I walked a few more paces to get some space between us—maybe his voice wouldn’t affect me as badly, then—and spun around to face him.
Greyson casually scratched his right bicep. “I don’t like having to rely on others to take care of Pack issues.”
I waggled my rifle at him. “This is a hunter issue, actually.”
Greyson arched an eyebrow at me. “How could I forget the Lady Hunter has a fierce, independent streak?” He glanced beyond me, to the Pack lodge, and I felt it when he started to coil up his power. “If they bother you, I imagine you’ll make a pest of yourself.”
“It is a good strategy when you know every bylaw and rule they also have to follow,” I said cheerfully.
“Yeah, sure,” Greyson said. “Let me know if it becomes too much.”
“What could you do?” I took another step or two away to bolster my bravery. “If you mess with hunters, they’ll come down harder on you than they ever would on me.”
Greyson smiled, and his golden eyes almost glowed as the last flicker of his incredible powers brushed against me. “Only if they find out I’ve actually done something.”
He sauntered up to me as I scoffed.
“I hope the Pack one day realizes what a rogue you are.” It took all of my self-control to hold my ground as he swept past me.
His low chuckle snapped at my heels. “If you hope, why haven’t you told them, yet?”
I scowled at his back, switched my grasp on my rifle, and headed to the end of the meadow that had been marked off with two targets for my dagger practice.
I haven’t told them because they’d never believe me.
*
The bell jingled when I walked through the front door of the welcome center, toting my empty cooler that had contained my lunch, and the frozen chocolate drink I’d bought down at the werewolf-owned Howl-In Café.
“Pip, is that you?” Shania—Aeric’s girlfriend, who also happened to be a townie, and had become a friend of mine, too—called from in the gift shop, which was partitioned off from the welcome center with glass windows.
“Yep!” I tossed my cooler into a nook on the ground, tucked into the giant hexagonal desk I manned for the center.
The desk was cluttered with pamphlets, maps of the area, a jar of wolf cookies—which were actually just sugar cookies we colored green with food dye, but what the humans didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them—and a landline telephone that was older than I was.
“Great! I’ll finish stocking the keychains, and then I’ll be right out,” Shania said.
“Gotcha.” I set my frozen chocolate on my counter, then shook the mouse of the ancient computer I used when I needed to research anything for tourists.
The Timber Ridge Welcome Center operated as part tourism center, part history museum, part gift shop.
There was plenty of information on the town and all the fun that was available via me and the many pamphlets. But the walls were covered with enormous, canvas prints of some of the werewolves in their werewolf forms, and there were metal plaques that described how the Northern Lakes Pack had been established and had partnered with the city by starting so many businesses.
The place smelled a little musty, but in a friendly way—like a library—and I was forever fighting off a fine layer of dust on all wooden surfaces. But there was something homey and warm about it—even though we had the air conditioning blasting because Moira, the werewolf manager, was a tundra wolf and required cold year-round.
Wolf art and knickknacks were everywhere, but the largest piece was a metal wolf statue positioned next to the little raised stage that had a camera stand in front of it.
A cloth banner proclaiming “Pictures with a real werewolf - $25” hung over the stage, but we typically only ran that stand for a few hours during the weekends, much to the manager’s disappointment.
（Moira had told me numerous times the welcome center and gift shop would make more money than any of the other werewolf owned businesses in Timber Ridge if we just staffed the photo booth every day.）
“Keychains are stocked, so are the frames.” Shania emerged from the clutter of the gift shop, which was stuffed with racks and shelves of wolf-related pins, magnets, keychains, stuffed animals, paintings, postcards, shirts, hats, jackets, toys, candles, beauty products and more.
Shania leaned against one of the window frames and shook her head, making her thick, curly hair that was a lovely shade of brunette with just a hint of russet to it cascade over her shoulder.