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"Who's a good boy?" Darcy says, voice cracking as she kneels down on the frost covered ground beside the dog wincing at the pain in her knee. Because it has to be a dog, wolves do not attack bad guys and keep watch, right? Some weird crossbreed that cost more than her broken down car. The very same broken down car that led to her walking through the park of the allegedly safe small town she lived in. "Oh God, you're hurt."
There is blood on his left front paw. The wolf-dog huffs, nudges his cold wet nose beneath the bruise blooming across her cheek. A low rumble vibrates through his chest, and his tongue flicks out against her cheek, warm and wet and really kinda gross.
“Yeah, me too, boy. Now let’s see if we can get you fixed up. This no collar thing is a bit of a problem. Leash laws are a thing, buddy,” Darcy says looping her scarf around the dog’s neck as he sits back on his haunches looking far too indignant for a canine. “If anybody asks you’re a golden retriever mix, Edgar--at least until we can get you to the hot vet in the morning and find your people, m’kay?”
The wolf-dog’s ears flatten against his head, and somehow he managed to look mortally offended, which was plain ridiculous. Maybe she got hit in the head harder than she thought. Darcy lifts her glasses and rubs the bridge of her nose.
“What are you doing, Lewis, get a grip, it’s a dog.”
Darcy pulls herself up to her feet, her knee throbbing with each step she takes. “Come on, Edgar, let's get out of here before those assholes come back,” she pleads tugging gently on her end of the blue and grey scarf.
The wolf dog sighs dramatically and gets up on three paws. They hobble along side by side, Darcy’s hand curled around the taser in her bag, heart rattling against the cage of her ribs.
They make it back to the apartment above her grandmother’s garage. Darcy fiddles with the keys, jingling them as she puts them in the lock and the door creaks open. The smell of the morning's burnt toast still wafting in the still air of the apartment.
"Welcome home, boy, at least for tonight. We'll clean up, catch some z’s and in the morning go to the vet's. Right after I’ve had some coffee. Then we'll find your people and everyone will be happy...well, everyone but those douchebags from the park."
The dog pushes past her, the loose end of the scarf dragging on the floor as he darts into the apartment before Darcy can get through the door. She locks the door, checks it twice, and turns on every light in the place, including the fairy lights draped over the fake fireplace. The apartment feels cold but the dog's presence is enough for her to feel less alone.
“If you cock your leg up on anything, I’m having the hottie vet take your balls,” she threatens as the wolf sniffs at the corner of the floral monstrosity that is her couch.
Edgar’s ears twitch, and there is a faint rumble in his chest, but he continues to explore every corner of the apartment. Nose prints decorate the bottom on the window and the swishing of his tail knocks a stack of magazines off the coffee table.
Once the kettle is the stove, drops of water sizzling over the flame, Darcy strips off her coat tossing it over a kitchen chair. She kicks off her boots with little grace, and assesses the damage. Her tights are torn, the skin beneath scraped and swollen, matching the mark on her cheek.
“Fuck,” Darcy swears peeling the ruined tights down her legs and tossing them in the wastebin. She slips her phone out and thinks about calling 911. Shaking her head she shoves the phone into her cleavage, and rubs her eyes. Explaining that her dog, which might have been a wolf, and wasn't really hers at all, attacked two men and left them worse for wear really wasn't going to end well.
The dog follows her into the bedroom, and the bathroom, following her movements as she cleans herself up and changes into a pair of yoga pants and a faded t-shirt before the kettle starts whistling pathetically. Darcy pours hot water over the teabag into her favourite blue stoneware mug.
While the tea steeps she rummages around in the nearly empty fridge for something suitable for a canine. “Leftover chinese?”
Edgar sniffs at the open cardboard container, and turns his head away in doggie disgust. “Too good for leftover chinese?” She asks, lifting the container to her nose and sniffing it. “Okay, so maybe you’re onto something there.” Darcy tosses the container into the garbage under the sink and fills a bowl with water and one with Honey Nut Cheerios that were amazingly successful in their fight against going stale.
“Go ahead,” she says running her fingers over Edgar’s golden head. Her hands only tremble a little. The dog blinks up at her with cool blue eyes before lapping at the bowl of water.
Darcy adds milk to her mug and tosses the Red Rose tea bag into the garbage, and winds her way back into the bedroom hands cupped around the mug of tea. She sets the tea on the night stand and slips between the cold sheets, the heavy weight of the quilt a comfort and curls up tight.
She sips her tea, and wiggles out of her yoga pants once the bed is warm. She doesn't notice the tears spilling down her cheeks until the wolf-dog whines low in his throat. "Sorry, it's okay, boy," Darcy rasps, wiping the tears from her face.
It wasn't okay though, not really, fear still caged her heart, even behind locked doors with a more or less tamed wolf-dog acting as guard. There is a weight on her chest that had nothing to do with underwires or cup size. A sob bubbles up from her chest and the dog’s nails tap against the wood floor as he edges closer.
Edgar leaps up onto the bed trailing the scarf behind him. He whines low in his throat and his pink tongue darts out to lick her hand. She scratches behind his ears and watches as Edgar fusses with his hurt paw, licking the blood clean as he leans his warm body against her.
Darcy falls asleep with tears in her lashes, and her fingers curled into golden brown fur.
…..
The alarm screams shrilly and she grasps for it, eyes shut tight. “Too damn early,” she murmurs, rolling on her side to squint at the window. Her gaze never raises higher than the usually empty space beside her that is anything but empty.
Edgar the wolf dog is gone and in his place is a very naked man, lying on his stomach, snoring rather loudly, a line of drool glistening from the corner of his mouth to pool on her pillow.
