Ravensblood Forest everybody’s gone in the cotton and the corn [m]

Hi, Lotte is the worst mate ever. I am sorry. ♥

It seemed when Arturo entered the clearing that the very landscape fell away; Lotte’s attention was drawn so powerfully to the fiery intensity of his gaze and the accented rumble of his voice that she could see nothing else clearly. Her small, triangular ears pressed forward upon her skull as she looked with starry-eyed adoration at her beau — but the rustle of branches in a nearby part of the forest aroused a deeply protective, deeply possessive instinct to assert herself above any female who jeopardized her place at Ceannasach’s side. She rose stiffly to all fours, her moonbright gaze trained stubbornly upon the distant cluster of sequoias, and her lips twitched into a moue of dislike as her coal-colored tail curled high and proud above her back. Even when he padded nearer, beseeching her with a breathless rumble, she found it difficult to turn away from what she perceived as a threat. A whine, low and urgent, clawed its way from her lips.

“Rakas,” Lotte whimper-moaned. A normally decisive creature, she found that the hot rush of her blood warred with the cold, sick shame she felt upon remembering her earliest days in Teaghlaigh. She wanted him — needed him — and it was clear even to her that he was driven by the same desire, but denying the urge to be touched and pursued had become second nature for the soot-stockinged rogue over the past two days. She flashed her teeth at him, skittered away, then contradictorily begged him closer with an appealing whine. Briefly she wondered how he might ever find her attractive after seeing her at her physical worst, but the longing expression on his face was unmistakable. Lotte fought her own inevitable arousal, gathering breath as she asked him in a low, feminine purr, “You have seen me singed and bleeding, weak as a newborn cub — and still, you want to keep me?” Her voice was teasing, but she badly wanted his reassurance. Lotte had never really been the type of wolf to dwell on the past, but she hadn’t confronted Arturo about this either. It was clearly a terrible time to do it, but the sooner the nightingale addressed it, the sooner she felt she could put it to rest. Tempting them both, she moved boldly forward and snaked her body against his, trailing the tip of her tail along his chin before moving sinuously out of his reach.