranger.

I leave after less than fifteen minutes, overwhelmed by noise, pulled by something more primal than duty. I wave to the children as they swarm the basket and hurry back into the trees, grateful for the silence.

At the line where the friendlier trees give way to the deeper ones, the air shifts—cooler, denser, laced with loam and the sweet-metal smell of rain that hasn’t fallen yet. Birds fall silent. Even the leaves hush themselves.

Now I’m truly in it.

I’ve been in these woods my entire life, but this part feels like an unfamiliar heartbeat.

And yet, I belong here. Somehow, I know I need to be here. Pulled by something more than the wild ginger.

I draw my hood and follow the faint trail of a path only I can see.

My old sigils painted in invisible ink hum faintly when my fingers trail them.

Shadows lengthen; trunks thicken; roots knot like dragon spines under the soil.

The forest smells older here—fermented leaves, wet stone, a breath of something green and bitter.

Shadows stretch across the leaf-littered ground.

The deeper I go, the less the forest feels like home and more like something watching me. Living, breathing, and ancient. Everything quietens until I can hear nothing but my own breath and the whisper of leaves brushing against each other like they’re sharing secrets I don’t understand.

I find the ancient oak by its scarred bark and the way its roots clutch the earth like a gnarled hand.

I kneel, the ground cool on my knees, and brush aside velvet moss.

My pulse climbs, attuned to every sound.

There, hiding in shadow, the dark heart-shaped leaves barely visible against the rich rot is asarum canadense. Wild ginger.

A twig cracks sharply behind me.

I freeze. Every hair on my body stands on end. My pulse hammers, every sense on edge.

Slowly, I lift my head, eyes sweeping the underbrush behind me. Nothing. No movement. No wind. The air feels suspended in time.

Another crunch. Closer this time.

Slowly, I rise, knife clenched in my hand. I scan the woods, but I see nothing.

“Who's there?”

No answer.

“Fine,” I mutter, eyes on the trees as I crouch again. “Find the rhizome, Scarlett,” I mutter to myself, “snip the portion you need, and leave the mother plant intact like a good little apothecary.”

The forest seems to lean in closer now, as if it’s listening. I murmur a protective charm under my breath, drawing a sigil in the dirt with my finger like Grandma taught me. But even that feels thin. Like paper armor against iron claws.

Get the herb, go home, reinforce the ward, and—

A growl threads through the trunks.

Low. Deep. Not human. Not even close.

I turn slowly, every part of me trembling. At first, I see nothing. Then... two gleaming eyes ignite the dark between the trees.

A rancid aroma reaches my nostrils. Rot. Decay. Faintly sulfurous and wrong.

A wolf lumbers from behind the trees, but not like any wolf I’ve ever read about. His eyes glow red, not gold, and his fur is patchy with scars and ragged edges. He looks like something stitched together from bones and nightmares.

Massive. Mangled. Wrong.

And his claret eyes are fixed on me.

I step back

He prowls forward, lips peeling back to reveal teeth like yellowed knives.

“Stay back!” I shout, but my voice trembles.

He lunges.

I spin and run, cloak snapping, knife flashing in one hand, ginger clutched tight in the other.

I make it three, four heartbeats before he’s on me, barreling into me with the impact of a falling tree.

The ground punches the breath from my lungs, and I hear the bone snap in my wrist a split second before the pain hits.

But it’s nothing compared to the agony of his claws raking down my chest, tearing leather and skin alike.

A scream rips from my throat even as I try to slash at him with my knife, but he knocks it away. His breath is foul and hot against my neck as he leans in. Whimpering, I close my eyes, waiting for his jaws to close around my throat...

A crash. A blur as a second wolf slams into the first, knocking him sideways.

I scramble back, choking on my fear, watching as they collide—black fur against scarred gray. The forest erupts with snarls and yelps as they bite and claw at each other, rolling through the leaves like demons locked in a hellish dance.

The gray wolf tries to pin him, but the black wolf is faster, all fluid power and terrifying grace. His jaws close on the gray’s shoulder with a wet crack. The red-eyed wolf yelps as he tears free and evaporates into the trees like smoke sucked up a chimney.

The scarred one howls and tries to pin the other, but the black wolf is faster. Stronger. Furious. He bites into the scarred wolf’s shoulder, and I hear the wet crunch of bone.

The red-eyed wolf yelps and vanishes, melting into the forest like smoke.

Silence falls as the black wolf turns.

I know instinctively that this is a male. He’s massive, black as obsidian, fur rippling like liquid night. Easily the size of a miniature horse, his body is a monument to muscle and primal hunger. His paws crush the earth with deliberate intent.

And his eyes—those amber eyes from my dreams—lock onto mine. Staring. No, not just staring. Claiming.

Instinct tells me to run. Logic tells me he’ll catch me in a heartbeat. Magic tells me I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’m being… pulled. Drawn to him.

I gasp as the adrenaline wears off, and pain takes hold, gripping me with icy fingers. I glance down, and nausea roils in my stomach as I see my shredded flesh. Warm blood leaks from my chest, and my heartbeat thuds erratically in my ears.

I’m dying.

I know it with a bone-deep certainty.

The black wolf steps toward me, slow and deliberate but not threatening.

Not like the other wolf. Heat curls low in my belly as he lowers his head and inhales along the line of my shoulder, over the torn leather of my cloak, to my throat, where my pulse flutters like a trapped moth.

His amber eyes narrow as they scent my blood, locking onto my wounds.

Something flickers in his lupine gaze. Panic? Fear?

Hot puffs of breath graze cheek and neck. He presses his snout into my hair and gives a low, guttural growl mixed with a rumble of satisfaction.

And then I hear the whispers drifting through the trees, through my veins, through my wound. Words I don’t understand in a language older than anything I’ve studied. They pulse with my heartbeat—shame and longing, fear and want—braiding into something that feels like… yes.

The heat in my belly is doused by the ice filling my veins. Cold. I’m so cold. The world tilts and blurs at the edges. This is it. This is how I die.

The forest darkens around me like an omen, as if a part of me knows: this isn’t just a wolf.

This is the destiny my dreams forewarned me of. Something ancient and instinctive stirs inside me.

I reach up, weakly grasping at his fur. “Please,” I whisper, unsure what I’m asking for. Help? Mercy? Him?

The wolf’s amber eyes lock onto mine again, and I imagine I see an apology in those golden depths. But why would this huge wolf be sorry?

He leans down, nuzzles my neck… and bites.

“Oh!” I gasp, suddenly understanding his remorse.

But his bite doesn’t cause me pain. It’s deliberate. Measured. His teeth pierce just deep enough, and then—

Magic.

It explodes through me like wildfire.

I cry out, arching as a rush of ancient power surges through my veins. My blood stills, and something snaps into place between us. A tether. A thread. A bond. My chest is tight. My skin feels hot and cold at once. My thighs squeeze together on instinct.

The wolf growls, and I swear I hear something in that sound. Not a threat. A promise. It rolls through the ground and into my spine.

Mine.

I feel it deep in my gut, in my bones, between my legs, where an ache has been living for weeks.

My eyes flutter closed as the wolf’s deep, protective growl vibrates in and around me, and the world dissolves.