Chapter 10
Ten
O liver stood in front of Luna’s door the next morning, hands flexing at his sides.
Just knock , he told himself. Why the hell are you nervous? The worst that can happen is she says “no” and you have to reschedule. Get over it.
He startled as the door at the end of the hall opened, Ben strolling out of the hallway with his car keys in his hand and his work apron tossed over his shoulder, yawning widely.
Oliver tried to look like he was examining Luna’s doorframe for paint chips.
No dice. Ben ran up to the guest halfway, yanking his work apron off his shoulder and smacking Oliver in the stomach.
“Jesus, dude, just knock .”
“Shut up,” Oliver hissed.
“ You shut up.”
Then they were wrestling. Oliver had been surprised to learn that most siblings grew out of play-fighting when they were adults. His grandparents wrestled with their siblings until they died of old age.
At least they were keeping it quiet, Oliver considered as he shoved his little brother into a headlock. They were being mature about it.
Ben twisted out of the headlock and straightened. “Just talk to your wife, man. You got through the whole dinner without yelling at each other, that’s progress. Not to mention that you two were fucking like rabbits?—”
Oliver swiped at him.
Ben leaped out of the way easily. He was always the agile one, fast to Oliver’s strength.
“Go to work, jackass,” Oliver whispered. “And she’s not my wife!”
Ben skipped the rest of the way to the lobby, like an asshole.
“Missed you on our run this morning,” he yell-whispered from the lobby.
Oliver gestured helplessly at Luna’s door.
“Bring her along,” Ben continued to yell-whisper and skipped out of the lobby.
Oliver stood silently in the hall, listening. Luna’s room wasn’t soundproofed, and there were no signs that she’d heard. Just the same scribbling noises that had been happening since he arrived in front of her door. The occasional swear and the sound of ripping paper.
Oliver gritted his teeth and knocked.
Another swear, then, “Uhhh, come in!”
Oliver opened the door.
Luna threw a notebook under the pillow and stood, hair bouncing. She’d straightened it, and she was wearing her style of clothes again, all stylish and sleek. She’d gone around every single clothes shop in town while Oliver shook in freezing agony back at the inn.
Oliver asked, “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” Luna twirled a strand of hair around her finger. She did that a lot, Oliver noticed—tried to be cute to distract whoever she was talking to. It would have worked if Oliver wasn’t so stubborn.
He pointed at the edge poking out from under the pillow. “It looked like a notebook.”
“Oh, that .” Luna waved at it dismissively, shoving the notebook fully out of sight. “It’s… my ideas notebook. For marketing stuff.”
“Top secret?”
Luna laughed, short and sharp. “You could say that.”
She tugged on her hair, her shiny lips pressing into a thin, white line. She was nervous, he realized. He almost wanted to tease her for it. But she looked so uncharacteristically shy, and he didn’t want to piss her off before asking the next question.
“I was heading into town,” he said. “Do you want to come?”
She squinted at him. “I feel like the actual question is ‘Can you come with me into town so I don’t pass out on the side of the road?’”
He waited. “And?”
“I’m thinking.”
He sighed. Of course, she wouldn’t make this easy .
Luna hummed. Stroked her chin. Hummed some more.
“I do actually have things to do,” Oliver started.
She spoke over him. “What do I get out of it?”
Then she stood there, twirling her damn hair. Oliver wished he didn’t find it so hot. Since when was he into spoiled rich girl chic, which still clung to her even back when she was wearing Sabine’s sleep clothes?
“I’m still pretty disappointed you guys don’t do massages,” she continued. “Yeah, I was just about to leave a Yelp review.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll give you a damn massage. Can we go now?”
She blinked, hand pausing in her hair. She’d been expecting him to turn her down, she realized. But before he could take it back, her pouty mouth curved into a surprised smile.
“I look forward to it,” she said, bending to grab her handbag from beside her bed. “You have taken a course, right?”
“I have a certificate.”
“What, really?”
“No,” he said flatly. “Let’s go.”
After an argument over how long it would take to put on makeup that led to Luna muttering under her breath as she applied foundation in the car and another argument over how spindly Luna’s arms were, Luna got to push the cart around the hardware store. Oliver didn’t even know how that last one turned into a fight. He didn’t care who pushed the cart. But suddenly, he was yell-whispering outside of the hardware store.
Luna was such a sore winner about it, too. Humming all happy as she pushed the cart, pretending not to strain under the weight with each addition.
“Are you going to get Jackson to help?” she asked, doing a terrible job of looking unaffected as she pushed the heavy cart down the aisle. “ He really seemed to know what he was doing.”
Oliver thought hard about wrestling the damn cart off her.
“He’s already told me what to do,” he said. “I can handle it myself.”
“Right, sure. Totally get a novice to do it when there’s a professional right there,” Luna said. Then she frowned. “Wait. I thought you couldn’t work on it until the snow thaws?”
“I can’t work on it until it’s stopped snowing,” Oliver corrected her, scanning the aisle for the type of nails that Jackson told him about. “Just need to get the snow out of the way.”
