CHLOE woke up feeling like she had been run over by a school bus. But she also woke up alone. She sat up on the cage’s matted floor and looked around. She was definitely alone. And the smell of her own heat was so thick in the air, it obscured anything else that might have been there before.

Maybe, she thought, it had all been a dream. Maybe she had gone into heat and gone crazy with arousal, conjuring up the Viking who was in actuality still locked in the clinic’s cage. But when she got to her feet she had plenty evidence of what had happened in the throbbing raw and used feeling between her legs.

And if that wasn’t enough to tip her off that last night had really happened, her wolf ears picked up the sound of someone moving around upstairs. With a sigh, she walked over to the pajamas she’d laid out the night before. She was momentarily frozen in place by guilt however, when she saw that this particular set was covered in white horses with orange manes. The Broncos pajamas had been a Christmas gift from Rafe’s father the year before, and she’d worn them every morning following a full moon since.

Where was Rafe now? It was only a matter time before he found out…

Chloe pushed those thoughts out of her head and pulled on the pajamas. She couldn’t think about that now. She was starving, her body felt like one huge sexualized nerve ending, and she had a Viking stomping around her house. She’d deal with the consequences of betraying her fiancé later. Right now she needed food.

She found the Viking standing stark naked in the kitchen, turning the knob on her stove back and forth, his face crinkled in confusion as the flames switched on and off.

As unhappy about this situation as she was, for a few seconds she became mesmerized by the sight of his rock-hard body, which didn’t look like it was carrying even an ounce of extra flesh on it.

But then she cleared her mind with a shake of her head and asked him telepathically, “What are you doing?”

“This flame doth appear with the turn of a dial. ‘Tis magic?” he asked, continuing to turn the flame on and off.

“First of all, please stop.” She came to stand beside him, but stopped just short of touching him, which she sensed would be dangerous in the state her body was in. “You are literally playing with fire. Second of all, no, it’s not magic.”

“Then how is such possible?”

“Well there’s gas and there’s this thing called a pilot light.” She struggled to come up with an explanation for how her gas stove worked, but realized she didn’t quite know herself. “It’s hard to explain, because the thing about now as opposed to your time is we have a lot of technology we use, but most people couldn’t even begin to tell you how it works.”

“So then this ‘technology’—this is how you call your magic? The kind of which my own aunt, who is a sorceress, might perform?”

“Sort of. But instead of sorceresses we have engineers. They understand how these things work, but nobody else does. The truth is we don’t really care as long as we can cook our food.”

“Things are much the same way in my own time. Most do not care to learn spells or perform rituals themselves, only benefit from them. Still, your engineer-sorceresses must be very powerful indeed if they are able to create dial-heat and also invisible heat for your home.”

“Yes, I suppose they are,” she said. “But speaking of magic, how is it we can suddenly understand each other? When did you start speaking English?”

He gave her a confused look. “I would ask the same of you. I thought you were speaking Norse to me. A strange version of it, yea, but a Norse which can be understood by my ears.”

“No,” she said. “I’m definitely not speaking Norse. And I guess that means you’re not speaking English.”

“Nay. It would seem our being fated mates would serve as a translator.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re saying our ability to use telepathy is allowing us to talk back and forth despite our language barrier.”

“Telepathy—this be Greek for talk of the mind’s eye, yea?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Then yea, that be my conclusion.” He patted the stove, as if that subject were thoroughly closed. “Now, you may prepare us a feast so we may break our fast before we mate again.”

“Um, excuse me?” she said.

He crooked his head to the side and his eyes hooded. “I can smell the strength of your arousal. You would have me again, and I would have you.”

“Yeah, but…” Her throat went dry and her cheeks heated with embarrassment. Did he have to point out he could smell her?

“Are you not trained in the woman’s arts?” he asked. “Have your engineers come up with…” He paused to remember the word. “…‘technology’ by which food may be prepared for you?”

And that was how Chloe Adams, the woman behind one of the most popular do-it-yourself blogs in the United States, ended up fixing the werewolf who had crossed time and space to get to her a year-old frozen dinner as his first meal in her home.

Fenris was fascinated by the “technology magic” of the microwave and that it “emitted no heat outside of its cage.”

But he was confused by the meal itself. “It tastes good, but it does ring false on tongue,” he said, frowning.

Chloe, who was at the stove, fixing herself an egg scramble and doggedly ignoring the fact that she could feel her heat dripping into panties, answered, “That’s the preservatives you’re tasting, all the chemicals they use to make the food keep for a long time. But don’t worry.”

She pushed the egg scramble onto a plate, which she set in front of him. “You’ll like this better. It’s made with all organic ingredients.”

He shifted his fork away from the frozen dinner and dug into the scramble. After the first bite, he nodded, grinning as he chewed. “I should not have accused you of being untrained in the woman’s arts. Your skill does please my stomach greatly.”

