Kristal Hollis - Awakened By The Wolf

“Men!” It seemed some male traits were shared between species.

Grumbling, she grabbed a cloth and scrubbed the dishes and countertop clean before hurrying to the bedroom with a death grip on the broom. By the time she dumped the last of the broken glass into the trash, her irritation had mellowed. To be fair, Brice hadn’t known she bartered pies for services when he ate it.

Cassie tossed her dirty nightshirt into the laundry basket. She had found the worn baseball jersey on the closet floor when she moved in and couldn’t resist wearing it to bed. She should’ve known borrowing something without permission would bring bad luck.

She knelt beside her battered suitcases and sorted through her clothes until she found a comfortable pair of shorts and a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt. The shower shut off, so she dressed quickly and straightened the bed. By the time she’d finished, Brice had yet to emerge from the bathroom. Suspicion made her glare down the hallway.

Brice had commandeered her new razor to shave that scruff from his face. The certainty of it threatened to rekindle her temper. Good sense snuffed it out. No matter the history between her and Margaret, Cassie was the hired help. She shouldn’t make too many waves.

Massaging the muscles in her neck, she dutifully pulled his clothes from the closet and laid them on the bed. She’d play butler to a grown wolfman if it meant she would continue to have a place to live.

After rummaging through the dresser drawers, she called out, “I can’t find your underwear.”

“I don’t own any,” he answered from the hall.

A zip of excitement swirled in her lower belly. She slammed the drawer shut. “I didn’t need to know that.”

Clean-shaven, with his damp hair slicked back but for one rebellious wave, so black it almost looked blue, tumbling over his formidable brow, Brice leaned against the door frame, naked. Of course.

She tried not to look at his penis, but there it was again. A massive rod of rigid flesh, jutting proudly from a nest of dark hair. Human or not, Brice Walker was definitely all male.

An arid wind whipped through her being. On its wings rode the devil himself. With a stern mental shove, she shooed him away.

Circumstances being what they were, Cassie couldn’t afford to give in to temptations that she had no experience managing. She’d focused on work and school. Allowed no time for boys, or men. No distractions, no detours. Nothing could get in the way of finishing her business degree—her golden ticket to a better future.

“Didn’t I tell you to cover that thing?” Proud that her voice didn’t squeak, she tossed him the jeans and shirt.

Humor crinkled his eyes, and seemed to simmer with a mischievous desire she would do well not to encourage. “Most women can’t wait to get me out of my clothes.”

Cassie understood why.

Made for the cover of GQ, his face had the most perfectly balanced features she’d ever seen on a man. Slightly swollen from her ramming palm maneuver, his straight nose rested between sharp chiseled cheeks arrowed toward his generous, masculine mouth, the corners turned up in taunting tease.

“I’m not most women,” she said, watching him dress.

The dark hairs that dusted his limbs and swathed the broad expanse of his chest did little to disguise the angry, dark slashes running up his sinewy arms and across his strapping shoulders. More streaks scored his left hip bone down to his knee. He favored the right leg, which bore deep, saw-toothed indentions around his entire calf.

Her gaze lifted to the jagged, purplish-red half-moon marks on his neck. Proof something had tried to rip out his throat. She touched hers in sympathy.

When Cassie had stumbled upon Brice’s room during one of her mother’s multitude of hospitalizations, he’d lain still as death, covered in layers of bandages. On a ventilator, he opened his eyes for a few mere seconds and locked onto her heart.

The front page of the Maico Monitor had heralded Walker Boys Mauled by Feral Boar.

“You weren’t attacked by wild hogs, were you?” Cassie’s throat burned at the savagery he’d endured.

Brice zipped his jeans and slid his arms into his shirtsleeves. His long, nimble fingers fastened the small, flat buttons with a fluid grace. “No,” he answered, his voice a soft caress.

Chill bumps puckered on her skin, though Cassie was far from cold. She rubbed them off. “Was it another Wahima?”

“Wa-hi-ya.” Exasperation lit his eyes, though none was reflected in his tone. “Four Wahyas attacked while my brother and I were hunting.”

“Is that how you became one of them?” Cassie sat on the bed and tucked her hands beneath her thighs to resist the urge to offer physical comfort. She needed to keep a tight rein on the feelings Brice awakened. Nothing good would come from setting them loose.

Brice’s sigh sounded weary, or maybe frustrated, considering his mouth’s downward turn. “Wahyas are born, not made.”

“Wait. You were born that way?”

Brice’s shoulders bowed like a cobra ready to strike. “Stop looking at me like I’m some sort of freak.”

Touchy. Touchy.

“Sorry.” Cassie hugged her knees to her chest. “I’m trying to understand.”

Brice’s nostrils flared, sucking in a long, deep breath that expanded his chest. He appeared to be counting again. She could almost hear the numbers tick one by one until he reached thirty.

“It’s probable humans and Wahyas share a common ancestor. Somewhere along the evolutionary trail, our DNA metamorphosed, and we developed the ability to shape-shift into wolves. We aren’t mutants, we aren’t diseased and we aren’t monsters.” His emphasis reeked of sarcasm. “We’re civilized.”

“Then why were you attacked?”

“They were rogues.” Brice sat next to her. Not so close they touched. Not so far as to leave a space.

Cassie’s body hummed from the energy passing between them. The tiny vibrations sharpened her awareness of her own femininity in stark contrast with Brice’s overwhelming masculinity.

“Rogues?” She coughed to disguise the breathiness in her voice. Seriously, she needed to figure out how to moderate her body’s responses to him. Quickly. Before she became the rabbit trapped in a foxhole alongside the big bad wolf.

“Rogues are Wahyas who have no loyalty to a pack,” Brice said. “Most are curs who prey on the weak.”

“You don’t strike me as weak.” Defying the scars and pronounced limp, Brice projected a will of steel and the muscle to enforce it. Someone would have to be insane to believe him weak.

“I stepped in a steel trap.” Brice lifted his right leg, though his jeans hid the old injury. “The rouges saw an opportunity and took it. Mason died protecting me.”

Cassie’s heart swelled in her throat. Brice had nearly died, too.

While everyone else inundated him with their sobs and wails, waiting for the inevitable, she had read to him, shared the little gossip she knew, held his hand when tremors of pain had wracked his body, willed him to breathe when his lungs failed. Kissed his tightly bandaged head, begging him to live.

The day she saw him awake, she left the hospital and never visited him again. What was the point? On the road to recovery, he didn’t need the likes of her mooning over him any more than he did now. “I’m very sorry for the terrible ordeal you went through.”

Chapter 5

Bitterness fisted in Brice’s throat. What he had suffered was insignificant considering his brother died because of him and his damn nosy nose.

Cassidy mysteriously revitalizing his scent receptors couldn’t be a good thing. Neither were the gentleness in her voice, the genuineness in her eyes or the mess of curls cascading over one shoulder.