Page 21 of Accidentally Wedded to a Werewolf (Claw Haven #1)

“I can text the Musgrove group chat,” Luna said from the passenger seat. “They can swing back around, it’ll take five minutes.”

“In five minutes I’ll have this fixed,” Oliver called from under the car hood.

He stared at the engine, trying to remember what Grandmother had taught him when this happened last time.

But last time it had been an issue with the battery, which looked fine to him.

So did everything else. The car wasn’t even giving him any warning lights; it just wouldn’t start.

He heard the passenger door open and close.

The bond twisted joyously inside him as Luna came to lean against the car, her arms crossed and her expression unimpressed.

He wished he didn’t find her glaring at him so attractive.

It made him want to pull her in and kiss her right here in the cold street.

But he held himself back. There would be plenty of time for that later.

Luna had been coming to his room after dinner all week, then badgering him until he gave in and pulled her inside.

He told himself he was annoyed by it. But he couldn’t ignore how much he wanted her in his bed, bond or no bond. Even if he would rather run away from her and pass out again than tell her that.

“I don’t know,” Luna said, considering. “Your eyebrows say otherwise.”

Oliver scowled at her. “My eyebrows?”

“Those aren’t the eyebrows of a confident wolf,” Luna said flatly. “Those are the eyebrows of someone who’s going to keep us here in the freezing cold for ages because he’s too proud to call his family for help. And after I just had that whole speech about you guys being so close and cozy!”

“I’ll fix it,” Oliver said. He turned back to the useless engine, ignoring the bitterness that rose up in him when Luna spoke about their family like that.

They had been close and cozy, once. And the rest of them still were.

But Oliver was on the outside now. He couldn’t trust himself to be close with them after what he’d almost allowed to happen back in Arizona.

Heavy footsteps approached from behind. A familiar voice called, “You guys having trouble?”

Oliver sighed and turned. Nick Wicker, orc mechanic and free drinks opportunist, was waving a wrench at them from the sidewalk.

“I can push it to the shop,” he said, gesturing down the road to the mechanic shop where he worked. “Or I can have a look at it here.”

“We’re fine,” Oliver said.

Luna smacked him in the chest. “Ignore him! We would love your help. Thanks so much, Nick!”

Nick looked at her, surprised. Oliver got the feeling that tourists didn’t usually bother remembering his name. Then Nick broke out in a toothy smile, the one that Oliver tried to find annoying but kept finding endearing instead. It was just so damn goofy.

“It’s no problem,” Nick said as he swaggered up to the popped hood. “You’re actually doing me a favor. It’s boring as hell back there. I was just telling my boss how close I was to coming out here and sabotaging a car just to have something to do.”

Oliver and Luna traded a look as he bent down over the engine.

“Which you didn’t,” Oliver said warily. “Right?”

Nick jerked up so fast he smacked his head on the hood. “Ow! Shit. Ha-ha, no sabotaging here! That maybe wasn’t the best thing to say when your car just broke down. So tell me what happened!”

“Nothing. It just won’t start.”

Nick hummed, his eyes surprisingly keen as they roved over the engine. “Give me a minute to go through all the usual—”

Then he broke off, his head almost slamming into the hood again.

“Vi! Hey!”

Oliver turned. A short human with a purple ribbon in her hair and the most precise smile he’d ever seen was approaching them, beaming.

“Hello,” said Vi from the bookstore they had just walked out of, not looking at Nick. “My boss sent me out to see if there was anything I could do to help.”

“We’re fine,” Oliver said again.

Luna rubbed her arms with a too-loud laugh. “A blanket would be great! Something nonscratchy, if you have it.”

“You don’t need a blanket,” Oliver told her.

Luna rolled her eyes. “There’s snow!”

“It’s mostly melted,” Oliver insisted, glancing at the remnants of slush on the sidewalk.

Luna huffed. “We can’t all have werewolf body heat, okay?”

Before Oliver could talk himself out of it, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. Werewolves ran hot—Oliver couldn’t count how many times he’d helped a human like this. Mostly in high school, waiting on the field for a winter game to start.

Luna’s breath hitched. Oliver wondered if her bond was reacting like his, rioting in his chest like Fourth of July fireworks. He had to stop himself from squeezing her tight. Instead he rubbed her arms, keeping it quick and effective.

“Better?” he asked.

