“Damn it. I don’t want this. I don’t want her.”

He flung up his hand and vanished.

*  *  *

Later, much later, she dreamed of a wolf, black as midnight on the cliffs over the sea. With his head thrown back, he called to the swimming moon.

Chapter 2

It became a habit over the next few days for Rowan to look for the wolf. She would see him, most often early in the morning or just before twilight, standing at the edge of the trees.

Watching the house, she thought. Watching her.

She realized, on those mornings when she didn’t see him, that she was disappointed. So much so that she began leaving food out in hopes to lure him closer, to keep him a regular visitor in what she was starting to consider her little world.

He was on her mind quite a bit. Nearly every morning she woke with fading snippets of dreams just at the edge of her mind. Dreams where he sat by her bed while she slept, where she sometimes roused just enough to reach out and stroke that soft, silky fur or feel the strong ridge of muscle along his back.

Now and then, the wolf became mixed in her dreams with her neighbor. On those mornings, she climbed out of sleep with her system still quivering from an aching sexual frustration that baffled and embarrassed her.

When she was logical, she could remind herself that Liam Donovan was the only human being she’d seen in the best part of a week. As a sample of the species, he was spectacular, and the perfect fodder for erotic dreams.

But all in all she preferred thinking of the wolf, weaving a story about him. She liked pretending he was her guardian, protecting her from any evil spirits that lived in the forest.

She spent most of her time reading or sketching, or taking long walks. And trying not to think that it was nearly time to make her promised weekly call home to her parents.

She often heard music, drifting through the woods or in through her windows. Pipes and flutes, bells and strings. Once there was harpsong so sweet and so pure that it made her throat ache with tears.

While she wallowed in the peace, the solitude, the lack of demand on her time and attention, there were also moments of loneliness so acute it hurt the heart. Even when the need for another voice, for human contact, pulled at her, she couldn’t quite gather the courage, or find a reasonable excuse, to seek out Liam.

To offer him a cup of coffee, she thought as twilight slipped through the trees and there was no sign of her wolf. Or maybe a hot meal. A little conversation, she mused, absently twisting the tip of her braid around her finger.

“Doesn’t he ever get lonely?” she wondered. “What does he do all day, all night?”