Chapter Four
"Didn't think we'd meet again so soon."
Hermione thought she just might jump out of her skin at the sound of his voice behind her. She only barely managed to refrain from climbing to her feet. Instead she simply shrugged, staring out into the depths of the Dark Forest from where she sat on the ledge of the dais. The very same little platform upon which her introductions to her Hunters had taken place a mere three weeks ago.
Three weeks. Three weeks of whirlwind planning, and changing of plans, and trying to make time for some sort of bonding with her grooms—plural, bloody damn plural—before they were stuck together for the rest of their lives, and 'helpful' people in her face, and if Pansy brought her one more selection of 'perfect' wedding night lingerie, she was going to scream!
Her shoulders drooped as she let out a sigh that did precious little to take the edge off her anxious internal nattering.
"God gods, your nerves are shot to hell."
She glanced back at him. "How can you tell?"
Fenrir gave a shrug of his own then and tapped a finger against his nose.
"Ah. Silly me. Werewolf," she said with an airy laugh. "I should've guessed."
With a short, quiet snicker, he stalked across the low wooden rise and hunkered down beside her. "So not here to see me, then?"
Tipping her head back, she fixed her gaze on the stars overhead. "I don't even know. Maybe I am? It's all very strange. I just needed to get away from all that madness that's going on back home right now, and this was the first place that came to mind. I just . . . ." She let her words trail off, a wistful tone in her voice when she continued, "I just saw the trees in my head and suddenly I felt a tiny bit better. So, I thought, if imagining seeing the trees again made me feel better, then perhaps being there to actually see them would be even better, still. And so, here I am."
"Not many humans find solace in the forests these days."
A half-smile curved her lips as she turned her head to look at him. Sitting beside her like this, she could appreciate how . . . massive he was. Not as massive as Orias Mulciber, but he was close. "Maybe I'm not human. Maybe I'm secretly a werewolf, too."
Giving her a once-over, he snorted a chuckle. "Oh, don't tease."
Giggling a little, she let out another sigh. "Honestly, though, I don't know why I'm here again."
"I was surprised to pick up your scent. Rest of my pack thinks I'm completely mad for 'almost' interfering with the Foxhunt."
"So why did you?"
He let out a rumbling breath. "I don't know, really. Curiosity, I suppose."
"Huh," she said, nodding. A thoughtful frown graced her lips. "I'm curious, too."
"Oh?" Fenrir lifted one of those villainous brows at her as he smirked. "Something about me intrigues you, does it?"
Hermione bit her lip on another laugh. Many things about the werewolf intrigued her, but she wasn't about to stroke his ego by admitting that aloud—there was every chance he was picking up something in her scent in regard to that, anyway. "It's what you said to me before you left me in the forest. Do you remember?"
The Fox and the Wolf will meet again. He nodded.
"I felt like I'd heard it someplace before, but I can't remember where. And that doesn't happen. I remember everything. Well, not literally everything, but anything I read, or that's said to me."
"You know, that's the funny thing," he said with a nod. "After I said it, I, too, felt as though I'd heard it somewhere before. Which is odd, because while I was saying those words, they seemed spur of the moment."
Frowning, she shifted on the edge of the dais to face him fully, tucking her legs to cross in front of her. "So, what does that mean?"
He sputtered a laugh and shrugged. "Fucked if I know." After a moment's thought, however, he once again flicked one of those arched eyebrows upward. "Maybe it's fate."
"I don't believe in that sort of thing," she answered, shaking her head.
His eyes narrowed and he scratched at his bearded jaw. "Well, then I suppose maybe you were right the first time."
"What? What do you mean?"
"If it's not fate, then maybe there's something wild about you after all, little Fox."
"I'm not secretly a werewolf, if that's what you're suggesting." Was it her imagination, or was he leaning toward her?
Fenrir smirked. "Perhaps you're not, but you've got to admit, having something of the wild in your blood would make sense."
