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I put the phone on speaker and set it on the seat next to me as I pulled out of the parking lot. “I could, but I feel like I should remind you that I’m just as much a werewolf as the guys at the farm.”
“I know.” She scoffed, and I could imagine her rolling those beautiful brown eyes. “But…Lillian trusts you.”
“Lillian?” I stopped at a red light and shot a look at my phone beside me. “You must trust me at least a little.Youwere the one who calledme.”
“Okay, maybe you’re not quite like the other werewolves I’ve met before.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. “I’ll be by the Crow’s Nest at five o’clock with the crystals, and then you can buy me a beer at the Olde Main Street Pub.”
“I—”
“Don’t make an excuse. See you soon, Ruby.” I pressedEndon the screen and put both hands on the wheel.
Something about this witch made me curious. If she liked werewolves, I might think she had me under a spell or something, but clearly, the last thing she’d want was to use a love charm on a shifter.
Maybe it had just been too long since I’d been with a woman. That wasn’t true, either. I’d been with a woman from a club in Boston a couple of weeks ago. One-night stands were more my style. It was tough to manage a real relationship when I knew the woman wasn’t my mate. I could go through the motions, but my heart would never really be in it.
I should’ve let it go years ago, but I still had fond memories of my mom and dad when I was a kid. They had been happy, each one half of a greater whole.
That’s what I wanted.
But I’d never found her, and at some point, I’d stopped looking. How many times could I date someone hoping that when we touched skin to skin my wolf would recognize her and howl inside my soul? When I was younger, I’d built up the moment in my head and each time I finally took a woman’s hand and nothing happened, it was tougher to recover from the disappointment.
Somewhere along the way I’d started taking the easy way out and enjoying a woman’s company when she came on to me and then heading home later without any strings attached. So why was I suddenly making deals with a witch just to get her to have a drink with me? Maybe it was because I knew there was no future. No risk of disappointment.
Whatever the reason, I was looking forward to finding out what made her tick.
When I pulled through the gates of the farm, the porch was empty. I frowned. Wes and Wyatt were supposed to be watching over the property while Mathias was recovering. I parked and got out. At least it had stopped raining.
I jogged up the steps and found the twins inside standing in front of the fireplace. Wes looked at me over his shoulder. “The wind picked up, and we were freezing our asses off out there.”
“I got the antibiotics, so hopefully Mathias will be up and about again in a day or two.”
Wyatt stared at the fire. “It’s pretty cold out there for April. I hope it doesn’t fuck up the flowers. Some of them were already starting to bloom.”
Munro Manor Farms was a working farm and the main source of income for the wolf pack to maintain the large, three-story home and help any pack members who might be in a money crunch.
Our retail season didn’t go into full swing until June, though, so if anyone was going to get injured, now was the time. We could plant the apple trees and strawberries without Mathias, but once the harvesting started and we opened our gates to the public, Mathias was the patriarch of the farm. He’d share stories and take photos with visitors. Every December he even dressed up like Santa. No one would ever guess they’d handed off their babies and toddlers to a werewolf Alpha.
In June, the lot would be packed with people coming out for our strawberry-picking festival, and our farmer’s market would be full of fresh flowers and produce. Hopefully, Mathias would be completely healed by then and things could get back to normal. No more talks about new Alphas and hunters and dark magic.
When I entered Mathias’s bedroom, he was still in bed, awake and staring out the window. Maybe Lillian’s reiki had done more healing than she’d thought. “Hey, old man. I have some antibiotics for you.”
He looked over at me and smiled. His skin was still pale, and sweat shone on his forehead. “Thank you, Zeke.”
I read the instructions on the box and opened it, taking out two pills. “This Z-Pak should knock out the infection. You take two today, and then one a day until they’re gone.”
I handed him the pills, and he popped them in his mouth, then washed them down with some water from the bottle at his bedside. He set the water back on the nightstand and looked up at me. “Have you thought about our conversation?”
Only about how I hoped we could avoid it.
“I think once you’re healed, we can stop worrying about a new Alpha.”
He shook his head. “I should’ve stepped down twenty years ago. I overstayed my welcome, but I didn’t want anyone to fight for the position so I figured staying was the lesser of two evils.”
“Sounds like solid logic to me.” I went to the window, collected Lillian’s crystals, and slipped them into the black velvet pouch they’d been sitting on.
Mathias pushed himself farther up in bed so he could sit. “I won’t see this pack die out. I don’t want that to be my legacy.”
