Wolf's Wife (Monstrous Hearts #1)

Chapter Three

After Alice turned away and approached the fireplace to gather the dirtied blankets, she heard his quiet footsteps, and then the click of the bathroom door. Her heart thumped in her chest.

In the trunk in the attic, she found a white undershirt, dark briefs, a zip-up hoodie, and jeans with the denim whole but worn enough to have lost its stiffness. All looked clean and big enough to fit the wolf, and she tucked them under an arm while continuing to search. Socks, woolen and hand-knitted. Rain-resistant coat. And finally, pairs of work boots in different sizes, dusty from years of waiting unprotected in the attic. She knocked them against the floor to make sure nothing had built a nest in the toes.

The bread was baking in the oven and the stew reheating on the stove when Alice checked her phone to see if Magdalene had called. She hadn't. Alice accepted it with a twist of her mouth and moved onto the local news for Perry and the surrounding areas. A soft sound escaped her at the headline of a badly burned body found beside a camper van that had been set ablaze sometime last evening. The identity of the victim remained unknown so early into the investigation.

Alice's mind jumped to the bloody-nosed boy outside the store, and the sound of gunshots while she had explored the attic. Maybe the wolf hadn't been shot by a hunter as she'd assumed. She waited for the shower to turn off before knocking at the door, clutching at the clothes until her knuckles turned white.

The wolf opened the door wet and clean, rubbing his skin dry with a towel.

This words flew from her mouth. "Who burned your van?"

He seemed unsurprised by the question. "You saw him at the store yesterday."

"The one who teased you until you broke his nose?"

The wolf nodded. "Set it on fire with me inside and stood ready to shoot as soon as I escaped through one of the doors. He didn't expect a wolf to squeeze through a window instead."

"How'd you end up here?"

"Caught your scent and remembered how you'd handled the dog. Figured if I lived that long, I might get lucky enough to catch your pity." Then the wolf dipped his head a little. In thanks, she realized.

She licked dry, nervous lips before asking her next question, the most important one. "You killed him."

"Yes." His steady gaze said more. You'll have to accept it to accept me.

For Alice, it wasn't even a conundrum. That was her great flaw, to accept all of a creature. Maybe madness was a better word for it, to take in a beast and a murderous one at that, and then to still set out a place for him at the kitchen table. To feel bewilderment tug at her insistently and yet fail to draw her away from a curiosity that burned in her like fire. Even while nerves cast her eyes down, she peered beneath her lashes at the dark trail of hair that led over an etched stomach to an uncut cock and large, heavy-looking balls that would be quite the handful. It had been a long time since she'd had a man naked before her, but she didn't flush and she didn't flinch.

Yes, it was madness, the same sort that had drawn her to Magdalene. The thrill of stepping into the dangerous unknown. And now, like then, she was too weak to resist the temptation. Alice's gaze once more met the wolf's.

"The two wolves will catch the sun and the moon during Ragnarok — the end of the world." Then she held out the clothes.

His eyes glittered; she'd surprised him again. Or perhaps he found all humans surprising. His fingers brushed hers, taking the weight of the fabric away. "When's that?"

"No one knows."

"Don't seem much like wolves to me. If you can't catch what you're chasing, you hunt something else."