Yes, he was definitely leaning closer. She could see some flecks of rich gold mixed with the amber of his irises. Bloody hell, Hermione couldn't seem to help herself—she was leaning closer to him, too. "How so?" And her voice had just escaped in a little breathy rush.
His expression sobered a little as he searched her slowly-nearing features with his gaze. Closing the distance, he grazed his teeth delicately along her plump lower lip. He followed with the tip of his tongue, aware of how her eyes had drifted closed, and of her fingers curling into the loose bit of shirt over his chest.
Oh, the temptation to take her right here and now was strong. There was no way pursuing this was going to be easy—if only he could let this go like his pack insisted, but what the hell did any of them know?
He pulled back just a little, speaking with his lips brushing hers. "Think about it. Those two Hunters you picked. They've got something wild about them, too. Don't they?"
"What?" She blinked, her senses creeping slowly back.
"Those blond blokes? They've both got something slightly feral about them. Picked up on it after I put you in their path."
Those blond blokes . . . . Her ruddy fiancés. And here she was, sitting with this werewolf, his breath on her lips and her hand on his chest. What was she doing? More to the point, why couldn't she seem to care enough to pull back?
There was an almost sympathetic light in Fenrir's eyes as he went on—he could tell by her scent how confused this was making her. "Might also be why you couldn't choose between them, hmm? That wildness in them called to you. Choosing both of them, maybe it's something like being a pack."
"Stop." She relinquished her grip on his shirt and sat back, gaping at him. "I don't understand why you're telling me all this."
Fenrir shook his head, a frown curving his mouth. "I don't understand it, either. I can't seem to keep my thoughts to myself around you."
Hermione had no idea why this upset her so much. True, she didn't know much about her family's heritage—most Muggleborns didn't—but to wonder if she might have something wild in her? Yet, simply thinking that . . . thinking those words as she stared into his amber eyes . . . .
As she remembered the feel of his teeth dragging along her lower lip mere heartbeats ago . . . .
The way he'd crushed her against him as he'd kissed her breathless the night of the Hunt . . . .
She wasn't sure when she'd moved close to him again, but suddenly she was right before him, her arms around his neck and her mouth on his. She felt it when a smile curved his lips beneath the press of hers before he opened to her. The way he circled her with his arms, cupping her arse with splayed fingers to pull her into his lap, sent a delicious little shiver through her.
After a breathless moment, she broke the kiss, dragging her teeth along the edge of his jaw to his throat. One of his hands slipped up along her body to sink into her hair. Curling into a fist, he held her against him, letting his head tip backward as she nipped and lapped at the spot just below his ear.
The witch breathed out a snicker. "This is so wrong," she said, her lips brushing the now damp skin of his throat.
"I know," he answered, laughing as well. "Doesn't feel wrong, though, does it?"
There was something in his tone as he asked that, some somber note that didn't quite seem to fit this moment or his demeanor. Pulling back, she met his gaze as he lowered his head. For several heartbeats, they only stared at one another.
"No." Hermione shook her head. "It doesn't. It should. But . . . ." Frowning, she relinquished her hold on him. She didn't move away from him, though, instead turning in his lap to put her back to his chest. "I don't understand what's happening. I don't understand why it doesn't feel wrong, I don't understand why I'm drawn to you, I don't understand why my brain seems to be rather naturally balancing the idea of you and my two fiancés. One man is a nightmare enough—the two I'm already bound to marry are the biggest babies when they start arguing with each other—but sure, Hermione, take three. It's madness."
Fenrir pushed her hair over her opposite shoulder as he lowered his mouth to her throat. "I know you don't want to hear this," he said, taking a chance, he slid one hand beneath her blouse. When she made move nor spoke to stop him, he cupped one of her breasts, stroking playfully over the nipple with the tips of his fingers. "But maybe you don't understand because you don't want to. Seems to me that it's just as I said."
