The Wolf's Joy

by Holley Trent

  Maybe she needed the challenge.

  “Fine.” She threw up her hands and headed into the living room to get her coat. “But I say we’re wasting a trip. It’s nasty out.”

  “Perfect time to go sightseeing.”

  “Is that what we call trespassing?”

  “Naw, sugar. That’s what we call breaking and entering.”

  She didn’t think he was joking.

  And for some reason—possibly that cutthroat practicality was a catching disease—she didn’t care if he wasn’t.

  Chapter Eight

  “You just picked a lock in ten seconds.” There was awe in Alex’s voice as she pulled her collar up to her nose and shifted her weight, likely trying to keep herself warm in the blustery wind.

  Ben was feeling the cold. He was trying to ignore it. Thinking that he might have to shapeshift to carry out the caper, he hadn’t even put on his coat. It’d probably be days before he could convince his nuts to come out of hiding.

  “How’d you learn to pick locks?” Alex asked.

  “I’m a mechanic. I’ve got lots of tricks.”

  “Random tricks you learned for legal purposes that you choose to use otherwise?” She looked around, scanning the street in either direction, probably for witnesses.

  No one was out in that mess, and he had it on good authority the alarm was turned off. No one wanted to pay the power bill on a house no one was living in.

  Ben slid his lock picking tools into the back pocket of his cargo pants. “This is shapeshifter justice. As far as I’m concerned, the Sheehans can’t be punished enough for what they did.”

  “I happen to agree with you,” she said through clattering teeth, “but I’m not a shapeshifter. I’m a soft-bellied waitress with short nails and falling arches.”

  “You want to wait out here?”

  “No!” she said with an indignant huff. “You wouldn’t even know which plants I need.”

  “Tell me what they look like. I’ll shake off the snow and see what’s there.”

  “I can do it.” The statement came out sounding a lot like a question. “I can. They deserve to be raided. They deserve to have every brick on this property stolen.”

  “That’s the spirit, sugar.”

  “What’s a few seed pods, right?”

  “Exactly.” He’d pull up whole plants if she wanted him to. Bushes and small trees, even, if that would make her smile. She acted like a few dried out seeds were worth the same as diamonds.

  He put a hand to the small of her back and nudged her onto the property before she could bolt. As a shapeshifter, he didn’t feel any guilt about needing to trespass on occasion. When he was roaming on four legs, he didn’t pay attention to where one property ended and the next began. Borders were an artificial concept. When he was in his man shape, though, he tried to be conscientious about personal property, but he knew damn well that had the shoes been on the other feet, Sheehan would have been doing the same shit. Sheehan was a Cougar, after all, and not an especially decent one.

  “What’s the plant called?”

  “It’s a kind of aster,” she said. “Has white petals.” She held up her phone on which she’d brought up a picture of the plant. She swiped left. “This is what it looks like in winter.”

  “Where’s it at?”

  “East side of the house.” She looked behind them again, and cringed. “Ugh. We left footprints.”

  “Snow’ll melt.”

  “But what if someone sees them before it does?”

  “They’re not going to give two shits, unless they’re the cops. Too cold out here for people to care.”

  “You sure? I need you to be sure, Ben.”

  “Pretty sure.”

  She stopped and turned to him, brown eyes narrowed and cheeks red from wind. “You realize that if we go to jail, I’m going to roll on you and say this was all your idea.”

  “That’s cold. Bonnie wouldn’t throw Clyde under the bus like that.”

  “Bonnie and Clyde were a couple.”

  “You’re my mate. Same shit.”

  The crease between Alex’s brows deepened. He couldn’t see her mouth, but he would have bet that it was open in shock.

  He understood the feeling. He was feeling pretty shocked, too, but the truth often did that.

  It was as factual as the truths that water was wet, snow was cold, and Burger King made the best fast food fries. There was no questioning the truth, because there was zero evidence of the opposite.

  The wolf part of him had spoken.

  Howled, rather.

