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warm, drooling licks.
    ‘Silly, mutt. You couldn’t
have come when I was being invaded? Fat lot of good you are, you can’t even
keep the wolves from my door.’ Muttering about shitty guard-dogs, Ash pulled
herself up and cautiously let her eyes wander, seeking out a hulk of man in the
shadows. There was no-one there. The wolfhound settled his weight into her
side, following her gaze with curious brown eyes and a cock of that large,
silver head.
    ‘Now you choose to protect
me? When the psycho has left?’
    Ruffling his fur, her sigh
was shaky with adrenaline and fear. She pushed off the floor, using the dog as
leverage for her wobbling limbs and wound her fingers into his moonlight pelt
as they padded warily to check the bolt on the door. With trembling fingers she
secured the chain and turned the key, petting the door, as though a kind touch
could persuade the wood to keep any further demons from her threshold. It would
at least keep her from groping any other burglars that might wander into the
hoarder's paradise she found herself tied to. Any number of people could be
living among the stacks. Maybe that’s where he’d come from. She’d moved just
enough paper to uncover his den and he had to kill her. Like the tribes in the
Amazon rainforest. Except her pygmy warriors were giant man-mountains that
somehow bore the mark of her past. Mmmhmm. Tomorrow she would admit herself
into the nearest insane asylum and blame it all on inhaled poison fungi spores.
    Shit.
    Her breath was still coming
harsh. Ash could taste fear, could feel it chipping away at the barriers her
therapy had set up. Dublin had already stuffed a crowbar in the smallest crack
and was prying it open. And now that tattoo, that damn Celtic wolf had cranked
something wide and let the darkness out.
    A whine broke through the
sound of her breathing. The thump of a tail beat against her leg.
    ‘How about you come to bed
with me and you can hunt the wolves if the Sandman lets them in?’ Another tail
wag swished against her ankle and Ash about faced with her furry guardian at
her heels, navigating through occult nick-nacks to the relative serenity of the
bedroom. It couldn’t have been her grandmother’s, it was too pristine, in
gentle shades of blue and black, a large bathtub in the centre of the room.
She’d slowly bled into this room, her clothes creeping out to fill the empty
wardrobe, cosmetics and books littering the dark wood desk.
    She could breathe here.
Pretend that it wasn’t Dublin outside her window, but Cambridge. She wasn’t in
a house full of strange totems; she was in an upscale apartment. Ash stamped
down the strain of fear, shaking off the memory of his hands on her. She dove
onto the giant mahogany four-poster bed, rolling in the sheets. The mutt barked
and she had to fend off the dog paws bouncing all over her cuddled-up form.
    ‘Settle, mutt, or I’ll
rethink my need for a bed mate.’ Ash scruffed behind his ears as his huge head
landed on her stomach, pillowing himself there. ‘And you need a name.’ Drowsy
now, the words felt heavy, her eyes locked to the ceiling, watching the
occasional shadow dance across the Robin-egg blue painted into the stippling.
    Her eyes drooped and the
night took the opportunity to steal a figure into her bedroom. Black crossed her
lidded vision; fur caressed her hands and weighed her down. A kiss silenced her
scream with a hot-tongued invasion. A familiar mass settled between thighs that
spread far too eagerly. He was back. Ash moaned as her hands snaked up the
broad expanse of her phantom intruder’s back, sculpting naked muscle with her
fingertips and pulling him closer. Crazy, she was crazy, but the heat had her
in its grasp, fending off the chill of an oncoming nightmare with a hard
grinding pleasure. She half-hoped she wasn’t dreaming. He was at her throat,
speaking kisses to her pulse. His palms urged her thighs wider. Ash toyed with
the rings hooked through his flesh and her spine arched,