Storm’s Mistake (No Wolves Road #2)

Chapter One

“Shadow Storm is here.”

Lisa looked toward the main door of the coffee shop, and sure enough, there was Shadow himself—over six feet of him—filling the entire doorway. She didn’t even need to look around to know men and women admired him. They all wanted a piece of him.

She glanced over toward Adele who’d given her the heads-up that her ex had entered the store. Not that anyone would have known they were ever a couple. They were rarely ever seen together. In the beginning, she had figured it was because he was getting used to dating a human, but then, much to her embarrassment, it was another reason.

They’d been dating for nearly a year. He’d been flirting with her every time he came into the coffee shop, and she’d always rejected his advances. She never once believed a single word he said about how beautiful and smart she was, and that she made the best coffee. Now, she did take the coffee comments seriously.

At twenty-five years old, she’d been serving coffee for five years. After her parents passed away six years ago, she had sold their family home, packed up and moved to No Wolves Road. This is where she wanted to be.

As a human, her family had moved from place to place, including areas dominated by pack wolves. Lisa wasn’t clear about how they had come to know the existence of wolves, just that her family did. This also meant they were able to find them. She believed it was due to some distant cousin or something like that who ended up married, or became a wolf. Again, very vague, but either way, she knew about the existence of wolves. Some of the packs she’d lived among hadn’t exactly been nice. Some had been downright cruel.

So, No Wolves Road had felt like a sanctuary to her. No wolves resided in this small town, however, they were surrounded by multiple large and small packs, or even lone wolves. None of them lived in the town, and this suited her.

However, as she’d been living here five years, she’d also come to see something she didn’t like. The wolves, as in most of the old packs, used the male and female humans.

Until a few months ago, when an Eloise Richards finally settled down with one Beau Alpha, no other wolf had taken the lurch and mated to one of them.

They were humans, lesser species. The only good quality they seemed to possess was the ability to serve and to fuck. She hated this, and she vowed to never date one of them.

That had technically lasted four and a half years, until six months ago. She finally gave in and dated Shadow. He’d been sweet, kind, and very sincere. She should have known it was all a facade. They’d dated for six months, and during that time, she had fallen madly in love with him, given him her virginity, and in her head, saw a future together. Then, one cruel night, he didn’t know she was heading to the bar to see him. That was when she heard him talk about her.

“Fuck, no, I’m not settling down with her. She’s a piece of pussy, that’s all. Something to have fun with and not think about the future. I’d never mate to a human. Please, we all know what they’re good for.”

There had been some rude comments about her size, and some men had wondered how he could enjoy screwing such a woman.

All Lisa remembered was being so heartbroken. She’d never been a woman to cause scenes, and rather than see them laughing at her, she’d left. She never called Shadow back. When he came knocking on her door to see her, she literally didn’t move, so he didn’t sense she was home. Until he left, assuming she wasn’t home, she stayed perfectly still.

Avoiding his calls, not answering the door, it was only a matter of time before he ended up at the coffee shop, and she finally confronted him two weeks ago. Since then, he hadn’t been in the coffee shop. To some women, he wasn’t worth her tears or her time, but she was still struggling to get over him.

“Do you want me to handle him?” Adele asked.

The other woman was the same age as her, only she was smart. Adele didn’t flirt, she didn’t steal glances at anyone. She stayed perfectly neutral, not giving any wolf the time of day. Now that she thought about it, Adele didn’t flirt with any human or wolf.

She was tempted to let Adele deal with everything related to Shadow, but Lisa didn’t want to feel this way. No Wolves Road was a small town, and she wasn’t leaving it because she couldn’t handle one guy. Shadow was one single guy. A cruel one, but also just a wolf, and she would get over him soon enough. He’d taken her virginity and said some of the sweetest things to her, but it didn’t really matter.

She blew out a breath and shook her head. “No, if I get him as a customer, it will be fine.”

