Little Wolf (2 page)

Tim fought the urge to jump. He was used to the big city where he’d passed for human, not this town where everyone knew a werewolf when they looked at one, even if Tim was, as Carl himself had once said,
the smallest were ever seen
.

Carl turned another page, nonchalant as fuck. “I thought you all had keen senses so as not to miss the obvious.”

“The obvious like, you’re a nosy old man?” Tim retorted.

Carl returned to his paper.

Tim stared at the puff of white hair sticking out from under Carl’s hat and the dark skin of Carl’s neck, visible above his collar. Tim was a disgrace to werewolves because instead of contemplating how vulnerable it made someone to expose the neck like that, he kept thinking of his uncle. Carl was in his seventies and much older than Uncle Silas, but something about Carl reminded Tim of how he and his uncle used to fire remarks back and forth over a chessboard.

Usually when Tim thought of his uncle, it was in moments of panic, when he was sure Silas and Luca were close to finding him. But lately Tim had been thinking of him more often, probably because of this town with its scent of
werewolf
everywhere, and the pack of little ones who wouldn’t leave him alone, and the mountains, and trees. This town smelled of wild places and secrets Tim didn’t understand, and no one smelled of them more than—

Tim purposefully derailed that train of thought to glance over at Carl and
not
out the window. He should walk out of this gift shop right now and head to the bus station at the edge of town. Tim considered hopping on a bus at least once a day every day since Ray’s bus ticket had brought Tim here from Los Cerros.

Now Tim was here in Wolf’s Paw, an entire town that smelled like wolves, a lot of wolves, and
sex
. Wolf’s Paw wasn’t just a town with a large werewolf population; oh no, Wolf’s Paw was also known as the place for humans and beings to come to if they wanted to “walk on the wild side”—a phrase Tim found more than a little offensive, to be honest. The town was wolves and sex, all the time, in Tim’s nose, in his
head
. He shuddered with frustrated lust and dropped his face to the cool, clean glass of the counter display case. He groaned to himself but stopped when Carl muttered something about “instinct” loud enough that Tim knew he was meant to hear.

“I’ve got your instinct right here, old man,” Tim mumbled, shaking a fist at Carl without raising his head. Tim hated
instinct
. He hated this town. He hated this gift shop with its sex accoutrements and heavy-duty lube almost as much as he hated the kitschy T-shirts with the werewolf puns and fake claw marks on them. It felt like everyone but Tim was in on some joke. He hated everything—that confusing soap opera, his life, his size, the full moon making him breathe hard and reminding him he was wolf, and that woodsy, sparkling-cool scent on the edge of his tongue when he opened his mouth. That fucking
incredible
fire-and-snow scent was how Tim imagined it felt to stand amid mountains and redwoods, only it had a current of power underneath it, like sweat and fur, male-scent so strong he could taste it. He groaned again and curled his hands against the glass a second before he realized exactly what was happening.

He raised his head.

The sheriff entered the café.

Tim hadn’t seen him cross the street from the direction of the sheriff’s station—not that he had been watching for him. Though if Tim had been watching, it would only have been out of a sense of self-preservation. Keeping an eye on both cops and alpha weres was a good policy, especially when those alpha weres were cops who seemed determined to keep an eye on him.

Sheriff Neri held the door open for a human who gaped up at him the way people stared at lightning, awestruck and electrified. Then he walked over to the counter to order his lunch. A pack of younger weres eating fries and chocolate ice cream slid out of his way with an eruption of nervous giggles. The sheriff paid no attention to them, though Tim got the feeling the sheriff knew exactly who they were and how they regarded him. Sheriff Neri might look like a beefcake, but he wasn’t dumb, and those kids weren’t any more subtle than the humans. Hell, the adult weres in the town weren’t much better where the sheriff was concerned. If Wolf’s Paw was the town to visit for hot werewolf action, then Sheriff Nathaniel Neri was the picture on the brochure—literally.

Tim purposefully moved his gaze away from the broad width of the sheriff’s back and the curve of his ass, as outlined by his almost too-tight pants, and ducked over to the other side of the glass case. He looked up through his eyelashes and tried not to listen as the sheriff talked with the server.

