This time he meant it.
On his good leg, he hopped in circles, trying to inspect his other foot. Thankfully, it wasn’t bloody or mangled.
“You should be all right now.”
He eased his foot down until it was flat against the boulder. After a few tentative steps, he put his full weight on it. It didn’t buckle and he felt no pain.
Croaking gratefully, he bowed to his lovely rescuer.
His reward was a soft smile. This time, when she reached toward him, Bodie didn’t strike back.
She gently stroked his chest. His insides got all warm and fuzzy, and he felt a little drunk. He blamed the sensation on his relief at being freed.
“Aren’t you cute.”
Cute? Seriously?
Cute was for teenagers. When she saw him in his human form, that would not be the first word that popped into her mind.
A howl rose in the distance.
“Gotta go, little one,” she told Bodie before shifting into her wolf and leaping from the boulder.
Little one.
Oh, he couldn’t wait to show her how little he wasn’t.
The hypnotic whir of the sewing machine was as near to heaven as Veronika Lyles could get, except for the moment of ecstasy when being loved by her mate.
Since Zeke had died, owning her own business was near enough.
Inside The Stitchery, the aromatic scent of dye from the bolts of fabric lining the shelves had taken a while to get used to, but now Ronni barely noticed them. She loved the feel of fabric between her fingers, taking yards of shapeless cloth and fashioning them into something useful and beautiful.
The Walker’s Run Cooperative, the public human face of her new wolfan pack, had spared no expense on the renovations of the abandoned store next to her cousin’s automotive repair shop. Not only had they given Ronni a place within their pack but also a purpose.
In Pine Ridge, her poverty-stricken and turmoil-plagued former pack in Kentucky, she’d mended threadbare clothes, patched thrift store finds and reshaped garage sale discoveries into whatever her family had needed. Now she and her teenage son, Alex, lacked for nothing, including the freedom to live a life of their own choosing and the safety in which to do it.
Gratitude swelled in her heart. The Co-op really took care of its own. Even those adopted into the pack.
Having lost and gained so much over the last nineteen months, she was finally starting to feel settled and relaxed. Time did eventually heal even the deepest wounds. She had expected last week’s full moon to be a difficult night, since it fell on the anniversary of her claiming—the night Zeke had bitten her during a sexual encounter and marked her as his life-mate.
His death had been the catalyst in expediting Ronni and their son Alex’s relocation to Walker’s Run, saving them from the deadly uprising within her birth pack. The tug-of-war between the grief of losing her beloved mate and the downright thankfulness for a new and better life was a battle she fought daily.
Since the encounter with the unusual raven a few nights ago, Ronni had found the struggle a little easier to bear. Every night since, he perched in a tree outside her house and watched over her as she sat on the back porch swing. Ravens were infamous thieves, so maybe he was stealing her troubles away, one night at a time.
Whatever his reason for visiting, she now looked forward to his company. Preferred it, actually, to the males who figured her mourning period was over and that she was back on the market. Most of them would make fine mates for some other she-wolf. Having been loved and loved hard, she wouldn’t be content with anything less and she simply hadn’t connected that strongly to any potential suitor. Except the raven.
She laughed at the absurdity.
The delicate chime of bells jingled from the front of the store.
“That you, Elliott?” Ronni rolled her chair away from the sewing table and stood, arching her back and stretching her arms above her head. The bunched muscles relaxed.
“Yep.” Without fail, postal employee and fellow packmate Elliott Dubois delivered Ronni’s mail at ten fifty-five every morning.
She walked into the front where slanted teak shelves were loaded with bolts of every imaginable color of fabric. More for show than actual use, the rainbow effect reminded her that this store, this pack, this life was her pot of gold.
“You have to sign for this one.” In his late fifties, Elliott had dark springy hair clipped close to his head, smooth brown skin, sepia-colored eyes teeming with intelligence and a tightly trimmed beard framing a generous mouth that usually dazzled her with a flash of straight white teeth. Today, Elliott clenched his jaw hard enough to flatten his lips until they whitened around the edges.
“Well, it can’t be an eviction letter.” The Co-op owned her building and she paid a portion of her profits to the Co-op, as all members did.
Ronni stepped behind the sales counter and picked up a pen from the cup beside the register.
“It’s from the Woelfesenat.” He handed her an overnight, certified letter.
Ronni’s heart stopped. As did time itself.
The air inside The Stitchery stilled. Neither she nor Elliott breathed. The ticking of the pendulum clock on the wall behind her ceased to tock in her ears.
Although all Wahyan packs were independently governed by their respective Alphas, the Woelfesenat was the international wolf council that ensured their species continued to live peaceably among the unsuspecting human populace. They held the ultimate ruling power over all wolf shifters, world-wide. A communique from them was either really good news or it wasn’t. There was no middle ground with them.
Since Ronni preferred to stay off their radar, she doubted they were awarding her a commendation.
Nervously, she signed for the document.
“Maybe it’s not too serious.” Elliott offered her a hopeful smile.
“Probably paperwork involving my mate’s death,” she said, even though Zeke had died over a year ago. “It all happened so fast, Alex and I just packed up and left.”
“I’m sure that’s all it is.” Relief eased Elliott’s worry. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Ronni kept her smile in place until Elliott walked out of The Stitchery and across the street. Hands shaking, she tore into the letter.
It wasn’t about her deceased husband, Ezekiel. It was about his brutal older brother, Jebediah.
Ronni’s heart dropped into her stomach with such velocity it could have passed right through her pelvis to make a crater on the concrete floor.
Jeb