“Still sounds slippery.”
Oliver squinted at the rows and rows of nails. Why were there so many? How many different types of nails could people possibly need?
Aha . He grabbed a packet of the correct nails and started, “I heal?—”
“Fast. No, I remember.” Luna grimaced as she pulled the cart over, then pretended she didn’t when she noticed Oliver looking. She even draped herself appealingly against the cart, resting her chin in her hand like she wasn’t panting at all.
“If you get hurt…” she said. “Do I feel it? Because I think I felt a lil’ something when you passed out.”
Oliver’s fingers twitched around the packet of nails. His family was going to shove that in his face for the rest of his life. Then he processed the last part of that sentence.
“You what? What did it feel like?”
Luna shrugged. She scratched the corner of her mouth, which was sticky with gloss yet again. He wished it didn’t look so appealing.
“It didn’t feel like passing out ,” Luna said. “I just… knew that something happened. Is it more intense for you since you’re a wolf?”
Yes , he thought. He hadn’t been so lost to the whims of his wolf since he was a teenager. He was attuned to her scent, keeping an ear out for where she was in the inn and having to stop himself from burying his nose in her neck when she passed. And that wasn’t even counting the bond, which dialed everything up to eleven. He could sense where she was and feel her emotions if he focused, and sometimes even when he didn’t. There had been so many moments during sex where they’d leaked through, her passion blurring into his so easily that he hadn’t been able to tell the difference.
“Not if I don’t focus on it,” he said, dropping the packet of nails into the cart. Then, when she raised her brows expectantly, he added, “Like I said, it depends on the bond. Ben and Sabine know what each other is feeling and where the other is most of the time. Grandmother and Grandfather could read each other’s minds without even trying. Uncle Roy and his wife, too. They had to block it out. Even when they severed the bond, they could still hear echoes for years.”
“He was married ?” Luna laughed, then covered it up badly with a cough. “What was she like? Long-suffering?”
He bit his cheek to stop his smile. “She was sweet. Funny. Didn’t put up with his crap.”
“Wolf?”
“Human,” he corrected. “She still visits sometimes.”
Luna opened her mouth to ask something else. She was so busy watching Oliver that she didn’t notice the elderly fairy she was about to run into, and Oliver had to grab the front of the cart and yank it to a stop.
“What are—oh!” Luna’s irritation slid quickly into awkwardness. “Hi! Oh my god, sorry!”
“No harm done,” said the fairy cheerily. Her eyebrows hit her hairline as she noticed Oliver. “Oliver! Is this the wife?”
“Not my wife,” Oliver said hastily, trying to remember the fairy’s name. She went along to knitting club sometimes with his aunts, she had a kid, she attended the local book club—what was her name?
“We didn’t even know each other’s names when we got ‘bonded,’” Luna added. “I have a fiancé, so…”
“Oh!” The fairy beamed, purple wings flexing stiffly behind her. “Well! That’s wonderfully modern.”
“My fiancé knows everything that’s happening,” Luna continued, eyes and smile far too wide. “He’s very happy.”
The fairy nodded, looking far too amused. “Glad to hear it, dear.”
She winked and headed into the next aisle.
Oliver sighed, pushing the cart back into a straight line. “Why do you have to say it like that?”
“I don’t want everyone thinking I’m a cheater!”
“Well, you’re making it sound like your fiancé has a thing for sleeping with werewolves,” Oliver hissed, hoping that anyone with hearing as good as his was busy chatting with someone or sifting through some loud wind chimes.
Luna groaned, shoving the cart forward. “Fine! I’ll say it differently next time! There’s going to be a next time, right? Everybody here is so nosy.”
“Right?” Oliver said, his annoyance with Luna overpowered by the annoyance from all his months in town. “What happened to everyone minding their own business? I feel like every time I turn a corner, somebody is asking me how I’m doing.”
Luna nodded vigorously, forcing the heavy cart around the corner. “If you all just ignored each other like normal people—oh!”
She cut off with a yelp as a familiar hedgehog woman appeared in front of the cart. Oliver grabbed the cart just before it could slam into her.
“Oh, gosh.” Beth curled into herself, her spikes puffing out like a pufferfish.
Luna let out a noise so high-pitched that Oliver winced. “Beeeeth! Hiiii! We were just going to drop by your cute little shop to buy your adorable chocolates!”
“I’m not there,” Beth said, uncurling. “I— Obviously, because I’m here. My employee works there a couple of days a week.”
Luna leaned over the cart and tweaked one of Beth’s shoulder prickles. “ Love that for you. Have you ever thought about getting on socials? Doing some promo?”
Oliver shot her a look. Luna ignored him, twirling a strand of hair around her finger in a way that was definitely meant to annoy him. Here she was, getting annoyed at people for getting in her business, and now she was butting into Beth’s.
“Um,” Beth said. “I—I don’t know. I feel a little weird about shoving it in people’s faces.”
“Gotta let people know it exists,” Luna argued. “Look, I took a photo of one of your wolf chocolates yesterday. Isn’t it cute?”