He almost couldn’t hear them over the commotion by the counter. The sheriff turned toward the ruckus, so Tim did as well. He paused with surprise when a familiar figure loomed over the other patrons in line, sneering as he pushed them aside.

With tourist season underway, Tim had been expecting the tourists to behave badly, but two werewolves recently hired by the Carillo Hotel to lead hiking and historical tours had managed to piss off everyone they came into contact with. They even annoyed the pixy who worked at the drugstore, who normally never stopped smiling. The two weres were a combination of boorish and aggressive, and they must have been as unused to a town full of other weres as Tim was, because they didn’t take their warnings to behave very seriously. Wolf’s Paw was all about safety and refuge, in addition to the sex stuff, and Tim got the feeling the sheriff took this reputation more seriously than anyone else in town.

The two guides were staying in the same boardinghouse as Tim, and now one of them was harassing people in full view of the sheriff. Line cutting was not a crime, but it was the latest in an escalating series of offenses. Not to mention the guy was stupid enough to bully humans and smaller weres in Robin’s Egg’s café at lunchtime, when everyone who paid attention knew that Sheriff Neri would be there to grab his own lunch and to ensure that Tim had enough to eat.

Tim didn’t think the other were had noticed the sheriff. How he hadn’t, Tim had no idea. Sometimes Sheriff Neri’s scent was all Tim could smell. But nothing said jerks had to be observant. The other were didn’t react until the sheriff reached for the radio he almost never used and spoke a single word into it.

“Zoe.” The sheriff released his radio and then, strangely, held up a finger in Tim’s direction in a signal for Tim to wait, as if Tim were about to say or do something. No way. Tim was as breathless and silent as everybody else.

The tour guide started to move, but the sheriff was faster. He was quicker than anything Tim had ever seen. In two steps he had the tour guide by the back of his shirt to turn him around.

With the other were blocking his view, Tim couldn’t see the sheriff’s expression, but it must have been something, because the bullying jackass went quiet, as if somebody had him by the throat.

Tim’s heart was beating so hard he thought it would burst. His entire body was hot. Then Sheriff Neri said, in the softest, meanest voice in the world, “Shall we?” and without another word, the tour guide began to walk out—to back out—of the café. He raised his hands and kept them up as though he wanted the sheriff to know he was harmless.

Through the café’s big window facing the street, Tim and every other stunned witness watched Zoe appear along with a few of the other deputies, human and were alike, all of them in uniform, none of them smiling. Every deputy had a gun holstered at their hip, although the werewolf deputies were weapons themselves. Their message was understandable, even to Tim, who had never seen anything like it in action. They moved as a pack, even the humans, splitting up to escort the new were—now whining softly—down the street until he was out of sight.

He was probably being escorted out of the town itself. Tim wouldn’t be surprised to learn other deputies were on their way to the hotel to offer the tour guide’s friend the same silent choice: exile or face the pack. Exile would likely mean exile from all other similar towns. Tim didn’t doubt that would be their choice, though.

The sheriff watched until the new were was gone, then turned to consider the café. Tim ducked his head quickly, although he wasn’t the only one staring and, very possibly, wasn’t the only one half-hard at the careful display of authority.

Technically, a threat had never been issued. The whole thing was kind of brilliant, which didn’t help Tim in the slightest. He tried to think about something far less arousing than smart, intimidating sheriffs, and kept his gaze down when the sheriff stepped back into the café and Robin’s Egg flew over to meet him.

Robin’s Egg was one of the few people Tim had seen who had no problem looking the sheriff in the eye, which, considering that Robin’s Egg was a fairy, was saying something. Maybe it was her age; Robin’s Egg had visible wrinkles in the pale skin at the edge of her rhinestone-studded glasses, which meant she had to be old for a fairy, really old. She also dressed like it was still the early sixties—well, on the days when she wore a dress.

Robin’s Egg smelled like man-scent too, underneath the soft perfumes and oily lipstick, but never had any interest in the sheriff. Robin’s Egg was practically married to Cosmo, the elf who worked in the kitchen, but it was still strange.
Everyone
smelled of want around the sheriff, even if only a little. Even other weres who should have been used to his charisma couldn’t help desiring him. They bared their throats to him without ever seeming to notice how much they did it. The married ones would likely bend over for him. The mayor gave out submission signals in his presence, and she wasn’t even a werewolf.

