Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
VICTORIA
I’d developed a system.
Three mornings in a row, I’d woken draped across Feral like an affection-starved squirrel. Three mornings of his cock and my embarrassment and his insufferable smirk while Acorn provided running, rhyming commentary that definitely didn’t help.
Scientific observation required documentation, so I’d started a mental log.
Day one: woke at approximately seven-fifteen, my leg thrown over his thigh, my hand on his chest, and his arm around my waist. His state: awake, amused. My state: mortified. Acorn’s commentary: insufferable.
Day two: woke at seven-oh-three, my face buried in his neck, both my arms wrapped around him. His state: awake, openly laughing. My state: considering suffocation as a valid exit strategy. Acorn’s commentary: he sang in verse about wolves and witches tangling like vines.
Day three: woke at six thirty-eight. I’d apparently started waking earlier in anticipation of the upcoming mortification.
This time, I found myself pressed against his side, his hand curved around my hip.
His state: awake, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read and his cock exactly as problematic as the previous two mornings.
My state: questioning every life choice that led to this moment.
After analyzing the data, the solution was obvious. We needed a physical barrier.
I constructed it before bed on the fourth night, using every spare pillow in the suite. A wall of cushions down the center of the mattress, tall enough that I couldn’t accidentally roll over it in my sleep.
Feral watched from the doorway to the bathing chamber, his arms crossed on his chest, water still dripping from his hair.
“That’s not going to work,” he said.
“It’s a perfectly logical solution.”
“Uh-huh.”
I adjusted a pillow that had slipped. “Physical barriers prevent unwanted contact during sleep.”
“If you say so, wife.”
I ignored him and climbed into bed on my side of the barrier, pulling the blanket up to my chin. Acorn had already claimed his spot on the headboard, grooming his tail in a way that could only describe as glee.
Feral slid into bed on his side. The barrier held. I closed my eyes, satisfied with my engineering.
I woke on the fourth morning to warmth and the steady rhythm of a heartbeat beneath my ear.
My brain caught up slowly. Feral’s chest. My cheek pressed against bare skin. My leg thrown over his thigh. His arm around my waist, his hand splayed across my lower back.
I went absolutely still.
The pillow barrier lay in ruins around us. Scattered. Dismantled. Some of them had fallen off the bed.
Acorn sat on the largest remaining cushion, looking smug. The barrier falls, the witch still crawls. Across the bed to wolf she calls.
I lifted my head.
Feral was already awake, watching me. His pale blue eyes tracked my face, and his mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile but was close enough to make my belly flip.
My fingers had somehow found their way into his hair. His thigh lay between mine.
And his erection poked against my belly.
The mortification of it all. I should extract myself with whatever dignity I could salvage and pretend this hadn’t happened. Except I didn’t want to move. The realization sat bright and uncomfortable in my chest.
His hand flexed against my back.
“Your barrier,” he said, his voice rough with sleep, “didn’t last an hour.”
“I noticed.”
“Should I be offended that you’re trying to avoid me?”
“I’m not trying to avoid you. I’m implementing reasonable boundaries.”
His eyebrow rose, a gesture that made everything inside me coil tight.
“How’s that working for you?” he asked.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “I need better materials. Perhaps something constructed of wood.”
His laugh rumbled through his chest and into me.
I scrambled off him, this time managing not to fall off the bed, and stalked toward the bathing chamber with as much dignity as possible given the circumstances.
His laughter followed me inside.
I spent the morning in my laboratory, determined not to think about pillows or barriers or the way Feral’s hand had felt on my back.
The samples I’d collected from the northern tributary sat arranged on my worktable, each one carefully labeled. I’d run preliminary tests already, standard procedures to establish baselines.
Now I needed to go deeper.
I started with the soil sample, using a separation spell to isolate individual compounds. The magical signature I’d detected at the creek had been faint, barely there. In the controlled environment of my lab, it became slightly more distinct.
My enchanted pen hovered beside my notebook, waiting for my dictation.
“The compound structure appears crystalline,” I said, watching the separated elements arrange themselves in my analysis dish. “Trace amounts only. Not occurring naturally in surrounding samples. The results could point to something or they could be random.”
