He walked to the bed and lifted the blanket. Giving a sweeping gesture for me to climb in.

Staring at him nervously I slid into his bed. Immediately awash with the male scent of him.

Dirt and trees and everything wild. But it seemed far more intense now. My nostrils flared and I felt like they were peeling open nearly up to my tear ducts to take in the aroma. And immediately I was damp between my thighs. Remembering that smell as he'd taken me over the table.

Like an animal.

Suddenly it seemed very obvious what he was.

How'd I miss it before?

I scooted as far into his bed as I could without completely pinning myself against the wall. I felt the bed dip behind me as he crawled in.

The bed groaned in objection and sunk in with his massive weight.

"This isn't how it works." He sighed as he adjusted into the bedding to get comfortable. Slipping a hand over my hip and to the front of my belly. Dragging me backward until my back jolted against the unrelenting hardness of his chest and abdomen.

His body swallowing mine with its giant size. He drew his legs up so mine folded before them.

Like a child tucked to the breast of their mother.

Yet this was altogether different.

I arched my back to get away from him. Slipping my legs up and down against each other in an effort to dull the ache between them and to hide the fact that I was becoming so moist.

"It matters no' how ye move or what ye do ta dull the scent." He remarked dully. "I smelled it from the moment ye're sex dampened."

I cringed at that. Wishing I could make it stop.

"Ye're safe from me fer now gel. I expended myself on ye earlier and haven't nothin' left ta offer ye." He snickered as if laughing at himself and nestled more fully against me.

"Sleep." He urged. "I'll warn ye when I come fer ye again."

I debated whether or not I believed him, but I recalled that he had warned me hours in advance of everything he'd done so far.

I can trust him that far. But thinking I could trust him at all seemed a far stretch. I want to get away from him.

***

Somehow or another I had fallen asleep against him. Nestled in the comfort of his arms.

I'd no idea for sure how long it was but I'd guessed it was only a few hours. I blinked blearily a moment before I realized what it was that had awakened me. I felt another swell of it but this time it was more fierce. Burning through me on firey tendrils of pain.

The next one came nearly on the heels of the last. Stretching clear out to my fingertips to make them throb.

Then my back cracked and tipped forward. My sternum snapping apart and ribs separating and resizing. Going smaller than returning. Cracking inside me as my body fought changing into...

Whatever I'm becoming.

Another fierce crack rattled through me and that sound was coming out of me again. Somewhere between an anguished moan and a weak scream. Growing in crescendo every moment I suffered.

I heard him snarl behind me and closed my eyes as I sensed what was coming. It was only moments before I felt those vicious teeth sink into the back of my shoulder blade. Cutting deeply into the skin. I felt the hot trickle of blood seeping down my back and dampening my tunic. Making it stick to me just beneath where his teeth were locked.

My mind immediately focused on that blinding pain. The sense of his vicious bite. And the rest of my body calmed. I sighed as I was able to refocus. It was much easier to fight through the agony of pain in one part of my body then to endure it ripping through every inch of me.

He released the pinching grip. Giving it a light kiss as if to apologize for the pain.

Once the pain settled, it was only moments before I had subsided back into slumber. Feeling strangely safe in the comfort of his tree trunk arms. His huge body sheltering me from whatever suffering the rest of the night was going to offer me.

Much of the night went like that. Waking to the rivers of anguish. Then his brutal bite. Then the calming as the pain centered on that one focal point. Then my body collapsing back into desperately needed slumber in an effort to escape the suffering and fear.

***

When the morning came, I awoke alone.

He was standing at the counter. Scrubbing out the stew pot from the day before. Tossing it atop a few others. He poured more water on another dish from a big wooden bucket.

Something else I could hit him with, if I got a chance. Realizing that with a new day came new threats, I began scanning the room for weapons. Spotting a haphazard broom in the corner that looked like it's stick could perhaps be broken to pierce him.

The bench I could throw at him. It wouldn't truly hurt him but might slow him down enough I could get to the key.

I looked at the top of the doorframe but didn't see it there today. Then I remembered he'd put it around his neck last night.

He's going to put me back on that chain. I was very sure of that.

"You will go back on the chain, Little Bird. And I want my tunic back today."

"I'll be bare!"

"As I said you would be."

He turned from the counter and leaned back against it. Crossing those huge arms along his chest. "If you are to be the mate of a wolf, one thing you must learn is that we are never ashamed. That is a weak human emotion."