She got out her phone. Oliver leaned over and saw a picture of Luna posing with the wolf chocolate, winking at the camera.
“I also took a photo of your store,” Luna continued. “Look, I’ll post about you on Insta. Just bought the cutest monster-themed chocolates from the most adorable store in Alaska … Copy-paste your deets… Do you do online orders?”
Beth brightened. “Yes! We ship anywhere in the USA and Canada.”
“Perfect,” Luna singsonged. “And… posted. ”
The loading sign stayed on the screen.
“When my data allows it,” Luna continued, teeth gritted. She shot another smile at Beth. “Anyway, it was so great to see you! Bye-bye!”
Oliver waited until Beth walked off, almost colliding with a “50% OFF” sign on the way because she refused to stop waving until Luna did.
Luna looked back at her phone with a triumphant noise. “Posted! Finally. This place needs a better connection. The mountains aren’t surrounding you, so what gives?”
Oliver used the distraction to take the cart off her, pushing it easily the rest of the way around the corner.
She caught up with him fast, her irritated glare sliding off when she noticed how he was looking at her. “What?”
“Why’d you do that?”
She looked down at her phone where the notifications were already pouring in. How many followers did this woman have, anyway?
“I’m bored?” She shrugged. “There isn’t a lot to do in this town. Excuse me for finding a pet project, Ollie .”
He squirmed at the nickname, twisting the cart handle. Nobody called him that outside of his family. People tried, but he always politely rebuffed them. At least, he did up until a year ago. These days, he usually just glared.
“What, they didn’t give you anything to do while you’re stuck here?”
“I don’t actually—” She stopped, biting her lip. She twisted to look around the empty aisle. “I just consult. For the marketing team. And that’s only because I gave them all fruit baskets and shouted them to baseball games so they’d give me a chance. If my dad knew how often they emailed me to fix a problem…”
He frowned as he pulled the cart to a stop in front of several stacks of wooden slats. “He doesn’t want them to?”
She laughed again, running a hand through her hair. She looked genuinely nervous; no distraction-through-cuteness this time.
“He wants me to stay out of the way. He thinks the only thing I’m good for is posing for pamphlet photos.” She held up her manicured hands. “These lil’ paws aren’t made for work, you know? They’re made for leisure. And I’m very good at it.”
She said it with a grin. But there was a bitterness under it like she wasn’t fully on board with her cruisy lifestyle.
He sounds like an asshole. Oliver bit his tongue, reaching up to grab a wooden plank from behind her head. He’d assumed she wouldn’t know what work was if it ran up and bit her. However, she’d actually gone behind her dad’s back to find work—admittedly, at his own company—but still.
“Weird,” Oliver said instead. “I assumed he was smart. Since he runs a company and all.”
She blinked. For a second, he thought he’d overstepped—just because she was ragging on her dad didn’t mean he got to. But then she grinned at him, nothing coy about it.
“Are you being nice to me?”
“No,” he replied, heaving the plank into the cart. “I’m insulting your dad. Problem?”
She shook her head. Her stare was so hypnotic that Oliver found it difficult to tear his gaze away and reach up for the planks again. The bond fluttered in his chest, growing hot tendrils.
He pulled another plank out, distracted. He didn’t notice the other wooden planks sliding forward until it was too late.
“Shit,” he barked. There were too many to catch at once. He grabbed Luna, bending over her just in time. The planks slammed into his back, making him wince. That was going to bruise. For about ten minutes, but still.
Luna yelped, jumping closer as they rolled off him and onto the floor.
“Oh my god,” she yelled.
“It’s fine,” he said, strained. He pulled back. “You alright?”
She nodded. “Are you alright?”
“Sure.” He grimaced, rolling his shoulders. “Takes more than that to hurt me.”
A fairy fluttered into the end of the aisle, dressed in a staff uniform.
“I got it,” Oliver called. “Don’t worry about it.”
He looked down. Luna was clinging to his shirt. She looked down as if she hadn’t noticed. Her arms dropped back to her sides, taking a large step back.
“Very, uh…” She coughed. “Very alpha of you. Why doesn’t your grandmother want you to be alpha, anyway? That seemed like a whole… thing. You were going to be alpha, right?”
“I still am,” Oliver said shortly.
Luna gave him a dubious look. “Sooo… what happened?”
Oliver clenched his jaw. He might like her a little better this morning, but he wasn’t about to spill his guts about the fire. Some things were private.
He bent down and scooped the wooden planks into his arms, tiptoeing to slide them back into place above their heads. “ A good alpha relies on others ,” he recited flatly. “ A good alpha isn’t an island. A good alpha lets everyone stick their nose into his business .”
“Well,” she said. “You’re… very protective. So that’s one alpha thing to cross off the checklist.”
He looked down to check if she was making fun of him. But there was no trace of irony in her voice, just an uncharacteristic shyness.
The warmth in his chest rolled, trying to expand into his ribcage. He squashed it back into place. The snow was thawing. She’d be out of his life soon enough.