by Mandy Rosko
She went to sleep early that night, feeling strangely exhausted. She woke up later than usual, and sat up straight when she realized why. There was a knock at the door.
Lois had basically trained herself to wake up on a dime for anyone knocking. She was constantly ordering new art supplies, despite mostly working with digital, and she flew out of bed.
It wasn’t until she saw Anna’s big eyes and the bag slung over her shoulder that Lois was able to remind herself that she hadn’t ordered anything in a while. Definitely nothing that would have been delivered today.
And the look on Anna’s face made Lois forget all about that as she opened the door wider to let the younger woman in.
Her eyes were tinged with red. If she hadn’t been crying, then she’d definitely been struggling not to.
“Anna, what’s the matter?” Lois shut and locked the door, but not before quickly checking to make sure there was no one out there.
There was no way Anna could have been that sad over Lois leaving, so this had to be something else, and Lois didn’t want to take the risk of her friend being followed by someone bad. Someone like Dennis.
“I’m sorry for coming over, but I just…I found out Jax…”
Lois went to the girl, putting her hands on Anna’s shoulders. “What? Jax what? Did he…?”
Lois didn’t know how to finish that sentence. As far as she knew, Jax and Anna didn’t have anything going on, though Anna did have something of a crush on the dragon shifter. Jax didn’t seem like the type who would take advantage of that and use Anna for anything, but she could have been wrong.
Hell, she’d been wrong about the fact that there were paranormal creatures in the world, like bear shifters and dragon shifters.
“Did he hurt you?”
Anna shook her head, blonde hair swaying around her face. She looked like she hadn’t put on any makeup or brushed her hair this morning. That wasn’t typical of this girl, as far as Lois knew.
“God, I feel so stupid. He didn’t do anything. I mean, I guess that’s part of the problem. He always told me he never felt the same way. He always said it, but I thought if I could just make him see…” Anna’s eyes continued to angle down, as if she was embarrassed by the whole thing.
Because Lois was taller than the other woman, she had to bend her knees a little just to keep the eye contact going. “Hey, I’m sure it’s okay,” she said. “It can’t be all that bad.”
Anna shook her head, and this time there really was a bright shine in her eyes. “It’s so embarrassing. That whole time he was in love with Katie. I never knew it. They must think I’m such a little kid.”
“I’m sure they don’t think that.”
Lois wished she could be angry at Jax, if only for the sake of her friend, but in the short amount of time she’d been in that house, she really hadn’t seen anything to suggest Jax had been leading her on, playing one woman while secretly pursuing another. Hell, Lois hadn’t known Jax had feelings for Katie. Not that she’d seen them together that much. She’d been spending most of her time trying to get Dane to sit still so he wouldn’t ruin his bandages.
And then trying to get into his pants.
She pushed the thought from her head. This wasn’t about her, it was about Anna. Lois basically had invited Anna and Miranda over to visit whenever they wanted, and heartbreak seemed like a decent enough reason for wanting female company. “Is Miranda with you?”
Anna shook her head. “She’s with Garret. They’re both so happy, and I just figured…” The way Anna looked at Lois with those big eyes was enough for her to fill in the rest.
Right. Anna didn’t want the company or comfort of a woman who was happily in love. Since Lois had also run from a heartbreak of her own, and misery tended to love company, why wouldn’t Anna want to come here instead? Lois didn’t hold it against her. She should be working, but she could answer emails from her phone if she needed to and spare a couple of hours for a friend in need.
“Okay, here’s what I think we should do,” Lois said. “You and I are going to eat some breakfast. We’re going to do our nails and our hair, and then we’re going to go out and buy some cute tops and jeans, and at the end of the day, everything will feel about a thousand times better.”
Lois knew she could use the TLC.
Anna smiled, and Lois knew she had the other woman.
* * *
“She just walked in there? You saw neither of them come out?”
Neil shook his head. “No. Pretty sure Lois doesn’t know I’m out here either. Had to park the truck a ways down the highway and hide it in the shrubs before coming back here.”
This town was small enough. Most people went to Buffalo or whatever for work and shopping, but there was a district of small apartment buildings, parks, a school, and a Walmart in the area. The apartment where Lois lived was only four stories tall, and Lois’s apartment was somewhere in the middle. Dane had found Neil in his wolf shape, watching the place. He’d seen Anna walk in almost an hour ago. Well before Garret realized his little sister was gone and had called Dane in a rage.
He’d asked Dane in that panicked, angry voice of his to make sure she was with Lois. Miranda must have told him she was probably there. It wasn’t like the girl had anywhere else to go, or many friends for that matter.
Satisfied the alpha’s sister was safely inside, Garret sent Dane a text. Garret was currently driving his ass down here to get the girl. Dane didn’t think that was totally necessary. Anna was a grown woman, and if she wanted to spend time with her friends, she should be able to do it. It was Garret’s over protective nature around his only living relative, especially considering how much younger Anna was than him, that kept most of the pack shy of spending too much time with her. They were worried they might say the wrong thing, make an offensive joke, or do anything that would bring down the wrath of the alpha on their heads.
“Are you going to go up, sir?” Neil asked.
