Not that I had any authority around here. I didn’t. I couldn’t be that for them, no matter how much I wanted to be. I let out a wry chuckle at the thought.The alpha who wasn’t. Sounded like the title of one of those tragic romance novels Azar was always trying to convince me to read, and yeah, I got how ludicrous that was—a demon loving romance novels.
But this was Ravenstone, and very little was normal here, and this wasn’t a fiction novel—it was my life.
I let out a slow breath and shook my head to clear it. It didn’t do me any good to stand around and feel sorry for myself. This was my life, and it wasn’t a bad one, even if it wasn’t the one I’d wanted. True, I didn’t have a pack in the traditional sense, but I had friends in Ravenstone, and people depended on me.
The door pushed open, and to my relief, Azar came in. He would pull me out of this mood. It wasn’t in his nature to sit around and let someone wallow.Weird, I know. Did you catch the part a minute ago about him being a demon? You’d think he’d feed off my misery, but not Azar.
“Hello, my friend,” he called out as he crossed the pub to his normal stool.
“Hey, Az. What do you want to drink tonight?”
Not that there were many choices. I didn’t serve fancy cocktails here. No sugared rims or umbrellas. Just local ale drawn dark and foamy, whiskey for those who liked somethingwith more punch, and a small selection of wines from the winery over the mountain.
“Just a nice glass of red tonight. We have our meeting here in a little bit, and I want to be sharp. I’m worried about Brooke. I mean, Tulip. Did you hear that she finally chose her new name?”
“I hadn’t heard, but good for her. Now, why are you worried about her?”
“Things didn’t work out with her and Winston. She’s struggling with self-worth something awful. She reeks of self-recrimination.”
I nodded. “That I had heard about. I hate that for her, but that’s what the support group is for. We’ll get her through it.”
A door slammed hard upstairs, so someone was up. It could’ve been any of the four current residents, so I inhaled deeply and smiled. “It’s Perry. Darned bigfoot is still learning his strength.”
Perry had come out of the woods and into town because he loved to cook and wanted to make delicious food for other creatures. Something you can’t really do if you live out in the forest alone, but his super-shy nature was proving hard for him to overcome, as was getting used to living in an actual building with other people.
“He needs to start coming to our support group,” Az insisted.
“I agree, but we can’t force him. He’ll come when he’s ready.”
Perry stomped down the stairs—not angrily, just forcefully, because that was the way he did everything—and stopped at the bottom when he saw us sitting there. He lifted a hand in greeting, but then he acted like he wasn’t sure if he should keep walking or come over.
“Hey, Perry. Headed to work?” I asked, like I couldn’t tell that by the shirt he wore that saidHearth and Griddle, but I wasn’t sure what else to say to the big guy.
Our gazes met, and he nodded before glancing away. I noticed he avoided looking at Az, probably because he knew what was coming, and sure enough, our local demon had no idea when to let things go.
“That’s too bad. The support group meets today, and we’d have loved to have you come.”
Perry closed his eyes and let out a resigned sigh. My guess was that at this point, he was realizing Az wouldn’t stop until he agreed to go.
“I have to work. I’ll talk to Denise and see if I can get next week off.”
“I can call her if you need me to. She’s a good person even if she is human, so I can’t imagine it would be a problem.”
Having a bigfoot shifter in town was new to all of us, and we were still figuring out what Perry needed, but one thing we knew for sure was that he was way too shy to ask Denise for a day off, which was probably why Azar felt the need to offer to handle it for him.
“No, really, I’ll ask her.”
“But if?—”
I released a low growl from deep in my chest, and Az stopped talking.
Before moving here to Ravenstone, I hadn’t realized that my alpha power, as faulty as it was, would have such a profound effect on even non-shifters. It could shut a demon up with just a growl, and yet it still couldn’t give me the one thing I longed for all the way to the depths of my soul.
My wolf whimpered and paced in my mind the way it always did when I let myself get in a mood like this.It’s okay. I sent the thought in an attempt to settle him.We’re fine the way we are, and there’s nothing for you to be agitated about.
Perry gave me an appreciative look, then glanced at Az. “I’ll try. I promise.”
We watched him leave, and as soon as he was gone, Az sighed. “I wasn’t trying to be pushy. I was trying to help.”
