Page 9 of Echo Of A Wolf

My feet faltered. His tone sounded heated already, and all he’d said was my name.

“What do you want?” I snapped as I spun to glare at him.

“I should be asking you that, don’t you think?” he growled.

My face scrunched up, which I was sure wasn’t an attractive look, but I didn’t care. “What are you talking about?”

He erased the distance between us in a few strides, his long legs eating up the sidewalk like it was nothing. The man towered over me.

Why hadn’t I realized before how much taller than me he was?

At five foot six, I wasn’t considered short for a woman, but this man made me feel like a small child standing next to him. He was massive. Not only in height, but in muscles as well. He had to be pushing six foot six and two hundred-something pounds of solid muscle.

“Why are you here?” he demanded, standing mere inches from me.

The smell of his cologne hit my nose and I couldn’t help thinking about how good he smelled. Then I kicked myself, because regardless of how good he smelled, his attitude still stunk.

“Umm. I live here,” I said, not understanding what he was so pissed about.

He knew I lived in Crescent Creek. It wasn’t a secret.

Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head as though exasperated with me. “That’s not what I’m talking about.” His heated gaze drilled into me. “Why are you at the diner?”

What was his problem?

“I was hungry. Typically, people go to restaurants to eat when they’re hungry and they don’t feel like cooking,” I shot back.

My irritation with him had reached an all-new high. I started to walk away, but he stopped me with his next question.

“Are you stalking me?”

I rounded on him. Was he being serious? From the look on his face, it seemed as though he was.

What an arrogant ass.

Never in my life had I been accused of stalking a man.

“What makes you think I’m stalking you?” I scoffed, meeting his heated stare. “Was I the one waiting outside a restaurant where you were eating acting like a creeper? No, I don’t think so. Maybe you shouldn’t flatter yourself so much, because you’ve done nothing besides make yourself look like a complete ass.”

“I work here,” he said.

I blinked.

Did I know that?

I wasn’t sure it had ever come up. Being under Lucius’s control wasn’t all Kumbaya, love, and light. We hadn’t been sitting around getting to know one another. It was a dark time for most of us—myself included.

“So, let me ask you again—are you stalking me?” he pressed.

“No, I’m not stalking you. I haven’t even left my apartment since the last time I saw you,” I admitted.

How ironic that I see him this time around, too.

My raven fluttered her wings, straightening her posture. I ignored her because there was no need for her input right now.

“Is there a reason you’re so dead set that I’m stalking you?” I demanded, my gaze never wavering from his.

“Who you associate with is all the reason I need.”

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