Chapter 4
RODERICK
It’s been years since I was last in the library.
Not that I don’t read. I have an e-reader.
No need for shelves taking up space.
Besides, the library is a public hub, lots of humans in Pine Falls milling through it. And I make those people uncomfortable.
The ones who don’t know who I am see a huge, intimidating biker.
The ones who do know who I am see a huge, intimidating werewolf. One who leads an entire pack of werewolves.
Once, a woman accidentally bumped into me in the grocery store, and when she saw who she had collided with, she started sobbing out an apology before running away.
Having an air of power can help keep my pack safe, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy causing random women to go into hysterics simply by existing.
Not all women though.
Juliet Adair sits behind the circulation desk, clicking away on her computer. If she were a wolf, she would already know I was here. The minute I stepped through the front doors, her delicious scent teased me with every breath.
But the human is oblivious, which gives me a moment to study her.
Her bright hair is pulled back from her face today, showing round cheeks and full lips, the bottom one currently getting chewed on as she types.
My lip. Bite her lip.
Stop it, I command the inner beast.
Before I became pack leader, my wolf was more of an animalistic urge living somewhere deep in my gut.
But then my father died, and the power of pack leader transferred to me.
With the new strength came a more animated version of my other half.
The animal feels the need to be more vocal, likely because my decisions affect more than just me now.
And for some odd reason, my beast has fixated on the human librarian.
Probably because she smells delicious. The wolf is a scent-focused creature.
Deciding that silently staring at her isn’t helping things, I cross the room. Her head lifts when I’m about a foot from her desk. I fight the urge to scold her on the lack of awareness of her surroundings. Her obliviousness is a safety risk.
But we’re in Pine Falls, not hostile territory. Besides, Juliet is a human. Not my responsibility. I’m here for Thad.
“Hello!” Juliet smiles up at me with such a sweet curve to her lips that I’m temporarily thrown off-balance. “How can I help you, sir?”
Sir? Does she not remember my name? Does she not remember me?
It’s barely been a week since our run-in outside Sawdust and Supplies.
Then I meet her eyes and spy the silent, smoldering glare. The expression is a certain kind of threatening. The bottom half of her face says, Welcome to the library, while the top half says, Burn in hell, asshole.
What I find most intriguing though is her complete lack of fear. Not that I want to terrify the redhead. It’s only that I’m so used to fear that the absence is jarring.
Still, she’d likely be running away in panic if she knew what I really was.
“Ms. Adair.” Look at me, being cordial. Not an impossible feat. “We need to talk.”
“We are talking,” she points out, a smirk in her voice.
I fight the urge to grind my teeth. “About Thad.”
“What about Thad? Is he okay?” Her sugary hostility drops away at the mention of my pack mate, and the concern in her voice sets off a surprisingly uncomfortable curdling in my stomach.
Any other time, I might call the sensation jealousy.
But that can’t be right.
“He’s fine.” The answer comes out with more bite than I intended. Putting in effort to relax the annoyance from my words, I push on. “But he liked talking to you. He can’t with everyone. The language barrier.”
Juliet’s shoulders relax, and she nods, her mouth twisting. “People who can hear rarely bother to learn ASL.”
“Don’t stop talking to him.” The words are a gruff command instead of the request I meant it to be.
Her eyebrows pop up, and she leans back in her chair. “Of course I’ll keep talking to him. Thad is a good guy.”
There’s a subtle dig in there. An emphasis she puts on Thad’s name. I get that twisty feeling in my gut again.
My next words form without much thought. “Don’t pretend to be his friend.”
There’s a beat of silence between us, and the skin around her plump lips tightens.
“Why do you think I would be pretending?”
“I mean”—I cross my arms, knowing that the move makes my muscles bulge—“don’t get him to rely on you.”
Any potential truce between us burns away with the flames in her eyes.
“What is the matter with you?” she snaps. “You want me to talk to your buddy, but you don’t want me to be friends with him? You’re all over the place!”
“You can talk to him.,” I growl. “Don’t pretend to care. Not when you’re leaving.”
She’s not leaving.
“I’m not leaving!” she barks, as if hearing and agreeing with my wolf.
I grit my teeth. My point isn’t coming across, but I’m not about to let up. Not when I know I’m right and this’ll keep Thad safe.
“What is this convoluted idea you have of me? You know what?” She holds her hand up to cut off any reply I might make.
“Just stop. I don’t care. If you came in here to make sure I’d still be nice to Thad despite the fact that he’s friends with a—” Juliet halts in the middle of what promised to be a scathing tirade, eyes flicking around, as if realizing she’s still in her place of work.
Swallowing whatever insult she was about to spout, the librarian straightens her spine and smooths her hands over a creamy button-up shirt that fits along every one of her curves.
“What I mean to say is, you didn’t need to bother coming here to tell me this.
Thad has been kind to me, and I will be so in return.
I treat people the way they treat me.” This last bit gets delivered with a disdainful curl of her lip.
Juliet Adair despises me.
That’s the way it should be.
Even so, my wolf silently whimpers in distress. The wolf wants her smile and her kind words.
But those are all lies, and I won’t be fooled by them.
“Good,” I say.
“Good,” she replies.
“Fine,” I respond.
“There are people waiting behind you.” With raised eyebrows, she tilts her head.
Turning, I find she’s right. A human woman clutches the hand of a little boy and holds a large stack of children’s books in her other arm. She stares up at me with wide eyes, then swallows big.
“It’s no problem. Take your time.” There’s a quiver on her last word.
Roderick Jameson, striking fear into the hearts of mothers everywhere.
“He’s leaving. Now.”
The authority in the librarian’s voice should set my instincts on edge. As the leader of the Pine Falls pack, I take orders from no one. Especially not humans.
But instead of tensing, my muscles tingle with excitement.
Wrestle with her, my wolf urges.
I’m not doing that, I think back.
Without a word, I stalk from the library, likely giving up a good portion of my dignity with the retreat. But I need space to clear the voices in my head.
One voice in particular.
And maybe if growled words were all I had to ignore, I could manage it.
But the wolf sends me images too. Fantasies.
Ones where I reach out a clawed finger to slice the buttons off her blouse and find what she’s hiding underneath.
Ones where I pull her into my lap and bring on that flush in her cheeks for reasons other than anger.
Ones where she says my name in her sweet voice and drags her hands over my body and covers my bedding with her lemon-paper scent.
The ideas leave me horny as fuck, and I reach down to adjust the crotch of my jeans.
Clearly, my wolf wants a mate.
I can’t deny that anymore. As I mount my bike, a solution occurs to me.
My wolf insists I take a mate, but there’s no reason it should be the librarian.
The beast will forget all about her when I give him someone better to focus on.
What I really need is a woman in the pack. A wolf who’s grown up in Pine Falls. A woman who will understand the responsibilities of being the mate of the pack leader, as well as possesses a solid connection to the community.
As I rev my bike to life, I begin to craft a mental list of all the single female wolves of a reasonable age. Any of them will make a better mate than a human outsider. My wolf just needs to be redirected.
Everything will go to plan, and soon, Juliet Adair will be nothing more than a vague memory.