Dane clenched his jaw, still looking at the apartment. It smelled like so many different humans, but it also smelled of Lois.
He could still imagine her red hair around her shoulders in waves when he’d been inside her.
“Yeah, eventually.”
He wasn’t stalling. He just didn’t know how to interrupt female bonding time. Women worked differently than men. When Dane was angry, he wanted to fight. When girls were angry, they did…other things. He didn’t know what they did, but it didn’t seem right to interrupt it just to announce he had to drag Anna back home.
And the stupid look Neil was giving him was definitely not helping anything either.
“Shut up,” Dane snapped.
Neil’s eyes widened. “I didn’t say anything.”
The fact that Neil was a beta and Dane was an alpha meant Neil wanted to give the respect an alpha was due, even though Dane wasn’t the one in charge of the pack as a whole.
And despite how Dane was being needlessly pissy.
He wanted to go up there. He really did.
“Garret’s going to be here in a half an hour. He can be the one to ruin his sister’s day. Not me.”
“Oh, right,” Neil said, a slight frown on his face, as though he didn’t understand the logic of an alpha backing down from something.
He’d better not say anything about that.
Dane heard the front glass doors to the apartment building opening, and when he looked and spotted Lois and Anna walking out, hands held, smiling at each other, Dane and Neil ducked behind the trees.
Lois wouldn’t know they were there, but if the wind blew the wrong way, Anna would smell them.
They both looked fine. Lois especially looked amazing. Dane only caught a glimpse of her curly red hair, but she was…stunning.
“They’re holding hands?”
“Girls do that sometimes, you idiot, now shut up,” Dane hissed, pretending as if he knew what a couple of girls did when they were alone.
Mostly, he didn’t like the interested way
Neil had said that. If he was getting some fantasy going in his head, Dane was going to have to beat it out of him.
Dane peeked out around the side of the trees he was hiding in, pushing down the feeling of being a Goddamn stalker. Anna was chatting with Lois, looking up at the woman with a wide smile on her face as they walked down the street.
The wind was with Dane and Neil, but even if it wasn’t, he was fairly sure Anna wouldn’t have been able to smell them hiding there. She was too focused on having her girl time.
“Shit. Where are they going?”
As if Dane was supposed to know that.
In this area of Meadow Springs, pretty much everything was in walking distance. Easy for the girls to get around, not so easy for Dane and Neil to follow. Neil was naked and could easily shift into his wolf shape; Dane was still wearing his clothes. Instead of stripping, Dane waited for the two women to turn the corner, and he quickly followed after them, looking around the corner of the apartment building, listening as Anna spoke excitedly while heading to the car Garret had purchased for her twentieth birthday.
She was excited to go shopping, and was talking about taking Lois to all her favorite stores. If they were taking Anna’s car, then they weren’t heading to the Walmart. They were going into one of the cities.
Dane went back to where Neil was still hiding. “They’re going shopping,” he said, pulling out his phone.
He sent Garret a quick text. Either the man was being an asshole and texting while driving, or he’d used a speech to text app because his reply came back stunningly fast.
Follow her.
Great. That was just fucking perfect. That was pretty much the last thing Dane wanted to do. He’d come here to explain himself to Lois and hopefully be alone with her. He didn’t want to stalk her or the little sister of the main man of the pack. If they both caught him, then it would look infinitely worse than if he’d just knocked on Lois’s door and said Garret wanted Anna to come home.
“What did he say?” Neil asked.
“He said that I’m fucked.”
17
A couple of hours with Anna turned into most of the day. Lois couldn’t believe how much energy the girl had for shopping, but Lois supposed that if she was still in her early twenties, and had a credit card that would be paid off on time every month by her billionaire big brother, then Lois might have had that sort of stamina as well.
God, she felt so old standing next to this younger woman.
Lois had come to this mall after she and Anna had done their hair and nails, with the expectation that she’d buy the other girl a small gift, maybe a belt or that cute top they were talking about. When it looked as though Anna was getting ready to buy out all the stores, pulling out a platinum credit card to make the transactions happen, Lois figured the girl was perfectly capable of seeing to her own shopping needs.
Anna seemed immensely happy with all her shopping bags, and Lois was happy for her when they stopped for iced coffees.
Anna looked brighter already, even if her eyes still clouded over a little at the sight of happy couples walking through the halls.
Lois watched the girl. It kept her from having to look at those happy couples herself. She didn’t want to think about Dane. Or how much her chest constricted whenever she did think about him.
Anna caught her staring more than once, and when she did, Lois had to look down at her straw just to hold back some of the embarrassment for being caught.
“Sorry. I guess I didn’t think this through too well.”
Lois looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
Now Anna was the one playing with her straw, smiling softly, sadly, as she used it to stir the ice around in her plastic cup.
“I do that sometimes, forget about other people’s feelings. Maybe that’s why I didn’t want to admit that Jax really wasn’t into me like I wanted him to be, and then I come to see you to make me feel better when you’re still sad about Dane.”
Lois’s heart did a quick thump-thumping thing in her chest. Everywhere felt hot all over. She sucked back a lot of her iced coffee to ease the ache.