  His mate was standing right there in front of him, and he wasn’t going to get to pick another.

  Period.

  Done.

  He didn’t know what that was going to mean for them, only that he couldn’t be with anyone else. The wolf would recoil—he’d fight back.

  He and Alex would have to make some kind of arrangement. They were smart. They could come up with some way of making things work.

  The more he thought about it, the more optimistic he was. He could have a mate and keep his job.

  It could work.

  “You don’t . . . even live here,” she said. “I can’t be Bonnie.” She trudged across the yard for the side of the house, shaking her head as she went.

  He didn’t even live there.

  Of course, he knew that. Sometimes, Fate did whatever the hell it wanted to, though. Off the top of his head, he could name five people in Maria who hadn’t been looking for love there and had ended up with it anyway.

  It made the naive town slogan of “There’s Magic in Maria!” which had been thought up by a third-grader in a chamber of commerce contest, seem that much more prophetic.

  “Who ever said Bonnie and Clyde couldn’t do long distance?” he asked, catching up to her.

  She’d waded between a couple of bushes at the side of the house and had bent over to knock snow off a tiny shrub. “My mother is long distance, and I barely even respond to her text messages. Even if I wanted to make it work, I know it wouldn’t.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Here and here.” She pointed to two latent perennial plants. “With the snow and mulch, it’d be impossible at this point to see if there are any on the ground, so please check the stems carefully.”

  He let out a frustrated breath and shoved a hand through his hair. Her expression may have been calm, but her hormones were spiking in that fixin’ to be angry way.

  “Are you going to answer my question?” he asked her.

  “What, why I don’t want to be your long-distance mate?” She scoffed and unzipped her jacket enough to pull a paper bag out of it. “No thanks. I can get booty calls locally.”

  “From that jackass cop, you mean.”

  “Actually, we call him ‘Deputy Dipshit.’ Get it right if you’re going to insult him.” She angrily plucked at the plant. “And not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

  “Who, then? Hmm?” He should have been helping her find pods, but he could barely see straight through his rage, much less think.

  “It doesn’t matter. Being in my company for a day doesn’t qualify you to have input on my love life.”

  “It does when you’re my mate.”

  She gave him a frigid, side-eyed look. “I’m not a Wolf.” She gave the plant she was tending a frustrated shake and yanked about a dozen branches out wholesale. She put them, stems and roots and all, into the bag, and then more of them before moving on to the plant he was pointedly ignoring.

  “So, I’m supposed to care less what you do when I’m not here?”

  She let out a manic-sounding titter and stomped to the other plant. “When would you be here?”

  “Whenever Clarissa is, at the very least.”

  “Which is how often?”

  He turned his hands over. “I mean, there’s no set schedule. Every two weeks. Sometimes more often. She needs me, so I go where she wants to go.”

  “No.” Alex gav
e her head a defiant shake and yanked off some twigs. “Not gonna do that. Sorry.”

  “You don’t like me?”

  She tittered again, stood, and squeezed past him, muttering as she went.

  “I didn’t catch that,” he said, following. “Repeat that for me?”

  “I said if you’re not going to help me, go away.”

  “Naw, that’s not what you said.” He’d counted at least one f-word in that mumbled tirade, and the word wasn’t festive, fur, or fruitcake.

  “You don’t really mean that,” he said.

  “You know what? Actually, I do.” Alex stuffed the remaining twigs into her bag, folded the top down, and angrily stepped out of the planter. “Go away. Clarissa is probably wondering where you are, right? You don’t want to make her worry.”

  “She’s not my mother, sugar. She’s my employer, and I don’t think she gives a rat’s ass where I am right now.”

  “And neither do I.”

  The words were like a cold slap to the face, and Ben had no response. He could deal with a bit of lighthearted ribbing, but that wasn’t what he and Alex were doing. They were arguing, and she was madder than a wet cat, and he had no clue why.

