I take a deep breath and turn to her, a smile on my face. “Stella,” I start, going for friendly and inviting. “How are you? How’s the move going?” Lots of the inventory is marked half off or more, which is why Sunny wanted to come here to pick out her dress for Flora’s wedding. That, and it’s the only clothing store in town.
“Why? Hoping I’ll die so your pack can get the building faster?” Stella asks, venom in her voice.
My smile drops slightly. “Stella, that’s not—of course not. The Blackline Pack isn’t stealing your store. You’ve placed it up for sale. Don’t you want it to sell?”
“Not to them,” she grouses. My brow furrows. I look to Sunny, who shrugs.
“Why not them?” I ask. Maybe if we can get to the root of this issue, we can at least go back to being amicable.
She shrugs. “Don’t like ’em. Motorcycles are loud.” But it’s airy and offhand. It sounds like she made it up on the spot.
“Honestly, what is wrong with you?” Sunny asks, clearly over Stella’s behavior.
She seems to consider that for a moment. “You know, when I was young, I had a pack. We were going to bond, but on the eve of my biannual heat, they all died in a car accident. I suppose I’ve never been the same since then. All that deep-seated anger just bottled down and shoved deep.”
My heart clenches. That’s horrible. I can’t imagine losing the Blackline Pack like that.
My hand finds my chest. “Is that true?” I ask softly.
There’s a beat of silence before she grins. “No.” I go still, jaw clenching. She cackles. “I just don’t like people. I enjoy screwing with them.”
That part at least rings true.
“You know what? I never do this, but I’m going to go online and just order a dress. Even if it fits funny. Even if I have to pay for rush shipping. I would still rather pay some big corporate sleazy entity than give my money to a bag like you,” Sunny says, taking my hand and leading me out the door.
I glance back over my shoulder as we slip through the door and find Stella smiling after us.
Gage
“Get over there now!” Zeke is practically yelling at me through the headset in my helmet. I race down the tree-lined dirt road, taking curves sharper than I should. It's been a couple days since Winnie stayed over at our hotel room. Things got busy with the tattoos and work at Winnie's shop picked up. Zeke, Eli, and Rafe are in Traverse City scouting a spot for our next pop-up. I agreed to stay back and work on a client at the hotel. Corbin is doing his sheriff thing and is unreachable right now. So when Zeke started feeling panic pulling at the edge of his bond with Winnie, he called me.
I dropped everything and hopped on my bike. We tried calling her, but she didn’t answer. So that’s why I’m tearing through the forest around her cottage at breakneck speed while Zeke chatters in my ear.
If I said I wasn’t worried—that the alpha at my center wasn’t snapping at his tether; that every horrible scenario my corrupt brain could come up with wasn’t flashing through my very vivid imagination—I’d be a fucking liar.
“I’ll call you when I know more,” I say, ending the call over his objections. If itissomething bad, I don’t need his voice distracting me from keeping Winnie safe.
I barely cut the engine before I’m racing into the house. It took ten minutes from the time he called to get here. The door is unlocked. I file that away as something to yell at her about later, if she’s okay.
I burst inside barking and bounding greet me as her dog protects her home with slobbery kisses to my hand.
“Sit!” I bark and he obeys so I can get past him and assess the situation. Wild, beautiful brown eyes land on me. She definitely looks panicked—hands threaded in her curls, bottom lip sucked between her teeth. Her scent—lilacs and roses—has turned into something sour and dead. She's wearing a short, floral dress and it's slightly askew, like she's been pulling at it.
“What happened?” I demand.
“What—?”
“What happened?” I cut in again.
“I—” Her eyes drop to her shoes, then flick back up again. Blood rushes to her beautiful dark cheeks, deepening their color. It makes her eyes sparkle, and I have to shake myself to stay focused. Is she… embarrassed?
I stride around the couch and into her space, just a little. Hoping my scent grounds her instead of overwhelms her. My hands come up to her cheeks, thumbs rubbing her temples. “Princess, whatever happened—I can deal with it. Can you just tell me?” I ask as gently as adrenaline will allow.
She sighs, resigned. “There’s a spider,” she admits.
I blink. Swallow. Try to keep every emotion locked behind a solid wall.
“What?” Maybe I heard her wrong. She barely mumbled it.
