Page 8 of Scarlett’s Wicked Wolf (Filthy Fairy-tales #1)

Scarlett

Reid doesn’t speak. Just watches me with eyes that know all the edges of pain and still choose softness. There’s nothing predatory in the way he lowers himself to his knees beside the bed. No threat. No demand. Only intention.

“Can I touch you?”

My heart throbs at his question, that he’s still respecting my wishes enough to ask for permission despite the desire burning in his amber eyes.

I nod.

“Your words. I need your words, Scarlett.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “Touch me, Reid. Please.”

His voice is low and steady. A tether. “Lie back, my little wolf.”

Five words. That’s all. But they feel like a command etched with intent. My body, still reeling from the shift, responds before my mind can second-guess. I lower myself to the pillows, heart a staccato drum against my ribs.

He slides the blanket down slowly, giving me time to stop him. But I don’t. Can’t. I want this. Want him. My skin prickles as the air kisses it, and my thighs press together instinctively.

His hand slides up my thigh, and when he touches me with that careful mouth and those clever fingers, the fire inside me stops devouring and starts answering. I arch, a sound breaking loose that belongs to me, and the last of the fear burns clean.

I clutch the blanket tighter around my shoulders, breath catching. “Reid…?”

“I’m going to take care of you,” he says, his hands bracing on either side of my hips. “You’ve been through hell, and I’m going to remind you that you’re alive. That this body is yours. That it’s beautiful.”

My heart stutters.

I expect his mouth on mine, but he doesn’t start there.

He kisses the inside of my knee.

A tremor skates up my spine. He trails his lips along the tender curve of my thigh, reverent and slow, like I’m something sacred and rare. And maybe to him, I am. Not a fevered wolf in a borrowed body, not the girl gasping for air hours ago, but his.

I tilt my hips without meaning to. The ache between my legs is no longer just post-shift tension. It’s a throb of need, of please, of yes.

When his breath ghosts over my center, I flinch. Not from fear. From the unbearable anticipation.

“I can smell how much you want this,” he murmurs, his voice rough silk. “You don’t have to hide it.”

I don’t. I can’t. I’m already unraveling, and he’s barely touched me.

His fingers part my folds with such gentleness that it undoes me. And then—

His mouth.

Gods.

The first stroke of his tongue is slow and deliberate, a long, luxurious pass that drags a sound out of me I didn’t know I could make. My hips jolt, and he anchors them with strong hands, holding me steady as he does it again. And again.

I feel seen. Worshipped. Like every inch of me is worthy of this devotion.

He doesn’t rush. He lingers, learning me with his mouth like he’s memorizing a map. Tongue circling, teasing, pressing. Then flattening and licking harder until my back arches and I sob his name into the pillow.

“Right there,” I pant, hands fisting in his dark hair. “Oh, Gods, please—”

He groans against me, and the vibration hits like a spark.

My body bows, tension ratcheting, pleasure coiling tighter and tighter until I can barely think.

I’m floating and falling, burning and blooming, every nerve ending tuned to the sound of his breath, the way he tastes me like I’m the only thing that’s ever mattered.

“You’re so wet,” he murmurs, tongue flicking again. “So perfect. Come for me, my little wolf. Let go.”

The bond pulses. My soul feels like it’s reaching for his—wolf and woman both cracking wide open—and I shatter.

It’s not quiet. It’s not polite. It’s a feral, gasping, soul-deep orgasm that steals the air from my lungs. He holds me through it, never stopping, never flinching, like he knows exactly how to destroy me and build me again.

When I finally still, boneless and wrecked, he kisses the inside of my thigh again. Then my hip. My belly. My sternum.

He makes his way back up until he’s beside me, pulling the blanket over us both. His arm tucks under my shoulders, cradling me to him, his body heat a cocoon I never want to leave.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers against my temple. “Always.”

And in the flickering firelight, with the smell of pine and salt and sex wrapping around us, I believe him.

My legs are tangled with his, my body heavy with afterglow, but my mind is alert and strangely clear, as if the pleasure cracked open a door I didn’t know was there. Reid lies beside me, his hand idly stroking my arm like he can’t not touch me.

Silence falls, thick and sweet. Then my stomach rumbles. Loudly.

Reid chuckles and climbs out of bed. I hear him shuffling around in the kitchen, and then he returns with a tray laden with bread, cheese, and fruit.

I prop myself up, tucking the blanket around my chest, and we both tuck in. Once I’ve eaten my fill, I turn to face him.

His eyes are half-lidded, but not from exhaustion. He’s watching me. Not hungrily, not possessively—just seeing. It makes my chest ache.

“My grandma raised me,” I say, the words slipping out like stones I’ve been holding too long. “I never knew my parents.”

His hand finds mine, his thumb smoothing over the back. “Your mom…?”

“Died giving birth to me.” The words are familiar. Not painful exactly, but worn with repetition, like an old bruise I’ve stopped pressing. “My father was… no one, apparently. Or at least no one who stayed.”

Reid doesn’t speak. Doesn’t offer sympathy or empty apologies. Just waits.