Adrenaline spikes through her, mind racing to remember what happened the night before. The park, the muggers, and the wolf.
“What the fu-,” she begins to say when foggy blue eyes snap open and the man beside her pins her down. Long dark lashes blink down at her, his bottom lip is swollen and his blue eyes are wide. Her eyes flick down to the scarf looped around his neck and her brain struggles to put the pieces of the puzzle together as she reaches for the lamp on the bedside table.
His hand snaps out to curl around her wrist, the word ‘sorry’ spilling from his bruised lips. Darcy’s eyes widen and her jaw drops when she recognises his stupid pretty face.
"So I'm guessing I don't need to take Edgar to the vet this morning if you're already here?"
“I--sorry?”
“Could you, like, stop being a bad dog and get the fuck off me?”
“Not funny.”
“Admittedly not my best but give a girl a break when she’s being pinned down by her grandmother’s doggie doctor before first, second, or third coffee. And really I don’t often go to bed with someone without having a few good dates,” she says, curling her hands into fists and suppressing the desperate need to laugh at the ridiculousness of her life. "You're a dog."
“I'm not a dog,” he says, voice flat, a low rumble in his chest. God, there was something wrong with the world when his tits were so much perkier than her own.
“Okay, so you're not a dog, but you do have terrible doggie breath, dude,” Darcy wrinkles her nose and tugs ineffectively at the covers.
“Wolf,” he says, rolling over and tossing the floral sheets over his lap. “But I prefer to be called Steve. My mother chose it specially.”
“Did you just growl at me?”
“No.”
"You totally did."
“You’re mistaken.”
“I don’t think I am, Dr. Rogers. It is Dr. Rogers, right? The vet that every single girl in town is trying to get...a leash around? This feels like something that should be in the Weekly World News. My Veterinarian is a Dog.”
“Wolf,” Steve says, tugging at the rose covered sheets. “Why are you not more freaked out about...you know..?”
“That there was a naked werewolf in my bed?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Vampires have been in the media for three years, my college roommate swore she was just a Stevie Nicks fan, which you know totally awesome styling, till this like nine foot tall Oberon motherfucker showed up at Christmas, Solstice, whatever."
"You met the fair folk?"
"Well, yeah, but it wasn't really like I had a choice. That’s probably not even the weirdest thing to happen in this backwater town."
“Weirder things than naked wolves and fair folk?”
“I interned for this scientist who was dating a trufax Norse god.”
“A god…” Steve says, eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline.
“Well he said he was a god, and he had the whole lightning thing going for him. Couldn’t hold his liquor though...”
"Do you have any, uh, clothes I can borrow?”
"What? Don't you like my sheets?"
“They’re very...flowery but I’d like to get the hell out of here. No offence to your...hospitality.”
“Fine,” Darcy says swinging her legs out of bed and making her way to the drawer. She tugs down her t-shirt as she digs around for one of the t-shirts she stole from Thor and a pair of sweatpants she only wore on fat days.... and stops cold.
She whirls around to face Steve, now standing with her bright floral sheet wrapped around his trim waist. "You," she accuses, jabbing her finger at him.
"Me?"
"You watched me get undressed last night, pervert."
"I'm a gentleman... wolf, I, uh, looked away," he says, mouth twitching slightly.
"Like you’re doing now?" Darcy accuses, crossing her arms underneath her chest. Her gaze slides down over Steve’s sculpted chest with it’s covering of dark hair. The muscles of his abdomen flex, and Darcy’s breath catches in her throat.
"You do realise my eyes are up here, Miss Lewis?" Steve says waving his hand at his face.
Her jaw drops and Darcy tosses the t-shirt and sweat pants across the room. Steve drops the sheet as he grabs the clothes before they hit his face.
"Huh, so no to the lipstick question then."
“What?” Steve splutters, stumbling as he pulls on her sweatpants.
“You know, dogs...lipstick,” Darcy says motioning towards Steve’s groin.
“Thanks,” he says, dryly rolling his eyes as untangles the wool scarf from around his neck. “You mentioned coffee. I think I could really do with some coffee right about now," he says pulling on a pair of baggy maroon sweats that are too loose at the waist and creep halfway up his calves.
.....
Lucky Star Veterinary Clinic
Three days later.
"You brought me dog cookies, Miss Lewis?"
"Relax, Dr. Rogers, they're oatmeal cookies, Grams made them. I'm not to be trusted with the oven. Go on try one," Darcy says offering up the tin in her hand. “And it’s Darcy, Miss Lewis makes it sound like I’m about to get detention or something.
"They're shaped like bones, Darcy."
"So? You're a veterinarian."
"Noticed that didja?" he says, nodding to the framed certificate on the wall.
"...and a lot more...Look, I know I said I wouldn't say a word about the whole....wagging thing," Darcy says flopping her hand back and forth for emphasis. Steve rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest and he leans back against the counter.
Darcy takes a deep breath, fiddling with the lid of the cookie tin. "I, uh, forgot to say thank you."
"You don't need to thank me for anything. If I remember right you said you could have handled it. I believe you."
"No, not that," she says waving her free hand dismissively. Darcy takes a deep breath and plunges forward before she can think better of it. "Thank you for staying with me when you could have run off without it ending in a really awkward, and also kinda impressive morning after. God, just...I felt safer with Edgar... With you there," Darcy's eyes dart up to his and back down to the tin of cookies.
"How about we start over?" Steve asks crossing the space between them.
"You rescuing me from the park? Been there, done that, I really don't want the t-shirt."
"No. I mean...I dunno," Steve says, rubbing at the back of his neck. He sighs and glance to the side and down, before his eyes focus back on hers. "How about we go get coffee to go with your dog biscuits?"
”That would be awesome.”