Big Bad Wolf (The Lycans 1)

I felt this lightness, but then that easiness kind of dissipated as something tighter, harder, stronger settled within me. I slowed and then stopped, looking around, unsure what I was feeling, but knowing it was... intense.

Seconds passed. Maybe minutes. And then it hit me.

This feeling. The intensity. The thickness all around me.

Someone’s watching me.

I’m not alone.

My heart started to pound harder as I looked to my right. My left. In front of me. Behind me.

I spun around. Around and around. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. On my arms.

I panted.

God, someone’s watching me.

The flight instinct was running rampant inside me, so I turned and started heading back toward the village, telling myself not to run. And with every step I took, I continued to tell myself that maybe this weird feeling was just in my head.

I’d been thinking a lot about Mini’s story from last night, picturing what these Lycans looked like, what their fire felt like under my skin—you know, things a crazy person would ponder.

Would I fear one if I saw it in person? Would I run from it?

I shook my head at the ridiculous thought. See one? As if they were real.

And then there was my dream, the one I couldn’t remember but felt like was right there at the surface of my consciousness. It was a strange and confusing feeling, and as I slowed to a more reasonable pace, I tried to reason with myself that’s all this was.

An overactive imagination—my body making something in my mind physical.

I forced myself to stop and look around, telling myself over and over again that it was nothing. There was nothing there, no one watching me. I gave a nervous laugh, but still I walked toward the village. I ran my hands up and down my arms, trying to push the chill away even though it wasn’t cold out.

But the strangest thing out of all of this was… I wasn’t afraid.

I felt like someone watched me, that there was something out there I couldn't see, yet I felt no fear. I just felt… awareness.

I stepped through the tree line and headed right toward the front door of the cottage. I’d call my mother. I shook my head and snorted internally at that thought. I must’ve really been freaked out if I was resorting to making an expensive, overseas call to my mother.

Before I went into the house, I stopped and looked over my shoulder, scanning the tree line once more. I saw nothing, but I still felt as if I wasn’t alone. A shiver moved along my arms, and I forced myself to go inside. I closed the door and leaned against it, shutting my eyes and telling myself it was all in my head.

All. In. My head.

Yet why did it feel so real and make me feel... alive?

8

Ren

I’d stay in the woods all night, watching that cottage, waiting for my mate to emerge. I had to see her, wanted to hear her voice, get a concentrated inhale of her sweet scent.

The instinct to go to her was fierce in me, a war drum that beat fast and hard, demanding I make her mine.

The minutes turned into hours, and soon the moon was falling away as the sun rose. But I’d wait out here all day for her, wait my entire fucking life if that’s what it took for me to get another glimpse of my female.

I wanted to watch as the wind blew through the strands of her dark hair, teasing the ends so they moved along her shoulders.

I wanted to see every detail that made up her facial features. I wanted to stare into her Lycan-like eyes and pull her in close, push the hair off her shoulder, and strike her neck to mark her.

And then she finally emerged, and all rational, conscious thoughts left me.

And she was even lovelier in the morning sun.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Perfection.

Mine.

Never could I have pictured my mate to be so ethereal, so perfect for me in every way. It was as if she’d been plucked out of every fantasy I could have ever conjured. Made just for me. Only for me.

She was so small compared to me, half my height, her body lithe yet curvy. She seemed fragile, delicate.

Tiny.

I had to curl my claws into the trunk of the tree once more, forcing myself to stay hidden, to not go to her and take her to the ground to claim her like the animal I was. Christ, I wanted to sink my canines into her pretty neck good and hard so every Lycan would know she was mine.

I wanted them to gaze at the slender column of her throat and see how fiercely I marked her, laid claim to her.

But I didn’t go to her. I just watched.

She walked the trail of the woods, her brows pulled low as if in deep concentration. I wondered what she thought about. I wondered if her subconscious remembered me from last night, maybe feeling as though she had an intense dream but unable to pull up the details.