Weres, with the exception of Tim and his scrawny body, were always physically impressive specimens, but Sheriff Neri was something else. Maybe it was his clothes. Tim looked over the damn near-obscene tan uniform the sheriff wore—with the shirt open at the throat to reveal plenty of warm brown skin, and the pants that fit well enough to give more than a hint of thigh muscle—and then jerked his eyes back up. He expected to see the sheriff’s profile, but he must have turned while Tim had been leering. Tim found himself staring into his eyes.

Tim’s mind stuttered to a stop, and he looked away. “I’m gonna die,” he croaked, excruciatingly aware the sheriff could hear him. It was too close to the full moon, and Tim was a sexually frustrated failure of a were, and the sheriff had just done
that
. Tim couldn’t handle so much hotness in his space. His pulse was pounding in his ears. Being near the sheriff was so nerve-wracking that the fact Tim was also quaking in his proverbial boots was comforting. It gave Tim something else to focus on besides the sudden rush of blood to his dick.

Unused to the mountain air, Tim was wearing a T-shirt and two unbuttoned flannel shirts. Every other were was showing some skin and glowing with health. Tim was pale and freckled and looked underfed. No matter how much he ate, he never put on the muscle that made other weres look like gods. His thick hair was an unremarkable light brown, almost blond in the sun, and he had no body hair to speak of, except a scattering here and there. Other weres did not have that problem. Other weres had hair that grew out to its natural length, meaning whatever was natural for that were. So some had beards and some had constant stubble. But he’d never heard of or seen a were with such a pathetic display of chest hair as his own. The only sign Tim was a werewolf was his eyes.

He straightened up while the sheriff nodded a polite greeting to Carl, and then Tim bent his shoulders to look less threatening. The sheriff had never responded as if Tim was a threat, but the man kept coming over to check on him, and Tim
really
needed the sheriff to understand that it wasn’t necessary. Tim wasn’t going to cause any trouble. If he thought there would be trouble, he’d run. No need to involve anyone else.

Of course, controlling-ass weres never saw it that way. Of course, the sheriff kept coming over to drive Tim crazy, the gorgeous bastard. The sheriff wasn’t just sexy, but
hot
, hotter than smaller werewolves, radiating waves of heat Tim could feel from where he stood. No wonder the sheriff left his shirt unbuttoned; he had to be burning up all the time.

Tim realized he was staring at the sheriff’s chest and raised his gaze. He looked into the sheriff’s perfect eyes, rich brown most days, golden yellow on others, and had to restrain himself from mumbling something about getting lost in them.

“I hate my life,” Tim informed him instead, then winced. Just once he’d like to sound charming or sophisticated. But with the scent of the sheriff so close he was too distracted to even try for cheesy
Diedre’s Secret
dialogue. Tim didn’t really know scents the way other weres seemed to, but he could feel this scent like it was in his bones, in his
cells
, and wanted to follow it everywhere. He felt about half a second from burying his face in the sheriff’s crotch.

The sheriff’s nostrils flared, no doubt a reaction to the
roll me over and take me
scent Tim was leaving all over the shop.

“Fucking instinct,” Tim swore as viciously as a twenty-year-old werewolf virgin could when confronted with the incredibly fuck-worthy sheriff of Wolf’s Paw during the three days surrounding the full moon.

“What?” It took Sheriff Neri a second to respond. He moved his head, not quite cocking it to one side, while he tried to understand Tim’s special brand of weird. Tim had seen that expression aimed at him every day for almost two months. The sheriff would order his lunch, ask how Tim was doing, give him that look, and then order lunch for Tim too, as if Tim weren’t capable of eating without being reminded.

“Nothing,” Tim muttered. Saying “nothing” had never worked on his uncle either.

The sheriff drew his eyebrows together in a slight frown. He seemed more upset about Tim’s mood than about the scene with the tour guide. “I know you don’t like to talk about instinct—”

“No, I don’t,” Tim interrupted.
Instinct
was what everyone in this town said when anything happened. Instinct was an urge to react to sensory information. It didn’t mean anything.