Page 2 of Scarlett’s Wicked Wolf (Filthy Fairy-tales #1)

Reid

She moves beneath me, but not in pain. At least… I don’t think it’s pain. It looks more like… pleasure.

Her hands grip me, but not to push me away.

No, she clings to me, her mouth parted, her breath ragged.

Her body writhes. Her scent—Gods, her scent—overwhelms every shred of logic I have left.

Orange blossoms and forest magic, tangled with a pheromone so potent it sets fire to both the man and the beast inside me.

She smells like destiny. Like mine.

And I don’t stop.

I press closer. Teeth scraping skin. Heat, salt, copper.

Her blood—

I jolt awake, gasping, my cock swollen and throbbing, electricity snarling through my veins.

Cold stone bites into my bare skin. I’m sprawled in the shadows of the cave, my sanctuary when the wolf inside me takes over. But I’m not alone. Not really. The bond hums inside me like a second heartbeat.

And my hands…

They’re stained dark. Dried blood crusts my knuckles, my wrists, the edge of my jaw. My lips feel sticky.

No.

Not hers.

Please not hers.

I stagger upright, the chill forgotten as my vision sharpens to a predator’s clarity. My nose twitches. Her fragrance threads the air, bright citrus and warm skin with a whisper of magic. It’s on my skin, in my lungs, in me. Still blooming.

I bit her. I know I did. Not just a bite. A claiming.

She’s still alive. I’d know if she weren’t. Severing a bond like this would open a canyon in my chest.

I can feel it. Feel her. A low tug deep in my core, magnetic and undeniable. A heartbeat not my own echoes faintly through my chest. Weak but present.

A mate.

My mate.

Christ, did I leave her alone in my cabin?

I scrub a hand over my face as jumbled memories return to me. The bite did something to me, made me feral, and I knew I needed to gain some distance from her while I got myself under control.

But now…

She needs me.

I walk to the back of the cave and rip open the stone-stashed trunk where I keep spare clothes. Sweatpants. Hoodie. Shoes. All the trappings of the man I’m supposed to be when I’m not ruled by fur and fang.

I pull them on with shaking hands. My cock is still half-hard, and the shame of it makes bile rise in my throat.

This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

This isn’t how I’m supposed to be.

When I stumbled into Fable Forest, it wasn’t because I belonged here.

I was a guy who avoided parties and minded his own business until my brother, Hewit, shoved a red plastic cup containing Dr. Karloff’s Frankenpunch into my hand at the Halloween gathering in Screaming Woods and said, “Live a little.”

One sip of the punch and my life flipped inside out.

The fever hit. Bones broke and reformed.

Fur tore through my skin as I snarled at the moon.

Hewit changed too. Then everything else changed—people, rules, the whole goddamn map of my life.

A new world jostled its way into ours, and I didn’t recognize either.

Everything I knew was gone. Including my brother.

One minute, I was human, forgettable. The next, I was a fucking wolf. A shifter. Not born of pack or magic or prophecy, but a mistake of science.

So I ran. I left Screaming Woods, the people, the world I knew, and came here. Deep into Fable Forest. To disappear. To learn control. To keep everyone safe from what I’d become. A cabin for the man. A cave for the beast.

And for the most part, it worked.

Until her.

I remember every detail now. I caught her scent before I even saw her. Orange blossoms and magic. Something meant for me.

Then the flash of red. Her cloak. She was too bright to belong in the forest’s dark heart. A woman with green eyes and hair that gleamed russet and gold.

The moment I saw her, everything inside me snapped into focus. My instincts surged. The wolf in me knew. He recognized her. Not as prey, but as his. As mine.

Then I saw him—the other wolf. Scarred, twisted, and red-eyed. He was a danger to her—that’s all I knew, all I could sense in his sickly aroma. The rot in his scent made my hackles rise before he even lunged at her.

I fought him savagely. Drove him off, but not before he left her bloodied and limp on the forest floor.

She was dying. I could smell it. Too much blood. No time.

I remember sliding my snout down her face and licking her neck. I remember the powerful explosion of pleasure that burst along my long tongue as I tasted her for the first time. It oozed from her pores; a taste made only for her mate.

I could’ve carried her. Maybe found a healer.

Maybe called someone. But I didn’t. I made a choice.

I bit her. Not out of lust. Not out of instinct.

Well, not entirely. I told myself it was to save her.

That the mate bond would heal what nothing else could.

That it was magic, not desire, that drove my fangs into her throat.

But now…

Now I don’t know.

Part of me knows I did it because I wanted to. Because the second my teeth touched her skin, everything inside me sang. The magic poured into her. The bond lit up like wildfire. Her failing pulse steadied. Her wounds began to knit together.

