Charmed By The Wolf. Kristal Hollis

not on duty today.” Carl Locke sucked his teeth, his hard gaze fastened on Tristan.

      “There’s something I want to discuss with you.” Tense, Tristan sat in one of the two wooden chairs positioned in front of the sheriff’s paper-laden desk and waited.

      Elected sheriff less than two years ago, Locke was a hard man to work for. Mostly because he held a grudge against the Co-op’s influence on the town. An outsider and new to the area, Locke viewed everything the Co-op did with suspicion. He felt the previous sheriff, who had known the truth about the Co-op, had been too lax in his duties. Gavin’s stubbornness and refusal to clue in the new sheriff to the Co-op’s purpose only compounded the problem.

      Since Tristan was a member, Locke scrutinized his every action, his every decision, and the constant conflict had turned a job Tristan loved into a nauseating chore.

      Last year, after a fiasco involving his friend Rafe Wyatt and Sheriff Locke, Tristan had quit the department. Gavin had been furious. Tristan’s position as a deputy afforded him some flexibility in running interference between the pack and human law enforcement. Gavin didn’t want to lose that advantage.

      Locke, surprisingly, neither accepted nor rejected the resignation. Instead, he placed Tristan on leave for two weeks. A vacation, of sorts, to give him time to decompress and carefully consider his decision.

      With nowhere to go and no one to go with him if he did, Tristan had stayed with his mother at her condo in Atlanta. The visit didn’t suddenly forge a mother–son bond, but it had provided the chance for Tristan to reassess...everything.

      Including Gavin. His decision to cage Rafe in wolfan form, to display him like a circus animal in front of the sheriff to prove that the Walker’s Run wolves were docile had almost cost Rafe his life and came damn close to exposing the pack and the existence of Wahyas, worldwide.

      Gavin had never apologized, never admitted he’d made a bad choice. He stuck by the affirmation that he’d done what was necessary to protect the pack.

      So what the hell was he thinking now?

      Didn’t he realize that allowing Jaxen to waltz right back into the territory was a disaster waiting to happen?

      “Spit it out,” Locke barked.

      “Sir?”

      “You look like you’re chewing your words, trying to find the right ones. Is this about the Co-op?” Irritation flickered in Locke’s squinted gaze. He shoved aside the paperwork in front of him. “Whatever you got to say, just spit it out. I ain’t got all day.”

      “Jaxen Pyke,” Tristan began, as if giving an ordinary report. “He’s got a long list of minor offenses as a juvenile. He left Maico about fifteen years ago.” Actually, Gavin had banished Jaxen because of his involvement in a liquor store robbery where a human was severely injured. “Hooked up with less than desirable associates who helped him graduate to more serious violations. Including assault, for which he spent the last three years in Woelfesguarde.”

      “Isn’t that the fancy private facility in the Northwest?”

      Tristan nodded. Human law enforcement believed the compound to be an elite, but highly effective rehabilitation center. In truth, it was a state-of-the-art wolfan correctional facility, situated in the harshest undeveloped region of Montana. With only the barest necessities provided, Woelfesguarde was no country-club prison. One either survived it or didn’t. “Pyke’s release is being processed. He’s coming home. I expect him to be here sometime Saturday night.”

      Locke leaned back and crossed his arms over his stomach. “Is he Co-op?”

      Technically, no. According to Gavin, Jaxen had to earn his way back into the pack.

      Whatever the hell that means.

      “Jaxen is family.” Tristan tasted the bile creeping into his mouth.

      “When it comes to enforcing the law, I don’t give special considerations to anyone. Not to the Co-op, not to my deputies’ families.”

      “Good!” Tristan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Someone besides myself needs to understand how dangerous he is.”

      “An assault conviction is enough to convince me.”

      “Maybe not. When you get his records—” as Tristan knew Locke would “—you’ll find most of his convictions are nonviolent misdemeanors. The only violent charge, the assault, stems from a bar fight. He claimed self-defense, but took a plea rather than face a trial.”

      The Woelfesenat, a secret, international wolf council and the ultimate ruling authority on wolfan matters, would’ve never allowed Jaxen’s case to go to court. If convicted, he would’ve been incarcerated in a human prison. Long-term confinement for a Wahya, especially during a full moon without access to a sex partner, posed an unacceptable risk of the wolfan eventually losing control of his Wahyarian, the primitive beast that lurked within every Wahya.

      The Woelfesenat would’ve had Jaxen put down if Adam Foster, Alpha of the Peachtree pack and an internationally renowned lawyer, had failed to negotiate an alternative. Instead of a trial and subsequent conviction, Jaxen was sentenced to serve thirty-six months at Woelfesguarde.

      “What do you know that isn’t in the official record?”

      Bitterness coated Tristan’s tongue and he fought the urge to hurl. “Remember our first meeting after you were sworn in? You asked if I had any impediments that could affect my job performance, and I told you it wouldn’t affect my duties, but that I have a blind side.”

      “Yeah. When you were a kid, you slipped off a rock outcropping and cracked open your head.” Locke tapped his pen on his desk. “What’s that got to do with Pyke?”

      “I didn’t slip, Sheriff. I was pushed.”

      * * *

      Fingers cramped and achy, Penelope returned her pencils to the holder and shook out her hands.

      After settling into the cabin yesterday, she’d planned out about two weeks’ worth of activities for the children’s workshops, which left her wide-open for a three-day weekend before starting her new job.

      This morning, she’d taken a leisurely drive around Maico to orient herself with the town and bought a few groceries from the market. She’d also stopped by the automotive shop Tristan had recommended. Short-handed due to a virus going around, the owner had scheduled her car service for next week. If Nel had dropped Tristan’s name, she might’ve gotten the oil change and battery check today, but would’ve had to wait all day. Since the car seemed to be running fine, she opted to come back next week.

      This afternoon, she’d immersed herself in art. Usually, she made quick sketches of a scene she wanted to paint.

      This one had taken several hours, but she was incorporating several disconnected elements. Before picking up a paintbrush, she wanted to make sure the image in her mind would actually make sense on canvas. To check the accuracy of the two focal subjects, she picked up her phone and swiped between the snapshot of the black wolf she’d taken in Cassie’s office yesterday and the photo she’d taken today of Cassie sitting on the floor in a small nook off the main lobby, playing with her daughter.

      Precocious and quite verbal for child a few weeks shy of her first birthday, Brenna had noticed Penelope watching them and immediately determined that Penelope would be her new best friend. At the toddler’s insistence and Cassie’s invitation, Penelope had joined them in the dining hall rather than eating lunch alone.

      Old habits were difficult to change, and putting herself out there to meet new people was harder than she’d imagined. Cassie tried to help, introducing her to staff members and the townsfolk who stopped by the resort restaurant.

      Left to her own devices, Penelope preferred to hole up in the cabin to paint, curl up with a book or sit on the back porch drinking hot coffee and wishing for a doughnut like the one Tristan had devoured