Page 6 of Accidentally Wedded to a Werewolf (Claw Haven #1)

Oliver waited for the punchline.

Grandmother Musgrove wasn’t a very jokey woman, but she had her moments.

This was, admittedly, a pretty weird moment to pick.

But Oliver couldn’t think of any other explanation for why she’d tell him he was married to the rude, spoiled stranger with giant bush baby eyes who’d crashed a car into his sign and called him an asshole within thirty seconds of meeting him.

The woman shivered pathetically, snow spiraling through the hole in the roof and landing in her damp hair.

Even disheveled, she carried an air of entitlement and wealth.

Her voice dripped with money, and her teeth were the kind of straight that only came from luxury dentists.

Even the way she stood—anxious but still haughty like she expected to get out of this situation scot-free—screamed that she’d never had anything truly bad happen to her in her whole life. Nothing money couldn’t get her out of.

Next to him, Ben gasped.

“Oh,” Ben said. “Ohhhhh.”

“What?” Oliver snapped.

Ben pointed. The woman was holding the bottle he’d been drinking from earlier. He must’ve left it there after he’d grudgingly decided to join the party long enough to shut his family up.

More gasps went up behind him. Oliver turned to find both his aunts clinging to each other with excitement and shock.

Uncle Roy scratched the childhood burn scar on his neck and glared at the woman like he wanted to rip her pretty little throat out right there in the lobby.

Even Sabine had her hands over her mouth.

The only ones who looked as confused as Oliver were the kids pulling on their parents’ sleeves for answers.

Even a few nonwolves were getting it. The mermaid in the wheelchair had her hands over her mouth just like Sabine, eyes shining like she was watching the climax of a reality TV show.

“What?” Oliver asked again, turning to Grandmother. “What are you talking about?”

“You must be more drunk than I thought,” Grandmother said. “Look closer.”

She pointed at the bottle.

“Um,” said the woman, still shivering like a leaf. “I assumed it was for the party… I can put it back—”

“Too late,” Uncle Roy spat. “The damage is done.”

A horrible realization rushed over Oliver fast, cutting through the drunkenness.

He did recognize that bottle. That was the bottle that had been present in every Musgrove bonding ceremony since before Oliver was born, with the two betrothed sharing the sacred spirits made by Musgrove elders and left to age until the next ceremony.

He’d never seen it when it wasn’t draped in flowers and drizzled with oils somewhere in the woods, the bonded pair tipping the bottle into each spouse’s mouth.

“But—” Oliver said. “But it was in the back room. With our filing cabinet and a bunch of crap we never use but don’t want to throw out. Why was it in there?”

“A lot of things got misplaced during the move,” Grandmother pointed out.

Oliver shook his head numbly. He couldn’t have drunk that without knowing. It was sacred to their pack. He couldn’t just uncork it and start chugging.

Next to him, Ben stifled a hysterical giggle. “Dude, that’s—that’s the bond nectar. How do you accidentally drink the bond nectar?”

Oliver ran his tongue around his mouth. Traces of the liquid were still there under the beer he’d thrown back at the party while waiting to leave.

“Uhhh,” the woman said, clutching the bottle like it wasn’t hugely important to the pack she was now in. “I’m sorry, can someone explain what’s going on so I can curl up with an electric blanket and get this night over with? You guys do electric blankets, right?”

Another gust of wind came through the giant hole in the roof, sending a new wave of snow around the room. The woman—Oliver’s wife, even though he didn’t even know her name—jumped like she’d been stung, rubbing her arms through her robe.

The tiniest shiver ran through Grandmother, who turned toward the people behind them with a smile.

“I think the night has burned itself out,” she announced. “Everybody might want to head home.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” muttered Nick Wicker, an annoying orc who worked for the local mechanic and had only showed up for the free beer. “Come on, Jasper.”

“Right behind you,” said Jasper, a vampire who, if possible, was even more annoying than Nick.

They both shot Oliver curious looks as they passed, and didn’t look half as chastened as they should have when Oliver glowered at them.

Claw Haven folk never did—the whole damn town felt entitled to everyone’s private business.

Grandmother’s hand hovered over Oliver’s elbow as everyone filed out. “Come on.”

“This is ridiculous,” Oliver protested. He gestured up at the snow drifting down into the lobby, which was mercifully slowing down. “I—I need to put up a tarp. I need—”

“We can do that later,” Grandmother said before walking over to the shivering woman.

Oliver gritted his teeth and followed. There was a strange warmth in his chest that burned hotter the closer he got to her, which was worrying.

