Page 22 of A Pack of Lies and a Big Bad Wolf

I focus, partially shifting, ears only, so I can pick up the other half of the call too — a man's voice, tinny and angry.

"—I told you, you'll get it. You'll get all of it. I just need— no. No. You don't need to know where I— Gary. Gary, listen to me—"

The tinny voice says a number, and then it says what happens to people who make him drive to collect. Olivia's free hand comes up and wraps around her own ribs.

I fly down the path and snatch the phone from her hand.

Gary. Another man, talking to my mate. Threatening my mate.

A pile of neatly stacked wood next to her house rises in the air and clatters down. My hand closes, and the voice stops as the phone crunches in my hand.

Olivia looks at the glittering wreckage in my palm. Then she looks up at me, and the fear on her face burns off in a wash of fury so hot I can practically warm my hands on it.

"That was my phone. What the hell is wrong with you?”

"Who is Gary?" I’m trying to keep the fury out of my voice. I’m trying really hard.

Her voice climbs. "I cannot afford to replace that phone!”

"I heard what he said to you."

"Well, good for you. Of course you did. Eavesdropping and property destruction. The full Alpha experience." She jabs a finger at my chest. "He's a loan shark. His name is Gary, and I owe him money, and do you want to know what I borrowed it for? To pay your mages. Six weeks ago. The only — the only — thing keeping Gary friendly was me answering that phone on the second ring, and you just turned it into gravel."

I blink. “It’s just money? That’s an easy fix. How much do you owe him?”

"None of your beeswax. I know you think I’m your fated mate, but I’m not. The feelings I feel – who knows what’s causing them. There’s crazy ley line energy here, maybe that’s it. You know who I’ve learned that I can trust, in life? Myself. And my brother. Not my mother, not my father, not the rest of the family who refused to help us, or the rest of our pack who let my father dump my brother off in human territory…me. I’ve been taking care of myself, and my brother, since I was a teenager, and I will continue to do so.”

God, my mate is glorious. Fierce. Stubborn. Proud.

Too bad that right now, all of those personality traits are trying to prevent me from helping her.

“I can fix this,” I insist.

She steps over the phone's remains. "I will handle Gary. Good night, Alpha."

She stomps off across the grass toward her cabin, magnificent and furious.

Somewhere out there is a shifter named Gary who threatens women by phone for a living.

I pull out my own phone and call Bram.

"It's me," I say. "I need everything there is on a Mississippi loan shark named Gary. Tonight."

A pause. "Did something happen?"

"Yes," I say. "To a phone. So far."

Chapter 10

Olivia

"I'm not going back there," I announce, stabbing a piece of roast chicken with my fork. "Not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever. He can sit in that big house by himself and – and – he can go shift himself, for all I care.”

"Absolutely," Rose agrees, popping a grape into her mouth. "Let him suffer."

"That shifty bastard. He’s so full of shift.” I’m really on a roll here. “He crushed my phone. In his fist. Who does that?"

"A man who deserves to eat dinner alone," Amaryllis says calmly. She grabs a cupcake, stuffs it into her mouth, and practically swallows it whole. It’s her third cupcake. When she sees me looking at her, she smiles. “I stress-eat,” she says.