Page 48 of Accidentally Wedded to a Werewolf (Claw Haven #1)

Grandmother leaned on the front desk and sighed. “You look worse than me.”

Oliver scowled. He was bent over Beth’s half-finished chocolate display, which was proving harder to put together than he anticipated. It was just a display, so why did it have so many slots and tabs?

“I look fine,” he snapped.

“Your eye bags say otherwise,” Grandmother replied.

She reached out as if to touch his admittedly sweaty cheek.

He’d been having trouble sleeping, racked with strange tremors and fluctuating body temperatures he was doing his best to ignore.

It was the annoying aftermath of bond breaking and would go away eventually.

He ducked out of range with a growl. Both of them paused while Grandmother’s eyebrows rose.

He averted his gaze back to the infuriating display. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she said.

He looked her over quickly. She was pale, but that had become pretty common in the past few months. No less than three shawls were draped around her shoulders despite how the heat was running at full blast.

“Today’s a good day,” she said, pulling the shawls tighter around her. She gave him a reassuring smile. “Are you excited for the fair yet? You promised Leo you would be. It’s tomorrow; time’s running out.”

“He’ll survive,” Oliver said icily.

She gave him a knowing look. The fair marked the day before Luna’s wedding. He couldn’t pretend to be excited about a fair while Luna was about to marry some rich, useless jerk who had never held a hammer in his life.

Oliver went back to the display, trying yet again to slide the correct tab into the correct slot without bending anything. Why was it so fragile? This thing didn’t look like it could hold up a piece of paper, much less bags full of chocolates.

“Oliver,” Grandmother said.

He winced. The conversational tone was gone. Whatever was coming, he wasn’t going to like it.

“I don’t want you retreating back into yourself,” she said. “You were getting better these past months. Back to your old self.”

He glared at her. “For someone who’s always telling me to be open about how I’m feeling, we didn’t hear one word from you about feeling sick until you were passing out in my arms.”

Oliver had never seen her look so caught off guard. He fought down the wave of shame that flooded him for speaking so rudely to his grandmother, let alone his alpha, and went back to the chocolate display.

“Well,” Grandmother said. “I suppose you had to get it from somewhere.”

Oliver focused on the cardboard. His hands were shaking. That had been happening on and off since Luna left. He clenched his hands into fists, feeling claws prick into his palms. He forced them back.

Grandmother cleared her throat. Oliver thought hard about telling her to leave him to his very important work. Then he looked up grudgingly, waiting.

She had her hands folded in front of her, chin held high. She looked even more regal than usual, and he straightened his spine reflexively.

“I want to make you the alpha during the next full moon,” she announced.

There was a low pop. Oliver looked down to see his claws poking through the cardboard display.

“But that’s tomorrow,” he said, dazed. “And you said—”

“I have faith—” Grandmother paused, lips thinning.

“I have faith that this is a minor setback. That what you experienced in the last few months will carry you forward, even if it’s over now.

Can I trust in that? Or should I wait a few months to see if you backslide entirely into that sullen, brooding man who doesn’t let a handyman in to fix his roof?

We already have one Roy in the family. We don’t need two. ”

Oliver’s hackles went up even as he tried to force them back down.

The old paranoia rose—it’s not safe, gotta guard the family—but along with it came a swarm of images.

Luna grinning as she showed him how many orders Beth had gotten; Luna proudly displaying a whiteboard listing all the ways they could change the inn; Luna watching him fondly as he rubbed her feet.

Luna stroking his hair, giggling at his dumb tattoo, and showing him her private sketchbook with that guarded look like she was afraid he’d laugh at her.

And of course, Uncle Roy. Standing in the corner with his back to the wall, glaring at anyone who dared to get too close. Oliver needed to wallow. But he wasn’t going to let that be his future.

“I don’t want to rush this,” Grandmother continued. “But I don’t know how much time we have left.”

“You’re fine,” he argued weakly. “Right? You keep insisting.”

