I smiled at her. Matched the sweetness she’d given me, degree for degree.
Then I said, “No.”
I walked past her toward the staircase. Her footsteps hammered behind me, and I pressed my lips together to contain the smile threatening to destroy my credibility.
Here it comes. The tantrum.
“You can’t hold me captive here!”
I descended the stairs, eyes forward. “You’re not a captive.”
She pointed a finger at my back. I felt it without turning. “But you never let me go out.”
I glanced over my shoulder with a raised brow. “You join Percy on his morning jogsoutside.”
“That’s just around the woods and this cabin! I want to go to town!”
We crossed the living room. I continued toward the kitchen. She followed, her footsteps angry enough to register on seismic equipment.
“You go out to town for groceries with Solomon.”
“That is NOT the same!”
I waved a hand at her over my shoulder and reached for the kettle. “But it proves you’re not a captive.”
The groan that tore out of her was theatrical. I kept my back to her and filled the kettle, allowing myself exactly one second of amusement before reassembling my expression.
I felt her aim a throw pillow at the back of my head.
My hand came up and caught it without turning around.
Then I turned. Crossed the distance between us in an instant, a blur of motion that stopped inches from her face. She gasped, eyes wide, and I held the pillow between us.
“Lycan, remember?” I let the smirk surface. Let my eyes hold a glint golden. “You’ll have to do better than home furnishings.”
She glared at me with a ferocity that riled me up.
Mira looked goddamn hot when she was angry.
And if there’s one thing about her, she may have been just as stubborn as me.
Or worse.
The rest of the morning, she was relentless about her request.
Her first attempt happened when I was reviewing fire station reports at the kitchen table.
A mist hit the back of my neck. Cold, wet, and smelling of herbs I hadn’t encountered since my last visit to a human pharmacy.
I turned slowly.
Mira stood behind me holding a spray bottle, finger still on the trigger, her expression caught somewhere between scientific curiosity and guilty anticipation.
“What,” I said, “are you doing?”
“The internet says wolfsbane repels wolves.” She sprayed me again. Directly in the face this time. “I figured if I made your life miserable enough, you’d let me out just to get rid of me.”
I wiped the mist off my cheek with two fingers and sniffed them. Diluted lavender, a trace of dried herb that was probably picked from the woods nearby, and tap water.
