Chapter 8
The white wolf watched me.
Not openly enough for other people to notice.
But enough for me to feel it.
Sometimes when Rowan went to town for supplies, I would glance up from the yard and find that wolf standing by his fence, staring at me with a look so intense it made my skin prickle.
He never smiled.
Never waved.
Never even tried to hide it.
At first I told myself I was imagining things.
Then one afternoon he started walking straight toward me.
My mind went blank.
I had lived in this village all my life. I knew how to talk to neighbors. I knew how to greet people.
But there was something so strange about him that every instinct I had started misfiring.
Should I say hello first?
Should I pretend to be busy?
Should I run back inside?
Before I could decide, he stopped in front of the gate and spoke.
“Will you take me as your beastman?”
I stared.
Actually stared.
Because surely I had heard him wrong.
“What?”
“If you accept me,” he said stiffly, “this house and everything I own can be yours.”
The comments immediately became unreadable.
The fox goes out for groceries and somebody tries to steal the wife.
That attitude is weirdly familiar.
Wait. Why does this feel familiar?
My heartbeat started climbing.
I took two slow steps back.
“I already have a beastman,” I said carefully. “I don’t need another one.”
His face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
His lower lip tightened. His eyes got redder.
“I can be your second.”
I was officially terrified now.
Who said things like that with a straight face?
“I only need one,” I said, retreating farther toward the door. “I don’t want a second.”
His whole body seemed to shudder.
Then he said, in a voice so hurt it stopped me cold, “That’s not true. You can accept two. You accepted the fox. Why not me?”
I slammed the yard gate shut between us.
It helped my nerves exactly zero.
He stood there on the other side looking like something inside him was splintering apart. Tears gathered in his eyes—but did not fall.
I stared at those tears.
At the set of his mouth.
At the strange, aching familiarity of it.
It was impossible.
It made no sense.
And yet…
Before I could press further, Rowan’s voice rang from the road.
“Ellie, look what I brought you.”
By the time I looked back at the white wolf, his expression had been wiped clean.
Only his eyes remained faintly red.
He gave me one long look and turned away.
I practically launched myself into Rowan’s arms.
“Next time I’m going with you,” I said. “For groceries. For everything.”
Rowan glanced toward the neighboring yard and rested a hand on my head, his smile thin.
“Okay. From now on, wherever I go, you go.”
The old siren tub finally disappeared from the yard a few days later.
I asked Rowan about it, and he looked innocently confused.
“Not me,” he said. “I was planning to dry it out and use it for firewood.”
I wanted to believe him.
I really did.
But deep down, part of me already suspected what had happened.
That same night, I woke to a slick, cool feeling against my skin.
Something familiar.
Something I knew before I fully understood it.
A wet, cold body curled around me.
Hot breath touched my mouth.
Then lips pressed to mine.
Not Rowan.
Not even close.
I frowned in my sleep and instinctively tried to push him away.
Then a small, hard thing hit my cheek.
Another one.
And another.
Pearls.
My eyes snapped open.
Moonlight filled the room. Rowan slept heavily beside me, unnaturally still.
My lips were swollen.
My neck was damp.
And there, in the dark, Adrian’s scent still clung to the air like salt and rain.
The comments were screaming.
The fox husband’s role today: unconscious sleeping beauty.
I am losing my mind.
The siren climbed through the window and started kissing her in front of him.
It was Adrian.
Of course it was.
On the pillow beside me lay several tiny pearls, still glowing faintly in the moonlight.
I stared at them and dragged a hand down my face.
I had never met anyone in my life who cried this much.