Page 33

ALICE

I ’m not sure I’m ever going to get warm as I shiver under the bedclothes.

Fenrother might have followed me into the castle, but he didn’t hang around, doing one of his impressive disappearing acts as we reach the long gallery.

I just want to get warm, but even with a fire burning merrily in the hearth and a bed heaped with blankets, it’s not working for me.

I’m shaking so hard I think I might rattle my teeth loose.

What a stupid idea it was to go out in the rain, even if it has reminded Fenrother we are in this whole thing together.

For a beast who has no idea what together is, I hope the pneumonia I’m about to catch will be worth it in the end.

Or I’ll get killed by a vengeful Faerie queen, whichever comes first.

A warm, hard body slides into the bed next to mine.

Perhaps I should think about it first, but all I want is warmth, and without thinking about it, I flip over and wrap around Fenrother like ivy.

I expect him to tense, possibly even push me away.

After all, I must be like an ice block and he’s a sort of reptile.

If reptiles are warm-blooded and irritating.

But Fenrother doesn’t tense, and he doesn’t push me away.

“You are cold, little mate,” he rumbles.

“You got it in one,” I respond because it’s all I can get past my chattering teeth.

Yes, in a move which surprises no one, Fenrother is quite clearly entirely naked.

My body does not care in the slightest. It wants heat, it needs heat, and if that means cuddling up to a nude Wyrm, then so be it.

It’s not like either of us have much to hide anymore.

Although, in his current form, Fenrother’s cock will not be hidden.

It will be very much front and centre.

The shiver I have this time is not to do with being chilled to the bone.

It’s a very different reason entirely.

“You have a scent like the stars,” he says, his chin on the top of my head and one arm wrapped around me.

“Stars have a scent?”

“Everything has a scent.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. But yours is the best.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you earlier,” I say.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. I’ve dropped into your life, and I know this is all new to both of us, but…” I trail off, not sure if my garbled, shivering, speech is intelligible.

“But?” Fenrother rasps.

“But…I guess we have to make it work.”

Fenrother is silent for a while, his warmth slowly infusing into me.

It’s a comfortable silence, not awkward.

“I went to the Night Lands because it was my destiny, but what I found there was not the battles I was promised. There were creatures there which did not want to fight. There were demons, that part is true, and there were battles, but the more time I spent there, the more I wasn’t sure what we were fighting for.”

Fenrother sighs like he’s been holding it in his breast forever.

“And when I refused, the Faerie made sure my disobedience was punished.”

I think of the scar tissue on his wing.

“They sent me into the fire, knowing I wasn’t ready,” Fenrother offers.

“But it taught me I didn’t have to obey them. It was the reason I left. It is the reason the queen seeks to control me.”

“Through me?” My voice breaks.

I don’t want to be a vessel to cause Fenrother pain.

“I am what I am, and I do what my instinct tells me,” he says.

“But beyond that, I am at the mercy of you.”

“I don’t want that,” I respond.

“I don’t want to be your chore.”

“Believe me, little mate, you are not a chore.”

“I’ve turned your life upside down, Fenrother. I’ve dropped into your world, upset everything. You even had to get a new book to understand me…”

Fenrother’s lips hit mine, cutting off my words with a kiss.

It’s a kiss he owns, not the first hesitant one we shared when I wasn’t entirely sure about his fangs and he didn’t know what a kiss was.

This is confident and possessive.

Could it be all he needed was the right book?

“I am not upside down,” Fenrother says when he finally releases me.

“I am the right way up.” His eyes glitter in the candlelight.

Rain hammers at the windows.

“And I know what I want, regardless of instinct,” he adds.

Something presses insistently at my thigh, and I know it’s not his tail.

Heat, once wanted, now an indicator of something entirely different, floods through me.

“If you’re sure,” I whisper, “because there’s no going back.”

Fenrother hitches up his lip on one side.

“You make me feel strange, . Good strange. You make my pizzle do things I didn’t know it could do. I want to put it inside you.”

“Even without a diagram?” I can’t help myself.

The hitch on his lip goes higher.

“I have explored you enough I don’t need a diagram. They’re overrated,” he responds, cocking his head on one side, some of the scientific look entering his gaze.

“But perhaps I should check again.”

“Perhaps you should.”

“Not if you remain cold,” he says, curling his arm around me further.

“I assure you, Fenrother, I am anything but cold.”