Excerpt Monday

Bria and Mel over at Romance Divas have a new challenge up to post an excerpt on Mondays. So, to join in the fun, here’s a scene from Wild Magic:

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Then he did what he knew he must not do. He rose from where he lay in the pleasant shade of the apple tree and padded over to the weeping girl.

If he must do something so foolish as to try to comfort her then it was best he was wolf-formed, for he didn’t trust the man to do what was right.

He nudged her arm gently with his muzzle.

She started, dropping her hands from her eyes with a breathless tear-choked squeak of terror.

Thorns and blisters on it! He’d never needed to appear nonthreatening before. Menacing and violent he did perfectly. What damned gesture could he make that she’d think comforting? Beside leave? He should have thought this through far better.

You’re a dog to her, half-wit. Act the pup women expect of both mongrel and man and end her damned weeping. Now. Rashly, he licked her cheek, and with the explosive taste of her and her tears on his tongue, he sprawled beside her, exposing his throat in a mortifying, yet hopefully calming display of wolfly harmlessness. Being a man in wolf’s flesh had its drawbacks. Her taste was . . . mind-blowing? Yes. The odd foreign word from his before memories fit. Definitely not a sprite.

Fool. Her tears would have ended on their own without you.

Her first tentative touch sent a shiver through him. Then, more confident strokes of her fingers over his pelt followed. A most peculiar sensation. Entrancing. He had never been–No–-a fragmented memory. Fethnat soothing that wretched prisoner even as she scolded him for biting. Before. There had been soft hands. A woman–his head ached. Green eyes. A man. Something he needed to do. Something he needed to–

Someone he had failed.

The girl laughed nervously. “I hope this means you have no plans to eat me.”

Ah, damn me, I pray not.

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Be sure to go read these other great excerpts too!
Bria’s: Secret Girlfriend
Mel’s: Fatal Visions
Louisa’s: Can’t Stand the Heat
Lauren’s: My Secret Valentine
Cynthia’s: Intrusion
Kaige’s: Beneath His Touch