I forced myself to take a breath, then another. My claws, which had started to extend, slowly retracted.
“I apologize,” I said, and the words felt like swallowing glass. “I didn’t mean to be forward. I just...” I searched for an excuse that wasn’t:my wolf wants to murder whoever touched you.“I don’t like seeing people hurt.”
Riley studied me for a long moment. Her green eyes were assessing, calculating, and I held still under her scrutiny. Whatever she needed to see, I would show her. I’d bare my fucking soul to her if that meant she’d trust me, or even look at me twice.
Then her expression shifted, softened slightly.Good.I fucking liked that.
“It’s fine.” A pause. “Weird as hell, but fine.” Another pause. “You’re really not from around here, are you?”
“No. We’re traveling.”
“Backpacking across America,” Thessa added. “Seeing the sights. Eating the food. Stumbling into bookstores because my brother has no sense of fun and I have to force culture upon him.”
“I have a sense of fun.”
“Name one fun thing you’ve done in the last decade.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Fuck.
Thessa turned to Riley with a triumphant expression. “See? Tragic.”
Riley’s lips twitched again. I was becoming obsessed with that almost-smile. I wanted to make it a full smile, make her laugh until she couldn’t breathe.
“Well,” she said, “if you’re looking for fun in Lysmont, you’re in the wrong place. This town is basically a retirement community with a ski resort attached.”
“You live here,” I said. “It can’t be that bad.”
The words came out before I could stop them, way too honest for human standards for a person you just met. Damn.
Riley blinked, a faint flush crept across her cheeks. Before she could respond, a man cleared his throat behind her.
My attention snapped to him immediately.
Everything in him was mediocre, not even his expensive clothes that didn’t quite fit his energy managed to hide the simplicity of his presence. He smelled faintly of Riley, not intimately, thank the goddess, but in the way of people who spent time together. Who were near each other often.
My wolf took one look at him and decided: enemy.
“Closing time,” the man said, smiling in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. “Riley needs rest. Buy a book, she’ll sign it, and you can be on your way.”
There was possession in his voice, ownership. He wasn’t asking me to leave, he was telling me, dismissing me from Riley’s presence like he had the right.
I stared at the man. Really looked at him.
This was the one who hurt her, who left that mark on her face. I didn’t have proof, but my wolf just knew. The way he stood too close to Riley, how her shoulders had gone tense. The way she wasn’t looking at him and was trying to make herself small.
My claws pressed against my fingertips and my vision bled amber at the edges. The growl building in my chest was getting harder to suppress. I wanted to kill this man. Wanted to shift right here in this bookstore, pin him to the ground, and rip his throat out with my teeth. My wolf was chanting a prayer: kill him, kill him, make him pay for touching what is ours.
“I’m still talking to her,” I said. My voice came out cold and deadly calm.
The man’s smile tightened. “The event is over.”
Thessa’s hand landed on my arm. A reminder that we were in public, that I could not murder humans in bookstores no matter how much they deserved it.
Instead, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, and slapped it on the table with more force than strictly necessary.
“Two copies,” I said, grabbing books without looking at them. My eyes found Riley’s, holding her gaze. “Do you need more?”
The question was aimed at the man but I was looking at her. Asking her if she needed more. More money, more protection, more anything.
