Page 14 of Enemy Wolf

“Nothing. It’s my appreciation for the drink and the exemplary service I received.”

“Riley poured you one beer. We didn’t even bring it to your table.”

I shrugged. “It was a really good beer.”

Her hand shot out toward me again. “You…are impossible. You know that?”

“What happened to your arm?” I growled.

Shiloh stared at the white bandage before drawing her arm back to tuck it against her body. “Nothing, just an accident with a broken glass. Happens all the time.”

Her scent changed in that moment, the sweet citrus taking on a sour note. Fear. And my keen hearing picked up the change in her tone as well. She was lying. But why?

My wolf growled behind my sternum and, despite our earlier arguing, we were of the same mind right then. Someone hurt Shiloh, and she needed protecting.

“Anyway,” she said dismissively. “If you’re not going to let me return this, I’m just going to donate it.”

“It’s yours. Do what you like with it,” I said.

“Fine.” She turned to leave.

“Shiloh,” I called out before being fully aware of doing so.

She faced me again and my mind blanked out. I didn’t know what to tell her, if anything at all. Maybe I should ask her something instead? If she wanted to get dinner? Coffee? A drink? Was it stupid to ask a bar owner out for a drink?

Shiloh cocked her head, her face expectant while I mentally ran on a hamster wheel. My wolf was no help either. His brilliant idea was to march right over to her, run my nose along her neck and inhale her like a drug.

“Just be careful,” was what I eventually blurted out.

She nodded slowly, and that was how I knew I’d said something extraordinarily stupid. “Sure thing. I’ll do that.”

Shiloh then turned and left the werewolf lodge, her addictive scent going with her.

Chapter 6

Shiloh

I was starting to dread work every evening. Once the last customer left and Sawyer came to pick up Riley, my gut would churn as I watched the door, waiting for that dragon shifter to come and collect his potion, which after three days, I hadn’t even started on.

Running the bar was a full-time job and a half, even with an employee. Even on my days off, I ran around town on errands for my business. By the time I fell into bed every night, I was exhausted.

I used to love it. This business was my baby, my one true love. Throwing myself into work was the main way I’d gotten over Sawyer and how I realized I didn’t need a partner to be happy. With Stout & Spirit doing so well, and being able to serve my community with this bar, I had been fulfilled.

Now it felt like a massive burden that I couldn’t shake. Something that was in the way of the main objective: making this impossible potion for a shady dragon shifter so he wouldn’t set the territory I loved on fire.

What could I do besides close the bar for a few months? People would get concerned and ask why, and what could I tell them? Not to mention the income I would lose when I needed to purchase a whole slew of rare ingredients. And that didn’t even solve the issue of somehow procuring the extinct ingredient, silver deadnettle.

To say I was stressed was the understatement of the year. As the days passed, the urge to break down and tell someone became overwhelming. Howling Death needed to know that an enemy was skulking around the territory.

But every time I came close, I pictured Vargmore on fire, my friends and neighbors running for their lives, running to save their children, family members, and belongings.

And I always came to the same conclusion—that it wasn’t a risk I could afford to take.

So I pressed on in this hellish purgatory, choosing to shoulder the burden of this dragon’s wrath myself.

“Hey, Shiloh?”

“Huh?”

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