There was no way she was going to run away from this. Keeping her fake smile in place, she served several customers, aware of some leaving the line just to allow Shadow to advance. She was not going to show how nervous she was. He didn’t deserve to see her pain, or to know how she was feeling.

In the space of five minutes, he moved right in front of her, and it was time for her to take his order.

“What can I get you?” she asked, glancing down at the register so she could ring him up and have no reason to look at him.

“Lisa,” he said.

She hadn’t expected his voice to be so soft, and she was tempted to look up to see what he wanted, but that would be giving in to this ridiculous need, and she was not doing that.

“Can I take your order?” she asked, going for a different approach.

“I want you to look at me.”

“If you’re not going to give me your order, then you should leave the line,” Lisa said, only this time she did look up and stared into Shadow’s smug face.

At first, he had this smile on his face, one she could only assume meant complete and total victory. But, as the seconds passed and she didn’t smile back nor give him any reason to believe she wanted him, the smile slipped. It was almost comical, and she would have laughed if it weren’t for the pain slashing through her chest.

This man had betrayed her, hurt her, and above all else, he’d used her. She didn’t know what hurt more—the fact he used her or that she hadn’t seen it coming. He’d seemed so true, so nice, so honest. It had all been a lie, and she hated him for that more than anything.

“Are you done wasting my time?” she asked.

She couldn’t even find the energy to fake a smile. It was just a little too much for her. She wanted him gone and out of the coffee shop, so she could sob some more. Lisa didn’t know how she could have been so stupid.

“I want us to talk,” he said.

“And I want to take your order. We don’t get everything we want, Shadow. Now, what can I get you? Or leave,” she said.

There was no point in threatening him. There weren’t police at No Wolves Road. It was understood that the surrounding packs would do whatever necessary to protect them. Lisa had lost faith in all of them.

Shadow cleared his throat. “A plain black coffee, no sugar.”

She rung him up and got him his coffee.

****

Shadow had known Lisa was hurt and that she was pissed, but she was also human. They were weak, and he was under the belief that most humans got over their problems quickly.

It had been two weeks since Lisa heard him talking about her to a few of the guys at the bar. He’d only said the shit so they would shut the fuck up and leave him alone. Part of it was technically true, he had no interest in mating for life with Lisa, but she didn’t need to know that. He’d never mate with any human, because he was a wolf, which meant his mate was going to be a wolf.

Still, ever since he had first seen Lisa, he’d not been able to get her out of his mind. He’d wanted her, and that hadn’t stopped for a moment. He knew it was wrong to have pursued her.

From the very beginning, she had always said she wasn’t interested in being a notch on his bedpost. He hated that statement, it was so outdated and fucking lame, but he’d found it charming coming from her, especially the blush she had after she said it. There was a lot of shit she’d said and done that he’d enjoyed.

He enjoyed Lisa’s company, which was a fucking miracle. All his life he had not been one for company, which was hilarious as he was a member of a freaking pack. Not just the member, but the fucking Alpha. Storm’s pack.

His pack was named after the generation of Storm men. His dad, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, each man passing down the line, the pack. They were taught from a young age what was expected of them.

This was his whole life. The whole pack was his life.

No Wolves Road had been nothing short of a distraction. But, it wasn’t the only distraction.

He’d never gone to town to pick up women. Sure, he’d been hit on many times, but he’d also avoided screwing them. There had been one or two temptations, but he’d also witnessed the scenes that happened with fellow wolves, when the human male or female found out they were nothing more than an easy fuck.

He wasn’t interested in drama. He wasn’t interested in stringing along a woman who didn’t deserve it.

Then there was Lisa.

Sweet, sexy, fucking beautiful Lisa Bennett, alone in No Wolves Road after her parents had passed. Some distant relative, which is how they came to know about wolves, or something like that. Either way, she had caught his attention.

