Page 56 of Wolf Cursed
Isaac looked stricken. “Not Galileo.”
“Your dog’s name is Galileo?” I asked. “Wait. You have a dog?” I looked back and forth between them. “Isn’t that a little ironic?”
“Are you about to make some weird joke about how wearehouse pets?” Isaac asked, eyes narrowed. “Because you should know I’ll only allow it if you make it kinky. And Idrissa won’t allow it at all. She usually punches people right about now.”
I eyed Idrissa who didn’t contradict Isaac. “Noted,” I said. “And I didn’t mean to insult you, but maybe if you explained some shit, I wouldn’t accidentally say the wrong thing.”
“She has a point,” Isaac said to his sister.
Idrissa sighed and glanced up and down the street. “Fine. But not here. Come on.”
She turned and led the way through a narrow alley, and I followed, fully expecting some secret hideout—or den—hidden behind the dry cleaners and crystal shop we’d cut between. Instead, I found myself in a garden. Stone borders held up raised beds that overflowed with lush, green plants.
Large shade trees rose up at each end, plunging the whole space into shadows. It was cooler here too. And getting cooler the further we went.
I rubbed absently at my arms to ward off the chill.
From other directions, stone pathways all led to a common space in the very center of things. Somewhere nearby, water trickled. A fountain maybe? Or a pond? It smelled like algae.
“What is this place?” I asked, turning a full circle as Idrissa stopped at a small table and chairs set in the very center where all the paths converged. It felt . . . magical. If magic were actually real. And according to Drake and his rude accusations, it was.
“It’s called a garden,” Idrissa said, brow arched.
“Hilarious,” I said.
“I couldn’t resist.”
She gestured to one of the chairs. The iron back was cold underneath my hands, but I pulled it out and sat, dropping my bags to the stone ground.
Isaac took one of the other chairs, and we both looked expectantly at Idrissa.
“The crystal shop owner is a friend of mine,” Idrissa explained.
“I thought you didn’t have any friends,” I said.
She smirked. “Okay, well, wewerefriends until she slept with my boyfriend senior year, but then I slept with her brother. We’ve decided to call it even.”
I stared at her. “You’re serious.”
“What? You never slept with someone’s brother?” she challenged.
“I slept with someone who had a sister,” I said slowly, frowning at the memory. “I didn’t know who she was and use it against her.”
Nicholas Andre. He’d been a terrible kisser, but I’d needed to feel something, anything that wasn’t the constant stress of dealing with my Dad. Turns out I didn’t need to feel it bad enough to go back for seconds. In fact, every guy I’d slept with—three, which wasn’t many—had been a one-and-done. And not just because of Dad. There was just never anything to them that made me want to go back for more.
Kai, on the other hand, made me wonder if I’d ever stop once we started.
I blinked, forcing my thoughts back to the conversation, and found Idrissa grinning back at me in a way that made the hairs on my neck stand up. “Too bad,” she declared as if pitying me. “It was a fucking rush.”
I shook my head. “You’re crazy.”
“Blame our wild wolves,” she said with a shrug. “Tori’s cool now though. Or cooler than some of the others. Isaac and I helped her put all this together a couple of years ago.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“Our wolves like the outdoors,” she told me, and I nodded.
Even without the ability to shift, I’d always appreciated nature too. The smell of the earth. The wind. Being underneath an open sky. It felt like … freedom. And looking around, I could appreciate how someone had brought little hints of all that freedom into such a small, tight space.
