Chapter 12
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH
I like this wolf.
I don’t like that one.
— gus
After my introduction, Riordan brings me back to Max’s personal side of the cabin.
Before, I thought he was doing his duty as the Beta.
Now? It makes a lot more sense that he’s Max’s brother, even if I don’t quite understand why the older brother is content to take a backseat, letting his younger brother rule the pack.
He doesn’t seem surprised at all when I mention that Max said I would be using the spare bedroom in the Alpha cabin.
He grabs the two bags that I left abandoned in the front room, showing me to a very pristine, slightly musty room that has probably never seen a guest. It’s clean, but clearly unused, and Riordan tells me to make myself at home.
Once the pack meeting is over, Max will be right back to talk to me.
He’s right. I have enough time to unpack our few belongings, check out the bathroom attached to my room, and give Gus some of the cat kibble I keep on hand for a quick meal.
My stomach is growling. I ignore it. It’s well past the time I usually have my dinner, and when I swear I smell food drifting in through the open door, I’m sure I’m imagining it.
I’m not.
“Killer? You dead?”
I snort to myself, a sliver of relief flashing through me when I recognize Max’s voice.
In a cabin that radiates Max everywhere, drenched in his intoxicating scent, it’s hard for me to track him.
He’s here now, though, and when me and Gus join him in the living room only to find that the source of the delicious food is coming from a stuffed bag in his hand, I can’t help myself.
“Oh, Max. I love you.”
His eyebrows shoot so high, they nearly disappear in his hairline.
I play back my words and nearly drop from embarrassment.
Waving my hands, I say, “No. Not like that. I just… Food. You have food.”
“I usually cook, but things have been… well, hectic is a nice way to put it. I didn’t think it was safe to order out when we have a poisoner in town, but I called my mother.
She still likes to take care of her pups no matter how grown we are.
I already gave Riordan his plate. If you don’t mind that I’m feeding you…
or Vera Lobo is… I’d like to share a meal with you, Honey. ”
How can I say no?
He’s not propositioning me. Unlike me, Max has totally been able to forget our kiss. He’s just doing his duty. He’s the sheriff… he’s the Alpha. He’s looking out for me, and part of that is making sure that I don’t starve on his watch.
True, it’s hard to convince myself of that when he doles out perfectly seared steak, buttery mashed potatoes, steamed carrots, and fresh-baked rolls onto a plate for each of us.
He has a cozy four-seater table in his kitchen.
Max takes one seat. From the position where he places my plate, he wants me sitting opposite him.
Gus—unwilling to be left out again—plops himself in the middle of the table, glancing between Max and me.
However, as soon as he starts asking me questions in between eating his meal, I start to get suspicious.
Talking about the bakery is one thing, asking me about Virginia and Roxy is another, but then he turns the topic to the prey circle meeting I attended and warning bells start to go off in my head.
I take a bite of my delicious steak, chew, then poise my fork over my potatoes. “Is this an interrogation, sheriff?”
“Maybe I just want to get to know my new houseguest better.”
“You can tell me. Afraid you invited a serial killer under your roof?”
A small grin turns his rugged face from handsome to damn near irresistible. “I’m an Alpha. I’m not afraid of anything.”
I don’t know what it was that he said, or how Gus even understood him enough to be offended, but my little buddy suddenly launches himself at Max.
You’d think an Alpha would be able to stop him in time.
Nope. Suddenly, Gus is sinking his teeth into the first knuckle on the pointer finger on Max’s left hand.
I jump up from my seat, fork clattering against my plate. “Gus!”
“I stand corrected,” Max says, chuckling softly as he gently disengages Gus’s jaw from around his finger. It’s still attached, thank goodness, even if he’s bleeding. “Opossums c can be very terrifying. Thank you for reminding me that, Gus.”
Gus chitters, then scampers back to his earlier position—and Max lets him.
I lose a little more of my heart to Max Lobo then and there.
Some predators would react on instinct. A prey animal challenging them? Attacking them? Biting them? They would’ve picked Gus up, shook him a couple of times, and that would be the end of my beloved sidekick. He already gave Gus a pass in the den. This might be taking it too far.
But Max… his knuckle surprisingly still bleeding as Gus releases him, he snuck a piece of carrot off his plate, giving it to the opossum.
And I have to admit that I don’t have that much more left to give before the curious sheriff has it all.
