Sleepy Fox Hollow Where I thought I knew it all before I knew what love was

There was impatience in her eyes and the slight frown she wore as Mahler visibly struggled with himself. The flash of lost composure across his lips and the downward cast of his eyes should've clued her in that he was about to say something really heavy, but in spite of all the signs, his proclamation still crashed through her with the efficacy of a wrecking ball.

Now it was Wylla's turn to barely stifle a derisive snort of laughter, because surely he was joking. Only a lunatic would say something like that just like that. But a quick scan of his features said otherwise, and a cold wash of realization and shock followed the observation. He was serious. Wh— she whispered, working her jaws soundlessly in an effort to get something out but god damnit the words just wouldn't come. It was difficult to strike her speechless, what with her neverending bag of vitriolic comments she could dip into, but he had well and truly done it.

Her yellow eyes darted between his pair of lavender ones, searching desperately for the joke in all this, and it showed in her flabbergasted expression. Slack-jawed didn't begin to describe it. It wasn't what she'd expected, and she realized it wasn't what she wanted to hear, because hell, that made her guilt completely insurmountable. This idiot had decided he loved her and followed her to Swiftcurrent Creek when he found her again and she had thrown him in the gutter. No amount of unapologetic pride could erase the knowledge that Wylla was 100% World's Biggest Jackass. And could she have loved him, if she hadn't turned him away like she had?

Who knows. Wylla had never been loved by a man or had a chance to reciprocate; Raptor was, and remained, simply a hate fuck.

She felt like she was sipping air through a straw and it took a great deal of fortitude (and idiocy, because this wasn't the time or place) for her to muster enough of it to weakly call back to their very first meeting: so you did want to sleep with me. Addressing what he'd just said outright was ... well, terrifying, and she preferred not to.