“I do,” she said. She paused. Then she reached out, ghosting her fingers over the dark bags under his eyes.

Oliver flinched. He couldn’t help it. But he didn’t move away this time.

Grandmother dropped her hand. “You really do look strange.”

Oliver opened his mouth to insist he was fine. But he was exhausted and shaky, and he’d been lying through his teeth long enough.

“It’s the bond,” he said slowly. “Right? I remember you saying something about aftereffects.”

She nodded. “Uncle Roy stayed in bed for days after. We had to force-feed him soup. Couldn’t stop shaking long enough to hold a spoon.”

“Seriously?” Oliver scrubbed a hand down his face. It came away damp with sweat. “That’s so annoying. The bond is over.”

“It is. But it was a big change. Your body has to adjust.”

“Gotta scar over,” came a voice from the hallway.

Oliver turned to see Uncle Roy, shoulders hunched. He sneered at them as he approached. “Can we quit talking about that woman? She’s gone, and good riddance. She wasn’t pack.”

Grandmother sighed. “You know we can’t subsist purely on pack, right? We have to let others in, or the Musgrove pack will get very small, very fast.”

The lobby door banged open, letting in a gust of chilly air as Beth Haberdash stumbled in. She had a giant cardboard box in her arms and was teetering under the weight.

“Oof,” she said as the door bounced off the wall. “Sorry! And on the new wallpaper, too!”

Oliver hurried out from behind the counter, steadying the package in her arms.

“Thanks,” she said brightly. She’d started looking him in the face in the past few weeks, and Sabine said she’d been stammering less. “I came to drop off some chocolate.”

“We’ll need a new display,” Oliver said, helping her heave the package down onto the floor. “I kind of, uh, punctured it.”

“What?” Beth looked over at the front desk and blinked rapidly as she noticed the display banged up and torn. “Oh. That’s fine, I’ll bring something over tonight. Anyway, I dropped by and saw this outside! It arrived so fast!”

“What arrived?” Uncle Roy called from the front desk. He gave the air a suspicious sniff as if expecting to smell something dangerous emanating from the package.

“The sign!” Beth looked toward Grandmother Musgrove for confirmation. “At least, I hope so. It’s sign-shaped. And Luna said she’d sent it express. Paid top dollar so it would get here fast!”

“It’s about time,” Uncle Roy grumbled. “Been sign-less for months now.”

Oliver’s grip tightened on the cardboard. He wanted to rip into it, but he didn’t want to do it with anyone else around. He didn’t know what his response to seeing Luna’s work was going to be, but he didn’t want to have it in front of these people.

Grandmother arrived next to him. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Show us our new sign.”

Oliver hesitated. Then he knelt and tore the cardboard off with careful claws. He’d be fine, he assured himself as he sliced through the layer of bubble wrap and yet another layer of cardboard. Whatever he felt, he’d just school his expression into anger. He’d gotten good at that in the past year.

The last of the packing fell away. Oliver held up the sign as the others crowded around it.

Grandmother hummed, squeezing the wood. “Sturdy.”

“Won’t hold up to another car,” Uncle Roy said gruffly.

Beth made a small chirp. “That’s so cute! Don’t you guys think this is so cute? I’m going to take a photo. Is that okay?”

Grandmother said something. Oliver didn’t hear it. Blood rushed through his ears.

It was a wolf sitting in an armchair. A fire roared behind him. The wolf had thick dark eyebrows standing out on his brown fur. His legs were crossed, a party-hat mug raised halfway to his muzzle.

Grandmother’s hand on his arm brought him back to himself.

“It’s you,” she said, pleased.

Oliver grunted. His vision was swimming, the roaring in his ears making his head spin. He let out a pained grunt as pressure built in his chest.

Grandmother’s voice drifted over him, alarmed. “Oliver?”

Oliver opened his mouth to respond. But a wave of pain rushed through his chest, white-hot and overwhelming.

He fell forward and was unconscious by the time he hit the floor.