Page 3 of Enemy Wolf

Orson’s brows slashed down again, his eyes hardening like tempered glass. “Yes, you will. That’s what I’m here to do.”

Hoo boy. Was I really going to have to spell it out for him? “Derric never consulted me about this. So I’m not consenting to cameras until he explains his reasoning to me.”

“He is the alpha,” Orson argued.

“And this is my business,” I retorted.

Orson’s arm shot out toward the front door. “A vampire walked in here last month with a gun, damaged the property, and injured two people. You’re less than a mile from the border and you don’t want added security?”

“I don’t want people coming in here and fucking with my business without my knowledge or consent.” I crossed my arms, still holding my enchanted baseball bat. “Please take your things and leave.”

“I don’t understand you,” Orson said with a shake of his head. “This is for your protection. For the protection of your customers and every citizen that lives here.”

“Tell the alpha to call me,” I said. “If this is so important, he can talk to me and I’ll consider it. But you can’t just break in here after business hours—”

“The door was unlocked!”

“I don’t give a FUCK!” My boiling point had been reached, and I was beyond done talking in circles with this pedantic furball. “Get out, just get the fuck out of here.”

“Stubborn witch,” the werewolf snarled as he began throwing everything into one cardboard box with more force than necessary. From the inhuman rumble of his growl, and his canines elongating, I knew his animal half was near the surface. It happened sometimes when werewolves couldn’t get a grip on their emotions. The guy was pissed, like he had any right to be. Like I was the one being unreasonable.

It was nowhere near the full moon, so there was no reason for him to lose control of his animal. But then again, I didn’t know this particular werewolf. How was I to know if he was stable, feral, or simply an asshole prone to violence? For that reason, I tightened my grip on the bat and lifted it higher.

Orson gave me a bored look as he pulled his box of camera equipment off the bar. “Relax, I’m leaving. For the fucking moon’s sake, I was just trying to help.”

“Great. Here’s a tip you should have learned as a pup.” I brought the bat down next to my leg and brought my opposite hand to my hip. “Ask permission first. Before you do literally anything that involves another person. It’ll get you a lot farther.”

The werewolf only gave a dismissive snort as he went out the door without another word. No goodbye, goodnight, sorry to bother you, or even a middle finger thrown back at me. I could only stare in the direction he left, processing the interaction we’d just had.

“What a rude fucking asshole,” I declared to the empty room.

The more I replayed our conversation in my head, the more pissed off I became, to the point where I was fuming. How did someone make it to adulthood with an attitude like this? Surely he would’ve been smacked by elders as a pup for mouthing off like that. Surely he didn’t speak like that to Derric, the alpha of the whole territory, who commanded respect.

Was it because I was a woman? Or a witch? Or was I the problem?

With a resigned sigh, I dragged the bat behind me as I returned to the storage room. Truth be told, I was already emotionally raw, a little touchy, even before Orson stepped foot inside the bar.

After Sawyer ended things with us, I did my best to move on with my head up high and a smile on my face. Break-ups happened. We could be mature about it. To his credit, he did his best to be honest without being cruel. He didn’t string me along and lie about having deeper feelings than he really had. We weren’t even together for that long. It should have been easy to move on from him.

Too bad I fell way harder in those few weeks than I ever intended. I didn’t even realize it until he broke it off. And when he found his mate, who turned out to be a latent shifter herself, so soon after? That was just salt, vinegar, and some barbed wire in the wound.

Werewolves had this allure about them, a kind of romantic mystery, even though I’d grown up and spent my whole life around them. They were all incredibly attractive by human and witch standards. Sometimes they dated and married us non-shifters, but that happened rarely. Werewolf packs and families were so tightly knit that they usually stuck to mating their own kind. So they were usually unattainable to people like me.

Sure they were my neighbors, friends, acquaintances, and customers. But by and large they kept to themselves, which only reinforced that mysteriousness. Even the gentlest, most soft-spoken werewolves I knew had a wildness about them that was fascinating.

So when Sawyer, Howling Death’s enforcer, started flirting with me, I couldn’t believe my luck. But as it turned out, I couldn’t measure up after all.

The fact that Orson had just waltzed in here and started setting up like he owned the place instead of me reinforced the idea that I didn’t matter. I was just in the way, a distraction. Like I didn’t deserve the same respect because I couldn’t howl at the moon and run on four legs. If I had been a wolf, I was damn sure Orson would have knocked first. His scruff would have been between my teeth otherwise.

I couldn’t blame Sawyer, of course. Our incompatibilities went beyond our biology. But feelings weren’t always rational, and right then, they were a big, swirling mess.

I definitely blamed Orson for being an asshole though. And whenever the Howling Death alpha deigned to call me up, I would give him a piece of my mind about his treasurer. Hopefully he’d teach that wolf some basic manners.

Orson wasn’t even hot enough to get away with being rude. Sure, he had that big, powerful body, but those arctic eyes of his were freaky. Not sexy at all. The dark hair and sharp jawline with a short beard? Didn’t do it for me in the slightest. Nope, not one bit.

After returning my bat to its corner behind the door, I only got through one more box of inventory before I heard a loud slam. Like someone had swung the front door open so hard, it slammed into the wall.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” My anger that had simmered down returned to a boiling rage. That werewolf had some fucking nerve.

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