Page 10 of Accidentally Wedded to a Werewolf (Claw Haven #1)

One annoying thing about having a close family, Oliver mused as he dragged the broken sign into the lobby, was that they kept bothering you.

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 you sure you’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 at all, 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 now lay. “Having her so far away.”

“She’s not far 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 onto the newly repaired 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 had come 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 even with the chains on her tires. I like warm weather, she’d snarked at them last night. That spoiled valley girl would not be good at driving in the snow.

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

Oliver picked the glue back up. “I don’t look—”

The front doors slammed open. Luna charged through, her arms ladened with bags that she immediately dropped to the floor.

Her gaze was fixed on Oliver, so bright and fiery that his relief at not being in pain anymore was completely overshadowed by a spark of lust. He wanted those blazing eyes on him, her face lit up in ecstasy…

Shut up, he told the bond in his chest. Those images had been mostly its fault.

He’d been attracted to her before she drank the bond nectar, but that had been a low, simmering thing.

Not this white-hot lust that made it impossible to focus on anything else.

He shoved it down, trying to focus on how much she pissed him off.

“Luna,” Ben said. “Hey. How was your—”

Luna cut him off, glaring at Oliver. “You don’t want to be around me so much that you’ll be in pain for it? You don’t even know me!”

It was easier to concentrate on his annoyance after that. Oliver laughed, climbing to his feet. “Exactly! I don’t know you, Valley Girl! Why should I follow a stranger into town because she didn’t think to pack anything warm when she was driving around Alaska in the winter?”

“I was heading straight from my hotel to the airport,” Luna yelled. “It’s not my fault there are all these windy roads and snowstorms in the way!”

Ben took a cautious step toward the hallway. “I’m gonna…”

Oliver ignored him, stalking forward. The cold in his chest eased with every step, which only pissed him off more. He’d been so cold. He wanted to run up to her and fold her into his arms, feel the warmth spread through his whole body.

“You’re so annoying,” he growled, fighting the urge off. “Who drinks random liquor off a front desk?”

She gaped at him. “Well, who drinks at work?”

“I live here! It’s my house!”

“It’s not your house. It’s next to your house!”

“It was after hours,” he argued. “And don’t tell me you care about drinking at work. If you’ve ever worked a day in your life, I bet you’re knocking off at 2:00 p.m. with cocktails!”

She glared at him with an outrage only accessible to people who had just been accused of something that was entirely true.

The lobby wasn’t soundproofed like their bedrooms were. Oliver was fully aware that any wolf who wanted to listen could do it from any corner of the inn, especially with how loud they were yelling. But it was hard to care as he stared down at her, heart pounding in his chest.

She was panting. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, and she smelled delectable. She smelled like his. Oliver wanted to throttle his past self for drinking out of some random bottle out of the back room and then leaving it on the counter for unsuspecting rich girls to find.

She looked behind him and squawked. “Oh my god. You’re infuriating.”

“I’m infuriating?”

“Yes,” she snapped, storming behind him to where the sign was lying on the ground, the superglue sitting sadly next to it.

“I said I’d pay for that sign! Don’t try to glue it back together, are you crazy?

It’s a terrible sign! It has no flair. You’d be better off painting a rock!

At least a rock has texture. This has nothing to draw the eye! ”

Oliver couldn’t think of anything to say to that except, “Oh, go straighten your hair.”

She gasped at him. Then she patted down her fluffy hair, like that was her biggest priority in this shitshow of a day.

“You go straighten your hair,” she yelled. “And give me this stupid sign!”

She bent down toward the sign he’d just painstakingly stuck together.

Oliver ran up, trying to grab it off her. “That’s my property!”

“I said I’d pay for it!”

The sign snapped in half. Luna stumbled back holding one half, Oliver with the other.

He stared down at his broken half, rage simmering into an inferno, so hot it drowned out the part of him that wanted to pin her to the nearest wall and ravish her.

“It was fixed,” he snarled. He could feel his teeth sharpen, helpless to stop it.

The small part of him that wasn’t consumed with rage worried that he’d scare her—all wolves were taught at a young age to keep their fangs away from humans.

He waited for Luna to gasp, to shrink away with her hand over her lip-glossy mouth.

Or to lean into her party girl persona, the one she’d been flinging around yesterday evening, all laid-back and cute and stupid.

But Luna did something shocking.

She snarled back at him. Bared all her blunt teeth and her five-foot fury, throwing her half of the sign to the ground.

“No, it wasn’t,” she yelled. “That sign sucked! Just like these drafty walls and the complete lack of art on this shitty wallpaper and your zero hairdryers and your hole in the roof sucks! Do you want your inn to suck? Is this on purpose, so you’ll go out of business and not have to run an inn anymore? ”

“Maybe! I wanted to own an inn when I was a dumbass kid, not now. I only agreed because everyone outvoted me! You think I want to be stuck with all these ridiculous chores and ungrateful guests? You think I want all these strangers in my business all the time, telling me what I should be doing, how I should protect my pack?”

He rubbed his chest. The ice was gone, but at what cost? The agony was worth being away from this woman.

“Screw this.” He threw his half of the sign down and marched toward the front doors.

Luna lingered behind him, clutching the broken wood to her chest. “Where are you going?”

“To get the divorce flower,” he barked, not looking back. “I’m not staying tied to you for one more day.”

“It’s still snowy,” Luna protested. “And you can’t get too far away!”

Oliver threw the front door open and turned, shooting her a hard smile. “How about we try?”

Then he slammed the door in her outraged face and took off running, ignoring the warmth that turned to ice before he even got down the driveway.

He picked up speed as he cleared the parking lot.

His wolf form would get him there faster, but he was still speedy even if he was stuck on two legs.

He ran on the side of the road, where they had already cleared the snow, not bothering to look at the passersby trying to make eye contact as he sprinted past.

Why couldn’t everyone just leave him alone?

The ice in his chest grew spikes, sending blistering tendrils out through the rest of his body.

His feet ached as they struck the wet pavement.

His hands shook at his sides. He was starting to sweat in ways that had nothing to do with how fast he was running.

His shirt stuck to his back, tiny gasps of pain falling out of him as he got closer and closer to the mountains.

Asphalt gave way to a thick layer of snow. His steps became harder, and somehow it wasn’t the snow holding him back—this felt like his very bones were protesting the distance between him and the spoiled woman back at the inn who had tied them together.

The mountain loomed in front of him. A few more minutes of running and he’d be at the base, ready to climb.

His vision tunneled. He stumbled, knees hitting the snow. He knelt there for a moment, spots dancing in the corners of his vision.

“Come on,” he panted, his lips numb. “Come on. Gotta be strong. Gonna—gonna be an alpha.”

He was. This past year was just a hiccup. He’d known he was going to be the next alpha since he was a teenager. That wouldn’t change just because Oliver was playing it safe.

He tried to stand. His knees collapsed under him, then his arms. He fell to his stomach and stared up at the mountain, dazed, head lolling. It was still too far away. Even if he made it, it was covered in snow. He wouldn’t be able to find the flower like this.

Ben is never going to let me live this down, he thought.

Something surprising sprung up amongst the pain: worry. Not his own. The bond was making her stupid emotions leak into his.

Oliver pulled up his walls. Her worry faded, and he felt himself smile.

Then everything went dark.