Instead of reacting with fear, curiosity lit her eyes, and she stepped forward. The moment she put her hands on his forearm, even through his flannel shirt, the wolf quieted.
“This is really weird,” she said, her eyes half-closed. Her hand was icy.
He swallowed in disappointment as she dropped her hand. He was grateful for the help, but it was clear she saw him as some kind of client and project all wrapped together, not a man she could sit down to dinner with.
That was fine. That was not at all disappointing or even devastating.
She blinked. “I like flatbread.”
5
Penn gasped at the burst of flavor on her tongue like nothing she’d tasted in years. The naan transported her back to expensive Philadelphia restaurants. It was perfect, charred and soft.
When she swallowed, she realized she had closed her eyes, and she opened them quickly to see him standing across from her, looking harmless with a small smile on his face.
“It’s delicious.”
“Thanks.”
He had cooked this. She never would have guessed. She didn’t know why it was so strange. Shifters had to eat, right? She realized she had a picture in her head of shifters based on children’s tales and horror stories. If she’d have guessed before what a werewolf ate, she would’ve said raw meat.
“Does your wolf like curry?” she asked.
He froze for half a second, so quickly, she might have imagined it. “No.”
Just no. He didn’t elaborate.
She glanced around the cabin. It was tiny, and from the outside, with its graying wood walls and worn wood shingles, it looked like it was abandoned.
But inside, aside from equally weathered walls, everything was cozy and scrupulously clean. A huge stove dominated one corner. Across from it, a counter held a rudimentary kitchen setup with a giant jug of water, a cooler, and shelves and shelves of ingredients that looked like they belonged in some five-star kitchen. She couldn’t see a single packaged food of any kind. She avoided looking in the opposite corner at the double bed with a cheery yellow quilt neatly draped over it.
“Does your wolf eat meat?”
There was another infinitesimal pause before he said, “Yes.”
She took another bite and had to keep from moaning. She was more of a microwave dinner type of gal, and ate tiki masala regularly, but the frozen squares tasted nothing like this.
She realized she was looking at the bed, then tried to cover it. “Do you craft too?”
The stitch of confusion between his eyebrows was adorable. “Craft what?”
“The quilt? It looks homemade.”
“It was a gift.”
Who had given it to him? He seemed to be alone in the world, but someone loved him enough to hand-stitch a quilt. She didn’t know why she was angry about that.
She kept eating. Though her tongue felt like it was on fire, she relished every bite. She knew from various pets who accidentally ate something spicy that the rest of the animal kingdom thought humans were insane for deliberately seeking plants with terrible defensive mechanisms.
They weren’t wrong. She often wondered what was wrong with her species that they took a substance designed to causepain, created by plants to keep them from being eaten, and made it a key part of world cuisine.
Not for the first time, she wondered how on earth they ended up on the top of the food chain, the scavengers of the Savannah who now ruled everything.
She finished and scraped her plate.
“Do you need milk?” he asked quietly.
She blinked. Where was he raised that a glass of milk was an after-dinner treat?
