Page 4 of Wolf Forgotten

I finished my beer in silence. Maybe it was time to delve into the world of online dating. I had heard of a few success stories. Perhaps I needed to try harder to find a decent boyfriend and have a real relationship. Surely there were more than a few single men in Arbor Falls.

I had dated my fair share of men over the years, but nothing ever felt right. I always felt like someone else was out there. I was picky, which was probably why I was perpetually single.

I stood to leave when Mike approached, smacking a paper against his palm with an uncomfortable look on his face. “Your friend coming back?”

"No, he had to go." I raised a brow. "Why?"

He handed me a piece of paper that had a tab run up on it. My eyes bugged out of my head as I took in the long string of drinks and the final total. It was well over one hundred dollars.

Had he been drinking in the bar all damn day?

“You’ve got to be kidding me! You didn't ask for a credit card?” I'd frequented the bar enough to know the owner was strict on people skipping out on their tabs—if you were the last one from your party and no one else paid, you were stuck with it.

Mike gave me a look of pity before putting the empty glasses in a bin. "He paid for the first few drinks with cash and tipped well. He seemed harmless."

"I don't even know the guy!" Surely that counted for something. "I'll pay for the round of drinks we just had, but there's no way I'm paying for all of this. Who even drinks this much?" He'd probably been buying women drinks all evening.

"Pay, and the next time you see him, you can get the money back."

Mike was a little bit dense. Didn't he understand there wouldn't be a next time?

Mike cringed and then walked away. I’m sure I had a murderous look on my face. I'd pay it, since I could afford to, but I wasn't going to be happy about it. The alternative was Mike being stuck with it, and that didn't seem fair, even though he should have been a little less careless.

One thing was for sure, Cole was a dick.

Chapter Two

Cole

It took everything in me to get up and leave the bar. I had been waiting for her all evening, and when she walked in, her scent had overwhelmed me.

Wolves didn't have fated mates or any of the bullshit that humans came up with. But I was pretty sure the female with the red hair that turned golden in the right light was my mate.

Fuck.

I held my phone to my ear as I walked to my truck. "You were right. She's definitely a wolf but doesn't smell like any pack from around here or even have that strong of a scent."

My pack became aware of the redhead about a week ago when one of my betas caught her scent near the falls. We had been digging for information ever since. We'd found out where she worked and that they were having a gathering at the bar, which was the perfect opportunity to see what her deal was.

Arbor Falls was neutral territory, meaning wolves didn't frequent the town unless the two packs on either side agreed to it. I wasn't about to let Silas know there was an unidentified female living in the town; that was asking for trouble.

About a half-hour drive to the south was a city of about one hundred thousand, where we did most of our shopping and business when we needed to. We were mostly self-sustaining, so it was rare I ventured there. I didn't like all the people.

To the north were mountains and campgrounds that humans camped in. Across a river, marking the northern edge of my pack's territory, were the falls where humans hiked. To the west was the WAP, short for West Arbor Pack, who had quite a few less than savory members, including Silas the alpha. We were best friends when we were kids, but then all hell broke loose and he changed.

Then there's my pack, the EAP, or East Arbor Pack. We kept to ourselves most of the time until our kind was at risk of being exposed. The redhead of unknown origin was a threat. All wolves knew to alert the local pack when visiting an area.

"From the information I was able to look up so far, it looks like Ivy Taylor moved to the area about eight months ago. A month before that, her parents died in a car accident on the way to her graduation. She works for Northern Alliance as a researcher," Eli, the pack's computer whiz and my best friend, explained what I already knew. "On paper, she's harmless. She's from Salinity Cove, and I'm working on getting her medical records. She's submitted her DNA twice to trace her lineage, but the samples weren't usable for obvious reasons."

I stopped with my hand on my doorhandle. "Harmless? An out of town wolf from somewhere that doesn't have wolves is not harmless, especially if she's sending her DNA to companies for testing."

"I agree. Is it possible she doesn't know she's a wolf?"

"How could she not know?" I shook my head. "It's possible she's sleeping with a wolf."

The thought made a growl lodge in my throat. No, that wasn't it.

"Maybe she's a loner." Eli sighed. "I'll keep digging and we'll talk tomorrow."

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