Page 3 of Squirrel Hunt

“Or cabins. People who are away on pack business. Sometimes, they’re sent to neighboring packs to help out with certain things. It was how I met Roan. I’m not from here. I met him at a coffee shop where I was working in Ordbury. It’s about an hour’s drive from here. He was loaned out to the pack there for six months.” She beamed at him.

Loaned out? They loaned people out? He’d always known wolves were insane.

“I could ask Konrad.”

Dahy shook his head.

“He doesn’t need to know you’re a bear. I can tell him you’re human. A friend of mine from Ordbury who needs a place to hide for a few weeks.”

“Scent.” Dahy took a sip of cocoa and almost groaned. He hadn’t had anything but birdseed for days.

“We’ll drench you in perfume.” She laughed. “Roan hates it when I use perfume. He says he can’t smell me under all the crap stinging his nose.”

Dahy hated perfume too, but it could work. For a short amount of time. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, Dahy. You can’t walk around dressed like that in the middle of winter.” She gestured at him. “People are gonna notice, and then you won’t be able to hide.”

He didn’t tell her he spent most of his time in squirrel form; it would ruin the illusion she was creating. “I don’t have any money.” He gestured at himself. “This is all I have, and my phone and charger.” He tapped his pocket where he’d stuffed the charger.

“I’ll call Konrad.” She shot to her feet. “I’ll do it outside. Wait here.” She hurried off, and fear curled an icy fist around his heart. What if she called the pack and told them she had a squirrel trapped in a coffee shop?

He searched for a back door. A fire exit. Something. The restroom. Some restrooms had windows you could get out through. But if he rushed in there and there were no windows—

“He said you could stay in Farris’ cabin.”

Dahy screeched and several people turned to stare at him. Myka frowned. “Eh…Konrad said Farris’ cabin is empty at the moment. Or not empty, it’s furnished, but he’s not there. Konrad said you can stay for a couple of weeks if you agree to keep the plants alive. Apparently, he goes there to water every Sunday.”

Dahy nodded.

“Awesome! Let’s go get the key, and I’ll drop you off before I meet the girls.” She glanced at her phone, checking the time. “We better hurry. Konrad lives outside of town in the opposite direction of Farris who also lives outside of town, so there will be some driving.”

Gulping down the cocoa, Dahy hoped he hadn’t signed his death warrant.

“We need to pop into Bella’s before we go and buy something to disguise your scent.”

“Bella’s?”

“One of the girls.” She grinned at him. “Everyone has been so friendly here. Bella has become one of my best friends. She runs the shop next door; sells makeup and perfumes and stuff. Cheap-ish, so there are mostly teenage girls shopping there, but I’m sure we can find something sufficient.”

Dahy might have longed for human interaction, but he feared he was going into overload. Myka had a lot going on.

Chapter 2

Konrad Brody looked up from the stack of paper in front of him when the sound of a car coming up the gravel road reached him. He sighed. Some days he loved being the alpha of a werewolf pack, other days not so much.

Glancing out the window as the car came to a stop outside the cabin, he tried to memorize the license plate. It was always good to know which cars were pack and which were not. This young woman was not a shifter, but you didn’t get to pick your mate. It was unusual for shifters to have a human mate, but for some reason, the fates wanted to test Roan. Poor soul.

Konrad’s first reaction when he’d told him he’d found his mate, but she was human, was to tell him he was wrong. She couldn’t be his mate, and what he was feeling was infatuation. He’d sent him on a mission to infiltrate the Ordbury pack and report back to him. It was hard for a wolf to be away from the pack and finding warmth and comfort in the arms of a willing woman made sense. Believing she was your mate did not. But Roan had been adamant, and Konrad tried not to be the kind of leader who dictated his wolves’ lives.

He wasn’t overly pleased about now having a human in the pack as she was a weak point. If anyone wanted to cause them harm, it wasn’t hard to attack a human. It would drive Roan insane if something happened to her, and while he wasn’t among the top tier of the pack, he was one of the wolves Konrad relied on for information, and one he trusted to do what was best for the group. Incapacitating Roan could cause them great harm.

With a low growl, he pushed away from the chair and went to meet Myka. He guessed he couldn’t send Roan to infiltrate other packs in the future. No man would ever deny having a mate once they were mated, and people would want to know who she was, and why they’d left their pack. Though, it might work in their favor since many packs were against interspecies mating and forced their members to either reject their mate or leave the pack.

But it would be far too risky for Roan to bring her on missions. Coming new to a pack was always risky, coming with a human mate would make half—if not more—of the packs reject him the moment they found out. No, it wouldn’t work.

Roan was a good guy, and he wouldn’t like not working for the pack. Konrad would have to find another purpose for him. Something where he made a difference and could remain in the city to protect his mate.

He stepped out on the landing. “Myka.” He smiled at the dark-haired woman exiting her car.