Page 22 of Luna Rising

“I don’t know. Everything, I guess.” It wasn’t that I hadn’t expected Ewan to have friends. He was friendly and funny and sexy, and I couldn’t imagine anyone not liking him. Plus, wolves respected power, and Ewan had more than his fair share. I had just never considered his life before me, probably because it involved Angelica and I preferred not to think about her at all.

Ewan swirled the beer in his glass. “Charlie, Birch, and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. Charlie is a few years older than Birch and me. Our wolves all emerged around the same time, though. We did everything together growing up.”

“Did you choose Charlie as your beta?”

He drank from his beer and nodded. “Yeah. He’s more suited for the position than Birch. Charlie is more even-tempered until he gets really worked up. Birch is, well, the perfect enforcer. He’s the only pack member to beat me in a fight.”

I had seen Ewan fight as a mortal, and it was a sight to behold. “How old were you?”

He grinned. “Nine. He kicked my ass.”

I laughed, trying to imagine Ewan as a child. “I bet you held your own.”

“Not really, but I haven’t lost a fight since. Birch is a serious guy. Give him a chance.” He downed his fourth beer. “You’ll like him when you get to know him.”

I cocked my head to the side and batted my eyelashes. “If he’s your friend, he’s mine, too.”

Tish put another round of drinks on the bar. The after-work crowd had started drifting away, and there was a lull in orders. She ran a wet cloth over the lacquered wood and then started wiping down the taps.

“So,” she said, pitching her voice. “You down here for fun or business?”

Ewan shrugged. “Business mostly.”

Tish blew out a breath. “Shame.”

Ewan spun on his barstool and leapt to his feet as the man who’d been watching us since we arrived appeared behind me. Two bear shifter bodyguards flanked him. With their massive size, the pair looked like a tag team on that fake wrestling show. I took a beat longer to respond.

“There doesn’t need to be trouble,” the blonde guy said. “Leave now, and we can forget you were here.”

“Not before we talk to Tish.” Ewan crossed his arms, the flannel straining over his biceps. “Ten minutes, and we’re gone.”

The guy’s eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring. “Tish has nothing to do with this. You tell that asshole she’s under my protection. He so much as says her name again–”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I cut him off mid-sentence.

Ewan made his displeasure known through our bond. “I think there’s some confusion,” he said in his calm yet commanding voice. “We’re not here on behalf of anyone.”

The man glanced behind us at Tish, and his gaze softened. “Walter Stolly didn’t send you?”

It took immense willpower to keep from showing my surprise. In a very roundabout way, I supposed Walter had something to do with the reason we’d come. He and Colleen had tracked Tish to this town. It had been Winter’s mother who assured her Tish would be fine. Walter never spoke up on the matter, which I now found suspect.

What mess of the mobster’s had we stumbled upon?

Ewan was much better at concealing his emotions. He leveled the other man with the full weight of his alpha stare. “No, Nickelous. No one sent us.”

“The name’s Lucca, Lucca Guerra.” He said it like he was famous enough for instant recognition.

Lucca Gurrea was as foreign to me as the name Nickelous seemed to him.

“I know who you are,” Ewan said.

“Yeah, and I know who you are.” Lucca’s gaze whipped to me. “Zara Snyder, right?” A chilling smile broke out across his face. “You know, there are a lot of people willing to pay a lot of money for your head—attached or not.”

Ewan’s deep growl rumbled the floorboards. “Zara is under my protection. Look at her again and we are going to have an issue.”

The bodyguards tensed, both looking to Lucca for guidance on how to proceed, but it was Tish who spoke up.

“Everybody take a breath, okay? We don’t need fur to start flying. It’s just the two of you, right?” Tish glanced between Ewan and me, steel glinting in her gaze. “Meet me out back. I’ll talk to you.” Her eyes cut to Lucca. “Alone.”

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