I breathe out, settling deeper into the bed and resting my cheek on his chest. “It was always just the two of us. Grandma and me. Ruby Cottage was hers long before it was mine. In Fable Forest, people knew us as the ones with the Sight. Some respected it. Others whispered.”

“They came to you for help.”

“More and more after the Veil started thinning. When magic began spilling into this world, some folks panicked. Others woke up with gifts they didn’t understand.

They came to Ruby Cottage for herbs. Advice.

Warnings.” I pause, then smile faintly. “Or just tea and a place to remember they weren’t crazy. ”

“And the day I found you?” Reid asks, his voice a low vibration under my ear.

I swallow. “I was collecting wild ginger in the eastern woods. It strengthens the protective wards around the cottage. I felt something dark circling for weeks. Thought it might be a rot-spirit or a banshee. It’s why I wanted to strengthen the wards around Ruby Cottage.”

“I know other wolves roam the forest,” he says slowly. “Other shifters. But I’ve never seen him before. Not the gray one. Not until the day he attacked you.” He tenses beneath me, the guilt blooming off him like steam. “I should’ve gotten to you sooner.”

“You got to me exactly in time,” I say, lifting my head so he can see I mean it. “I’m here because of you.”

His jaw tightens, and his hands flex. “I wasn’t even hunting that day. I was running just to run. To burn off the ache. Then I caught a scent.”

He pauses. Swallows. “My whole body stopped mid-stride as if something yanked a chain inside me. I didn’t even know what I was chasing, only that I had to get there. My instincts weren’t guiding me; they were dragging me.”

His eyes lift to mine. “It was you, Scarlett. Your scent hit me like a thunderclap. Not just blood or magic. It was…” His voice softens. “Home. Hunger. Fate. All tangled together.”

The bond between us pulses hot beneath my skin.

“I didn’t understand it then,” he continues. “I just knew I had to find you. Protect you. Or die trying.”

My breath catches.

“I ran straight through a briar patch. Didn’t feel a damn thing. And when I found you… when I saw him standing over you… I would’ve torn him apart if he hadn’t run.”

He doesn’t say the rest—that if he’d been seconds later, my blood would be sinking into the roots of Fable Forest right now.

“Some part of me knew you were mine,” he admits. “Before I even saw your face.”

I breathe in slowly, my fingers curling around his. The memory of the gray wolf’s attack is still sharp—fangs, claws, the way his red eyes locked on mine like he owned me.

“He’s not just a wolf. Something about him felt… wrong. Like he wasn’t supposed to be,” I say slowly, knowing instinctively that it’s true. “He hunted me. Waited until I was vulnerable. But why now? Why come for me now?”

Reid blows out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know.”

I study Reid’s face. “He’s still out there.”

A gust of wind rattles the window latch as if reacting to my words. I shiver, but not because I’m cold.

Reid turns toward the window, his whole body going still. When he turns back to me, his jaw is set. “He can’t have you. Not now. Not ever.”

I squeeze his fingers. “I’m not running. Not from him. Not from this. Not from us.”

He nods. “We’re not running.” His resolve wraps around me, telling me that I’m not alone. That we’ll face this together.

“What about you?” I ask softly. “You weren’t born like this. How did it start?”

A long silence. Then—

“My brother. Hewit. We were close.” A ghost of a smile touches his mouth, then fades.

“Grew up in a town called Dry Gulch, about four counties west. One Halloween, we snuck into a party in Screaming Woods.” He huffs, but it’s not quite a laugh.

“There was this punch. Glowed like lava. Tasted like every candy we’d ever loved. We drank it. Too much of it.”

I can see the shift in his breathing as it becomes tighter.

“The change came on fast for me. Bones warping. Skin shredding. Everything breaking to become something else.” He pauses. “I remember the blood. Noise. Hewit screaming. And then silence.”

My hand finds his.

“When I woke, he was gone. I waited. Called his name until my throat was raw. But I haven’t seen him since. I looked for him in the forest, but if he’s here, I can’t scent him.”

I squeeze his fingers. “I’m sorry.”

Reid shrugs. “After the change, I didn’t trust myself around people.

I didn’t know how to control it or what would trigger my wolf.

So I left. Found the deepest part of the forest and stayed there.

Taught myself to shift without killing anyone.

Built the cabin. Avoided everything with a human heartbeat. ”

“Until me.”

His eyes find mine, and there’s no mistaking the answer. “Until you.”

Something in my chest breaks open, wide and warm.

He rolls onto his side, facing me fully now. “So now you know everything. The wolf. The past. The damage.”

“I don’t see damage.” I brush his cheek with my fingers. “I see someone who fought to stay kind, even when the world gave him a reason not to.”

His throat works around something too thick to swallow, and he leans into my touch as if it’s a lifeline, as if he’s been hungry for the simplicity of our connection.

And just like that, I know with a certainty that has nothing to do with fate and everything to do with feeling that this bond isn’t just about mating or magic.

It’s about two lonely souls finding a home in each other.

Maybe it’s too soon, maybe we’re insane, maybe the whole world is one giant fever dream that cracked open the forest and poured the myths into our bones… but I don’t care.

Because here, in this bed, with his arms around me and our scars bleeding truth into each other…

It feels like destiny.