Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Emergency meetings, coffee catastrophes, and the alpha who wasn’t
Gideon
I wiped down the bar with steady strokes, gaze moving over the room.
I’d known the first time I walked into this building that it was where I was meant to be.
The exposed dark wood beams in the ceiling and the big open fireplace gave it an old-world feel that I loved.
Lantern-style pendants hung from the old beams, giving my guests a sense of privacy while giving off enough light for me to see everyone here.
Benny was hunched at his usual corner table, muttering to the dog at his feet about matted fur and neglectful owners.
Across the room, Avery O’Neill sat with her head bent over that same battered notebook she always carried, pen tapping in an anxious rhythm no one else would dare interrupt.
Rumor was she was writing a book, but no one knew for sure.
She refused to talk about it, and if anyone got near, she would hide her work speedy-quick.
It was quiet enough for now, but I was still on guard, as always.
Made it easier to see trouble before it started.
Not that we had trouble very often in The Den, and when we did, it didn’t last long.
All it took was one growl from me, and even the scariest of the bunch—and some of them were pretty scary—stopped what they were doing.
Not that I had any authority around here.
I didn’t. I couldn’t be that for them, no matter how much I wanted to be.
I let out a wry chuckle at the thought. The alpha who wasn’t.
Sounded like the title of one of those tragic romance novels Azar was always trying to convince me to read, and yeah, I got how ludicrous that was—a demon loving romance novels.
But this was Ravenstone, and very little was normal here, and this wasn’t a fiction novel—it was my life.
I let out a slow breath and shook my head to clear it.
It didn’t do me any good to stand around and feel sorry for myself.
This was my life, and it wasn’t a bad one, even if it wasn’t the one I’d wanted.
True, I didn’t have a pack in the traditional sense, but I had friends in Ravenstone, and people depended on me.
The door pushed open, and to my relief, Azar came in. He would pull me out of this mood. It wasn’t in his nature to sit around and let someone wallow. Weird, I know. Did you catch the part a minute ago about him being a demon? You’d think he’d feed off my misery, but not Azar.
“Hello, my friend,” he called out as he crossed the pub to his normal stool.
“Hey, Az. What do you want to drink tonight?”
Not that there were many choices. I didn’t serve fancy cocktails here. No sugared rims or umbrellas. Just local ale drawn dark and foamy, whiskey for those who liked something with more punch, and a small selection of wines from the winery over the mountain.
“Just a nice glass of red tonight. We have our meeting here in a little bit, and I want to be sharp. I’m worried about Brooke. I mean, Tulip. Did you hear that she finally chose her new name?”
“I hadn’t heard, but good for her. Now, why are you worried about her?”
“Things didn’t work out with her and Winston. She’s struggling with self-worth something awful. She reeks of self-recrimination.”
I nodded. “That I had heard about. I hate that for her, but that’s what the support group is for. We’ll get her through it.”
A door slammed hard upstairs, so someone was up. It could’ve been any of the four current residents, so I inhaled deeply and smiled. “It’s Perry. Darned bigfoot is still learning his strength.”
Perry had come out of the woods and into town because he loved to cook and wanted to make delicious food for other creatures.
Something you can’t really do if you live out in the forest alone, but his super-shy nature was proving hard for him to overcome, as was getting used to living in an actual building with other people.
“He needs to start coming to our support group,” Az insisted.
“I agree, but we can’t force him. He’ll come when he’s ready.”
Perry stomped down the stairs—not angrily, just forcefully, because that was the way he did everything—and stopped at the bottom when he saw us sitting there. He lifted a hand in greeting, but then he acted like he wasn’t sure if he should keep walking or come over.
“Hey, Perry. Headed to work?” I asked, like I couldn’t tell that by the shirt he wore that said Hearth and Griddle, but I wasn’t sure what else to say to the big guy.
Our gazes met, and he nodded before glancing away. I noticed he avoided looking at Az, probably because he knew what was coming, and sure enough, our local demon had no idea when to let things go.
“That’s too bad. The support group meets today, and we’d have loved to have you come.”
Perry closed his eyes and let out a resigned sigh. My guess was that at this point, he was realizing Az wouldn’t stop until he agreed to go.
“I have to work. I’ll talk to Denise and see if I can get next week off.”
“I can call her if you need me to. She’s a good person even if she is human, so I can’t imagine it would be a problem.”
