“Well, of course you are. You look just like him. I should have realized right away. Go on and give me a kiss if we’re going to be friends.” She tilted her face up.
Colby leaned in and politely gave her a chaste kiss on each cheek. Aria recognized the gesture immediately: wolves often nuzzled up to alphas they were trying to befriend, pressing little wolf kisses to each other’s faces.
It was usually a lot messier in the wild, in her experience, and she had to admit that she was glad there hadn’t been any slobber involved here.
So this woman, however chipper she sounded and however friendly she looked, was high up in the local packs, high enough to request—and get—an immediate sign of respect from Colby.
The woman turned her attention to Aria next. “Now, you don’t ring as much of a bell, sweetheart.”
Meaning my scent isn’t right, Aria thought wryly.
It was kind of funny that after years of rough-and-tumble camping trips, she now kept having it implied that she came across as too civilized.
“I wouldn’t, ma’am,” she said politely. “I’m only here because of Colby. My name is Aria Clarke.”
“The nature photograph
er?”
God, I love werewolves. They’re probably singlehandedly keeping me in business.
“That’s me.”
“Aria is my mate,” Colby said. “She knows the score.”
“You took a picture of a cousin of mine once,” the woman confided in Aria. “She’s an Arctic fox. When you used her for the cover, I thought we’d never hear the end of it.” She held out her hand. “I’m Mel Wondery. Pleased to meet you both. And I’ve been leaving you to stand out on the porch when you’re Bryan Acton’s son and you’re practically a celebrity, where are my manners? Come on in.”
Here was another shifter her mother would love. It only took Mel a whirlwind two minutes to have them settled in a parlor with glasses of lemonade in their hands.
Aria looked around at the room’s dark, foreboding décor. It seemed like as much as possible had made been made out of ebony, onyx, and obsidian, so the whole room was a smooth, glittering black that swallowed up all the light. The Victorian-style couch was upholstered in wine-colored velvet, and its feet were carved into enormous mahogany claws. The fireplace grate was studded with garnets.
It was like some kind of unholy cross between the castle in Beauty and the Beast—pre-Belle—and a Gothic fantasy.
She couldn’t imagine anyone more out of place in it than small, bubbly Mel Wondery, in her teal and bubblegum-pink yoga clothes.
“Your house is...”
“Godawful,” Mel said, settling down in a chair with twin screeching dragon heads carved onto the back. “Can you even believe it’s real? My great-grandfather built and furnished it, and it’s taken everything the family has to keep it looking this horrible. He wasn’t born a wolf, you see, he was turned, and he went through this tragic downward spiral where he thought he was an unlovable monster and ought to have the house of one, apparently. Then he met my great-grandmother... who, luckily for him, had quite the sense of humor. I’d have bulldozed the place, but it’s grown on me over the years. And the Historical Society pays for part of the upkeep now, if I let them have tours every other weekend. But I don’t think any of that’s what you came here to ask.”
“No,” Colby said, still craning his neck to look around, “but I think I’ll come back for one of those tours.... I was hoping I could talk to some old friends of my dad’s. I don’t remember all their names, though. Towards the end, he—wasn’t up for seeing many people. But he mentioned the house. It was, um, easy to find, obviously.”
Aria almost spilled her lemonade upon seeing a snarling wolf carved into the stone of the fireplace.
Obviously.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mel said. “Bryan was one of the best men I ever knew. Most of the people he was closest to either passed on before him or not long after, unfortunately. But I knew him a little myself, and I’d be happy to help you and your mate however I can.”
Aria didn’t know how they could have run into any stronger of an example of werewolves are mostly just people. Mel’s combination of self-assurance, bubbly politeness, pack loyalty, and humor made her instantly recognizable as both entirely human and entirely wolf.
This was what she wanted Colby to have.
Well, this minus the unbelievably creepy house.
“Was there something you wanted to know about your dad?” Mel said. “He used to talk about you all the time.”
“No, not about him. I want to know about someone else, and I thought one of his friends might know them.”
“Well, if you still haven’t said who or why, it must be something touchy. Color me intrigued.”