The Song Of The Wolf (Unedited)

Chapter Thirty-One

Disturbing dreams ceased their reign and slowly evaporated, impelling Maebh to awaken. Cracking her eyes open, the tip tapping of raindrops falling against glass echoed through the room as she stole a peek at the other side of the bed and found it vacated –only a dented pillow hinting at a former presence.

She pulled the pillow to her nose, the lingering scent of her stranger tickling her nostrils. One whiff and everything flooded back, prompting a nauseating tightness in her abdomen. She had hoped to soak up and revel in the sight of Fillin's sleeping face, his tousled hair and the morning scruff that commonly lined his jaw –but it appeared she had been robbed of that experience.

As her mind adjusted to its conscious state, she saw a handwritten note on the bedside table. Gone back to Arcadia. Stay here, I'll see you tonight. –it read, and nothing else.

Maebh wasn't sure what she had been expecting after their first time together but it certainly wasn't a pitiful amount of impersonal scribbles. She pounded the mattress with her fists and cuddled the pillow to her chest, wanting to curl up into a ball and go back to sleep. Deciding against it after a moment of deliberation, she slid out of bed with more energy than her sore muscles possessed and trudged over to the bathroom.

Her toes flinched as they touched the chilled ceramic floor of the shower; its cold nature alleviating as the metallic dial was turned up and steamy rivulets began to pour down. She washed her body, taking careful notice of the array of small bruises that scattered her skin and dropped her forehead to the wall with a sigh.

Her body felt more alive than ever and her psyche was in shreds –like the consummation of the bond had upgraded her neurological aptitude and neglected to attach the instruction manual.

Maebh's anatomy hummed with the physical awareness of someone other than herself and although the sensation was indisputably a special kind of magic, the sceptical voice of reason implored her to stay on guard.

After washing her hair and grabbing a towel, Maebh used a cloth to wipe the condensation from the mirror but her reflection paralysed her in the process.

What the actual fu–

The wheels of rationality began to spin as she snatched a blow dryer from the sink drawer and frantically turned it on, her movements hurried as she worked to deflate her reflection's revelation to an optical illusion, generated by the misleading potency of water.

Alas, the dried state of affairs was more acute than its wet counterpart, so much so that Maebh dashed back into the bedroom and called Benjamin, only to be greeted by his voicemail. Groaning in distress, she sent him text in all caps and hastily got dressed.

Earlier that week, she'd had an inkling that she would have to return to Arcadia prematurely, one that turned out to be true as she scurried through the house to stow her –and after a moment's hesitation—Fillin's belongings in a suitcase.

Hours seemed to crawl by before a honk and the subsequent ringing of her doorbell indicated Benjamin's arrival. And as soon as she stepped out into the rain with her luggage in tow, the red-haired man bowed to her.

"Your Royal Highness," he addressed her and took the suitcase from her hold before she could protest, stashing it in the trunk. Maebh pulled a face, resisting the impulse of giving him an earful and rushed into the passenger's seat of the SUV to avoid the assault of water droplets. A burst of lighting struck the air.

If the man noticed her stark change of physique, his countenance and verbal reaction certainly didn't reveal it. Maebh started to doubt whether her observation had been a trick of the morning light –but the image staring back at her from the wing mirror debunked that hypothesis.