Having a bigfoot shifter in town was new to all of us, and we were still figuring out what Perry needed, but one thing we knew for sure was that he was way too shy to ask Denise for a day off, which was probably why Azar felt the need to offer to handle it for him.
“No, really, I’ll ask her.”
“But if—”
I released a low growl from deep in my chest, and Az stopped talking.
Before moving here to Ravenstone, I hadn’t realized that my alpha power, as faulty as it was, would have such a profound effect on even non-shifters. It could shut a demon up with just a growl, and yet it still couldn’t give me the one thing I longed for all the way to the depths of my soul.
My wolf whimpered and paced in my mind the way it always did when I let myself get in a mood like this. It’s okay. I sent the thought in an attempt to settle him. We’re fine the way we are, and there’s nothing for you to be agitated about.
Perry gave me an appreciative look, then glanced at Az. “I’ll try. I promise.”
We watched him leave, and as soon as he was gone, Az sighed. “I wasn’t trying to be pushy. I was trying to help.”
“Perry will figure things out on his own time, just like you did.” Azar and I had been friends for years, and the confident, charming demon who sat across from me was a far cry from the hot mess that had arrived in Ravenstone way back then.
“I know, but things are different now. I had to figure things out on my own. Perry doesn’t have to.”
“True, but maybe he needs to.”
Azar took a drink of his wine and sulked. He knew I was right, but that didn’t make him any happier about it.
While we were talking, Sable came out of the back carrying a tray of food.
She headed straight for Avery’s table. Avery quickly flipped her notebook over and frowned at Sable, who’d definitely tried to sneak a peek at what she was writing.
I did my best to ignore them. Shifter hearing made it hard not to eavesdrop, which came in handy for spotting trouble but was a pain in the ass when you were trying to pretend you had no idea half the town had placed bets on what the poor hedge witch was always writing about in their notebook.
My cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw Elwood’s name on the screen, so I pressed answer. “Hey, Elwood, what’s up?”
I liked my next-door neighbor a lot. He was a good guy, and I considered him a friend, but he was running a business over there, same as me, so I knew he had a reason to call.
We saved our chats for lazy days out on the pond fishing, which, now that I thought about it, we were due for a day of fishing.
Sure enough, Elwood didn’t waste any time. Instead, he launched right into the reason for the call.
“Leon has called an emergency meeting to discuss the mess next door. He wants to hold it here because of the water problems at the library, so we’ll have to postpone our support group meeting.”
“I didn’t hear anything about an emergency meeting.”
“He wanted to make sure we could meet here first. He’ll be contacting everyone shortly. I told him to give me a few minutes to notify everyone in our group.”
I glanced over at Az. “You haven’t told Azar yet, though?”
“No. I told Tulip—that’s Brooke’s new name, by the way, if you hadn’t heard.
I left a message with Mellgren’s assistant, Sandy, and Hazel.
I’ll find Eugene and let him know. It’s mid-afternoon, so he’s probably napping under the fridge with George.
But I was saving Azar for last. He isn’t going to be thrilled. ”
“Nope, he sure isn’t, but he’s here, so I’ll let him know.”
“Thanks, Gideon. I’ll see you tonight.”
I slipped my phone back in my pocket and looked up to find Azar staring at me. “What was that?” he asked.
“Leon’s called an emergency meeting about the festival tonight, but the library is closed, so he needs to use the shop.”
“But tonight’s our meeting night.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make sense for us to hold both meetings. Most of the support group’s members will need to be at this other meeting instead.”
“Well, Leon should’ve scheduled it for a different day. He isn’t in charge around here. You are.”
“I most certainly am not,” I lied, even though we both knew it. “Leon is chair of the festival committee, so he’s in charge.”
“Well, I don’t like it. I told you Tulip needs our support this week.”
“She’ll be fine until next week. We’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Yeah, well, if she drags Winston out into the pond and drowns his sorry vampire ass, don’t blame me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tulip isn’t going to drown anyone in the pond.”
“Are you sure?” Azar lifted one eyebrow.
“Ninety-five percent sure.” I paused and thought about it. “Okay, ninety.”
A few minutes later, all the phones in the pub pinged with notifications.
“That must be Leon.” Azar pulled out his phone and looked, and so did I.