Hours later, I’m lying in my borrowed bed, in the middle of a dream that involves Max, me, and a whole lot of chocolate chip cookie dough.
“Oh, Max...” I mumble. In my dreams I don’t have to pretend that I’m not addicted to him. “You taste so good…”
Something touches my face.
I swipe at it, still half asleep. I don’t want to leave my dream.
There it is again. Chilly and damp and—
I slap my cheek, turning away, hoping that I can cling to sleep.
Nope. Something tickles me now and, yup, that’s it for me.
I open my eyes and look straight into a beady pair and a twitching pink nose. The whiskers on the left side of his snout brushing up against my cheek, stealing the last of my dream away.
Not Max.
Gus.
I jerk back, landing hard on the mattress. So hard, in fact, that I sent my poor sidekick flying. He goes flying, a few inches into the air, landing on his side, all four legs kicking out as he tries to right himself.
“Gus? Oh my goodness, Gus. You know better than to get so close to my face when I’m sleeping.”
I instinctively trust Gus. My inner opossum would never see him as a threat. If he spooks me while I’m fast asleep, I won’t wake up and immediately faint. I’ll react instead, which is exactly what happened.
I reach for my bewildered opossum. He clicks his teeth together, dashing away from me.
Frowning, I murmur his name.
He goes to the foot of the bed where he rears back on his hind legs, sitting up. His tail curls around his back paws. Chittering wildly, he lifts one of his right paws, undeniably gesturing at the window.
My head turns, searching for what he wants to show me—and I freeze.
Someone is looking at me. It’s a silhouette against the glass, but the fierce, glowing gold eyes tell me that it’s a wolf shifter in his skin peering at me while I slept.
I scream. As loud as I possibly can, to wake up the nearby pack, to scare off the peeping tom, I scream.
Later, I’ll wonder why that was my reaction.
Why, when faced with a pair of wolfish eyes staring through the glass at me, I didn’t immediately keel over like I always used to.
That’s been what I do my whole life. Not tonight.
As though my inner beast knew that we had a predator to protect us while we stay conscious, I scream—and barely ten seconds later, the door swings in as Max storms through it.
He went to bed in a pair of sleep pants. I get my first look at his sculpted chest, the way sleep mussed his soft hair, and how there’s a slight crease in his cheek from a wrinkle in his pillowcase.
Max looks exactly like what he is: a male who got ripped out of sleep. At the same time, there’s something in the way his body is hunched slightly, drawing my attention to his furless chest, his toned body, and the absolute dominance pouring off of him.
His eyes seem to gleam in the dark of the bedroom, a glowing orange that tells me that I’m looking at the Alpha in all his glory.
“What’s wrong, Honey?” he snarls, his fury for whatever—whoever—made me scream. “Why did you scream.”
I point at the window. “Wolf shifter. Peeking into the room. I saw him!”
Do I know that it’s a him? No, but the height and the… I don’t know… vibe I got makes me convinced that it was a male out there, and he wasn’t just being a perv because I’m a female.
Max obviously agrees. “I’ll got see if I can run him down. You two stay here.”
An Alpha can order members of his pack, expecting them to obey. A mate might make suggestions, but in an equal partnership, he should hope that his mate has a brain.
Poor Max. He’s stuck with Honey Morgan.
I point at Gus. “Stay here,” I tell him, then pause only long enough for the power of Max’s dominance to fade. Once I’m sure he’s outside of the cabin, searching for whoever was spying on me, I shut my door behind me to keep Gus in, then take off after him in my pajamas
They’re cute. A matching shirt and pants combo with red cherries all over the pink material, I’m thinking that I probably should’ve changed into something dark if I wanted to hide in the woods.
As it is, anyone seeing the blonde prey shifter running through the trees will know exactly who I am, whether I try to hide in the shadows or not.
I try to use my sniffer to scent him. Not happening. The entire Alpha cabin smells so strongly like Max, it’s impossible to pick up any other scent.
So I decide to go around the cabin to where my borrowed bedroom is. It has to be where Max would’ve started to search for whoever was out there, and if I’m probably being a dingdong, running toward the creep… I go anyway.
Nothing. There are footsteps standing directly in front of my window—and I wave at Gus through the glass so that he knows I’m okay—but I don’t see anyone.
I don’t see anyone.
I hear them.
A low, throaty howl rips through the night. For a second, I stiffen, but as though it was a song meant for my soul, I’m not afraid of the wolf singing it. I go running for him.