Page 2 of Cuffed By the Wolf

The older man gets involved, taking up for his little girlfriend. His fingers close too tight around my wrist as I wrench free of it.

“Get your hands off me,” I shout.

The bell over the door jingles again. This time it doesn’t sound tired at all.

“That’s enough.”

The voice doesn’t shout. It doesn’t need to. Every single person in that shop goes still like someone’s flipped a switch, and I turn to find a man filling the entire doorway. He’s tall and clearly all muscle.

Sheriff. I’d have known it without the badge glinting on his chest. It’s in the way he stands — feet planted, shoulders set, a stillness that isn’t calm so much as contained, like something bigger than the room is holding itself back on purpose. He’s enormous. Maybe about six-five. I can feel the pull of him before I understand why — the low, steady hum under my skin that I’ve felt maybe twice in my life and never once around a total stranger.

His uniform sleeves are rolled to his elbows, and I catch the ink snaking up his forearms before it disappears under the fabric. Dark brown hair, a little too long for regulation. A jaw that looks permanently set to no.

Green eyes that sweep the room once, land on each of us in turn, and settle on me half a second longer than they do on anyone else.

I file that fact away under deeply unhelpful and do my best to ignore it.

“Everett had her by the wrist,” the woman says fast, which is technically true and an outstanding attempt to redirect blame that I resent on principle.

“I didn’t have anyone by anything,” Everett snaps. “She grabbed for the register.”

“I did not grab for the register, I was trying to get away from him⁠— “

“She’s a thief, Sheriff. Came in here asking about wire transfers like we’re running some kind of operation⁠— “

“Everybody stop talking.”

He hasn’t raised his voice once, and somehow that lands harder than shouting would have. His eyes find mine again, direct this time, and something flickers there — surprise, maybe, or something he decides on the spot not to examine — before it smooths back into flat, professional appraisal.

“You. Name.”

“Sasha Walker.”

“Ms. Walker.” He says it like a verdict already reached. “You want to tell me what happened, or should I just arrest the room and let the paperwork sort it out?”

“I’d love to tell you what happened. You’ve clearly already decided, though.”

Something close to amusement crosses his face and disappears before I can be sure I saw it. “Try me anyway.”

I don’t get the chance. Everett’s talking over me, the woman is talking over Everett, and the sheriff closes his eyes for exactly one second like he’s asking the goddess who watches over small Georgia towns for patience he already knows he isn’t getting. Then he just starts making decisions, unhurried, unstoppable.

He removes the cuffs from his belt like this is less an arrest and more routine housekeeping.

“Hands where I can see them. All three of you.” He’s already moving toward me, and I catch it then — underneath the shop’s must and old varnish, something warmer. Toasted sugar. Dark chocolate, rich and a little sharp, like it’s daring me to want more of it.

“Everett, you’re coming in for assault. Breann, same, plus a general nuisance to my afternoon. Ms. Walker⁠— “

“I didn’t do anything⁠— “

“You’re coming in for questioning, and because you’re standing in the middle of a fight, I now have to file three separate reports about.” He turns me, gentler than I expect, and the cuffs click shut around my wrists. “Accommodations are lovely this time of year. You’ll see.”

“I hate this town already,” I mutter, loud enough that I know he hears it.

He reads me my Miranda rights as his hand closes around the strap of my bag to keep it from swinging as he walks me out, and my stomach drops — the pill case. It rattles once against the buckle before I manage to knock the flap shut with my elbow. Omegas aren’t supposed to hide. We’re supposed to be found, matched, claimed — not standing in a stranger’s parking lot praying a small-town alpha sheriff doesn’t catch the one thing about me I’ve spent two years making sure no one can smell. If he clocks it, I don’t know what that costs me in a town this size. I don’t know if there’s a law against it here, or just a look people give you once they know.

If he notices. He doesn’t say so. But something in his jaw eases, just slightly, like whatever he’s holding back amuses him more than he’d like to admit.

“We’ll see about that,” he says, and steers me out into the Lupton sun, one hand steady at my elbow, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him even through my sleeve.