1
MARI, FOUR YEARS AGO
“Holy shit.” Kennedy drops her hoe. “The witch is a cougar.”
“No, she’s not. I’ve seen her wolf,” Annie says, squinting up from where she’s squatting in a furrow, patting soil around a rhubarb plant. She follows the direction of Kennedy’s gaze, and her eyes widen. “Whoa. Is that Darragh Ryan?”
I freeze where I’m standing in between the handles of the red wheelbarrow. My mouth goes dry, and my heart begins to thump like a woodpecker.
It is Darragh Ryan, and he’s not wearing a shirt. His worn, faded jeans are so low on his hips, you can not only see the muscles cutting an arrow from his hips into his waistband, but I swear, you can make out a dark thatch of hair on the taut, tanned skin above his zipper.
I lick my suddenly parched lips.
Is that the last stop on his happy trail or his wolf’s fur? It’s hard to tell from over here, especially since he’s got a hairy chest. He definitely doesn’t wax for definition like the younger males in the pack.
He’s standing on the top step to the crone’s cottage, surveying the horizon in the distance, shoulders stiff, sipping from a tiny china cup that looks ridiculous in his huge, rough hands.
“Damn, Abertha’s still got game,” Kennedy says under her breath as she scoops up her hoe and attacks the dirt again with a satisfied thwack.
For some reason, my stomach curdles. “He’s probably just visiting.”
“At six in the morning?” Kennedy snorts. “He’s pre-gaming for his walk of shame.”
“Yeah, he was visiting all right.” Annie’s brown eyes twinkle, banishing her usual shyness. “Visiting her vagina.”
Kennedy smirks. “Saying hey howdy to the hoo-ha.”
“Calling on her coochie.” Annie softly fakes an English accent and lets the corners of her mouth sneak into a small smile.
“Shut up,” I hiss. “He can hear us.”
I don’t know why my face is on fire. Usually, I’d be quick with a “high-fiving her downtown” or “saying good day to her goodies”—it’s just too easy—but I can feel him standing there on the creaky porch, barefooted, his wild, snarled hair falling out of the world’s messiest man bun.
He’s way too old for a man bun, mid-thirties at least, but he’s hot enough to carry it off. Well, as hot as a grungy, hungover, sketchy lone wolf can be. As far back as I can remember, he’s never lived with the rest of the pack, but he does come around sometimes to talk to our alpha, Killian, or drop off a kill at the lodge.
He noticed me once about a year ago. I was up in my favorite tree, reclining against the trunk with my legs stretched along a branch, pretending to read but really scrolling on my phone, when he came along the trail on the ridge above our cabin. From his vantage point, he could totally look down and see the phone hidden in the book.
He stared for a few long seconds, and I thought for sure he was going to bust me. You know, females can’t be trusted with phones—we might forget to start dinner or join the revolution or something. But he didn’t, he just got really stiff and glowery and hotfooted it away. I was sweating bullets for the next day or so, though.
He has to see the three of us now. The garden is only a few yards away. He’s ignoring us, but he’s tense. All he’s doing is holding a wee teacup by its dainty handle, but his muscles are bunching like he’s priming for a fight, his shoulders flexing, biceps bulging, abs tensing into sharp ridges.
I swallow, barely. My throat is so tight.
Is he embarrassed he got busted banging the crone? The idea makes me queasy, but not because Abertha’s older. She’s super-hot for fifty or sixty or however old she is, and regardless, I’m not a hater. It’s because—
I don’t know why. He’s just acting weird. Unmated males usually act like King Shit of Turd Mountain when a female’s dumb or desperate enough to let him mount her for fun. They strut and preen around camp; some won’t even shower for a few days just to make sure everyone knows.
I subtly sniff the air. It’s early spring, so there are tons of my favorite scents—tilled earth, fresh air, yesterday’s rain. It doesn’t smell like sex, but there is a strange muskiness coming from his direction. If I had to say, I’d call it a combination of bark, leaves, sunshine, and warm horse’s mane. It’s an outdoorsy smell, and it makes my belly flip and my spine tingle at the base in a weird, unfamiliar way. Kind of like I have to pee, but I don’t.
I step closer to the wheelbarrow as if I can hide myself behind it. Unlike Kennedy and Annie, who are wearing long jean skirts and button-down shirts like normal lone females, I’m gardening in a gauzy, pale pink sundress, floppy straw hat, and army green rubber boots. With my big ol’ blonde ringlets, I don’t really blend into the background. I’m a whole mood.
Darragh’s not looking at me, though. His eyes are glued to the foothills in the west. He’s got a very rugged profile. His jawline is as sharp as an axe blade despite the beard threaded with gray. It’s like all his features were carved from rock—his high cheekbones, his straight nose, his proud forehead, everything except his lips.
His lips look soft.
My fingers itch.
I have the sudden urge to touch his mouth, and that’s so freaking weird. He’s old enough to be my father even though he’s way younger than my dad was. Folks my dad’s age grew up in the dens. Darragh’s too young for that, but he’s definitely from the generations messed up in the head from coming up under Declan Kelly, our last alpha.
Older packmates don’t get human references or jokes or the concept of “chill.” The males don’t talk to females unless they want to mount them, and they’re obsessed with patrolling the pack territory, hunting, and the shifter fight circuit, exclusively and in that order.
Apparently, Darragh Ryan does talk to females. Older, powerful witchy females. God, my stomach doesn’t like that. When I think of him and Abertha even drinking tea together, the flips and tingles begin to flop and slosh. Good thing I don’t eat breakfast.
Kennedy sidles up beside me and pretends to hack at a row she’s already dug. “What’s he doing?”
“Watching the sunrise?” I hazard a guess.
“The sun’s already up, and he’s facing west.”
“I don’t know. Enjoying a cuppa?” He’s not sipping anymore. He’s just holding the cup midair in a death grip.
“It’s coffee,” Kennedy says. “Well, mostly. Coffee and hair of the dog.”
“You can smell that?”
Kennedy wrinkles her nose. “You can’t?”
I draw in a breath. My lungs fill with that earthy, horsey, straw-in-sunshine smell. It swells in my chest, and suddenly, my eyes prickle like I’m about to cry, and my breasts grow heavy. I cross my arms to cover my nipples as they bead into hard points. Kennedy’s eyes narrow.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks.
“Can we just change the subject? He can definitely hear us, you know.”
“He’s not acting like it.”
“Maybe because he has chill.” I’m aware I’m being salty with my best friend, and I don’t want to be, but it’s like I went from zero to PMS in sixty seconds. Even my wolf is being weird. If I like to play princess, she’s a genuine, pure-bred grand duchess—snoot in the air and prancing—but right now, she’s growling in the back of her throat and baring her tiny, pointy teeth.