Page 41 of A Wolfe in the Woods

I burst out laughing. Jonathan Wolfe was a bit of a goof, I was discovering. So different from the man I’d first met.

His gaze wasn’t sharp or invasive. Just…warm and steady, settling over me like a blanket. And somewhere, deep in my chest, something forgotten awakened.

Like a velastra vine, coiling to life at the scent of rain and blooming open for the first time in years.

Then—

He turned.

Fast.

A split second before I heard the sound. Leaves rustled. A low snap of twigs.

I tensed. “What is it?”

From the brush just behind us, two wolves stepped into view—gray, lean, and impossibly silent.

My hand found Jonathan’s arm on instinct. He didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. He was eerily relaxed.

“They won’t hurt us,” he said softly. “Not unless we give them reason.”

But I couldn’t stop staring. There was something uncanny about the stillness. The way they held us in their gaze…the way they lingered.

Jonathan had known they were there before he’d heard them…as if he’dsensedthem coming.

One of the wolves twitched its ears, then backed away. The other followed, vanishing silently into the trees.

I exhaled in relief, but I was still on edge, wondering what else was lying in wait in the darkness.

Jonathan turned back to me, and for a heartbeat, I saw something impossible.

His eyes.

They glowed. Just a tiny flicker…electric, otherworldly but noticeable.

And then it was gone, the color dimming.

“We should head back,” he finally said. “You ready?”

Later that night, back in my cabin, I lay in bed, staring at the dark ceiling while replaying the evening’s events. The hike. The cliff. The stars and view. The way Jonathan had moved—quick, precise, as if guided by an inhuman instinct. The wolves. The way they’d watched us, then just disappeared.

And him.

His hand around my arm, saving me from that fall. His strength. The way he’d lifted me across that crevice like I weighed nothing at all.

I turned over, restless, pulling the blanket tight around my body.

It had been the most unpredictable and exhilarating night I’d had in years. It didn’t feel real. Like a dream. And yet the strangest part was…it felt right.

Still, my thoughts twisted.

I’d spent enough time around Erik and the others to know there was something off about some males. Males who moved too quietly. Watched too closely. Spoke like they were half hiding teeth, as well as other secrets, behind their words.

Jonathan wasn’t Erik. Not by a mile. But there were moments, tiny ones, that set off familiar warning bells in me. Warning bells I preferred to ignore.

Was I reading into it too much? I did that. The result of too many long nights, too many corporate secrets and office politics…too much time at Skoll Corp.

I didn’t know.