Page 9 of Her Wolf Protector

"It's a combination washer dryer. It does everything. Someone ordered it by mistake, and when no one else in the pack needed it, I hauled it up here. It's come in handy a few times now, and it stops the young bucks from stealing the girls' underwear off the outside line. We thought one of the boys was doing it, until we found shed antlers wearing the remains of a bra. We had to take all the kids axe throwing for the day to make it up to them. The girls for getting their underwear stolen, and the boys for being under suspicion."

Young deer stealing girls' underwear? Oh, you couldn't make this shit up. For the first time, Arwen began to wonder if this really was a dream.

"What is this place?" she demanded.

"It's a cabin in the woods where we bring some of the kids from the estate, for a bit of time away from their parents, and a bit of wilderness survival and stuff. Deer hunting, when it's the season for it." He was being cautious now, not mentioning his dual nature or how hunting didn't involve guns.

"How many teen girl wolf shifters does it take to take down a deer?" Arwen asked.

The man relaxed. "Only one, if the deer is wearing her undies as a hat. Zero, if her brother spots the deer first."

"Are older brothers really that protective? I thought it was one of those myths you only find in books and movies. Like that having a six pack and big equipment means a man's amazing in bed, when in fact, a combination of steroids and too much time in the gym, plus possible surgical enhancement usually results in the opposite."

Most men would have arced up in their own defence, but this one? He just grinned and shrugged. "I've never been to bed with a man, so I wouldn't know about the second one. Protective older brothers? I do have a younger sister. She's only my half sister, and I haven't really known her for very long, but now I do...it's almost instinctive, you know? I don't think she'll ever need me to rescue her clothes from a deranged deer, but when she asked me to head up here to do some detective work for her, I didn't hesitate. She made me dinner, too. There's enough for two. I really did mean it when I said you could stay for dinner while your clothes dry. It's the least I could do, after washing them for you and all."

"I should really go..." Suddenly, Arwen felt a lurch at the thought of leaving. Which was crazy.

"It'll be dark soon, and these woods aren't a place you want to be hiking through at night. In daylight, as long as you keep to the marked hiking trails, and don't get too close to the wildlife, you should be fine, but at the moment, even I plan on staying in the cottage for the night, and heading home in the morning."

"What lives in these woods that a wolf could possibly be scared of?" Arwen asked. The biggest things were badgers, and while she'd heard stories about them being defensive, it wasn't like they were any match for a full-grown wolf in his prime. Unless there were fae monsters in the woods who'd slipped through the ring between realms. Da had told stories about nightmare creatures even he dreaded.

He hesitated. "Something is making the wildlife here...weird, at the moment. We suspected it might be something in the water, but rabies is a possibility, too. That's why I'm here. I'm taking samples to see if we can solve the mystery. I'd have finished sampling already if I hadn't run into a pack of angry otters."

Arwen started to laugh. "Otters? They don't move in packs. The collective noun for those is a drift, and even that's rare to see, or so I'm told. I've never seen a single otter in the wild, let alone a whole drift. They're so cute, though. Is there any chance you might be able to show me in the morning, maybe?"

"Not on your life. You should have seen what they did to me!"

The rash. "You're allergic to otters?"

"Hell, no. Those were bite marks, not hives. The little bastards attacked me."

"That's..." Crazy. Not possible. But she'd seen the marks, and he had been bleeding. Of course, all the marks were gone now, but she hadn't imagined them. All this must mean that she definitely wasn't dreaming. Even her subconscious wouldn't have dreamed up half of this. It was all far too... "Weird."

"I'll say. Anyway, what do you say to dinner? My sister runs a catering company, and she really is an amazing cook. I can give you a lift back to your car in the morning, and hiking's always safer with a buddy, especially one who knows the terrain. I'll even shield you from the bloody otters." He held out his hand. "What do you say?"

Her head was spinning. Arwen didn't know what to say. But she reached out to shake his hand and the whole world went grey.

"Fuck, are you okay? No, you're not. Your lips are blue and...fuck, your fingertips are, too. That can't be good. I'll get you back to bed where you'll be warm while I find something for you to wear."

Arwen was too weak to resist as he lifted her in his arms, like she was his bloody bride, and carried her to the bed. Dizziness. Poor circulation. Blue lips and extremities. It could be symptoms of digitalin poisoning, but she suspected it was worse. She hadn't taken the antidote soon enough. The drug had damaged her heart.

"Here, I'll get into bed with you to warm you up. I won't let anyone die of hypothermia on my watch. No fucking way." A warm, hard body squished into the bed beside her, wrapping her in a cage of hot muscles that Arwen only wished she were well enough to appreciate.

All she managed was a breathy laugh, but even her breath was short. Fuck. That was not good. "It's not hypothermia. It's my heart," she managed to say.

"Your heart? You have a heart condition? We have to get you to hospital. To hell with otters and it getting dark outside. I'll call in a favour and find someone to fly you out."

"No, I don't. Or I didn't. I was poisoned..."

The words spilled out of her, and Arwen couldn't stop them. Her father's sudden illness and subsequent death. Her stepmother. Escaping to the hospital, only to have them assume she'd attempted suicide...

"So I can't go to the hospital. They'd only put me on suicide watch and call my stepmother, so she could finish the job. So unless you know of some miraculous way of healing a damaged heart, I'll still have to leave in the morning, in search of a long shot my father suggested before he died," Arwen finished, wiping away a stray tear. The ceiling had swum back into focus while she'd been talking, and she hadn't noticed until now.

Lying on the bed beside her, the hot wolf man took a deep breath. "This is going to sound crazy..."

EIGHT

The moment he lifted her into his arms, he knew. It wasn't Sienna's Scotch eggs that had driven his wolf wild. No, it was her scent. And now she was in his arms, so close she was all he could smell, his mind went blissfully blank. Thank all the powers that be that she hadn't objected to his carrying her to bed, because his feet wouldn't have taken them anywhere else.