‘I swear I’m not normally like this.’ I allowed myself to wonder if that was actually true or not. I didn’t spend much time with people without Aster. His nattering normally negated the need for me to say anything. For all I knew, I’d been an unfettered weirdo from birth and it hadn’t been unveiled until now. That would explain why, at the age of twenty-three, I only had the one friend. ‘I promise to be much more normal the next time we’re together.’
Before Kit could foist more forced reassurances on me, I grabbed my backpack and rushed downstairs. There was a narrow hallway at the back of the ground floor. One door led to Kit’s bookshop, the other to blessed freedom.
Despite it being the height of summer, cool air lapped my overheated face as I stomped across Kit’s garden and down the path running along the back of the row of cottages.
Aster boasted that he’d picked the perfect nickname for the island, since its actual name was unpronounceable to outsiders. The small bay the terraced cottages curved around looked like someone had taken a bite of the island from above. The huge loch in the middle reinforced the idea that a mammoth green pastry had been plonked into the sea near mainland Scotland.
The path connected with the island’s only road, which I followed to the east. My mind cleared as I pounded along the firm tarmac, the sound of crashing waves and crying gulls receding as I moved further inland towards my first task as the island’s new animal doctor.
I would keep my promise to Kit. He’d been a good guy, had let a stranger live with him, and I couldn’t make that weird. I’d chalk my mistakes so far up to the strangeness of interacting with someone without my best friend to steer the conversation in a million different directions. I had always beensocially awkward. Before that had leant towards tongue-tied-ness, rather than blurting out whatever weird thing popped into my head.
‘You can do better,’ I coached myself as I walked up to the gate to the island’s only farm. A cattle grid glinted on the other side. ‘You can make a friend on your own.’
I refused to listen to the voice in my mind arguing the contrary. I’d had months with Aster nowhere near while he completed his master’s here, had attended countless classes at university and training placements without him, had worked separately to him for years – all of which resulted in absolutely zero Aster-independent friendships.
I was determined things would be different here. Aster would be around, but he and his intimidating boyfriend lived up in the mountains. I couldn’t depend on my bestie to hold my hand and help me connect with the people here.
I pulled open the latch on the gate. I wanted to do better, and I couldn’t let a couple of hiccups stand in my way. I might have followed my best friend here – which was possibly a strange thing to do, but no one else had a best friend quite like Aster – but I was ready to step out of his shadow.
I just hoped I hadn’t ruined things with Kit permanently. Maybe he wouldn’t mind being friends with someone who would manage to constantly do and say not quite the right things. Aster had no problem with it. He couldn’t be the only person on the planet capable of liking me.
‘You can do this,’ I murmured as I pulled the farm’s gate shut behind me, balancing on the cattle grid’s slats. ‘You can totally do this.’
CHAPTER TWO
KIT
Icounted to ten after the back gate swung shut, then raced over to the window overlooking my garden. Lucas’s tangle of dark brown hair bobbed along the path at the back of the cottages.
If he’d given me another second before he rushed off, I would have told him he looked lovely too. His hair was as wild as when he’d stepped off the boat yesterday, his strong legs hidden behind stained jeans, his broad shoulders filling out a blue fleece patterned with a riot of different coloured fur. His deep brown eyes had barely met mine and his lips looked sore with how hard he bitten down on them, but still he was lovely.
He felt like a safe person to compliment. Unlike during most introductions, a sting of arousal hadn’t hit as he’d held his hand out towards me at the dock. His scent was soft and warm, like the inside of a freshly baked loaf of bread. All evening, as we’d eaten dinner at Bonnie and Joshua’s then walked home, his gentle regard had washed over me.
Blush had risen to my face each time I caught Lucas looking at me, even though Bonnie would notice and never let me forget. If Aster could have detached his gaze from Callum for more thanfive seconds, my pink cheeks and Lucas’s staring would have added to his theory that his best friend found me hot.
I’d barely been able to speak as I’d shown him around our now shared home, everything in me crying out to close the distance between us and bask in his warm attention.
I’d said goodnight and fled. I stood with my back to my bedroom door and sniffed at the cuff of my jumper. His fingers had brushed the soft fabric when we shook hands. His gaze had been full of dawning affection, not the more forceful blunt assessment I was used to. I’d fallen asleep with my mind full of his bright blush and almost-black eyes.
Downstairs, the cat flap clattered. I snapped from Lucas-centric daydreams as a black and white ball of fur leapt up the stairs and hurled itself at my legs. I crouched to pull Kat into my arms before she used her ridiculously sharp claws to scale my jeans. The scratches would heal quickly, but that didn’t make my cat’s inability to wait a single moment for breakfast less painful.
‘You’re spoilt.’ I straightened, the great lump of fluff cradled to my chest. ‘This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated.’
Kat swatted lazily at my nose, her claws retracted. For now. Her way of urging me to get on with feeding her before she had to resort to swift and unrelenting violence.
One handed, I grabbed a pouch of ridiculously expensive cat food I ordered specially online. In a practised motion, I extended one claw to rip off the top, then tipped the weird gelatinous mess into Kat’s food bowl.
Apparently, it was much more appealing to felines than to werewolves. She leapt from my arms and promptly started guzzling.
My nose wrinkled, I backed away. Heavy thumps on the door downstairs saved me from not only smelling Kat’s food but also enduring her open mouthed chewing.
Patting my scarf to make sure it had stayed tucked flush around my neck during greeting Lucas and feeding the bookshop’s resident beast, I jumped down the stairs. Grinning, I reached for the door. One of the perks of being a werewolf was the ability to leap down a whole flight of stairs and not worry too much about the consequences. I didn’t do anything more extreme than that – not like some of my packmates who enjoyed jumping from the island’s cliffs – but a hop down a staircase was harmless fun.
I needed to remember to not do it when Lucas was around. He didn’t even know his best friend was a witch, let alone that he’d relocated to an island full of shifters. Using the stairs to get down to the living room had felt odd this morning. I’d forgotten how creaky they were.
Louisa threw herself into my arms as soon as I opened the door. I melted into the hug, pressing my nose into the pillowy skin of her neck, but immediately started counting to five. A handful of seconds for hugging members of my pack, three for normal humans. That’s what most people enjoyed.
I hugged Callum more than everyone else in the pack. Not as much as I’d like, but since he lived in the mountains I didn’t have to worry about annoying him too much.