The pen scratched across the page.
I leaned closer, adjusting the magnification spell. The compound glittered, catching the light in a way that made my skin prickle. This wasn’t a poison or a hex. It almost appeared intentional, like something had been introduced rather than occurring naturally.
I made a note to cross-reference it with my grandmother’s compendium of restricted magical compounds. If this had been deliberately placed, someone had gone to a lot of effort to make it subtle.
The water samples came next. I’d stored them in a spelled container that maintained the exact temperature and state of the collection site. When I opened it, the faint signature I’d detected earlier became clearer.
Old magic. Layered. Like something dormant that had been disturbed rather a new thing placed there.
I started to dictate another observation, but kept thinking about the way Feral had looked at me this morning. The slow curve of his mouth. His low, husky laugh.
My pen scratched the same notation I’d already recorded.
I frowned, erased the duplicate with a spell, and tried again.
“The magical signature displays characteristics of wolf pack magic, but the pattern is incomplete. Possibly fragmented or—”
The heat of him. The way my body had fit against his like it belonged there.
The pen wrote the same line again.
I set down my tools and pressed my palms against the worktable, closing my eyes.
This was ridiculous. I was a researcher.
I’d spent years training my mind to focus on complex problems without distraction.
One wolf king with an insufferable smirk and warm hands should not be disrupting my concentration.
The witch who catalogs and measures all, Acorn said from his perch near the window, finds that hearts don’t heed the call.
“I’m analyzing the samples, not worrying about hearts.”
She writes the same words thrice, her mind elsewhere takes flight.
“I’m working.”
The wolf has caught her thinking brain, and tangled it up like vines in rain.
I glared at him. He sat in a patch of sunlight, grooming his face with both paws, the picture of innocence.
“You’re not helping.”
He chittered something I chose not to reply to.
I forced myself back to the samples, running three more tests before I finally found something useful.
The water sample contained traces of the same compound I’d found in the soil, but in even smaller concentrations.
Whatever had been introduced at that site, it had been there long enough to leach into the water table.
That suggested a timeline. Months, possibly years.
I was making notes on the implications when I became aware of him standing in the open doorway.
I didn’t look up. I’d started recognizing the particular quality of silence that meant Feral was watching me work. It happened most days now, usually before lunch. A habit I told myself I only noticed because I was observant. Not because I’d started anticipating it.
“Find something?” he asked.
“Possibly.” I capped the vial I’d been testing. “The compound in the soil appears in the water sample as well, which suggests long-term presence at the site.”
He strode into the room, stopping beside my worktable, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him and smell his piney scent.
I kept my eyes on my notes.
“How long?” he asked.
“Without more detailed analysis, I can’t be certain. Months at minimum. Possibly longer.”
He made a noise I’d learned to interpret as him processing what I’d said. I looked up at him.
His exhaustion hit me immediately. Dark circles under his eyes. Tension in his jaw. He held himself like every muscle ached.
“When did you last sleep?” I asked.
“I sleep.”
“For how many hours?”
His mouth twitched. “Enough.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one you’re getting.” He gestured to my samples. “You’ll tell me if you find anything else?”
It wasn’t really a question, but I nodded anyway.
He left without another word, and I found myself staring at the empty doorway a long time.
The afternoon passed in a blur of testing and notation. I’d moved on to analyzing the crystalline structure of the unidentified compound when Feral appeared again. This time he carried a tray.
I blinked at it, then at him.
“You haven’t eaten,” he said, setting it down on the only clear space on my worktable.
Tea, the floral blend I preferred. A plate with bread, cheese, and sliced fruit. A small pot of the bangleberry jam I’d enjoyed in the kitchen days ago.
He’d remembered. Noticed. And cared enough to bring it himself rather than sending one of the staff.
Warmth unfurled in my chest.
“Thank you.”
He grunted, already turning to leave.
“Wait.”
He paused, glancing back.
I gestured to the tray. “You brought two cups.”
“I did.”
“Were you planning to stay and have tea with me?”
His jaw worked for a moment before he pulled over the chair from his abandoned desk. He sat, poured tea for both of us, and pushed one cup toward me.
We drank in silence.
“Tell me about your family,” he finally said.