his strong, heavy nose and thick black eyebrows, he should have been intimidating. Yet for all his wild looks, there was something strangely innocent about him.
It took Darcy a minute to work out what was so odd about the man. In her line of work, she’d learned to trust her gut when it came to reading people. Whether it was lines from a perpetual scowl or a ready smile, faces betrayed the personalities behind them.
But not his. He must have been in his late twenties or early thirties, but his forehead was as smooth as a baby’s. There were no lines about his eyes either. He seemed…new.
It was uncanny to see an adult face that looked so unused. Darcy had the weirdest feeling that he’d fallen from the sky fully formed. It was like he was about to wake up for the first time…
The man opened his eyes.
Technically, they were brown. But that didn’t do them justice. Mud was brown. These…these were the color of crisp fall leaves, or a glass of fine whiskey, or fragrant tea on a silent, frosty morning. Bright copper flecked the rich, warm shades, like sparks from a fire.
Everything stopped.
It made no sense. No matter how pretty, they were just eyes. There was no reason for her heart to suddenly stutter. No reason for her breath to catch in her throat.
Yet as she met that calm, steady gaze, a rush of heat flooded through her. Her tongue dried in her mouth. He’d been compelling enough when he’d been unconscious. Awake…she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to tear herself away.
For his part, the man just lay there, looking at her. His expression didn’t show the slightest hint of surprise.
It was as though he’d expected to find her there, next to him, when he woke up. Like she’d always been there, and always would.
“Oh,” the man said, and his deep, soft voice echoed in her bones. “The bitch.”
Chapter 2
There was no doubt. Fenrir knew the moment he looked into her eyes.
Not that there was anything strange about that. He always knew a person’s name when he met them. There was no great trick to it. Any wolf could do the same.
He’d never been able to work out why two-legs found that so strange. They were the strange ones, with the way they called themselves things like Rory or Edith or Joe.
Those were just sounds. They weren’t names.
Names were what a person was. Names were scent and self. You proclaimed your name with every action, every breath. No one could hide their name.
With wolves, there was no need to turn names into words. But when he’d joined his strange new pack, he’d soon discovered that two-legs needed words to make sense of the world. He’d learned to translate for them, at least as much as such things could be translated.
The one with the strength of mountains, embodying all the unbreakable endurance of the bones of the earth: Stone Bitch. The one who could be warm and nurturing, or fierce enough to scorch: Sun Bitch.
There was Deep Bitch, with her true thoughts like quiet fish, far under the surface. And Sky Bitch, clouded and churning, hiding her bright, frightening power.
But this one…this one…
She was scent on the wind and meat in the mouth. She was the joy of the hunt and the contentment of the den. She was the howl and the moon, the wind and the fur, the heartbeat and the seasons and the stars.
She was pack. She was life. She was everything.
She was also, apparently, confused.
“Uh,” she said. “What?”
Pure joy filled him, singing through his blood like a whole pack howling together as one. Fenrir would have rolled at her feet in glorious submission, except it seemed that he was already on his back.
“The Bitch,” he breathed, glorying in the sound of it, in her. “The Bitch.”
Her forehead creased, which he’d learned was the two-legs equivalent of tilting an ear. “Did you just call me a bitch?”
“Not a bitch,” he assured her. “The Bitch.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You might want to think twice about insulting someone who just saved your life.”
Anxiety curled cold around his heart at that direct, hostile glare. If she rejected him, if she did not want him…
He tried to flatten his ears in apology…but he couldn’t even feel his ears. His nose seemed numb, too. He could hear The Bitch’s voice clearly enough, but why couldn’t he scent her?
No wonder he’d angered her. In this groggy, half-paralyzed state, his body language must