“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she stammered.
I needed to pull the girl aside and give her some lessons on life, especially when it came to an idiot wolf on the prowl—one with a bounty out for his living head. I picked up my hot chocolate with one hand, rose from my seat, and made a show of preparing to leave, while I kept my phone pointed at my target.
“It’s my lucky day, then. How about I buy you a coffee, little lady?”
I regretted having left my new scissors in my hotel with my lion. I was relieved I’d left my lion in the hotel, as it would have devolved into a brawl already.
Sebastian had zero use for creepy abusers, and I bet he liked working the drug circuits because he got to smackdown creepy abusers every time he made a hit.
“You don’t need to do that,” she replied, her tone uncertain. She glanced in the direction of the shop’s door.
I’d brought down enough wolves to understand if her nerve broke and she ran, he’d chase because that was what wolves did when prey ran. I’d seen enough predator and prey responses to recognize he hunted.
“Oh, but I do.”
How utterly despicable. I went to the back of the line, careful to keep recording the pair, and I nudged the woman in front of me, giving a nod in the direction of my phone. She looked, and she nodded, making room so I could take her spot in line. The women needed little prodding to let me cut in line to get closer, and the men in the line frowned, staring at my phone before looking at the pair ahead of us. But, after watching for a moment, they, too, understood the problem and let me move up the line until I was behind Haverly’s potential victim.
He was so focused on his prey that he paid me no attention.
The stench of fear polluted the girl’s scent.
“It’s just a coffee,” he encouraged, and he sniffed the air, smiling at what his nose told him. “What do you like in yours?”
“If you’re buying, I’ll take mine black,” I said, looking the wolf over. “Hey, baby girl. Your dad’s outside waiting for you. He texted me.”
Thanks to the CDC’s awful perfume, I doubted the wolf could smell much about me at all. And if he smelled male cat on my clothes, nobody would believe for a moment I was a male anything.
The so-called baby girl whirled to face me, and her eyes widened. “Really?” she squeaked.
“He’s a bit cranky, so you better go see what he wants,” I lied.
I’d never seen somebody run so fast in my life, and I chuckled over her quick acceptance of the escape I offered. “That girl. I swear, she’s something else.”
“She’s yours?” the wolf asked.
“Oh, no. I don’t have any kids. My sister’s,” I replied, keeping my voice pleasant. “I’m working right down the street this week, and my sister doesn’t live far from here, so we run into each other fairly often.” As he lacked in base ethics and seemed to believe what his eyes told him, I moved my left hand, which held my hot chocolate, so he could see my bare ring finger. “It just happened her father texted me to ask if I’d seen her, and I’m about done with my drink, so I figured I’d spare the brat from upsetting her father further and take her spot in line.”
“Clever,” the wolf growled. “I like clever.”
He only thought he was clever, but as I needed to play along with his game, I kept recording him with my phone and played along. “Thank you.” I played at scrolling on my phone. “I do have to get to work soon, but if you’re offering coffee, I could use one before the day job grinds me down.”
I wouldn’t be drinking the coffee, and if I caught the bastard doctoring the drink with his blood, I’d take him out but leave him alive.
It took more than hot coffee to kill the lycanthropy virus outside of the body, and if I got proof he was contaminating something like a drink, I could flatten him in the coffee shop, call the cops, and be done with it—and get paid.
The wolf looked me over, and his gaze settled on my chest.
My virus’s ire stirred, and she wanted me to put the idiot wolf in his place.
I needed to catch him being even more of a jackass, so when I took him down, nobody would question why he’d gotten his ass handed to him. Between my status as newly mated and on the job, if I got a little blood on my hands, as long as the blood didn’t get near anybody else, nobody would care.
“I’d like to offer you a lot more than a coffee.”
Hell no. Rather than scowl and give up my ruse, I made a show of considering him. “Let’s start with the coffee and your name, then.”
“Donald. You?”
“Christine,” I replied, grateful I’d used the name so much while working customer service I didn’t even have to think about it. Everyone in the coffee shop would laugh if they heard my real name, anyway. I adjusted my grip on my phone and played at putting in a contact. “What’s your phone number?
He gave it to me, and I pretended to plug it in while recording his behavior.
“How is a gorgeous little thing like you still single?”
Normally, I’d inform him my bad attitude and scarred face tended to do the trick, but I wasn’t single anymore, and I needed some more time to get used to that. If he wanted to call my makeup skills gorgeous, I’d preen that my artistry with foundation, the right tools, and some time did a good job of tricking idiot wolves. “The unfair nature of the universe, I suppose.”
“I could change that for you.”
Had I been a regular human woman, infecting me with lycanthropy would definitely change my situation. “Let’s start with coffee,” I repeated, and since he expected me to be interested in him, I smiled. In reality, I wanted to throw up, clean my mouth out, and demand Sebastian adjust my attitude—and scold me for even talking to the asshole wolf—in a mutually beneficial fashion.
“Black. You like it large?”
Gag me. Killing and putting me out of my misery would suffice, too. “Please.”
Fortunately for me and my flagging sanity, the barista called the asshole wolf up, and I stepped out of the line, trusting he’d order me a coffee. And, as I wanted evidence if he decided to tamper with the drink, I’d be able to. I expected he’d cut his finger and drop some blood into my cup, which might be enough to infect me should I drink the coffee. In reality, if I caught him in the act, I’d pop him in the nose, beat him until he stopped fighting me, tie him up with his own shirt, call the cops, and have them drag his useless ass to the CDC.
Video evidence might even land me a bonus.
While he waited, he paid attention to the barista rather than to me, and I caught a clear image of him toying with his thumb with his nail until a drop of blood welled up. A matured lycanthrope would heal such an injury in moments, and he kept fiddling until there was plenty of blood to make a mess of my drink.
How disgusting.
While I made it appear I played on my phone, he fetched my drink, and sure enough, he handled it in such a way his bleeding thumb hovered over my drink, which lacked a lid and wouldn’t until he put one on it. He did, generally masking my view of his thumb from sight.
My phone, however, captured his blood splashing into my drink before he put the lid on it.
Fucking. Asshole.