Chapter 12 Definitely Not A Date
DEFINITELY NOT A DATE
MICHAEL
The pack house was quieter than I expected when I let myself in through the side door.
I'd been at the old house since dawn, sanding drywall until my arms screamed and my lungs were coated in white dust. Around noon, my body had staged a rebellion.
Hands cramping, back aching, eyes burning from particles I probably should have worn a mask to avoid.
Anna would have lectured me about proper safety equipment. She'd been right about most things.
So I'd showered, changed into clothes that didn't make me look like a ghost, and driven to the pack house without really thinking about why.
Okay. That was a lie. I knew exactly why.
The main floor was empty, but I could hear movement upstairs. Papers shuffling. The occasional grumble that sounded less like words and more like a large predator expressing displeasure with the universe.
I followed the sounds to Daniel's office.
He sat behind an oak desk that looked older than the town, surrounded by stacks of paperwork that would have given my accountant nightmares.
His reading glasses were perched on his nose, silver frames that softened the hard lines of his face.
A pen was clenched between his teeth like he was considering eating it out of spite.
He hadn't noticed me yet.
I leaned against the doorframe and just..
. watched. The afternoon light caught the silver threading through his dark hair.
His flannel sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms that I absolutely did not spend too much time looking at.
There was a furrow between his brows deep enough to plant seeds in.
“You know,” I said, “if you glare at that paper any harder, it might actually catch fire.”
Daniel's head snapped up. The pen fell from his mouth and rolled across the desk. For one unguarded second, something warm flickered across his face before the usual stoic mask slammed back into place.
“Michael.” His voice came out gruff. Rougher than usual. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking on the grumpiest Alpha in the Pacific Northwest.” I pushed off from the doorframe, wandered closer. “How's it going?”
“Fine.”
“Really? Because you look like someone who's been arguing with spreadsheets for six hours and losing.”
“I don't lose arguments with spreadsheets.”
“The spreadsheets beg to differ.” I nodded at the crumpled ball of paper near the trash can that had clearly missed its target. “That one especially.”
Daniel's jaw tightened. He pulled off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose in a gesture that spoke of bone-deep exhaustion.
“Territory tax assessments. The county wants documentation proving the pack house is a legitimate business property instead of a private residence. Which means I need receipts going back fifteen years that may or may not exist in any organized fashion.”
“Sounds fun.”
“It's bureaucratic hell designed by people who've never had to explain why a 'family lodge' has thirty-two bedrooms and a commercial kitchen.”
“Thirty-two bedrooms seems reasonable for a large family.”
“That's what I said. The assessor didn't find it amusing.”
I pulled up a chair, sat across from him. “When's the last time you ate something that wasn't coffee and spite?”
Daniel blinked. Looked at the cold mug on his desk like he'd forgotten it existed. “What time is it?”
“After two.”
“Ah.” He set down his pen, leaned back in his chair. The leather creaked in a way that suggested it had held generations of frustrated Alphas. “I may have skipped breakfast.”
“And lunch, apparently.”
“I was busy.”
“You were torturing yourself with paperwork.” I stood, held out my hand. “Come on. You need food, fresh air, and at least one hour away from anything that requires a signature.”
Daniel stared at my hand like it might bite him. “I have work to do.”
“The work will still be here when you get back. Probably with reinforcements. Paperwork breeds when you're not looking.”
“That's not—” He stopped. Sighed. Something in his shoulders loosened, like he was giving himself permission to stop carrying the weight of the world for five minutes. “Where would we even go?”
“Somewhere that's not here.” I wiggled my fingers. “Trust me. I'm told I'm excellent at kidnapping stubborn Alphas who don't know how to take breaks.”
“Who told you that?”
“I'm telling myself right now. It sounds very authoritative.”
The corner of Daniel's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close enough to count.
He took my hand.
His grip was warm, callused, strong in ways that made my stupid heart do complicated things. He let me pull him to his feet, and for a moment we stood close enough that I could smell pine and sawdust and something underneath that was just him.
“This is a terrible idea,” he said.
“All my best ideas are terrible. Ask anyone.”
We ended up in Daniel's truck, heading away from town on roads that got progressively narrower and more questionable. Trees pressed close on either side, branches scraping the roof like curious fingers.
