Page 5 of What a Wolf Demands

She slung her apron over the railing, jogged down the steps, and headed for the sidewalk. When she was almost past the bar, she turned and gave Bart a little wave. “Thanks again!” She didn’t have to raise her voice. With his Gift, he could have heard her even if she whispered.

He lifted a hand, and his words carried across the parking lot. “Careful walking home.”

She gave another wave to let him know she heard, then started down the tree-lined walk. The citizens of Bon Rêve liked their secrecy, and there were no streetlights to guide her way. But she’d walked the path so often, she knew it by heart. Her parents’ house was just a half mile from the bar, which was the reason she stayed at Bart’s rather than trying to find work in Lafayette or Lake Charles.

It’s not the only reason, said a little voice in her head.

Old pain pinched in her chest, and she cleared her throat as she sidestepped a section of sidewalk displaced by tree roots. No, the convenience of a ten-minute commute wasn’t the only thing keeping her in Bon Rêve. Moving meant buying a car, and she couldn’t afford one without selling her childhood home. One of the grief books she read after her parents’ deaths recommended letting go of possessions that triggered memories of the deceased, the idea being that clinging to those objects stopped the grieving person from moving on.

But how could she get rid of the one refuge she had in this world? The place where, if she plopped down on the sofa just right, she could still smell the faintest whiff of her father’s cologne. Where the squeak of the pantry door reminded her of lazy weekend afternoons when her mother would burn two batches of cookies before she managed to produce a good one.

Lily’s throat burned. She could no more sell the house than she could remove a chunk of her soul and auction it to the highest bidder.

On the other hand, the place was expensive as hell to maintain. Built at the turn of the last century, the quaint bungalow showed every bit of its age. The plumbing creaked and knocked inside the walls. The floors sagged. The wiring was probably violating half the building code. The small inheritance her parents had left her was long gone—spent on a new roof and a flooded basement.

She stopped on the sidewalk, her thoughts swirling. How was she going to make it? She was barely keeping her head above water. One more heavy storm or leaky pipe, and she’d lose the only home she’d ever known.

Where the hell would she go, then?

One foot in front of the other. The words, spoken in Bart’s gruff voice, filled her mind like a big, warm hug. He’d given her that advice as he stood beside her at the double funeral five years ago. “Moving forward is easy, Lily,” he’d said. “You just put one foot in front of the other.”

A faint smile spread in her mind as she started walking again. Bart’s words were simple, but they worked—for walking home and for life in general.

To her right, a white picket fence bordered the town’s cemetery. Fog from the bayou rolled across the tops of the gravestones that rose from the ground like jagged teeth. With the dangling moss and ominous dark, it was the perfect setting for a horror movie.

Lily wasn’t scared, though. The real monsters in Bon Rêve were the living.

A long, low growl sounded in the trees just over the fence.

She froze. Spanish moss swayed in a slight breeze, the long ends trailing over the sidewalk. She squinted into the darkness. If her wolf wasn’t latent, she could draw on its sight, using the animal’s vision to pinpoint the threat. As it was, she might as well be standing in a closet with the light off.

In the darkness, two blue eyes appeared.

Wolf eyes.

Her heart stuttered, then kicked into a furious rhythm. The eyes grew brighter. Twigs snapped as the eerie blue moved closer, bobbing as the wolf neared.

Confusion cut through her fear. The eyes were too high in the air to belong to a wolf.

At least not one in animal form.

The hazy outline of a man appeared. A second later, Charlie emerged from the trees, his mouth a hard, angry line. He strode to the fence and vaulted it with ease, his boots thumping against the grass.

She took a step back. “Charlie . . .” Her voice emerged as a croak, and she had to swallow a few times before she could speak again.

He pushed moss out of the way as he stepped onto the sidewalk. The scent of beer and old, sour sweat filled the air. Like all wolves, he was tall and muscular, his body built for strength and speed.

They faced each other on the sidewalk. His eyes gleamed like two bright marbles, the supernatural blue at odds with his otherwise mundane features.

“You think you can threaten me and get away with it?” He slurred the last few words together, and it took her a second to understand.

She put up her palms. “You heard Bart. It was a misunderstanding.”

“You’re a liar.” He lifted his jaw, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled. “I don’t need to be a Tracker to smell your deceit.”

Someone’s been reading the dictionary. She bit her tongue before she could speak the taunt.

He wasn’t a Tracker. But he was a Finder, and he was faster—much faster—than she. Drunk or not, he’d catch her in seconds if she tried to run. That meant she had to talk her way out of this.

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