He didn’t even like coffee. Lisa didn’t know that the first time he’d seen her was not actually inside the coffee shop, it had been when she was walking toward the place. The scent of her had literally stopped him in his path. She smelled like chocolate and vanilla, which happened to be his favorite combination of sweet food. He was a sucker for a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, or even chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. He loved both. It didn’t even have to be cake. He was all for doughnuts, candy, anything with chocolate and vanilla.

And Lisa smelled like it. His favorite craving come to life.

He’d been unable to look away.

She’d called to him. He’d watched her go into the coffee shop, and that was when he first entered.

Shadow didn’t like coffee. The scent of it was a little too bitter for his taste. He carried his black coffee out of the shop, and like so many times before, he fed it to the small potted plant by the side of the road.

He’d expected her to have gotten over him. Not once had he promised her forever, and yet she was behaving like he had. They never talked about the future. He never told her his plans with the pack, how he needed to have a child, an heir to pass down the pack line.

His father and grandfather before they passed had told him it was important to do that. They had not pressured him about it, though. They had known how important it was to him to find the right woman to have a child, to mate and spend his life with. He couldn’t help but wonder what his father and grandfather would think of him dating Lisa.

This was not going the way he wanted it to go.

Shadow glanced back at the coffee shop and was tempted to go back inside and drag her out, forcing her to talk to him. Their last conversation didn’t go well. He’d not known that she’d snuck into the bar and heard him talking with some of the other wolf guys. Everything had messed up.

He shouldn’t have gone to the bar, but he’d been waiting for Lisa to finish her shift. Time had gotten away from him, and now he didn’t know what the fuck to do.

Glancing across the street, he saw several men from different packs. Some of them mere members, others were Alphas like him. This town allowed them to be within close proximity without fighting. Those were the rules—no fighting, no starting shit. This town was completely neutral territory.

“You okay?”

He turned to see Pam taking a seat beside him.

Pam was a young female from his pack. There was a time his father had thought Pam would be a good pack mate, but she was too young and quiet, and he had no feelings about her whatsoever. Also, Pam hadn’t been interested in him.

Against all odds, they’d struck up a friendship, one that confused their pack.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he said.

She chuckled. “You don’t seem okay. What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing.”

“You know, this friendship thing goes both ways. You tell me what is wrong, I fix it. I tell you what is bothering me, and you fix it.” Pam took a seat beside him.

Shadow didn’t want to start talking about his problems.

“Or maybe you don’t want to admit you fucked up big time, and you don’t know how to fix it. Lisa’s not exactly falling for your crap, is she?”

He turned toward Pam. “How the fuck do you know that?”

Pam shrugged. “Gossip.”

“I should have known the people of No Wolves—”

“It was wolves that were gossiping. Believe it or not, most of the locals at No Wolves Road don’t gossip. I think it is years of having to keep the wolf secret. They talk but don’t gossip with each other.”

“Are you even on my side?” he asked.

She chuckled. “Yes, I’m on your side, but I also happen to like that they don’t gossip. Now, wolves on the other hand, are a whole different ball game. They do not know how to keep anything private.”

“So, what you’re saying is I should worry about what you’re going to go and gossip about?” he asked.

She laughed. “Nope, I’m a different kind of beast. I’m a friend who is only interested in trying to help you fix your mess.”

He snorted. “There is nothing to fix.”

“There’s not?”

“Lisa doesn’t want anything to do with me. Fine.”

Pam smiled. “Ah, so we’re at ‘fine’ phase right now, where you are in complete denial.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you are saying.”

“Simple. If you were fine with it, you’d stop visiting the coffee shop, seeing as you don’t even like coffee. Instead, you’re here because a certain woman is here. There is no reason to lie to cover up your feelings, Shadow.”

He ran fingers through his hair and stared straight ahead. “Can you talk to her for me?”

“You want me to talk to your ex?” Pam asked.

“She’s not my ex.”

“Then what would you call her?”

He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know what I’d call her, but just handle this for me, please.”

Pam stared at him for several seconds and then she nodded. “I will see what magic I can do.”

He nodded his head, and then he got to his feet.

He would be the one to decide when to end things, no one else.