That happened to wolves like him. When his wolf showed every sign that it was an alpha male but his position in the hierarchy shoe-horned him into a beta position, sometimes signals got crossed, they were mixed, and his wolf rebelled.
His own situation left Colt with a hair-trigger temper and a stubborn streak he couldn’t break. Only his absolute devotion to his father—and then his brother—as his Alpha kept Colt from going either lone wolf or—even worse—rabid.
The day he accidentally stumbled upon Evangeline in Grayson, he’d been papering the city with fliers advertising his work. He’d hoped to find a commission that could distract him while the Cage warden worked on cutting through the bullshit red tape that kept Maddox locked up.
He had. A couple, actually. He let any prospective clients contact him through e-mail, then picked the project that interested him the most.
Shea Moonshadow, the owner of a hippie-type shop called Moonshadow Apothecary in Grayson, was looking to have an intricate dresser built to showcase her crystals. In her request, she had asked him about a glass enclosure on the top, plus padding in the drawers, and offered to pay upfront.
Because of that detail, he chose the job. He’d been regretting it ever since.
Colt had a suspicion that he was working super fucking hard to ignore. It was too ludicrous to be true, especially for a wolf who went against the rest of his pack when he insisted that believing in fate was a waste of damn time.
Drop it off, get the check, get out of there. That’s all he had to do. Drop it off, get the check—
The back door swung open, revealing a slender woman with a head of blue-black loose curls, the loveliest brown eyes, and skin a few shades darker than Colt’s. The top of her head came up to his neck and she had to gaze upward to meet his guarded expression.
And… she was gorgeous.
Of course she was.
That was the first thing he noticed. The second, though?
Her scent was… weak. Barely there. Breathing in deep through his nose, Colt thought he caught a hint of something woodsy, something earthy, but that might’ve been the competing scents eking out of her shop messing with his shifter senses. He couldn’t tell.
And that bothered him more than he could explain even to himself.
Before he could wonder about that, the dark-haired beauty smiled up at him. “Good afternoon.”
At just those two words, without any barrier between them, Colt wanted to close his eyes and stretch out on the floor, baring his throat while lying at her feet.
Damn it. He should’ve let one of his packmates make this delivery for him. When he was looking forward to showing the dresser off, he should’ve known he was in over his head then.
Hell.
It was her voice. Soft and sweet and a little bit breathy, it had done something to him over the phone. From the first call when he initially contacted her to finalize plans for his payment to the times he couldn’t stop himself from getting back to her with unnecessary updates on her piece, Colt’s wolf seemed to stop its agitated stalking inside his chest whenever he spoke to her.
So maybe he made far more calls than he needed to. He let himself believe it had everything to do with his high standards, and not the sinking suspicion that this woman might just be—
“Ms. Moonshadow?”
“Yup. That’s me. Hi!”
“Colton Wolfe,” he barked out. “I’m supposed to be dropping this off for you today.”
He purposely didn’t tell her that he was the guy who painstakingly made the elaborate dresser. It wasn’t just this woman—he never revealed the truth to anyone he accepted commissions from. Most clients had an idea of what the man who created his pieces should look like and, yeah, it wasn’t a clean-shaven, boyish-looking shifter with dimples and bright blue eyes.
He’d learned that a couple of years back when he started selling his work on the side. And it wasn’t just that, either. Colt chose to use his name when he was arranging for payment plus delivery because, to him, that’s when the man was in charge. He liked to think of his animal nature as his creative side. To prove it, at the bottom of each and every piece he’d ever created, he signed it with a paw print.
He wondered if she would ever find it. His wolf hoped that she did.
Colt gestured at the dresser. “Here you go.”
Her eyes went wide when she took in the mahogany stain, the flowers and decorations he hand-carved along the front, the glass enclosure he built and
attached to the top.
Gaping up at him, she asked softly, “This is mine?”