“Sorry, I just hope this wasn’t too much of a pain for you.”
Lois looked at her and shook her head. “No, this was…this has been great. Really,” she added when Anna looked at her, as though not totally believing her. “I needed this, too. Getting our nails done, going shopping. We’ll have to bring Miranda next time.”
The shopping had been fun, even if Lois had only picked up one top compared to the ten different bags from a number of different stores Anna had.
Anna gave a wide smile that reached her eyes and would’ve lit up a dark room. “That sounds great.”
Anna was so cheerful and naturally perky, Lois couldn’t help but think she’d be fine no matter what happened or where she eventually went in her life.
Lois thought they were done after their coffees, but Anna’s eyes brightened suddenly as they stood up. “Can we go to the pet store? I want to see the kittens.”
As Lois followed after her, she wondered what Garret would do if Anna showed up back home with a kitten.
* * *
They were in that mall for-fucking-ever. Dane couldn’t believe it. He had to send constant text updates to Garret, who was waiting back at Lois’s apartment in the parking lot. Dane thought that was a good idea. Hell, he’d lost control not too long ago by thinking an omega was grabbing at Lois. If Garret had to surround himself with noisy humans who smelled like perfume just to drag his sister back home, he might not be able to keep his claws in.
Dane had once swam through waters so thick with oil his scuba gear had to be thrown away after the mission, all so he could plant an IED. Some of the guys he’d been on that mission with had immediately shaved their moustaches just to be rid of the smell.
It had taken him a week to clean all the oil off himself after that mission, and no one dared smoke a cigar for a while either. That mission had sucked, and he had to say, following around his mate and the sister of his alpha was far worse than that. The looks he was starting to get by the end were enough. He definitely didn’t hide well in a crowded mall, that was for damned sure.
Still, Dane breathed a heavy sigh when it looked as though they were finally going to leave, right After Anna just had to hug and pet every kitten and bunny in the pet store. The dogs were especially playful to her. She wasn’t an alpha, and with her perky nature, they probably saw her as one of their own.
Would Garret blow his top if she bought a kitten or a rabbit? Maybe. A rabbit in a house full of shifter wolves would only provoke a small hunt. Rabbits were prey animals, and cats didn’t normally see eye to eye with wolves and dogs.
He half thought Lois might buy one. Dane couldn’t go into the pet store itself. The dogs would likely start barking at him, but he could see her from where he stood hidden by the frozen yogurt stand. The way she smiled as the staff let her hold a kitten, the look of pleasure on her face, made his stomach twist and his chest ache.
Stupid. So stupid. Dane shook his head at himself and sucked back on the straw of the soda he’d bought. He bit down on it.
She wasn’t supposed to look so happy after she’d left him. That was a fucked up thing to think about, and logically, he knew it wasn’t reasonable…
But who gave a shit about reason when she was so happy without him?
After what you did, can you blame her?
Stupid conscience.
Whatever, it didn’t matter because then they were leaving, and Dane was able to breathe a sigh that this little mission of his was finally coming to a close. He could get the hell out of here.
He sent a text to Garret that they were on their way as he followed them down to the parking garage.
He got careless. He followed a little too close, thought the smells of all the people from the mall, then the car exhaust in the parking garage, would disguise his scent from Anna.
It didn’t. They were halfway to her car, and Dane
had been about to turn, to head to the spot where he’d parked, when Anna suddenly stopped and spun around.
She did it shockingly fast, considering all the bags she was hefting around.
Her eyes blazed with righteous anger. “You! I knew it!”
Dane didn’t tense up until Lois looked back at what Anna was yelling at and spotted him as well.
Her blue eyes flew wide. Dane couldn’t move. Not when she looked at him like that, and then looked away.
Anna didn’t seem to notice the reaction of her friend. She was too busy being furious at being followed. “Garret sent you after me, didn’t he?”
“Well you did run away.”
“I’m twenty-three years old! I can do whatever I want!”
The way she stomped her foot didn’t suggest she was as mature as she wanted either Dane or her brother to believe.
Dane rolled his eyes and was about to tell her so when screeching tires echoed through the concrete walls of the parking garage.
A black SUV fishtailed and smacked into him. The impact was hard, sudden. He had no time to brace himself as he was struck.
Dane wasn’t much aware of flying backwards. His face and chest felt like it had been crushed thanks to the force of the vehicle. He saw white spots, and for a half second, everything was kind of peaceful.
Until he came down hard. The burn of the pavement on his shoulders, back, and head was intense. It woke him right up from the shock of being hit by a fucking car. He jumped up like someone had just injected him with ten needles worth of pure caffeine.
He blinked, nostrils flaring. He smelled blood in the air and realized it was his own.
Screams. There were screams. Humans ran from the scene, men and women, some dragging their girlfriends or children away.
The girls.
Anna was putting up a good fight. She’d dropped her bags and was practically in her wolf form, stretching the clothes she wore as she slashed her claws at the men who were grabbing at her. Shifters.
Lois wasn’t having such an easy time of it. Dane roared, the bear coming out as he charged the dickhead who had her over his shoulder.