Leon: RE: Emergency festival meeting.
Leon: This festival is going to be ruined if we don’t take action immediately. We’ve worked too hard on this event to allow this ill-timed construction project to ruin it. I won’t stand for it.
Leon: Join me in the meeting room at The Mystic Menagerie so we can plan an appropriate course of action to put an end to this disaster.
Benny lifted his head from reading the message and glanced around the room. “What’s Leon going on about? What disaster?”
“Where have you been, Benny?” Avery asked.
“Under a rock? The construction right over there in the Nook.” She pointed down the street to the left.
“That ugly dumpster is an eyesore. Not to mention the fact that the rumor is Jim Walton hasn’t paid his workers this week because Winston hasn’t paid Jim. It’s a hot mess.”
“It’s a mess I’m glad I’m not involved in. I’m not participating this time. You all have fun. I’m going to take Rune with me and go home.”
Avery stood. “I guess I’ll head on over there and talk to Elwood until the meeting starts. Are you two coming?”
“I have a few things I need to do here first,” I said.
Azar pushed off the stool and let out another sigh. “I’ll walk over with you, Avery.”
I’d already planned for Sable and my head cook, Alvin, to handle things while I was at the support group meeting, so I took a minute to check in with them and make sure they were ready for me to leave.
“No problem, boss. We got this.” Sable grinned. She was more than capable of running the whole pub if she needed to. I let them both take a short break since it would be hard for them when I was gone.
Then I wiped my hands on the bar towel one last time and sighed.
No point putting it off any longer. If Leon was determined to hijack the support group meeting for his festival drama, I needed to at least be there to keep the peace.
Besides, I didn’t think Leon was entirely wrong.
Overreacting a bit? Possibly, but not wrong.
The late-afternoon sun glared in my eyes as I stepped outside.
Ravenstone was still buzzing—tourists wandering with dripping cones, kids racing up the sidewalks, that damned dumpster beside Elwood’s shop catching the light like an insult.
I understood there needed to be a place to put the rubbish, but it had already been sitting there for way too long.
I was distracted by my thoughts, and I didn’t see him until he was right there.
“Watch it!” I barked, too late.
He collided with me at full tilt—two overstuffed brown bakery bags in one hand, a tray of coffee cups in the other.
The cups exploded between us with a wet, scalding splat.
Hot coffee drenched my shirt.
“Shit—!” he yelped, stumbling back. The bags went flying. A croissant bounced off my boot.
He froze. Wide hazel eyes. Glasses askew. A pretty mouth hanging open in horror.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh my God, I am so sorry—”
I peeled my shirt off my chest with two fingers, grimacing. “Hot,” I said dryly.
“Holy—okay—hold on!” He fumbled in his pocket, yanked out a crumpled napkin, lunged at me, and I stepped back.
“Don’t,” I warned.
He stopped mid-reach. “Oh my God. I scalded you. I’m so sorry. I was—I wasn’t looking. I—shit.”
He looked ready to bolt.
I sighed and scrubbed a hand down my face. “It’s fine. Accidents happen. It’ll heal in no time.”
He visibly deflated, letting out a shaky laugh. “You sure? Because you’re, uh… drenched.”
“I noticed. I’ll just run upstairs and change.” I motioned with my thumb toward the door of the pub.
“Oh, you live here. You must be Gideon Blackwood.”
“I am.”
He flushed. “My grandfather, umm, Elwood, told me about you. I was… I was bringing him coffee. And—um…” He glanced at the bakery bags in the street. “Snacks. For the meeting. Well, they were snacks. Now they’re roadkill.”
I felt my mouth twitch as who he was clicked for me. Elwood’s grandson. The Declan I’d heard so much about.
“Declan, huh?” I asked.
“That would be me.” He gave a sheepish grin. “Declan Hawthorne. World’s worst delivery boy. I should come with a warning label.”
Cute.
“I’ll, uh…” He bent to grab the bakery bags.
One was ripped open, the other completely squashed.
He held them up like trophies. One enterprising cookie shifted and poked through the rip where it promptly plummeted back to the sidewalk.
A raven swooped down and grabbed it before Declan could retrieve it.
We watched the bird leave with its prize.
“What was I saying again? Oh, right. I’ll, um, go back to the bakery. ”
“You do that. I’ll go change, and then I’ll see you over there.”