Luna nodded. For a moment she looked dazed. Then she shot him a grin. “My very own personal wolf heater. They should hire you by the hour.”

“It was nice to see you, Violet,” Nick hollered.

Oliver looked over to the bookstore door, where Vi was going back inside. Everyone had paused to look at Nick, who was waving at Vi with a desperation that made Oliver wince.

“You too,” Vi said after a moment, her smile straining. Then she ducked back into the store.

Luna gave Oliver another pointed look, her mouth curling in delight. Oliver narrowed his eyes at her. He was not going to get involved in some weird orc’s crush just because Luna was bored.

“So,” Luna started. “Nick! Tell me about yourself. Do you have any lucky girl—?”

Nick made a triumphant noise under the car hood. “A-ha! I see the bastard. Wait here, I’ll go grab the replacement part.”

Oliver frowned. “Do you need me to push it to the shop?”

“Nope,” Nick called, already jogging down the street. “I got it! It’ll take two minutes!”

Luna sighed as he ran toward the shop. “Damn. Finally something interesting was happening in this town.”

She shivered, burrowing deeper into his arms. Oliver always forgot how sensitive humans were to the cold.

He held her tighter, and the bond in him spasmed in joy.

It wanted him to turn her around and pull her close.

Wanted him to nuzzle her shiny hair. It was getting harder to tell which was the bond and which was just him liking her hair, which was concerning.

Another set of footsteps approached them from a different direction. Oliver looked over to see Emma Curt, grouchy owner of the Grotto Café across the road, sporting a new pixie cut and glaring at them with two cups of coffee in her hands.

“Heard there was a breakdown,” Emma said stiffly. “Hope you like black coffee. If you don’t, hold it anyway. It’s warm.”

“Oh,” Luna said. “Um, thank you?”

“Don’t thank me,” Emma said. “Come buy a coffee later. From us, not from those other cafés down the street.”

“You got it,” Luna said.

Emma handed the coffee over.

“It’s not actually that cold,” she told Luna. “You know it’s basically spring, right?”

With that, she walked off.

“And yet there’s still snow,” Luna called after her.

“Barely,” Emma yelled back.

Luna glanced over at the mountains hopefully.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Oliver told her, glaring up at the snow-covered mountaintops in the distance. “If we tried to get the flower now we’d be swimming through snow.”

“Aw,” Luna said, faux-sweetly. “Keep that up and I’ll think you want to keep me here.”

“Don’t count on it,” Oliver said flatly.

Luna watched Emma vanish into her café and then twisted in Oliver’s arms to give him a look. “You really can’t do anything in this town without everyone getting in your business.”

“Says the woman who was trying to pry into Nick Wicker’s failure of a love life,” Oliver replied.

“He seems sweet,” Luna defended. “Weird, but sweet. He was so squirrely about that flour last week. Who gets sketchy about flour?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” said Oliver, who was determinedly disinterested in the personal lives of the townsfolk, no matter how much they tried to involve him.

Sweethelm Books’ door swung open again. Vi marched out carrying a knitted blanket festooned with tiny white cats with leathery wings.

“Oh my god,” Luna cried. “That’s adorable! Is this that bookshop cat the others were telling me about?”

“That’s Mosey,” Vi agreed.

“It’s so cute,” Luna gasped. “Thank you!”

She grabbed the blanket, wrapping it around herself and burrowing back into Oliver’s arms.

“I could just let you go now,” Oliver threatened.

“Shush, werewolf heater,” she replied.

It shouldn’t have been cute. Oliver had to bite his cheek to stop a smile anyway.

“It’s nice of Nick to help us out like this,” Luna said to Vi. “Don’t you think?”

Vi paused just long enough to confirm what Oliver had suspected: She hated the guy’s guts.

“Sure,” she said politely. “He’s coming back?”

As if on cue, Nick came running into view, a car part Oliver didn’t recognize clutched in his big green hand.

“I got it,” Nick said with a level of enthusiasm usually reserved for golden retrievers.

He came to a stop in front of the open hood, staring not at the car, but at Vi.

There might as well have been stars sparkling in his eyes, and for a moment Oliver actually felt bad for the guy.

He’d always assumed Nick was an empty-headed grunt who only cared for free beer and his noisy motorcycle.

But the look on Nick’s face was so open and vulnerable that Oliver didn’t want to see it get stomped on.