Her eyelids drifted closed and she let her head fall back against his shoulder. "Why are you doing that?"
"Is it keeping you calm?"
"Among other things, but yes."
He chuckled, his breath tickling her pulse. "That's why. Do you want me to stop?"
She shook her head.
"I think there's something about you that perhaps you, yourself, don't know." He dragged the very edge of his teeth over her skin. "You're fighting what I'm suggesting because you're not used to being in situations where you aren't fully cognizant of what's going on. The thought of there being something about yourself you don't know is mildly terrifying to you, I think."
"How can you possibly know so much about me?"
He spared a moment to nibble on her earlobe, relishing the way it tore a soft little moan from her and caused her to writhe in his hold. "Gut instinct." The werewolf slipped his free hand between her thighs, rubbing against her in rough, quick motions only after she didn't protest. "Just like it's gut instinct telling me that you're a bit of a control freak, and that makes you just a little scared of me, just a little scared of those two wizards you're about to marry—because something about us makes you want to lose control of yourself."
Hermione let out a small whimpering sound as she moved, her body working to press itself more tightly beneath the movement of his fingers. He was right, she could feel it. She'd never not had a coherent thought in her head, never not been able to puzzle out a problem in some corner of her brain regardless of what she was doing or what was happening around her. Desperately she wanted to give up that control from just a few moments . . . to give into someone. To feel safe enough, and free enough to simply let go.
There was some sweet, strange irony that one of the people she wanted to feel those things with was Fenrir. Werewolves and feelings of safety tended not to go together for obvious reasons.
She gripped her hands around his forearms, rather than stopping or stilling him, however, she merely held on as he teased her breast and stroked hard between her thighs.
"That's it, little Fox," he murmured between nips at her throat as he felt her tensing under his touch. "You need this, I can smell it from you."
Bracing herself, she pushed more tightly against his hand. Her muscles locking, she gasped as she started to come. Unable to help it, she turned her head, sinking her teeth into his shoulder to keep from screaming. From the sound he choked out at the pressure of her bite, she knew whatever he was feeling right now, it wasn't pain.
After a few blissfully thoughtless moments of working fingers and satisfied growling noises, her orgasm started to ebb. She rocked against him, utterly helpless as the sweet, tingling shocks rolled through her.
When she at last sank back in his embrace, languid and waiting for her breath to steady, she felt the state he was in. Intoxicating images of him throwing her forward on her hands and knees, of tearing their clothes away so he could sink into her and shag her senseless teased through her mind.
"It's late," he said in a whisper that she thought sounded forlorn. "You should get back to the city."
Wondering if he had some ulterior motive for trying to shoo her away after that, she realized that she did detect something. On the edge of her awareness was . . . something.
Dear God, his pack was somewhere nearby and moving toward them.
She couldn't bring herself to wonder how she could sense that. "What about you?"
Grinning, he pulled her close, capturing her mouth in one of those hungry, savage kisses. His hand slipping over hers, he guided her fingers into his trousers to circle his cock. The moment she uttered an appreciative noise in the back of her throat, he broke the kiss.
Breathing heavily, he met her gaze. "Next time," he said, his fingers tightening around hers, guiding her to stroke over the length of him just once before making her relinquish her hold.
Hermione smirked, realizing he wasn't pushing her away entirely, rather showing her what she had to look forward to. "Next time."
He stood, cradling her in his arms effortlessly before setting her down on her own two feet.
Stepping back from him, she kept her gaze locked with his as she Apparated, popping up before the door of her flat. Yet, as she got her bearings, she became immediately aware of the two hulking blond wizards stationed, seemingly half asleep where they stood, on either side of the entryway.
Swallowing hard as they both snapped to full attention at her arrival, she shook her head. "What the hell are you two doing here at this hour?"
The pair exchanged a look before Orias' brows shot up. "Us?" he asked, his eyes wide.
Thorfinn shook his head right back at her as he tacked on, "Where the bloody hell have you been?"