Chloe glowed a bit under the compliment. “Thanks.”

He scooted back in his chair and patted his lap. “I would have you share this meal with me.”

Even after what they’d done last night, Chloe could not help but feel awkward with this request. Yes, they were mated now, but that didn’t eclipse the fact that she still barely knew him, and she was still riddled with guilt about Rafe...

“Actually, I can make another one for myself. Scrambles are really easy. Too easy, really. I usually put in more effort than this, especially with guests. I’m a little embarrassed, actually—”

She cut off mid-ramble when his hand snaked around her wrist.

“I would have us share,” he repeated.

Before she could deny his request a second time, she found herself tumbling down into his lap, her back landing against his hard chest, her butt firmly nestled into his erection.

He ate half of the scramble with his arm anchored around her waist, then he handed her the fork and watched her finish off the rest in a silence that almost seemed to crackle with sexual tension. It was all she could do to keep herself still on his lap as she finished their shared breakfast.

“Tell me,” he said after she took her last bite. “Why have you so much looking glass on your cooking room wall?”

It took her a moment to realize he was talking about the kitchen wall, which was lined in mirrored tile. “Oh, um, well, it’s kind of hard to explain. What you call the woman’s arts—that’s kind of what I do for a living.”

“A living?” he asked, confusion in his voice.

“That’s my job. Do you know job?”

“Yea, I see, you cook for others. As a servant.”

“Yes, but not really for others, and definitely not as a servant. Basically, I make up recipes and crafts then I show other people how to do them. For example, this bender chair we’re sitting in. I made that out of peachleaf willow, mainly for the purpose of showing other people how to make the same thing.”

“You are a tutor then? Like the man who did translate my tongue for you before.”

“Um, sort of. It’s more like what I guess you’d call theater. I perform cooking and crafting in front of other people and they watch me do it. And I use the mirror to make sure what I’m doing looks correct.”

“The woman’s arts are considered entertainment in this time?”

“Yeah. Cooking and making things yourself are more like hobbies and less like needed skills these days.”

“I am intrigued by your job,” he informed her. “And we shall speak more of it, but for now I think we must leave this topic. Your need has grown too great for further conversation.”

She wanted to deny his assessment of her need, except it was one hundred percent accurate. She was almost pitifully grateful when his hands found the front of her pajama top and ripped it open, sending the buttons flying across the room.

Her pajama bottoms came off next, followed by her panties, which fully unleashed the smell of her extreme arousal into the air and sent them both into a frenzy.

This wasn’t anything like the candlelit affair she’d imagined when Rafe first proposed. No, in this reality, the Viking yanked her braid to arch her head back and growled in her ear. “Watch me claim you in your wall of looking glass.”

And she couldn’t help but do just that, watching the contrast of their skin, his pale, hers dark, as he lifted her up in his lap and pushed into her wet heat. He then cupped both her breasts in his large hands and leaned back in the chair with her, before proceeding to move into her from behind, his thrusts long and deep.

To have him inside her like this felt like nothing short of heaven to Chloe. The wolf knot at the base of his penis once again found its way to the special erogenous zone inside her pussy and lodged against it, again and again, making her moan with every stimulating stroke. But there was something missing, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, until one of his hands descended from her breast, and he put two of his large fingers on the bundle of nerves at the front of her entrance.”

“Oh!” She bucked against him, her body unconsciously attempting to unseat itself, even as her mind called out for more. The only thing that kept her from completely losing it on top of him was the Viking’s strong hand cupping her in front and keeping her firmly pinned to his cock. “What are you doing? I’ve never felt anything so…”

He provided no answer to her question, merely drank in the sight of them in the mirror together as he relentlessly plundered her depths. “Watch us together, beauty. See how I claim you.”

And for a moment, she, too, became enthralled by the erotic sight of herself spread out so wantonly on the Viking’s lap, her back arched in pleasure, a look of sex-crazed abandon on her face, as each stroke sent her closer to the edge. . .

Before she finally fell over it with a long scream, and she had to close her eyes as the climax overtook her. Perhaps the sight of her coming so hard in the mirror sent him over the edge as well. He soon yelled out his own pleasure, and she felt the rush of his seed inside of her.

His forehead fell against her back. “You are my undoing, beauty.”

As if in answer, she felt the powerful clenching of her own vagina around his wolf’s knot as it continued to hungrily milk his dick.

His hands once again found her breasts. “Upon the next mating, I must put a mind to comfort. I cannot allow you to make me so mad with lust that we end up locked together in a chair.”

Chloe groaned in agreement. “Seriously, how are we going to get out of sitting like this for the next hour?”

Somehow they figured it out, negotiating themselves onto the kitchen’s braided area rug before all but passing out again. The mating frenzy, she was beginning to discover, took a lot out of both of its occupants.