Then Nick cleared his throat, and the look vanished under a smug grin. “Still with the hair ribbon, huh?”

Oliver frowned. Was he trying to insult her? It sure sounded like an insult. But that didn’t make sense with everything else he had just seen.

Vi’s smile tightened. She looked back at Luna. “I have to head back in. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“Later,” Nick called after her, his hand clutched in his oily shirt, right over his heart. He watched her vanish back into the bookstore, and Oliver had to avert his eyes so he didn’t cringe with secondhand embarrassment.

Nick hadn’t been trying to insult her. He was just that bad at flirting. At least Luna seemed delighted, her hand over her mouth like she was watching a play.

Nick stared at the closed door for several seconds, rubbing his shirt anxiously. Then he whirled around to face them, giving them a toothy grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Back to work,” he said, and bent over the hood.

“How much will we owe you?” Oliver asked.

Nick made a dismissive noise, waving a giant green hand at them. “Ah, forget about it. Barely a five-minute job.”

“Are you sure?” Oliver asked. He wanted to give the guy something after that pathetic display. He’d almost give the guy a hug, if he was the kind of person who hugged non–family members.

“At this point, I’m close to paying you for giving me something to do,” Nick replied. “Only so many times I can dust the toolboxes, y’know?”

Oliver nodded and let the guy get on with his work. Luna tugged on his shirt, and Oliver looked at her, puzzled, as she grinned up at him.

Leave him alone, Oliver mouthed.

Luna stuck her tongue out at him, of all things.

But before Luna could grill him properly, Nick snapped something into place and straightened, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the hood this time.

“Done,” he announced. He slammed the hood shut. “Well, would you look at the time! I need to get back. Lots of work to do.”

“You just said you were so bored you were thinking of sabotaging a car,” Luna called after him.

But it was too late. Nick was already jogging across the road toward the mechanic garage. Oliver could see two orcs poking their heads out to watch, bemused, as Nick ran toward them like he was fleeing from something. Which, Oliver guessed, he was.

Luna rested her cheek on Oliver’s chest. “Aw. Just when it was getting interesting.”

“That wasn’t interesting,” Oliver replied. “That was sad. Get in the car.”

Luna pouted. She unwound the blanket from her shoulders and headed to Sweethelm Books, leaving it in a bundle on a shelf just inside the door. Then she ran back and climbed into the passenger’s seat, rubbing her arms.

Oliver twisted the keys in the ignition. They both let out a sigh of relief when the car rumbled to life.

“We don’t actually think Nick sabotaged the car,” Luna asked. “Right?”

“I doubt it,” Oliver said. “But I don’t know the guy that well. Even less than I thought, apparently.”

Luna hummed, turning the heater on full blast and sitting back in her seat. She looked so happy Oliver wanted to kiss her about it. He pushed the urge down and focused on putting the car into gear.

“Okay,” Luna said. “Maybe small towns are good sometimes.”

Oliver scoffed, pulling into the street. “You just want to know people’s business. You sound like a local.”

“So? It’s fun.” Luna grinned, and something flared in his chest that had nothing to do with the bond. “And… I don’t know.”

She went uncharacteristically quiet. Oliver looked over to see her picking at her pristine nails, also so out of character that he frowned.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Luna said. “Just…you know. Family bookshop trips where everybody knows who you are. It’s cute.”

“We had that in Arizona,” he reminded her as they coasted down the Main Road. “No small towns needed.”

Luna said nothing. Oliver itched to look over at her again, but he kept his eyes on the road.

“You’re different around them,” said Luna in a rush.

“Different?”

“Yeah,” Luna said, her voice oddly soft. “You’re sweet.”

The bond spasmed behind Oliver’s rib cage. He had to clench the steering wheel so he didn’t do something stupid, like reach over and pull her into a kiss while he was driving.

“Don’t get used to it,” he managed.

Luna giggled. Oliver tried to be annoyed. It didn’t work.

“No, I see you now,” Luna said. “You’re…how did your grandmother put it? A sweetheart with a gruff exterior. Next you’ll be bringing me my handbag and massaging my feet!”

“Don’t count on it,” Oliver said.

Luna made a considering noise. She leaned over, resting her chin on his shoulder and ignoring his warning glare.

“I don’t know,” she said. “You did promise me a massage.”