Page 85 of The Lone Wolf Café
“Deal.”
Once Rowena was fully clothed, she reached into her dresser and tossed me a pair of leggings and a loose, emerald-green dress with billowy sleeves.
“Do you like green?”
“Yes. It’s one of my favorite colors.”
“Excellent. Because I think you’ll look stunning in this.” Rowena tossed me the dress. It was made of a soft yet thick material, and the flowy skirt trailed all the way past my knees.
“We can worry about cleaning your other clothes later,” Rowena reassured me, placing a single kiss on my shoulder. “Now get dressed. I can’t wait to show you this place.”
“Rowena, I swear, we’ve been walking formiles. Where are you taking us?”
All we’d been surrounded by since we’d left Wisteria Grove was endless forest. And as much as I enjoyed trudging through leaves, hearing them crackle like a campfire under my boots while I admired the fiery fall foliage, I really wanted to know where we were headed.
I’d walked alongside Rowena for the first mile or so. I even held her hand, which made my heart swell with happiness for the few minutes it lasted.
But for most of the trip, Rowena had been several steps ahead of me, taking the lead and acting as a scout. I noticed she was on high alert, head swiveling in multiple directions, taking note of every cracking twig and rustling leaf in the never-ending forest.
“Wait,” I froze. “Are westillin werewolf territory?”
I couldn’t smell them anymore. At first, the scent was overpowering, which was troublesome because it instinctively goaded me to shift into my wolf form. But Rowena and I pressed on, fighting the urge to shift, praying the wolves wouldn’t notice our scent.
“Not anymore,” Rowena declared after a few moments of silence, and I let out a deep exhale, fingering the black tourmaline in my pocket. Rowena’s scent was masked by her necklace, and while she swore its magic would mask mine too, she’d removed one of the black beads for me to store in my pocket just in case. It was nestled next to the piece of black tourmaline that Juniper had given me, and the entire time we’d been walking, I’d kept one hand in my pocket, fingers wrapped tightly around both stones.
If we’d made it out of werewolf territory without them noticing us, then hopefully that meant the enchanted beads were working. Wherever Rowena was taking us, we had to get through the werewolves’ domain first, which encircled nearly the entire perimeter of Wisteria Grove.
But we passed it. We’d made it through.
“Alright,” Rowena announced, bracing herself with her fingers sprayed out wide. “You ready?”
I grinned. I could already feel it – claws, fur, and teeth, begging to be released.
“Yes.”
Shifting into my wolf form, after doing it so few times since I’d arrived in Wisteria Grove, felt like slipping on a cozy sweater on an icy winter’s day. My fur coat was a much better insulator than my cloak, but it wasn’t just about the warmth. My wolf form was also comfortable. Familiar. Peaceful.
Rowena had also shifted, her midnight coat making her almost invisible against the deep indigo sky. Her wolfish head was craned over her shoulder, watching me to make sure I had no issues with my transformation. Once I was ready to go, I nodded my head. Rowena returned the nod, then turned and took off at a hard canter.
She likes taking the lead, I noted, my thoughts salaciously shifting back to her dominance in bed the night before.
We kept an even pace for a while, weaving between the dark silhouettes of trees. As we traveled, fallen leaves softened the beats of our paws, and the deep blue of the night sky shifted a few shades lighter. I could almost make out the fiery colors of the maple trees. Sunrise was imminent, and I couldn’t wait to see it – the explosion of bright yellow light over the horizon, tossing shades of orange and red into the rapidly softening sky.
It was one of the few joys that came with rising so early for work. I would often pause my baking to watch the first bits of sun burst through the trees, shortly before the café’s opening time.
It made waking up ridiculously early far more tolerable. I still wasn’t a morning person, but the world truly was a beautiful place in those silent, peaceful hours, when everyone else was still asleep.
Rowena shifted from a comfortable canter to a hard gallop, and I adjusted my gait to match her speed. I assumed we were getting close to our destination, although it was hard to tell. I wasn’t familiar with this area, and one patch of autumn-tinged forest looked much like any other.
Then it stopped. We broke through the forest, trees disappearing around us, and crossed a narrow, gravelly road.
A road. For cars.
Human cars.
Where on Earth are you taking us, Rowena?
Then we rounded a corner, and I saw it. Though it was still dark, the sky a stubbornly dim shade of cerulean, its rectangular shape and clay-brown coloring made it stand out from the rest of the scenery.
