A God Amongst Wolves

2

Word Count: 1700

~Alvera

I bring the frosty glass to my lips, tasting the salty rim before the sweetness of the berry margarita.

"So anyway, I eventually had to tell Georgia to drop it." I shake my head, exasperated. "She could not stop going on about you."

Venn leans back in the booth seat, considering me quietly.

I wish he would stop brushing his fingers against his lower lip. It keeps drawing my attention to the fullness, which is exactly where my gaze should stop falling too.

"I've never met a Georgia," he murmurs.

"Yeah well, that's my point. You didn't need to meet her and she was obsessed with you," I say, unable to keep the words from spilling from my mouth. "You have that, mysterious loner thing going for you..."

His brows raise. "Mysterious loner thing?"

I surge onward. "...Thankfully Georgia's family moved away and took her with them. She was sweet but man could she talk."

I'm not even entirely certain how we got onto the topic. We have only been in here for half an hour and I demolished my tacos and am into my third margarita.

However, his effect on the townspeople is a fascinating topic to focus on. The way eyes find him in a crowd is practically supernatural.

"And yes, you are a mysterious loner. The fact that you've been in town for eight months and I've never spoken to you is weird," I bring up.

I can't sit here looking at him, cast under the deep purple light of Roxxie's restaurant LED's and not talk about it.

"Not everyone in this town needs to know each other intimately." He absently folds at a paper napkin, pressing the corners together neatly.

"In a town this small they do."

The expanse of land may be large, but much of it isn't utilised. There was no money after the war, and the mountain bordering the main road made resource harvesting virtually impossible. The economy died down, and realisation hit...

The werewolves were chased away from their home for nothing. While they prospered, humans retrogressed. Spite kept the treaty's covenants alive for all these years...it's deplorable.

"I'm not intending to be mysterious. I just have no interest in getting to know anyone," he responds simply.

"And yet here you are, eating taco's and drinking margarita's with me." I smile smugly, taking another sip of my drink.

Kim is going to lose her mind at work tomorrow when I show up hungover and armed with quite the story.

"Actually only you are drinking the margaritas." He drops his gaze to the two empty glasses pushed to the end of the table. "Enough for the both of us, by the way."

He opted out of more than one drink. It's how he's maintaining his faultless mask of calm.

"Why are you suddenly so interested in knowing me?" I ask.

He pauses before releasing a soft exhale. "Curiosity."

My brows quirk up. He's curious about me? That doesn't seem likely.

"Well I'm leaving, so you missed your opportunity to fuck me." I drag my finger against the rim of my glass, collecting the salt.

To Venn's credit, he doesn't flinch. He remains still, passively assessing me like I'm a riddle he is slowly deciphering.

"Is that what you think I want?" He murmurs.

I shrug with one shoulder, wiping the excess salt onto a napkin. "Why else would you get to know a girl leaving town?"