Read Hood's Obsession for Free Online

scrape bad enough that we might need a little wishy magic on our side.”
    “Well.” He brushed crumbs off his shirt and leaned back. “That is wise; there are dangers untold hidden in the wilds of Kingdom.”
    “I travel with a poet—great wolf, save me.”
    Giles took a final swig of her mother’s ale with a slight chuckle and she squelched the ghost of a smile playing upon her own lips at his reaction. The man was gorgeous and had a sense of humor, which was a very heady combination for her wolf.
    Wolves were a notoriously cranky lot, until one got to know them well. It was why they rarely made friends with any creature outside of their own species. But Giles seemed determined not to let her quips faze him. It was both novel and refreshing and even slightly confusing.
    Frowning, she shoved the last bite of bread into her mouth and then chased her meal down with an apple, a banana, and a bowl of diced pineapple before leaning back with a contented sigh and a slightly distended belly. “I suppose we should be off. The sun is just beyond the tree line now, and we want to reach the safe zone before it sets.”
    His lips twitched.
    “What? What did I say that was so funny?” She scrunched her nose.
    “Nothing.” He shrugged, planting his hands on the grass before shoving to his feet. “Only that I could swear I heard a thread of fear in your tone just then.”
    “Shut up.” She fluffed her hair and hopped to her feet. That meal would only last her an hour or two before she’d be combing the words for nuts and berries. This need to eat was obnoxious to say the least. “I did not. I simply don’t wish for the little man-boy to wet his trousers when the sun goes down. That’s when the bad ones come out to play.”
    “Good gods,” he said, rolling his eyes, “you know very little of me if you think I’d fear anything that walks in Kingdom. I’ve seen terrors beyond imagining in my realm.”
    She’d only been teasing him, but Lilith couldn’t help but wonder about the enigma that was this man. She knew very little of him, other than that Mother had apparently been expecting his arrival for days. Not only that, but she’d urged Lilith to trust him. Something that went against her wolfish nature.
    Trust was earned through years and over time, never something blithely given. It unnerved her, the prospect of being alone with this man, but moreso that neither one of her parents had offered up any sort of rebuttal to his pronouncement of taking her on a perilous quest. They’d all but pushed her out of the den, and while she was in heat, too. Something generally considered taboo.
    By their blithe manners, she knew they were keeping something from her. She only wished she knew what. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her parents; she did, implicitly. But that didn’t mean she liked being in the dark about things, either.
    Frowning at the sudden, serious turn of her thoughts, she marched ahead. She smelled wolves everywhere, but she and the knight were keeping to the safety of the trails. They’d not be molested so long as they didn’t attempt to infringe upon a rival’s territory. Not even a she-wolf in heat could be molested upon the warded trails; it went against wolf law.
    So for now, at least, she felt safe enough.
    For a time they ran, and she was yet again impressed by his stamina. Lilith knew very little of the demone; she’d only witnessed them the one time she’d gone to Rumpel’s castle to beg his help.
    Apart from the fact that they could alter their physical forms to become living, breathing shadow, she really knew no more. The first time she’d witnessed the metamorphosis, it’d unnerved her. Something so human shouldn’t become mist, and yet she’d been fascinated by them too. In a lot of ways they were like her people, of dual natures, and that was intriguing.
    Giles glanced at her. “Are you bored?” he asked without a trace of exhaustion in his words.
    “No.” She shook her head.