  “Alex—” he called after her when he’d regained the good sense to pursue. He thought women wanted to be pursued, but the snarling warning of “Just stay away from me,” she shouted at him from the gate suggested otherwise.

  He stood stupefied in the snow, watching her jog gracelessly away in her winter boots. Somehow, he was going to have to explain the outcome of the ordeal to Scott for his little notebook. They’d need to figure out what went wrong so it didn’t happen again the next time.

  Bewildered, he walked the long way around town to Noelle’s house, replaying the confrontation in his mind and trying to quiet his agitated inner wolf.

  There’s not going to be a next time, he realized as he climbed up the steps to Noelle’s house an hour later.

  Alex was his mate, and she didn’t want to be.

  It wasn’t supposed to work like that. He wasn’t supposed to find a mate just to lose her the same day.

  “I guess I’m still that world-record-caliber loser,” he muttered as he shut the door behind him.

  He followed the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses to the kitchen, and the room went silent as he slumped into a chair and put his head down on the table.

  No one said anything for a minute or two, and he was glad. For a little while, he wanted to be alone with his shame. To wallow with his tail between his legs.

  No matter what I fucking do, it’s wrong.

  “So . . . ” Tamatsu started, “we were discussing whether or not we want to get up early enough for the holiday parade. Starts at ten.”

  Ben grunted.

  “That bozo at the chamber of commerce who organizes the event asked if I wanted to be Mrs. Claus on the North Pole float this year,” Jenny said sourly. “He said I was—and I quote—‘sufficiently round.’”

  Ben picked up his head to see her face. As he suspected, her ever-present smile had vanished. In its place was a slight frown that made her round eyes look unusually sad.

  She had the right to be upset. Calling a lady who wasn’t with child “round” was an epic dick move.

  “Bastard,” Clarissa muttered into her teacup. “I hope you told him to stick his North Pole where the sun doesn’t shine.”

  Noelle gaped at her.

  “What?” Clarissa asked her. “You can’t expect me to be dignified all the time. The louse said an awful thing to Jenny.”

  “You want me to beat him up?” Scott asked her, serious as a heart attack and clutching the table edge as though he was fixing to reap vengeance for her that very minute.

  Jenny sighed. “You’re sweet, but no.”

  Scott hooked up a brow. “No? Why the hell not?”

  “He’s got to be sixty, if he’s a day. Maybe he doesn’t know any better.”

  Tamatsu set his elbows onto the tabletop and twined his long fingers. “Isn’t he the same gentleman who, at the community pool, told December Perez that a skirted swimsuit would be more flattering for a woman with stretch marks?”

  Grinding her teeth, Noelle nodded.

  “Evidently, he has foot-in-mouth disease,” Clarissa said.

  Scott gave Jenny a nudge with his elbow. “I can pad on over in my wolf form and piss on his doormat or something.”

  “That’d be a gift to him,” Ben muttered. “Wolf piss is an animal repellant, and Maria is lousy with rabbits and raccoons.”

  “I could think of less pleasant gifts. I’m sure I’ve given some before.”

  “Me, too.”

  Jenny twined a long lock of hair around her index finger and narrowed her eyes. “Normally, I wouldn’t consider such a thing.”

  “You don’t have to be nice all the time,” Tamatsu said. “You don’t owe anyone politeness after they’ve offended you, especially when they’re a known asshole.”

  “I wouldn’t go as far as to call him that. I mean—”

  Noelle gave the tabletop a light pound and threw her hands up.

  Jenny sighed. “Okay, I see your point.”

  “Better let me deal with him so Noelle doesn’t,” Scott said. “Won’t be nothin’ left of him if you let her at him.”

  Noelle studied her nails and shrugged. Ben hadn’t known the lady long, but he knew enough to recognize she was dangerous with a blade and that she didn’t make idle threats. The fact she was less than five feet tall and couldn’t speak due to some magic event neither she nor Tamatsu would elaborate on probably made most people underestimate her.

