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He wanted to ask her where she was from, but he figured that she wouldn’t tell him. She might decide to get up and walk away, and he really wanted her to stay and talk to him.
“I’ve traveled to a couple of different places. I’ve been to the mountains in California, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and other states, and I have to say that none are more beautiful than the mountains here.”
“You wouldn’t be biased, would you?” she asked, laughing.
“I might be. Just a tiny bit,” he replied. “Angel’s Creek is an amazing place full of great people. Jade and Sean are members of my pack and both of them are terrific. There are a lot of other shifters in the area, too. We have a bear shifter clan, dragon shifter clan, and a few other clans. There are also some witches and vampires. We all coexist with the mundanes, who know we are here, but they just accept us as regular people.”
“Sounds like a paradise,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong. Things happen here as much as they do anywhere. But for the most part, the people in this town stand together to protect themselves and each other.”
“I really think that is the case in most places. I like to believe that the majority of people are amazing. It is just a few bad eggs who make the news and make everyone look bad. The good guys don’t make the news or end up on social media nearly as much,” Olivia said.
“I agree,” Zac replied. “You know, I haven’t seen too many white wolves, whether shifters or mundane.”
“They pop up in my family history every few generations. My grandmother was a white wolf. She was an empath and could tell what people were feeling. If she wasn’t careful, other people’s emotions would overwhelm her.”
“Are you an empath, too?”
“I am, but not as strong as Grandma. I try to keep it closed off, unless I really want to read a person or a situation,” she said. “I find that most people are happy when they feel like they’ve accomplished something. A lot of people are simply trying to figure out who they are and what their place in this world is.”
Zac wondered if she was one of those lost souls trying to figure out her life.
She looked up at the sky and said, “I need to be going. I have a shift at Howler’s this afternoon and evening.”
“I’ll walk with you. You found my usual shifting spot and put your clothes in the same tree that I always stash mine,” he said.
“What a coincidence,” Olivia replied, shifting back into her wolf form.
“Maybe great minds just think alike,” he said as he shifted as well.
The white wolf and the dark gray wolf trotted back to the spot they started from. Zac enjoyed the companionship as a comforting silence settled around them. She quickly shifted and dressed. Although Zac wished that he had more time to enjoy looking at her, he was glad that she dressed quickly. There was an almost overwhelming temptation to pull her against him and kiss her, letting her know that she belonged to him.
Ian stopped by his house a couple of hours later. “You’ve been a naughty boy. You upset all the elders. They haven’t stopped talking about you since the meeting was over.”
Zac grinned and said, “Good. They need to figure out that I’m the alpha and if I don’t feel like going to a meeting where they are going to talk about the same things over and over again, then that’s just tough luck.”
Ian grabbed a couple of beers out of Zac’s fridge and said, “So, what did you do?”
Zac told him about heading up into the mountain and following Olivia’s scent.
“She said that she wouldn’t go out with me because she isn’t staying long. She also told me that the reason that she is here is because she just got out of a bad relationship. I think that there is more to the story that she isn’t sharing, though.”
“Do you want me to do some digging?” Ian asked.
“Nah. If she sticks around and doesn’t tell me her story, then you can. After all, the last thing that we need in Angel’s Creek is a wolf shifter serial killer traveling the country and using our small town as a hideout,” Zac said.
“She hardly seems the type,” Ian said.
“Neither did Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy, but there you go,” Zac said.
“True enough.” Ian laughed.
Ian’s stomach rumbled and he said, “It’s my turn to buy.”
“You know I can never say no to that.”
Zac was disappointed when he found out that Olivia wasn’t his waitress. He wondered whether Olivia had asked to not be put in his section or if Sean did it just to be mean.
