She was staring at him, like she was torn between running her ass off or standing there and screaming. Humans tended to do that, even to regular wolves. Royce wasn't afraid of a lot of animals because, well, he was a pretty damn powerful one. Humans had a fucking hard time trying to hurt him, much less kill him. A few had tried. Taken a couple shots at him. Missed, of course. There weren't many things that were faster than a werewolf.
And the things that were? You didn't want to be in a race with? You'd surely lose.
When she gave no sign of fear, he began to relax. Well, it wasn't like she was seeing him for the first time. She liked him, as young women tended to like animals. What he liked was that she wasn't staring at him like he was some cute adorable puppy that she wanted to cuddle and take home to put bows on (he'd kill himself before he let THAT happen). No, she looked at him as if she almost wasn't even worthy to be standing so near to him. Like he was some sort of gift.
That was respect in her eyes. Awe. If more humans viewed him like that, maybe they'd get along more. Weren't wolves supposed to be sacred? Sure, some werewolves were dangerous. But some were pretty nice. He was a prime example of this. And humans were the same. Some were nasty bastards and some, like this girl here, were cool.
He cocked his head, eyes locking onto her face as she came closer to him. What was she thinking, coming this close to him? He had heard that other human's orders. She was supposed to stay clear of him. And Rosemary (but that had to be a given). There was something about the guy that set Royce off. He felt like he could trust him but then again, like he couldn't. It was an odd feeling.
She started talking to him and he got a new feeling. Nervousness. In fact, he took a step back. A couple actually. But the rope tied around his neck made him stop. He could have torn it out of the ground and taken off right then and there but what about Rosemary? Royce wasn't about to leave her behind.
But this girl was talking about a bath! Like he was some mutt off the street! Um. No thanks. Royce turned his head to look around, hoping that he could find something to keep the girl from humiliating him by soap and water. Damnit. It looked like he was stuck.
Well. He could use a good scrub, he guessed. It was easy to keep his human form clean but his wolf one? Not so easy and to tell the truth, his own mess never bothered him. It had before. Royce had been meticulous about keeping his fur clean. He blamed Rosemary and her bath-free ways. If this girl thought he was dirty, just wait until she saw Rosemary. There was a layer of dirt that might as well be skin crusted under her fur.
He scrunched up his nose and looked back to the girl. To Charlie, the nice human. Fine. But I'm not going to like this. He took the couple steps forward and nudged her hand with his nose, as if in acceptance and ... ugh, submission to being given a bath.