You aren’t crazy at all.
She wore the cutest little frown, her lips pursed slightly, her blond eyebrows furrowed as she stared at a clipboard. It was inventory night. She always scrunched up her face like that when she was doing math.
You aren’t crazy at all.
And yet here he was, sitting on a stack of crates across the street, watching a girl who didn’t know she was being watched. The prettiest girl he’d ever seen. She’d been doing up her make-up more lately. A wicked part of him hoped she was doing it for him. Her boobs pressed against a white tank top, and she was wearing his favorite jeans—the ones with the sparkles on the back pockets. He only got to see her ass when she came out from behind the bar to serve customers.
It would get rowdy soon, but this was the calm before the storm, the witching hour when he got to watch her all calm and collected. She smiled more when it wasn’t busy. Sometimes he couldn’t watch her at all if she was rushing around, trying to be enough for everyone in the bar. When she got stressed out, his wolf got stressed out, and that was a dangerous game.
It was also a new game.
It was the first time his animal had been anything but a mindless killing machine. Now…sometimes…he wanted to be a mindless killing machine for Trina.
You aren’t crazy at all.
“Caw, caw, caw, caw!” a crow cried from the branches right above Kade’s spying place.
He startled hard and snarled up at the massive black bird with the ring of white around his neck.
Ethan spread his wings and dove from the tree, and just before he hit the ground, he Changed and landed on his feet.
Kade glared at him. It was obnoxious that his Changes were so easy and controlled. “I can see your dick,” Kade muttered, giving his attention back to Trina. “Fuck off.”
“Ma told me how you used to help her watch out for us.”
“So?”
“So…I’m keeping you company while you watch Trina tonight.”
Kade tossed him a dirty look. “Don’t need company. I’m fine on my own.”
“Dude, you were the one who made us a Clan and decided I was supposed to be the Alpha.”
“Shhh.”
“And Leah said I should try to make us all closer.”
“Ethan, shutthefuckup!”
“She also called the stars ‘the glitter of the sky’ and has been trying to convince me the man on the moon is actually a manta ray in the moon, and—”
“I’m literally going to murder you and not feel even one percent bad about it if you don’t leave me alone,” Kade whispered. “I’m busy. And good God, cover your balls up, man. You’re making this weird.”
Ethan had his hands on his hips and looked down at his dick with a frown. With an eye-roll, he covered up his junk and whispered, “Just so you know, it’s already weird. Why don’t you just go talk to her?”
“Because she deserves better.”
“Horseshit. Let her decide that.”
“I tried to eat her the other day in jail.”
Ethan snorted and leaned on the tree trunk beside him. “Well, there’s a word combination I never thought I would hear.”
“Don’t you have a mate to bone?”
“Nah, she’s crafting tonight.”
“Mod Podge Mondays,” they both murmured in unison.
Kade kept the smile off his face, but just barely. As far as living creatures went, Leah was less annoying than most. But seriously, if he had to stand here with Ethan and his stupid balls out anymore, he was going to kill something. “Dude,” he growled.
“Oh, right.” Ethan covered himself up again. “So, do you want the dirt on Trina or not?”
“Fuck. Off.”
“’Cause I found her story pretty interesting when I was asking around town.”
Kade narrowed his eyes at Ethan. His stepbrother had picked the perfect chum bait for a psychotic little shark like Kade.
“I think you’ll find it interesting toooooo,” Ethan sang low.
Kade could probably break both of Ethan’s shin bones before he would even react. He considered it for a few seconds, but he would save his violence in case the Wulfe Clan came back in tonight and messed with his girl. The girl. Eh-hem. That girl over in the bar who was attached to no one. Fuck. Snarl. Shut up, Wolf.
You aren’t crazy at all. In his head, Trina’s voice sounded so pretty.
“Tell me,” Kade gritted out, “and then fuck off.”
“Trina Luna Chapman, born April tenth, nineteen eighty-three—”
“Ethan, I swear to you on everything that is holy—”
“Born and raised here, mom passed away when she was seven, and she was raised by her dad, Cooper. That’s the old codger coming out of the back office.” Ethan gestured to the silver-haired man making his way toward a distracted-looking Trina. “Trina was born a shifter.”
“What? I thought mountain lions were one of the shifters who could only have boys.”
“Me, too, but apparently not. We have a party pack of weird shifters in this town,” Ethan murmured. “We got a squirrel shifter Origin, the first of her kind ever, a natural born female moose shifter—"
“They’re called cows—”
“Ha, if you met her on a bad day, you would not want to call her that. Vina damn-near killed me with her stompy, big-ass hooves. Anyway, then we have Trina, another female shifter, not Turned, born with the animal. So you know she’s already tough as leather because girls have a hard time controlling predator animals.”
“Leah doesn’t,” he pointed out.
Ethan chuckled. “I don’t think anything ever stood a chance at getting Leah down. I thought for sure her wolf would be a psychopath, because look at her maker?” Ethan gestured to Kade. “But nope, her wolf is the happiest, most playful monster on the planet.”
“Please,” Kade muttered. “I saw her the other night in that bar fight. She’s a killer.”
“When she wants to be. When her people are threatened.”
Kade wouldn’t admit it out loud, but there was a little part of him that smiled because he was one of Leah’s people. It was still new, being a part of a Clan, and Kade didn’t really know how to navigate it quite yet.
In his head, he was still a lone wolf, but sometimes it was fun to pretend he wasn’t.
Ethan looked around. “So, did you ride your motorcycle here? Or did you walk?”
Kade sighed and scooted farther away from Ethan. He could see Trina better from the shadows over here anyway.
“You still have your clothes on, so you didn’t Change and run here—”
“Are you going to talk the entire time?”
“Well…probably.”
Kade wanted to kick everything. “If you’re going to talk, talk about Trina.”
The knowing grin that spread across Ethan’s face was the most obnoxious thing Kade had ever witnessed, and he didn’t even try to stop the snarl in his throat. Ethan was a crusty, obnoxious shrimp chode, and Kade was probably going to Change and eat him. He had two stepbrothers, so he could play that game twice. Right about now, he missed being an only child. He hadn’t missed out on anything growing up by himself. Brothers were headaches, and about ninety-four percent of the time, he wanted to bite them.
“I take it back. I don’t want to be in your Clan.”
“Too late. Leah made us matching T-shirts. Glitter glue was involved. Can’t take it back now.”
“I hate you.”
“Trina lost her whole Clan,” Ethan said suddenly.
Inside the bar, she gave her dad a big hug, and they stayed like that for a minute. Something was wrong. She was upset.
Kade sighed. “I know that part.”
“Then you know how tough she is. She suffered the pain of all those broken bonds, of everyone she cared about dying, and she’s still here. She was watching you the other day, Kade. In that cell? She was sitting there watching you breathe. I never seen a woman more worried about someone. She lost a Clan, and not only did she survive it, but she was brave enough to open herself up to another Clan and un-jaded enough to still care about people.”