Page 19 of Accidentally Wedded to a Werewolf (Claw Haven #1)

Luna stumbled to a stop, panting.

“I’m going to die,” she moaned.

For a moment there was no reply except a chilling wind. Then Oliver came plodding back, looking just as annoyed as the last time he had to come back for her.

“You’re not dying,” he said flatly. “You’re just a human trying to keep up with a werewolf.”

Luna thought about berating him. She gave herself a few extra wheezes before straightening up, rolling her eyes when she noticed how irritatingly hot he looked.

A fine sheen of sweat made his too-tight shirt stick to his skin, accentuating his muscles and coarse hair.

The bond pulsed inside her, almost indistinguishable from her own lust, both wanting Luna to walk up and grope his pecs right there in the middle of the forest.

She wisely held herself back. She wasn’t an animal. More importantly, she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. She would have every chance later when they slept together, which was quickly turning into a daily occurrence in the week since she had arrived.

“You said you could run,” Oliver continued.

“I can run. On a treadmill. Not at werewolf speeds up a cliff!” Luna gestured wildly at the steep forest incline she had been struggling up. “Can’t you just run a little slower? You’re lucky I even agreed to go for a run with you. I should be driving next to you at snail speeds.”

“I’m not running on a sidewalk,” Oliver argued, repeating an argument they’d already had twice the day before. “I go for runs to get away from it all, not to wave at nosy townsfolk. And you know they’ll wave.”

Luna sighed. Every time she went into town, which wasn’t often, there were more and more monsters waving at her.

It was annoying. But Luna couldn’t help but be a little charmed.

She’d never lived in a place where grocers asked how your family was doing.

Or in Luna’s case, Oliver’s family. It seemed like everyone in town knew about their situation now and had readily accepted that Luna was stuck with the Musgroves until the snow thawed.

“Still,” Luna said, adjusting her admittedly cute sports shirt, which she had found at a boutique in town. “You should be more grateful. I didn’t have to do this.”

“You did if you didn’t want me to go stir-crazy,” Oliver said. “If you think I’m an asshole now, I’m even worse when I don’t get to work out.”

Luna gasped, the noise made less effective when she immediately wheezed, “You mean this is the cure to your assholery? Oh my god, if you’d told me that I would have started running that first night!”

It was a low blow. But Luna couldn’t help it. They’d been bitching at each other all day, and it wasn’t like they could properly get away. Every time they tried, Oliver turned up with his tail between his legs, looking just as reluctant as she did. But agonizing pain was a great motivator.

Oliver’s jaw twitched. Luna waited for him to bark at her, or even just take off again, making her trudge after him up the steep incline.

“Come on,” he said instead. “We’re almost around the cliff. Then it’s an easy loop back down to the inn. They’ll be waiting on us.”

He ran off, jogging slower than before.

“Waiting,” Luna repeated, her whole body groaning in protest as she started lagging after him. “What for?”

“We’re having a family outing,” Oliver said in a flat tone that implied he wanted it just as much as she did.

Luna groaned. “Can’t we just stay home? We could say I’m tired! We won’t even have to lie!”

Oliver said nothing. Luna watched the muscles in his back flex with each step he took, and admitted to herself that he had slowed his pace for her.

“No,” Oliver said finally. “I haven’t come along on a family outing for a while. I owe it to them.”

Luna mustered up enough oxygen for a groan. But even as she trudged up the forest cliff after him, she couldn’t help thinking how sweet it was. Who the hell went on “family outings”? Not her family, for sure.

“What are we doing?” Luna panted.

“Don’t know,” Oliver said. “But it’s Claw Haven, so our options are limited.”

Luna huffed a breathless laugh. She opened her mouth to deliver what was surely a witty addition about the lack of entertainment in this tiny town, only for her foot to catch on a rock and skid.

Luna yelped. She threw her hands out, her mind whirling as she prepared to hit the rocky forest floor—

—only to find herself wrapped in Oliver’s sweaty arms, staring into his intense eyes.

“Careful,” he barked.

Luna said nothing, her chest heaving. He’d been a few steps ahead. Werewolf reflexes were good, but not that good.

Unless you’re linked, she reminded herself. He probably felt her fall, his own stomach dropping along with hers.

Oliver pulled her up. His blazing touch lingered on her arms, and the bond rejoiced. Luna’s head swam with the urge to lean up and kiss him. And not for the first time, she wasn’t sure if the urge was hers or the bond’s.

