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Luna frowned. “You could be. You guys have mountainsandseasideandforest. And that whole monster wonderland going on, for people who are into that kind of thing. You could do a lot with it.”

The woman nodded. Luna got the feeling she would’ve nodded at anything Luna said. She seemed the type.

“I’m Luna,” Luna said.

“Beth.” The woman’s tiny hedgehog hands twisted tighter in her apron. “I’m sorry, but are you the human staying at Musgrove Inn? Everybody’s talking about it.”

“Great,” Luna muttered and pulled up a sunny smile. “That’s me!”

“Oh.” Beth’s shoulders hunched. “Where’s Oliver? Is he not with you?”

Luna laughed. Beth must not have the whole story ifshe thought Luna’s accidental husband would want to tag along into town with her.

“No, he’s back at the inn. Hopefully not falling off the roof.”

“Oh,” Beth said again. Her brow furrowed. “I hope he’s alright. I had werewolf friends who got bonded in college, and they couldn’t be on the other side of the house before the pain set in.”

Luna waited for that baffling sentence to make sense. When seconds passed with nothing becoming clear, she asked, “Excuse me? Pain?”

“It’s a side effect of the new bond,” Beth explained hesitantly, as if afraid she was being tested. “Did—did he not tell you that?”

Luna thought back to Oliver up on that roof, hammering down a tarp and not looking at her once. Of the cold in her chest, spreading to her fingers and making it hard to hold her bags. Of Sabine saying,it won’t be as powerful since you’re not a wolf.

“No,” she said icily. “He didn’t.”

Six

One annoying thing about having a close family, Oliver mused as he dragged the broken sign into the lobby, was that they keptbotheringyou. Ben had asked how he was feeling five times in the last half an hour, and if he did it again, Oliver was going to wolf out and jump on him. Never mind that he hadn’t been able to properly wolf out in a year. He’d do it out of sheer brotherly rage. Anything to distract him from the overwhelming ache pulsing through his body, the cold so intense it went all the way back around to burning hot. It made it hard to focus on the broken sign he was holding.

Ben took a deep breath behind him.

Don’t, Oliver thought as he sat on the carpet, bending over the sign. His hand shook around the superglue tube as ice throbbed through his body.

“Are yousureyou’re okay?” Ben asked.

Oliver growled up at him. “I’m fine.”

Ben eyed him dubiously. Oliver straightened, trying to look normal. In control. Not stress-sweating atall, and definitely not shaking. The pain was like an icy fist around his heart, squeezing hard. He wanted to crawl into a corner and shiver until it stopped. But he had shit to do, and he wasn’t going to let an unwanted bondmate’s distance stop him.

“Kinda risky,” Ben said, toeing the lobby carpet where the sign was lying. “Having her so far away.”

“She’s notfar away,” Oliver protested, easing the broken sides of the sign back together. “I can sense her. She’s coming back from town.”

Sweat dripped down his forehead. He wiped it away with his forearm and grunted as a fresh wave of cold agony rushed through him.

“Still,” Ben said. “You could’ve gone with her.”

Oliver gritted his teeth. “I refuse to let?—”

Another wave of pain washed over him. Oliver bent over with the force of it, a gasp ripping out of his throat. The superglue dropped into the newly glued sign, tumbling down the wood onto the carpet.

Ben rushed forward. “Ollie?”

Oliver shook his head. It was starting to ebb, just as fast as it came on. In seconds, the pain turned from agony all over his body to a hard throb localized in his chest.

“She’s close,” Oliver said. He could already imagine that shiny rental car turning into the parking lot, sliding evenwiththe chains on her tires.I likewarmweather,she’d snarked at them last night. That spoiled valley girl wouldnotbe good at driving in the snow.

“Good,” Ben said. “Means you can stop walking around looking constipated.”