I pulled it out with shaking hands and sent a group text:He woke up. He left. I’m fine. I think.
Then I dropped the phone beside me and let my head fall back against the door.
“I need therapy,” I told the silent shelves. “So much therapy.”
4
— • —
Wen
I spent the rest of the morning cleaning up evidence of the worst Halloween night in history. Bloody towels went in the trash. The first aid kit went back under the register. The spell book went in a drawer where I wouldn’t have to look at it and be reminded that I’d accidentally summoned a werewolf who claimed I was his soulmate.
By noon, the bookstore looked almost normal. You wouldn’t know that twelve hours ago, a naked, tattooed man had face-planted onto my floor after materializing from another dimension.
I flipped the sign to Open and waited for customers who probably wouldn’t come.
They didn’t.
By two in the afternoon, I’d had exactly three people walk through the door. One asked for directions to the diner. One used the bathroom and left. The third bought a bookmark that cost two dollars.
The bookstore had been bleeding money for months, and today wasn’t helping. My marketing degree was gathering dust while I watched my grandparents’ legacy circle the drain.
I pulled out a notebook and started brainstorming. Social media campaign? Book club events? Author readings? I needed to do something to bring people in. The bookstore couldn’t survive on nostalgia and my stubborn refusal to give up.
I was scribbling notes about Instagram promotions when I heard it.
A howl, long and mournful and way too close for comfort.
I froze, pen hovering over the page. It was the middle of the day. Sunny. Not exactly prime howling hours.
Another howl came from behind the bookstore. From the woods that backed up against the property.
My stomach dropped.
No. He wouldn’t. Would he?
I walked to the back window, pushing aside the curtain. The woods were dense back here, all trees and shadows and undergrowth. For a moment I saw nothing.
Then movement. A shape emerging from between the trees.
A wolf.
A massive black wolf with gray-tipped fur and eyes that glowed red even in daylight.
He was staring directly at me.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
We locked eyes. Him in the woods. Me in my bookstore. The pull in my chest yanked hard, trying to drag me toward the window, toward him, toward that bond I’d spent all morning trying to ignore.
The wolf sat down. Then, deliberately, he lay down on the ground. Rested his massive head on his paws. Those eerie red eyes never left me.
I frowned. Was he waiting for something? Waiting for me?
“Absolutely not,” I told the window. Then I yanked the curtain closed.
I went back to my notebook. Tried to focus on marketing strategies. Failed miserably because I could feel him out there. Watching. Waiting like some kind of devoted - no. Nope. Not going there.