Oliver cleared his throat, stepping back. It felt like plunging into an ice bath, the cold air making her shiver again.

“Let’s head back down,” he said. “We’ve kept them waiting long enough.”

* * *

Sweethelm Books was cute enough, Luna considered as she pretended to be interested in a shelf of history books—especially if the bookstore cat Leo kept talking about, Mosey, showed up. That cat sounded adorable.

“Are you a very bookish family?” Luna asked as the younger kids chased each other around the comics section and Vida ignored them both and read a young adult book on a nearby couch.

“Not much,” Oliver admitted. “But it’s somewhere to be. Even if we have to put up with Chester being a dick.”

“Chester?” Luna asked, craning her head to watch the kids tussle far too close to a display of comic books.

“The owner,” Oliver said. “He’s a dragon. And a dick.”

Grandmother Musgrove tutted, making Luna jump.

She hadn’t even known she was behind them—she’d thought Grandmother Musgrove was over in the self-help section with the aunts and Uncle Roy, reading out the titles they thought were the stupidest. Or looking at travel books with Ben and Sabine, who had apparently traveled a lot before they had a kid.

“Chester is not a dick,” Grandmother Musgrove said with dignity, pulling her shawl tight despite the warm air coming from the vents in the bookshop. “He’s a sweet man with a gruff disposition. Like another man I know.”

Oliver did a very good job of ignoring them both. He nodded over at the kids, who were now clambering over Vida while she crouched protectively over her book, still determinedly reading.

“I’m going to go rescue Vida,” he announced.

He stalked off toward that corner of the bookstore. Luna watched him go, the bond stretching forlornly between them.

He’s just going to the other side of the store, she told it. Calm down.

But the bond continued to turn in fretful circles inside her chest, trying to make her walk over and join him.

For some reason, it only got worse when the younger kids started climbing on Oliver instead.

Oliver stood there with a long-suffering expression, but it quickly turned to a reluctant smile as they worked farther up his legs and hung off his waist. To everyone’s surprise, even Vida joined in, and he lifted her off her feet as she clung to his arm.

The kids all shrieked with laughter, and Luna’s breath caught in her throat as Oliver grinned reluctantly.

A sweet man with a gruff disposition. Catching her when she fell, being a climbing gym for his nephews. Making his family dinner every night he wasn’t with her. What else was Oliver hiding under all that annoyed glaring?

“Luna,” Grandmother Musgrove said. “Is the bond acting up? You look flushed.”

Luna forced whatever was happening to her face to cut it out and gave Grandmother Musgrove a sunny smile.

“It’s just warm in here,” she said, fanning her cheeks. She looked around desperately for a distraction and found one in a human woman about her age standing on a stepladder and shelving books in the fiction section.

“Oh good,” she said. “I had a question. Excuse me, ma’am!”

Luna jogged over, her mind reeling, trying to think of any possible question she could have for a bookshop employee. She couldn’t even remember the last time she was in a bookshop. If she wanted a book, she had it shipped to her doorstep.

The human woman looked down from the stepladder. “Yes? How can I help?”

Luna paused. The woman was wearing a shockingly stylish vintage skirt, plus a purple hair ribbon that made her look like she’d stepped out of a Librarian Chic Pinterest board.

It had been so long since Luna had seen someone whose fashion style she envied, it took her a second to remember her fake question.

“If I see something I like,” Luna started, “but I don’t decide I want it until I leave town, could I buy it online and get it shipped to me? I’m going away soon.”

“Oh,” the woman said, climbing off the stepladder. “We don’t do that. Sorry.”

Luna paused. She didn’t want anything, but the idea that she couldn’t order something online shook her.

“You don’t have an online store?” Luna asked, aghast.

“The owner is old-school,” the woman explained.

“What about your customer base outside of Claw Haven?”

“We don’t have that,” said the woman with a perfect customer--service smile. “Can I help you find something?”

Before Luna could decide whether she wanted to slink back to the others or inform this woman of all the business she was missing out on, Leo streaked past them and started scaling the bookshelves.

“Hey,” Oliver barked. “Leo! Get off of there!”

Leo twisted to blow a raspberry at him, already as high as Luna’s head. But his grip got muddled as he reached for the next shelf, and the woman let out a yelp as the kid’s hand sank into her hair instead.

“Whoa,” Luna cried, grabbing Leo as he started to panic and yank this poor woman’s neat bun undone. “Everything’s peachy! Can you give me your hand, bud?”