Page 1 of Ruthless Moon

Chapter One

It’s a Quiet Village... Nope, It’s Not

IMOGEN GALLAGHER

On any other day, my werewolf sense of smell is a superpower. During the pickle festival...it’s more of a cruel joke. With every inhale, the urge to flee grows stronger.

It’s not that I particularly want to flee from the town. I love Ash Hollow. It’s cute and cozy, like a favorite well-worn hoodie. It has all the things you’d expect in a little town tucked between a couple of mountains in Colorado. A rowdy biker bar, two adorable little boutiques, a grocer, a few restaurants, and a post office-slash-sheriff’s office-slash-volunteer fire department.

There’s also a diner and a little coffee shop that imports coffee from around the world. I’m talking... The. Best. Coffee. The barista, Rachel, is magickal when it comes to the happy bean juice and tea. You’ve never had better.

Unfortunately, the scent of Rachel’s coffee eludes my senses today. The overbearing aroma of my personal dread (due to the impending forced engagement tonight) merges with my reluctance to negotiate yet another local rancher out of his land for my father.

And since I can’t control the marriage situation and I can’t call off the land negotiation, I can at least try to minimize the collateral damage by frightening Mr. Darcy enough to do what my father wants.

That’s about par for me.

Keeping my father from “disappearing” people who cross him.

So here I am, standing in the center of Main Street, staring at the perfect rows of white chairs and the festival stage, where the mayor is deciding who has the spiciest pickles.

“Excuse me.” I push my way through the long rows of mostly full chairs toward the vacated seat next to Mr. Darcy. It’d only taken ten minutes for his wife to need a bathroom break. Guzzling down a thirty-two-ounce soda will do that to a bladder. But if I don’t hurry, he’ll be headed for the toilet in a few minutes too.

I push some groping hands away from my ass and knock the offending man’s black cowboy hat off his head. “Not yours. Touch my ass again and I’ll remove your hands from your body. Are we clear?”

My father controls me completely. I can’t fight back. I can’t even complain. I’m doomed to forever be a pawn in his conquest for power and abusive nature, but no human male gets to treat me badly. The only reason I’m still in Ash Hollow and not living my own life far away from my father is because I won’t sacrifice someone I care about to escape.

I tried to leave once after high school. Begged my dad to let me go to college in Denver. He threatened Rachel and that was the end of my rebellion and any thoughts of ever choosing my own path in life. I’d rather die than let him hurt the people I care about.

So now, I just try to keep the collateral damage my father creates at a minimum.

“You’re the one that put it in my face sliding through here, darling.” The stranger smiles up at me like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

I smile back, channeling my best Kate Daniels kick-ass attitude. My emotions are a wreck today and I get to take it out on this useless excuse of a man.

My smile turns predatory. My wolf really likes getting to expel our mutual frustration. The cowboy’s nothing-matters grin falls from his face like a man who realized he stepped into a hornet’s nest.

I grab his shoulders, yank him forward, and put a knee right to his groin, making sure my wolf adds a littleumphto the move. His family jewels will be out of commission for at least a week. A satisfactory wheezing groan slips from his lips while the rest of him curls into the fetal position on the ground at my feet.

“Next time you see an unfamiliar ass in your face, you remember it doesn’t belong to you and you respect that boundary. Are we clear?”

He doesn’t look up at me. He can barely breathe.

“I can’t hear you. I’m going to need a verbal confirmation.” It doesn’t matter that everyone’s looking at me. In fact, it makes the situation I’m about to put George Darcy in that much more embarrassing and effective.

Everyone in town knows who I am. Everyone in town knows who my father is, and my uncle Dave. Between the two of them they own most of the valley and the mountains on either side of Ash Hollow. And the feud between them over beingtheGallagher alpha is also no secret.

“Y-yes,” the doubled-over man sputters between pain-filled breaths.

“Excellent. I’m glad we had this chat.”

I’m wearing a shirt that shows off way more cleavage than normal and jeans that took me ten minutes to get my whole ass inside. But I look damn good. The dress boots give me an extra couple of inches, making me nearly six feet tall. To top it off I braided my blonde hair into a fierce Mohawk, which, according to my brother Finn, makes me “scary as fuck.” And intimidation is exactly what I need for this situation.

I learned the hairstyle from an online video, and it makes me feel like a Viking shield maiden. Sexy. A little scary. I need all the fierceness I can muster because I hate what I’m being forced to do.

Mr. Darcy’s going to think I’m a villain. And technically in this scenario, I am.

I scoot on down the aisle.

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