When Allie stumbled upon the wolf in the moonlit clearing—chomping on the carcass of a beautiful doe she’d been watching from the deck—her heart slammed into her throat.

The flashlight quivered in her bloodless hand. For a second as she was walking up, she thought she’d seen something else crouched over the deer—something her mind struggled to process. Something which in that brief flash had looked more man than beast.

Yellow eyes snapped up to her over the steaming corpse. In the light of the beam, those eyes glowed eerily green. The wolf’s hackles rose. Clots of blood dripped from its slavering jaws.

Black lips peeled back from its bone-white fangs in a savage, grisly leer.

Allie didn’t pause to think just how fucking huge this monster-wolf was. She didn’t pause to think at all. She turned and ran.

The flashlight strobed wildly over the grass as she bolted for the deck. Never in a million years would she have thought the wolf would actually chase after her—what sort of predator abandoned his freshly-slaughtered prey?

But she’d barely slipped through the sliding glass door when the huge bloody beast barreled in at her heels. Allie screamed, attempting to slam the door shut as she stumbled back. But half the wolf’s muscular bulk was already through. As he snarled and snapped, thrashing like mad, she dashed for the stairs.

Blind terror overtook her, eclipsing all higher thought. All she could think was to put as much distance and as many obstacles between herself and this crazy beast as possible.

Breathless, Allie burst onto the landing. The door of her bedroom was in sight. If she could just make it there, get behind that locked door—

Her sweaty palm had just grasped the handle when something slammed her back into the wall. Her breath knocked clean out of her. Mutely, she gasped. Her head spun. Her vision flecked with silver. But even so, no reasonable amount of disorientation could account for the sight that met her horrorstruck eyes.

It was a man pinning her against the wall. A naked, shaggy-haired man looming over her with thick wet blood smearing his chin. Leering down at her, he swiped the blood away with the hand not restraining her.

Somehow, Allie recognized that wolfish leer. She recognized it ahead of the light, glinting eyes and the too-sharp teeth.

But she still couldn’t believe it. Not until he chuckled gruffly and said—

“Too bad for you, little girl. You disturbed my supper, and now you’ll have to pay.”

Allie trembled violently in his hold. “You…y-you’re—”

“A monster?” The wolf-man leered toothily at her again. “Yeah, I guess I am.” Leaning into her, he scented at her throat. “Mm, you smell tasty.”

Allie wilted as his hot, rough tongue scraped along her pulse. “Please…”

“Please, what? Please don’t eat you?” He chuckled lustily. “Not a chance.”

Allie whimpered. Shallowly, she swallowed, flattening herself against the wall in a vain attempt to escape. Bodily, the wolf-man pursued her. When his front crushed to hers, she felt a stab in her belly that made her eyes flare wide.

Watching her face with predatory raptness, he grinned lewdly as he ground that stabbing length into her again. Allie’s stomach clenched. Her face grew hot against her will. In a feral, rakish way, she supposed he was handsome.

“Be a good little girl,” he rumbled, “and maybe I’ll let you live. What do you say?”

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The Wolf © CS Dark Fantasy