And I felt the truth root deep: she was mine.

Once I’m dressed in sweatpants, a hoodie, and black boots, I race through the underbrush, faster than any human, my senses sharpened despite the blood still sticky on my skin.

Every breath fills me with her scent. Every step is driven by that faint, almost imperceptible rhythm of her heartbeat calling me forward.

I’ve never believed in fated mates. Hell, I’ve laughed at the idea more than once because I wasn’t born a shifter.

But now? Now there’s no denying it.

The bond is forming. Incomplete, but rooted. My bite and her magic triggered it in a tether older than packs and laws.

But she didn’t choose this.

The thought tears me apart.

I see her face again—the flicker of fear when I pinned her. The shock in her eyes. She didn’t know what I was. She didn’t understand. But I didn’t stop.

Gods.

I growl under my breath, dodging between thick trunks, my boots thudding against the mossy ground. I’m a guardian. A protector. I’ve never forced myself on anyone. Never claimed something that didn’t want to be claimed.

Until now.

She was dying, my wolf growls. You did what you had to do.

His words give me little comfort.

The thought of her bleeding out, alone and afraid, makes my stomach twist.

Please let her be okay.

My cabin rises out of the trees, rough-hewn and quiet, the porch still peppered with last night’s leaves. As I approach my refuge, the bond grows louder and sharper.

She’s there.

Alive. But still.

I don’t hesitate. I push through the door, my breath catching the moment I see her.

She’s on my bed, small and pale under a wool blanket I use in winter storms. Her red cloak lies torn on the floor. Her braid has come loose, and strands of russet and gold are splayed across my pillow. Her mouth is parted, and her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks.

And her neck—

No blood. Only a faint crescent of healing teeth marks and a soft glow beneath the skin. The bond thrums from that point, a pulse of heat and energy I can feel in my bones.

I kneel beside her, trembling with relief. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, voice breaking. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. But you were dying…”

My hand hovers near her cheek, but doesn’t touch. “You didn’t choose me. I took that from you.”

Yet she’s still here. Still breathing. Tethered by an ancient magic neither of us asked for.

Her scent shifts as if responding to my presence, becoming sweeter and warmer. A ribbon of heat twists through my lungs as her heartbeat flutters.

“I’ll fix this,” I promise. “Whatever it takes.”

I add wood to the fire and heat some water, using a clean cloth to wipe the blood from her jaw, throat, and chest in careful strokes.

Her skin is impossibly soft; a pale map I don’t deserve the right to read.

I notice everything because I can’t not—the hollow where her pulse beats, the constellation of faint freckles where her cloak didn’t shield the sun, the soft curve of her cheeks.

Having her here feels right.

“Who are you?” I ask, keeping my voice soft.

Her lips move, and a breath of sound escapes as if she heard me in her dreams. “Scarlett.”

“Scarlett,” I repeat, testing the name I somehow already knew. The bond hums as if it agrees.

Tucking the blanket tighter around her, I head to the bathroom to wash the grime and blood—her blood—from my body.

Then I sit in the overstuffed chair by the fire and watch over her.

Waiting for her to wake. I won’t leave her again—not until I’ve explained everything.

Not until she knows who I am. What I am.

And what I’ll do to make it right.

Outside, the forest settles into its nighttime hush—crickets sawing the dark, a small woodland creature skittering under the porch. Inside, the bond sings to me, a constant hum of heat and ache threading from my spine to my sternum to my groin.

Desire prowls through me, low and dangerous.

I grit my teeth and push it down.

She didn’t agree to this.

I need to be better than the wolf that bit her.

But as the night deepens and the forest grows quiet outside, the hunger rises again.

Not for blood.

For her.

The bond sings through me, a constant hum of heat and longing. I shift in my seat, fighting the throb of my cock. My mind flashes to the way she felt beneath me, the way her body molded to mine even in fear, the way her scent welcomed me.

And shame lances through me again.

Because yes, I want her. Gods, I want her.

But the wolf doesn’t get to decide this. She does.

I want her eyes open. Her hands reaching for me. Her voice whispering my name as she begs me to make her mine with nothing between us except choice.

I stand and pace, trying to shake off the heat. It won’t go. The bond won’t let it.

I glance at her again. My heart leaps as she stirs, murmuring something soft.

When she wakes, she may hate me. She may scream. She may run.

But I’ll face whatever comes. I’ll give her the truth. I’ll protect her from everything—even me—if that’s what she wants.

Because she’s not just a mate.

She’s my future.

And I’ll spend the rest of my life earning her forgiveness.