“Luna,” said Grandmother as she arrived in front of the woman. “Why don’t you follow us someplace warmer? You look frozen.”

Luna. Oliver had to bite his cheek to stop himself from groaning. Of course, she had a stupid moon name.

His brother was not as graceful. He snorted aloud as he followed the group down the hall toward their living quarters.

“Shut up,” Oliver told him.

“Didn’t say a word,” Ben said, not bothering to wipe that stupid smug smile off his face.

* * *

Grandmother took Luna into Sabine and Ben’s bedroom to pick out some warmer clothes. As they waited, Uncle Roy paced the Musgrove common room with his fangs bared.

“It’s a trick,” he snarled as he paced. “Somebody sent her to infiltrate the pack. Some illegal hunting clan back in Arizona—”

“Nobody’s hunting us, Roy,” Aunt Althea said, slurring from her attempts to fix her gold tooth. “And there aren’t any hunters in Arizona anymore.”

“That’s what they say,” Uncle Roy muttered.

“Roy,” Aunt Althea said. “You’re scaring the kids.”

Uncle Roy snarled, only softening when he looked over at the kids—six-year-old Leo wrestling with his nine-year-old cousin, Darren. Next to them, sixteen-year-old Vida, Darren’s sister, took her ever-present bulky headphones off to glare at Aunt Althea.

“Not a kid, Mom,” she said. She shot Oliver an amused look as she slid her headphones back on. “Congrats on the wife, Uncle Ollie.”

Oliver glared at her, then turned to the rest of the room. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Grandmother will get this sorted. It’s not—it can’t be a real bond.”

And yet there was that warmth in his chest, getting colder and colder. The cold hurt. He wanted to be warm again, to be close to her. It scared him. He didn’t even know her, but some stupid ritual had decided that his body wanted to be next to hers, always. More than next to her. It wanted—

He thumped his chest, trying to make it stop aching. “Okay. Roof. We’ll put up a tarp and wait for the snow to stop. We might have to replace the carpet in the lobby if the water stain gets too bad.”

“You really should call Jackson,” said Aunt Barney, who was sitting on the couch and braiding Aunt Althea’s hair while the other woman continued to fix her gold tooth.

“He can consult,” Oliver said. “But I don’t want him working on the inn.”

Aunt Althea and Aunt Barney traded knowing looks.

“Bad as Uncle Roy,” Aunt Barney muttered, combing a gentle hand through her sister’s thick, dark hair.

Oliver bit back the knee-jerk asshole response. Sure, he hadn’t welcomed the annoyingly friendly townsfolk with open arms. But he wasn’t as bad as Uncle Roy, who roamed the halls at night “in case of danger,” scaring the hell out of the few guests who had stayed here since they opened.

He turned to Uncle Roy, who was still growling under his breath. “It’s probably just some dumb mistake, Uncle Roy.”

Uncle Roy gave him a betrayed look. “Here I thought you were finally seeing sense this past year. Nothing good came out of that fire except you finally wising up.”

Oliver fought back a shudder. “So what, Uncle Roy? She found a way to put the bottle in the office without us smelling her? Then she mind-controlled me to drink it? To leave it out in the open?”

Uncle Roy opened his mouth to go on another one of his rants.

Oliver cut him off. “Whatever this is, Grandmother will fix it, and then we’ll never have to see that woman again.”

“I like her,” said Darren, letting Leo pin him to the carpet. “She’s pretty.”

“She’s rude,” Oliver barked.

Ben snorted again. “And I bet you did nothing to set that off.”

Oliver scowled at him. Everyone was having too much fun with this situation except for him and Uncle Roy, who he did not want to be lumped in with.

Uncle Roy had been scarred by wannabe hunters as a child and had grown up with a chip on his shoulder—not just for humans but for anyone who wasn’t pack.

Everybody had hoped he’d drop this attitude after he’d shocked the family by becoming involved with a human—even going as far as to marry her—and for a few years, it had seemed like he was softening.

Then she’d left, and he’d gone right back to being suspicious of everyone outside the pack.

Until last year, Oliver thought he was being dramatic.

Then the fire happened, and Oliver found himself suspicious of anyone who tried to insert themselves into their lives.

Which in this town was pretty much everyone.

Before Oliver could tell his brother exactly where to stick it, the hallway door opened. His heart skipped a beat, and he frowned. He didn’t think he was that stressed.

“—hair looks fine,” Sabine was saying as she came in with Grandmother. “What do you think, Ollie? How does her hair look?”