Page 3 of Betrayed By the Wolf

Vera’s eyes swam with tears, sudden and unstoppable. She couldn’t let Moira see her break down, couldn’t let her see her undone. She spun and fled the lighthouse, seeing Cora’s sweet smile in her mind long after the girl was behind her.

Chapter 2 - Rami

Rami set a stack of used paperbacks to the side and glanced at the clock. Half past six, and the sun was low in the sky, sinking beneath the horizon. It’d be dark soon.

His bookshop, Stranger Fiction, was officially closed for the day, but lately, he’d found himself making any excuse to work past regular hours, anything to keep busy. Because as long as he kept busy, he couldn’t be thinking about her.

Vera.

In the quiet moments, the ones not filled with inventory lists and budgets, her face filled his mind. Specifically, the face she’d made when he’d broken up with her, changing in a flash from shock and hurt to closed-off and cold, as if she’d shuttered herself against him. A wall had come down and he was on the outside of it.

Where I wanted to be,he reminded himself for what must have been the hundredth time. Somehow, the reminders hadn’t made moving on any easier. At least he’d managed to avoid her since then. He couldn’t imagine how awkward it would be when the inevitable meeting happened.

A knock at the door startled him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see Jonah, Alpha of his pack, the Silversands, standing outside. Rami waved and hurried over to unlock it for him.

“I’m not late, am I?” Rami asked, letting Jonah inside.

Fatherhood suited Jonah. He’d lost the nervous energy that had clung to him when he’d first arrived at Silversand a little over a year ago, stepping fully into the role of Alpha with Moira, his mate, at his side. Now, he seemed settled and calm, ready tolead the Silversands through anything the world might throw at them. Rami envied that calm.

“Not at all, I’m early.” Jonah grabbed a paperback off the top of the pile and flipped through it, reading the back with the speed of an avid reader. “Moira said no more, she says the lighthouse is too small to hold my books, but I wanted to come by and see what you got it in today before anyone else scooped it up. I would’ve been here before closing, but Cora wanted a story before I left and who am I to say no?”

Rami laughed. “You’d never say no to her, and you’ll regret that when she hits her teens.”

Jonah grinned and rubbed the back of his head, mussing his hair. “Yeah, probably.” He tossed another book onto his stack of potential purchases. “But there’s nothing like watching her face light up. I’m a sucker for it.”

The kidwasprecious, Rami had to agree. She had the sort of gooey smile that could make the most cold-hearted melt, and the few times Rami had held her, he’d felt his own hardened heart soften.

“And what’s Moira’s face going to do when you bring all this home?” Rami gestured at the growing stack of books.

A regular customer at the store, Jonah knew exactly when Rami got his shipments of used and new books and liked to browse before they went officially onto the shelves. Before Moira intervened, Rami had set aside a monthly pile for Jonah. Now, he stayed out of it. No good could come from getting in the middle of that mate battle.

The bookstore had survived the worst of Silversands dark years, when Jonah’s father, the old Silversand Alpha, had run the town to the brink of ruin by shipping books out to customers across the country. With Jonah at the helm, the town wasbeginning to spring back to life, and most of Rami's sales came from locals and tourists, visiting the seaside town for its beaches or historical sites. It was still a far cry from the busy city Rami had grown up in, and that suited him just fine. He’d left home for a reason. Many reasons.

“Damn, you’re right.” Jonah agonized over the selection before placing two books back in the sale pile. “I’ll bring them out one at a time, and maybe she won’t even notice they’re there. What do you think?”

“I think you’d better have a backup plan ready,” Rami said, ringing Jonah up with the friends discount. “I’ll just close up, and we can head out. Are we taking the same route tonight?”

Jonah shook his head, dropping the books into his backpack and setting the bag against the counter. “I’ve got a new one planned based on a tip from Vera—shit, sorry, man. I know you don’t want to think about her.”

Rami shrugged it off. He wanted to ask Jonah how Vera had seemed, if she was okay, if she was still furious at him, but he bit the questions off before they could spill out. “She’s the best tracker, I know. It’s okay.”

Something in his tone must have been off. Jonah’s brow creased with concern.

“What happened with you two? The way she tells it, you got sick of her and ghosted. She went around spitting mad for weeks, and now she acts like you don’t exist.” Jonah grimaced, probably remembering the terror of a spitting mad Vera. That woman had a fiery temper. “And you over here,” Jonah said, waving broadly at Rami, “have looked like your dog just died ever since then, which isn’t exactly the attitude of a dude who wanted out of a relationship he seemed pretty happy in.”

The bookshop, his place of solace, suddenly felt too small, too warm. Jonah’s words pinned him to the spot, dragging up emotions he’d been working so hard to bury. How could he sum it up in a way Jonah would understand?

He tried for nonchalance. “I’m just not a commitment sort of guy, and I could tell she was getting to the stage where the questions would start. You know the ones. ‘What are we?’ ‘Where do you see us in five years?’ ‘Should we move in together?’ And I just thought it’d be better if I let her off easy.”

It was the truth, mostly. He wasn’t the sort to settle down. But Vera had never pushed him, never asked him the kinds of questions that all his previous girlfriends had. Still, he’d been in enough of those situations to see the signs.

“Right,” Jonah said, drawing out the word skeptically. “Vera sure seems like the white dress, drag-you-down-the-aisle type.”

Drawing down the blinds, Rami shut out the dwindling sunlight and drowned the shop in darkness. His vision adjusted quickly, a perk of the wolf blood. Jonah’s eyes glowed faintly in the dark. It was easier to answer when he wasn’t looking at Jonah, when the lies he was crafting wouldn’t be so clear on his face.

“They never seem like the type until they’re screaming and crying because you don’t want to move in and spend every waking minute together,” Rami drawled.

“What’s so bad about living with someone you care about?” Jonah followed Rami out the front door, waiting for him to lock it.

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