  “Just, don’t hurt him a lot,” Jenny said. “Maybe you can scare him a little. That would be okay, wouldn’t it, Clarissa?”

  Clarissa sawed off a piece of fruitcake and said, without looking up, “I’m sure you’ll understand if I pretend to be ignorant on the matter.” She scoffed and plopped cake onto her plate. “I’m appalled he would criticize anything about you when he, in sixty years, evidently hasn’t met a toothbrush he’s liked enough to use daily.”

  “And I think her shape’s real nice,” Scott said.

  Ben lifted a brow at his cousin.

  “You do?” Jenny asked, wide-eyed.

  “Mm-hmm.” One side of Scott’s mouth quirked up into one of those lecherous smirks that always made Sweetie threaten to smack it off. “The round parts are my favorites.”

  “You must have a lot of favorite parts then.”

  “Mmm hmm.” The rumble in Scott’s hum was positively wicked. So was the gleam in his eyes as they tracked over what he could see of Jenny’s round bits.

  Ben would have kicked his shin under the table if he’d angled well enough.

  Jenny was not on the list of prospects. They’d both agreed she was off-limits because Clarissa probably wouldn’t have appreciated one of her entourage members getting Wolf’d up. She was a tiny thing, but she could probably make them hurt if she wanted to, or she could even have one of her grandsons-in-law do the job. Their morals weren’t nearly as pure.

  Apparently, Scott had forgotten about all that.

  Ben cleared his throat and glowered at him.

  “What?”

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Bull—”

  Staccato rapping on the front door had them all pushing their chairs back from the table and standing.

  “Stay put. I’ll get the door,” Tamatsu said, turning the flame on beneath the kettle as he passed.

  Shrugging, Noelle walked to the refrigerator and fetched a carton of eggnog.

  “Ooh, good idea,” Jenny said. “That’ll be good with the moonshine.”

  Before meeting Noelle, Ben had never seen a lady’s nod hint at so much trouble.

  “Y’all are gonna run out of the hooch,” Scott said.

  “Ben’ll have to make us some more,” Jenny said, beaming. “And maybe you can bring it.”

&
nbsp; “Tell me when, and I’ll get one of them angel fellers to zip me right over. I’ll come bearing moonshine and a smile.”

  “Well, you don’t have to bring moonshine. You could just visit.”

  “Oh, yeah? You invitin’ me?”

  “I think I am?” She looked to Noelle. “Am I? Well, I guess I am.” She looked to Scott. “Yes, I am.”

  “You got my number.” He took her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it. “Call it.”

  Ben rolled his eyes.

  Fuckin’ snake.

  Tamatsu halted his quiet murmuring, and the front door clicked shut.

  The room dynamics instantly shifted, and not simply Tamatsu replacing the energy he’d withdrawn, but because of the addition of a newcomer.

  Ben recognized her more for her scent than for her energy. Her energy was neutral and unassuming. Her scent, though, was of the outdoors, and of fertility, and of Ben.

  “I brought your coat.” Alex thrust the camouflage-printed thing at him as though she was afraid lice were going to pounce onto her.

  He took the coat from her and folded it over his arm. “I could have gotten it tomorrow. You didn’t have to come out in this weather.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’m not trying to sound like I’m not grateful.” He just didn’t get why she’d put in the effort when she’d been so adamant about him staying the hell away from her.

  She shrugged and took a step to the left, out of Tamatsu’s way.

  He turned off the burner beneath the kettle and poured the hot water into the teapot. “Brewing it strong. That ought to keep you elves up a few more minutes.”

  “Coffee would be better,” Clarissa said. “But coffee also makes me toss and turn. Tea’s best.”

  “Why don’t you go on to bed?” Alex asked them. “Are you staying up late for some reason in particular? I know you elves can’t stay awake long past dark in winter.”

  Jenny splashed a bit of booze into her eggnog. “We forgot about the veil. The one that’s between the abandoned elf realm and here is thin tonight, which means the chances of us getting sucked in while we sleep are too high.”