Chapter 6: The Wolf’s Den
The moment Isla stepped inside Damian Wolff’s estate, something shifted. The air was warmer than it should’ve been, thick, heady and almost liquid in her lungs. She felt something familiar flair up in her nostrils, there it was again, that scent. Smoky, wild, threaded with something darkly intoxicating. It wasn’t cologne. It was him.
The space was cavernous, cloaked in shadows and firelight. Walls lined with ancient, leather-bound books and velvet drapes framed tall windows that looked out into the dense, moonlit woods. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting flickering light across the stone and dark wood. The place oozed masculine power, but it wasn’t the luxury that made her uneasy.
It was the silence. A silence that felt aware, as if the house itself was watching her. Behind her, the door shut with a deep thud. Damian moved like something not entirely human, too fluid and too precise.
“Wine?” he asked, voice smooth as silk with a blade beneath it.
She nodded once, pulse already racing. He poured a deep crimson liquid into a crystal glass, the firelight catching the brief flash of silver in his eyes. She thought she imagined it, until their fingers brushed when he handed her the glass.
A spark snapped through her. The most intense electric heat zapped her, all the way down and back up. It radiated possession and passion.
“You’re nervous,” he said, stepping closer. Not asking a question, but rather stating a fact.
Isla lifted her chin, masking the shiver that rolled through her. “I don’t get nervous.”
His lips curved, very slowly and darkly. “Liar.”
He didn’t touch her again. He didn’t have to. His presence wrapped around her like a vice, tight and inescapable. He moved around her, not pacing, circling. Predatory, as he was used to being. Her skin tingled with awareness every time he shifted. Every time his eyes raked over her.
There was a hum beneath her skin now, low and feverish, as if her body were tuning itself to the rhythm of his. She hated how easily she could track his movements without looking, how her breath hitched each time he neared, and how it refused to slow when he stepped away. Something ancient uncoiled in her chest, curious and sharp-toothed, craving his attention like a starved thing. Her fingers tightened around the wine glass. She wasn’t here for this. She wasn’t meant for this. But her body, the traitorous thing, was already betraying her, heating up immensely, stinging in unwanted places and of course he noticed.
She sipped the wine, hoping to steady herself, but it only fanned the fire curling low in her belly.
“You live out here alone?” she asked, voice almost steady.
He didn’t answer right away. He watched her, studied her with unsettling patience. “I prefer solitude.”
Liar, she almost said. Men like him weren’t made for solitude. They were made to be followed, feared and, above all, worshipped.
She turned slightly, eyes drawn to the window. The velvet drapes had been drawn back, revealing the forest bathed in full moonlight. Pale silver light spilled across the clearing and then she perceived movement. It was just a blur, a shadow. Something ultimately too fast to be human.
Her breath caught. “What was that?”
Damian stilled, not visibly nor obviously, but she felt it, like the room had sucked in its breath and held it.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said.
But the undercurrent in his voice was anything but casual. The space between them pulsed with something unsaid, something waiting to snap its leash.
She should have pressed him. She meant to. But then he stepped into her space again, close enough that she could feel the heat rolling off his body, and just like that, thought shattered.
“Tell me, Isla…” His voice was a dark whisper as he lifted his hand, fingers grazing her jaw. “Do you believe in fate?”
The question sent a tremor through her. Not because of what he said, but how he said it. The reverence in it and the profound claim.
“What are you talking about?” she whispered.
He didn’t blink. His pupils had dilated, swallowing the silver. His gaze devoured her. “You feel it, don’t you?” he murmured, voice like smoke and sin. “This undeniable pull. This bond.”
The word struck something deep in her gut, not fear and not logic, something older and much more hungry.
She couldn’t breathe, and definitely couldn’t move. Something inside her cracked wide open, aching, needy and primal.
She shook her head, but it was weak. A denial with no conviction. “What have you done to me?”
Damian exhaled slowly, as though he’d been holding back for years. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. His thumb grazed the edge of her bottom lip, and her knees nearly buckled. “You were mine before you even knew my name.”