I did warn you

I can't move my fingers, arms or legs. I'm stuck laying here. Whatever has frozen my body did not affect my eyes, however. Because I can move my eyes enough to see the stranger walking towards me with an amused look on his face. 

Why is this my life now?

I didn't get kidnapper vibes from this man before, so now I'm second guessing everything I had thought about him.

He crouches down so he is closer to me and peers into my face. "I did warn you," he said with a click of his tongue. 

He said I shouldn't do it, not that I'd lose control of my body if I did. Some warning! 

If I could move my mouth, he would hear all of the colorful curses I'm calling him in my head right now. 

My inner musings pause as he brushes some of my hair from my face. When his skin touches mine, bursts of electricity fire every nerve ending along the path of his faint brush of skin. It's a certain kind of sweet torture to feel everything so intensely but not being able to move. 

He then picks me up, and it wouldn't have mattered if I could move, because I would have melted into his arms as easily as I did now. His touch feels amazing and I don't want to leave his hold. 

My eyesight travels along the black swirls from tattoos that spread along his collarbone and up the strong muscles of his neck. I'm cursing him internally again, but this time it's because I can't move my arms around his neck and touch him where I want to. This feels so good and although I'm conflicted, I want more. I want to trace his tattoos with my fingers and explore the ones under his clothes that I can't yet see.

He carries me farther back into the cave, and with a wave of his hand, a table appears and he places me gently on top of it. I thought only Sage's had magic...

"I needed to bring you here," he says while leaning over to look me in the eyes. In the low light that has made its way to the back of the cave from outside, his eyes look pitch black. There's a profound well of emotions in his eyes calling to me, and my heart pulses with sympathy for the deep loneliness I can feel in the darkness inside him.

"Something is different about you. Something doesn't feel right," he continues while I stare at him.

With a look of concentration, he runs his hands over my body without touching me. He is bent over so his long, dark brown hair fans over his face, hiding his strong jawline and cheeks from view. He takes his time, starting with my right shoulder and perusing down my arm to my stomach and down my thigh before starting on my other side. 

Hovering over my chest, he pauses his gestures. "Ah, found you." A manic grin splits his handsome face. "Bravo, ali nedovoljno dobro," he mutters to himself, not seeming to mind if I can understand him. 

He pulls my shirt down and exposes the valley between my breasts, but I can't do anything about it so I just watch his rapt expression. 

He is still looking at me as though I am a mystery he needs to unravel, so I am slightly comforted by the fact that this feels more clinical than sexual at the moment.

He taps his finger on my exposed skin, transfixed in his thoughts before sharing what's on his mind. "How did you get there…or better yet, who put you there? I wonder…" he trails off, grabbing my right hand. He frowns at the faint cut on my thumb for a second before reopening it with his canines.

It still amazes me to see someone have enough control over their werewolf form and shifting abilities to be able to make their teeth grow at will. I note that he is able to make his canines appear and dissappear again much faster than Ryker was able to.

My blood wells at my thumb and he runs his tongue over the seam of the cut, tasting my blood for a moment. 

"Wolfsbane," he says with a curl of his upper lip. At this point, everything he is saying is lost on me. Maybe he's a little cuckoo, but atleast he's pretty.

With a snap of his fingers, my body becomes alive and under my control once more. I gasp for breath, my body arching off of the table top below me. My relief is short-lived when I look back to the intimidating savage of a man above me.

"Explain," he growls at me.

He leans forward again and some of his hair falls towards my face. I reach up to touch it, but he stops my wrist in a tight grip. His look darkens and I gulp trying to understand what he wants.

"Why do you have wolfsbane inside of you?" He's still not making any sense.

"What are you talking about? What is wolfsbane?" I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the table so I can look at him at eye level. He still towers over me, but I suppose it's better. "Wait...you could have released me from whatever the hell that magic was the whole time?" I glare at him, the accusation hanging between us.

"You didn't seem like the type to accept my help without a fight, so it seemed easier." He replies, shooting me an infuriating grin. My anger is swelling within me, making me feel hot in a different way than before. Between wanting him and then being pissed at him, I'm having emotional whiplash.

"Better yet - how do you have magic? I didn't know werewolves had magic."

"They don't, shifters contain magic but do not possess magic they can wield like another species might." He explains matter of factly, but ignoring the first part of the question.

"But you -" He places a finger on my lips, instantly quieting me.

"Layla, my dear. That's two questions I have answered and you still haven't answered mine. if you need a reminder, I asked why is there wolfsbane in your system?" His look turns serious again, and I look over his features trying to understand what he's asking.

"My syst-" I start to ask, but when his look darkens even more I roll my eyes and try again. "I don't know. I don't even know what wolfsbane is."

I straighten my spine when he steps in between my legs and looks back and forth between my eyes for a moment after hearing the sincerity in my voice. I look him in the eyes as well, seeing a myriad of emotions with unfathomable depths. His eyes look older than the rest of him, as though he has seen much more than any normal man.

"All you need to know is that it is harmful to werewolfs, the rest is a story for another time. That leaves us with the more important question...who is trying to weaken you with wolfsbane?"

"Me?" I scoff. That doesn't make any sense. I don't see why anyone would want to harm me, I don't have any enemies. I'm a nobody, a stranger, I'm hardly a werewolf as it is. Wait...

"Is that why I can't shift?" My eyes are wide, hoping we already found the answer to my problem. I can see the answer in his eyes and my jaw drops with the revelation. I stare at him with my mouth open like this for longer than I'd like to admit.

"Yes, but that's not all. You also have a sigil here," he taps the area on my chest that he was inspecting earlier. "That's also disrupting your connection to you wolf. But to have an enemy sink so low as to use wolfsbane on you... Perhaps you're not as sweet as I thought you were." He leans in, running his nose along my jaw before pulling back. "Maybe you're not as sweet as you smell, either."