1.
Jennifer's POV
I woke to the sharp sting of air on bare skin. Cold wood beneath my back. The soft burn of bruises pulling along my ribs as I tried to move. The ache spread along my body like a fire.
And the realization hit me like a thunderclap.
I was naked.
I gasped, heart slamming against my chest as I bolted upright—only to immediately collapse back with a choked cry. Pain roared through my shoulder, hot and blinding, followed by the sharp ache of torn skin along my thighs and side. I couldn’t move without agony.
Panic clawed up my throat.
Where was I?
What happened?
My vision blurred, swimming with light and movement. There was the sound of heavy boots on floorboards. The slow, calm steps of someone who wasn’t startled at all.
Then I saw him.
A man—towering and quiet—stood in the doorway of the cabin, framed by golden dusk light. His hair was dark, wild around his face, jaw shadowed with days of unshaven growth. And his eyes…
God. His eyes.
They weren’t cruel. But they were too much.
Too intense.
Like they could see through skin and into the marrow of me.
“You’re awake,” he said. His voice was deep, low, and held that rasp people get when they don’t speak often.
I scrambled to pull the blanket over myself. “Wh-who are you? What—what happened?”
He didn’t move closer. Just stood there like some mountain carved out of silence and shadow. Watching me.
“You were inside my cabin,” he said flatly. “Unconscious. Bleeding. Fevered.”
I blinked. My memories were a fog of pain, rain, and running. The chase. The fall.
The howl.
“I—I don’t remember…”
“I didn’t know if you were bitten or just broken,” he went on, voice unreadable. “But you were nearly frozen. And you had deep wounds. I couldn’t leave you like that.”
My cheeks flamed with horror. “You—undressed me?”
His jaw twitched, but his gaze didn’t drop. Didn’t leer. He wasn’t the type to look away, not even when I was barely covered by the threadbare blanket.
“I cleaned your wounds,” he said simply. “Your clothes were soaked in blood and rain. You were burning up. I did what had to be done.”
There was no apology in his tone. Only cold, blunt honesty.
But somehow, it didn’t scare me.
No. That was a lie.
He did scare me. Everything about him was too much. Too tall. Too silent. Too wild. His body looked like it was made to survive storms and win them.
But he didn’t feel… dangerous.
At least not in the way that made my skin crawl.
He stepped closer. Just one step. And my breath caught in my throat. He noticed. Of course he did.
“You’re safe,” he said, softer now. “No one will touch you here.”
That was the moment I saw it—the blood on his arm, already dried. The way one of his knuckles was split.
My stomach turned. “Did someone follow me?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just pulled a damp cloth from the basin beside the fire, then crouched beside the low makeshift bed where I lay. The sudden closeness of him made me hold my breath.
He was heat and cedar and something that smelled like rain-soaked stone. Wild.
“You were bleeding too fast,” he murmured. “The gash on your side reopened. Let me clean it.”
My fingers clutched the blanket tighter, heart thundering, but I gave a shaky nod.
He moved with terrifying gentleness—his fingers calloused but precise. He peeled the blanket back just enough to expose the side of my waist, where torn flesh still oozed faintly. I flinched, but he held me still with a firm, warm palm pressed to my hip.
“Easy,” he murmured, more like a growl than a whisper.
I wasn’t prepared for the heat that pooled low in my belly at that sound.
He dipped the cloth again, then began to clean the wound with the kind of focus that made me feel like I was something delicate, precious, even if I was shaking like a leaf.
“You should’ve stayed in town,” he muttered, almost to himself. “What kind of girl runs straight into wolf territory at night?”
I stiffened. “I didn’t know…”
“No,” he said, his voice rougher now. “You didn’t.”
He met my gaze then—fully. And I felt it again. That raw, primal weight behind his eyes. The kind of presence you couldn’t pretend didn’t affect you.
“What are you?” I whispered.
Something flickered across his face. Something old. Tired.
But not human.
“Alive,” he said simply.
And somehow, that answer was more terrifying than anything else.
Still, when his hand brushed against my thigh—accidentally or not—I didn’t flinch.
I was scared. Yes.
But not of him.
I was scared of the way something inside me had already started to want the silence he carried. The safety in his strength. The warmth in his restraint.
He looked at me for a long moment—then stood, turned away, and tossed the cloth into the flames.
“I’ll leave you to rest,” he said without glancing back. “Don’t try to run. You’re not healed.”
He disappeared through the doorway, boots echoing softly.
And I laid there—naked, aching, marked—and wondered what kind of man watched you bleed, saved your life, and left the room when he could have done anything else.
I didn’t know his full name.
But I knew one thing.
He wasn’t just a man.
He was a wolf.
And I had just wandered into the den.