“You're not planning to murder me and dump my body in the woods, are you?” I asked. “Because I feel like I should have asked that before getting in the vehicle.”
Daniel's hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Why would I murder you?”
“I don't know. Maybe you're secretly a serial killer who preys on people who ask too many questions.”
“If I was going to murder you, I wouldn't use my own truck. Too easy to trace.”
“That's... oddly specific knowledge.”
“I've had to dispose of bodies before.” He glanced at me, and I caught the ghost of amusement in his eyes. “Deer, mostly. Sometimes hikers find carcasses and panic. Easier to move them before anyone starts asking questions about 'animal attacks.'”
“And here I thought pack life was all moonlit runs and dramatic howling.”
“There's plenty of that too. But also garbage disposal, property taxes, and making sure younger wolves don't post shift videos on social media.”
“That's happened?”
“Twice. Jonah was responsible for both incidents.” Daniel's expression went pained. “He thought he was being 'relatable.'”
I laughed. Actually laughed, the sound surprising me with how easy it came. “Please tell me someone saved those videos.”
“They have been permanently deleted from all known servers.”
“But not from pack memory?”
“Pack memory is eternal and merciless.” He turned onto a dirt road that made the truck bounce in ways that couldn't be good for the suspension. “We're almost there.”
“There being...?”
“Somewhere I want to show you.”
“That's not ominous at all.”
Daniel didn't respond, but I caught the slight curve of his lips. He was enjoying this. The mysterious Alpha routine, keeping me guessing. It should have been annoying.
It wasn't.
The road ended at a small clearing where the trees pulled back to reveal a trailhead marked by a wooden post so weathered I couldn't read the carved letters. Daniel parked, killed the engine, and sat for a moment looking at the forest like he was having a conversation I couldn't hear.
“I haven't brought anyone here in years,” he said quietly.
“Should I feel honored?”
“You should feel hungry. I packed food.” He reached into the back seat, pulled out a canvas bag I hadn't noticed. “Come on.”
We walked.
The trail was narrow but well-maintained, winding through old-growth forest that made the trees near town look like saplings.
These were ancient. Massive. Their trunks wider than cars, their branches forming a canopy so thick that the light filtering through looked green and gold and something close to magical.
Daniel moved like he belonged here. Silent. Sure-footed. Every few minutes his head would turn, tracking something I couldn't see, nostrils flaring slightly as he processed scents my human nose couldn't detect.
“You're doing the thing,” I said.
He looked back at me. “What thing?”
“The wolf thing. Where you look like you're listening to the forest gossip about me.”
“The forest doesn't gossip.”
“It absolutely does. I can feel it judging my hiking boots.”
Daniel's expression shifted into something that might have been fond exasperation. “Your hiking boots are fine.”
“They're from a discount sporting goods store. I'm pretty sure that's a crime against nature out here.”
“The forest doesn't care about brand names.”
“Easy for you to say. You probably grew up running through here barefoot, communing with ancient tree spirits.”
“I did, actually.” He held back a branch so I could pass. “My father used to bring me to these woods when I was young. Before I could shift. He said it was important to know the land with human feet before I learned to run on four legs.”
“That's...” I searched for the right word. “Beautiful, actually. In a weird werewolf way.”
“Everything about us is weird in a werewolf way.”
“I'm starting to notice.”
We walked in comfortable silence for a while.
The forest hummed around us, alive with sounds I was learning to hear differently now.
Bird calls that were actually bird calls, and others that Daniel's slight head tilts suggested were something else entirely.
The rustle of small creatures in the underbrush.
The creak of branches that moved without wind.
I stepped over a root that seemed to have grown specifically to trip humans. “What's it like? Being able to hear all of this. Smell everything. Feel the forest the way you do.”
Daniel was quiet for so long I thought he wasn't going to answer. Then:
“Overwhelming, sometimes. When I was young, before I learned to filter, the sensory input was nearly unbearable. Every smell, every sound, every shift in the air pressure. My mother used to hold me during thunderstorms because I could feel them coming hours before they arrived, and the anticipation was worse than the storm itself.”
“That sounds exhausting.”