Sugar & Milk, Honey & Blood

1-

“If you come any closer, I might just eat you up.”

It’s half-wariness, half-curiosity that ejects the words from his lips. It’s an unspoken rule, that the humans from the nearby village avoid the wolves’ strip of the forest, and vice versa. He tells Haytham to stay away from them, and is grateful that his brother is ornery and introverted enough to avoid the crowded roads in the first place. 

Malik has only ever really seen humans from a distance, bumbling along the forest path, dressed in colorful clothing. Rarely straying from that path, lest they be spirited away by fae or torn apart by wolves.

2-

The girl before him places herself in front of the jaws of a beast so easily, one hand on his cheek and the other braced against the ground. The grass stains the starchy pure-white of her apron.

Her warm eyes, rich like soil from the earth, rake over the smooth musculature of his arms, to the snowy-white ears atop his head and the sharp fangs protruding from his mouth. 

She should be shaking in fear.

Instead, her gaze returns to the spot right above her hand, and the bright-red blood oozing from the wound. She purses her lips.

“You’re hurt,” she says, and the decision is made.

3-

Due to a whim, he tells himself, he decides the human in the crimson-red hood is his. 

It’s not because of the gentle touch as she disinfected his injury with a poultice, using the herbs she spent all afternoon collecting.

Nor is it the soft locks of hair that tumble from her hood as it becomes dislodged, her refusal of payment adamant as she shakes her head. (“The purpose of these herbs is healing. It doesn’t matter if it’s for a human or a wolf.”)

And it’s definitely, definitely not the radiant smile that blossoms across her face like a sunflower when he thanks her.

4-

Oh, who is he kidding?

“Good morning,” he says, nuzzling the crook of her neck as he embraces her from behind. Ambra makes a surprised squeak, fumbling with the jar in her hands. “Something smells delicious,” he whispers into her ear, admiring how quickly her skin flushes.

She relaxes after she realizes who it is, turning her head to face him. “Malik, you shouldn’t surprise me like that. I could have dropped this and gotten glass everywhere.”

As if he’d let that happen. 

Instead, he says: “Sorry. I just like seeing you flustered.”

This sets off another chain reaction of blushing.

Any day that he gets to see Ambra is a good one, Malik thinks.