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Oliver gritted his teeth and followed. There was a strange warmth in his chest that burned hotter the closer he got to her, which was worrying.

“Luna,” said Grandmother as she arrived infront of the woman. “Why don’t you follow us someplace warmer? You look frozen.”

Luna. Oliver had to bite his cheek to stop himself from groaning. Of course, she had a stupid moon name.

His brother, of course, was not as graceful. He snorted aloud as he followed the group down the hall toward their living quarters.

“Shutup,” Oliver told him.

“Didn’t say a word,” Ben said, not bothering to wipe that stupid smug smile off his face.

Grandmother took Luna into Sabine and Ben’s bedroom to pick out some warmer clothes. As they waited, Uncle Roy paced the Musgrove common room with his fangs bared.

“It’s a trick,” he snarled as he paced. “Somebody sent her to infiltrate the pack. Some hunting clan back in Arizona?—”

“Nobody’s hunting us, Roy,” Aunt Althea said, slurring from her attempts to fix her gold tooth. “You’re scaring the kids.”

Uncle Roy snarled. It only softened when he looked over at the kids—six-year-old Leo wrestling with his nine-year-old cousin, Darren. Next to them, sixteen-year-old Vida, Darren’s sister, took her ever-present, bulky headphones off to glare at Aunt Althea.

“Not a kid,Mom,” she said. She shot Oliver an amused look as she slid her headphones back on. “Congrats on the wife, Uncle Ollie.”

Oliver glared at her, then turned to the rest of the room. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Grandmother will get this sorted. It’s not—itcan’tbe a real bond.”

And yet there was that warmth in his chest, getting colder and colder. The cold hurt. He wanted to be warm again, to becloseto her. It scared him. He didn’t evenknowher, but some stupid ritual had decided that his body wanted to be next to hers, always. More thannextto her. It wanted?—

He thumped his chest, trying to make it stop aching. “Okay. Roof. We’ll put up a tarp and wait for the snow to stop. We might have to replace the carpet in the lobby if the water stain gets too bad.”

“Youreallyshould call Jackson,” said Aunt Barney, who was sitting on the couch and braiding Aunt Althea’s hair while the other woman continued to fix her gold tooth.

“He can consult,” Oliver said. “But I don’t want him working on the inn.”

Aunt Althea and Aunt Barney traded a knowing look.

“Bad as Uncle Roy,” Aunt Barney muttered, combing a gentle hand through her sister’s thick, dark hair.

Oliver bit back the knee-jerk asshole response. Sure, he hadn’t welcomed the annoyingly friendly townsfolk with open arms. But he wasn’t as bad as Uncle Roy, who roamed the halls at night “in case of danger,” scaring the hell out of several of the few guests that had stayed here since they opened.

He turned to Uncle Roy, who was still growling under his breath. “It’s probably just some dumb mistake, Uncle Roy.”

Uncle Roy gave him a betrayed look. “Here I thought you were finally seeing sense this past year. Nothing good came out of that fire except you finally wising up.”

Oliver fought back the urge to shudder. “So what, Uncle Roy? She found a way to put the bottle in the office without us smelling her? Then she mind-controlled me to drink it? To leave it out in the open?”

Uncle Roy opened his mouth to go on another one of his rants.

Oliver cut him off. “Whatever this is, Grandmother will fix it, and then we’ll never have to see that woman again.”

“I like her,” said Darren, letting Leo pin him to the carpet. “She’s pretty.”

“She’srude,” Oliver barked.

Ben snorted again. “And I bet you didnothingto set that off.”

Oliver scowled at him. Everyone was having too much fun with this situation except for him and Uncle Roy, which was not a grouping he wanted to be lumped in. Uncle Roy had been scarred by wannabe hunters as a child and had grown up with a chip on his shoulder. Not just for humans but with anyone who wasn’t pack. Everybody had hoped he’d drop this attitude after he’d shocked everyone by marrying a human—even going as far as tomarryher—and for a few years, it had seemed like he was softening. Then she’d left, and he’d gone rightback to being suspicious of everyone outside the pack. Until last year, Oliver thought he was being dramatic. Then the fire happened, and Oliver found himself suspicious of everyone who tried to insert themselves into their lives. Which in this town was pretty much everyone.

Before Oliver could tell his brother exactly where to stick it, the hallway door opened. His heart skipped a beat, and he frowned. He didn’t think he wasthatstressed.

“—hair looks fine,” Sabine was saying as she came in with Grandmother. “What do you think, Ollie? How does her hair look?”