She swept the crowd with a final scowl as the women started filing into the meeting house.
A tall, skinny male wolf shifter with a prominent Adam’s apple sauntered up and looked over the crowd. His gaze settled on Dakota. “Hey, baby,” he said to her, with a wink and a leer. “I like ’em well-padded.” That earned him a look of disgust not just from Dakota, but from every female shifter within earshot. He didn’t seem to notice. “Looking for a place to call home? I’m Mickey, the Alpha of the Charlesville Pack. Once you go Charlesville, you’ll never go back.” Dakota could practically feel his gaze as it roved over her, like grubby paws stroking her flesh. He glanced at Naomi. “And you can bring your friend too. I got a king-sized bed.”
Dakota and Naomi exchanged glances of dismay. “He did not even,” Naomi said.
Dakota shuddered. “He did so too, and it was horrible.”
Mickey snorted. “Your loss, babe. Too bad – I never bagged a coyote before. Or a coyote and a wolf at the same time.” He looked them over again, and Dakota took a step back. “Why you gotta be so stuck up— Ouch!”
He flinched, even though there was no obvious cause for his exclamation of pain, and glanced across the market square at a group of male wolf shifters. One of them, a tall, broad-shouldered guy who was very handsome indeed, looked at Mickey with a glower of pure hatred. Dakota could feel a crackling in the air around Mickey; the tall guy must be an Alpha Prime, and Mickey must have somehow gotten on his bad side. That was a damn powerful Alpha, if he could project his emotions that far and target them that narrowly.
The Alpha turned away, his attention focused on the walkie-talkie he had pressed to his ear.
Before Mickey could say anything else, a pretty blonde wolf shifter who’d been on the bus with them elbowed through the crowd. Her name was Destiny, she apparently painted on her jeans every morning, and she’d spent the whole trip putting on makeup and complaining loudly about how hard the bus seat was and how bad the bus smelled.
Destiny bumped Naomi hard, and hot coffee splattered on both of them. “Bitch! Watch where you’re going!” she shrieked. “You ruined my shirt!”
Fur rippled over her face, and her fangs descended. Naomi flinched. A coyote shifter was no match for a wolf.
“You’re going to pay for that. A hundred dollars. Give me the money right now,” she snarled.
“A hundred dollars? Well, I don’t… I mean…” Naomi began desperately fumbling through her purse. “I didn’t mean to bump into you. I’m really sorry. Are you sure that shirt cost a hundred dollars? It’s just that I didn’t really bring a lot of money with me…” She kept babbling as she dug for her wallet.
Dakota glanced over at Anthea, who was sitting on one of the picnic tables now, reading a magazine. She looked up and shrugged. “What? She’s not a member of a pack,” she said, and went back to reading her magazine.
That meant, of course, that there was nobody to protect Naomi from bullies and bitches. This woman was both, rolled into one.
Dakota stepped in front of Naomi. “You’re not registered either,” she said. “You’ve got nobody to protect you. From me. And you were the one who bumped into Naomi, so she’s not paying for your five-dollar bargain-bin shirt. You’ve got two choices. You can walk away now, or I can hand you your face.”
Destiny glared at Dakota, but before she could say anything, Mickey sidled up to her. “Hey, babe, wanna play hide the salami with an Alpha?”
“Did I hear you say Alpha?” Destiny cooed, stroking his arm. “That’s the magic word.”
She flashed a look of triumph at Dakota and Naomi. “Sorry, skanks, he’s all mine,” she sneered, and strolled off with him.
“I have never seen two people who deserve each other more,” Dakota observed drily.
Anthea the bear shifter looked up and snort-laughed. “Hope you weren’t coming up here looking for some suave, sophisticated dude to sweep you off your paws.”
“Come on, let’s drink some coffee and then go register,” Dakota said to Naomi before she could start babbling again.
“Thank you for sticking up for me,” Naomi said gratefully as they stirred milk and sugar into their coffee and strolled off. “I don’t know if I made a mistake coming here. It’s just that there really isn’t anything for me back home, all the male shifters in our pack are taken, and nobody there likes me because I’m too tall and I talk all the time, I’ve got fifteen brothers and sisters and my parents are pretty much trying to push us out of the house as soon as they can – did I already tell you that?”