Being(s) In Love 03 - A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate by R. Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

mattered.
    “Worse.” Violet’s tone was excited and fed up with werewolves all at the same time. “The sheriff found his mate—who is the strangest were you will ever meet, Theo, I’m not kidding. He’s small and twitchy and just… small. So small. I’ve never seen a werewolf so scrawny. And he acts human. It’s like he’s never been around other weres before. Robin’s Egg told me the sheriff was speechless at the sight of him, could barely manage to say a word before the kid started yelling at him to go away and leave him alone.”
    That was startling. “He told Sheriff Neri to go away and leave him alone?” Theo echoed. Someone had snuck a picture of Sheriff Neri into the brochures to advertise the town, and Theo’s sister was convinced 80 percent of the tourists who came to town were hoping to meet him. The sheriff had a way of taking charge of situations without saying a word. He was wolf enough to make the world shiver in awe.
    “Wow.” Violet paused with some revelation. “So even you have noticed how incredibly incredible our sheriff is. Color me shocked. I thought your interest in dick had disappeared.”
    “Shut up.” Theo rounded on them and then away. He stalked the length of his kitchen, which wasn’t nearly long enough. It wasn’t a run through the woods, which was what he really wanted. Violet made a hurt noise, and Theo tried to push down the surge of anger. He didn’t know where it had come from, but he had nowhere for it to go. He went to the back door and slid aside the curtain to stare at his little yard. “I ought to pay a visit to the festival committee and tell them you want to volunteer,” he threatened after a moment, keeping his tone level, close to teasing. “It would give you something else to talk about.” He swallowed and waited a few seconds. “Sheriff Neri was really rejected?” Of course no one had told him. No one was going to gossip about that in front of Theo, no matter how juicy the story was.
    “Big time.” Violet forgave him, more understanding than people thought pixies could be, and was happy to fill in the rest of the information for him. “This Littlewolf guy—and that cannot be his real name, but it suits him—told him off in front of everyone. And the sheriff didn’t even do anything wrong. I mean—” Violet stopped dead, and Theo wished he couldn’t detect all the guilt that would be wafting through the air in a few seconds. “I mean, not that you did anything wrong, Theo.”
    “It’s okay.” Theo forgave Violet in return, because they both knew the truth. Theo had gone about asking his mate incorrectly.
    Violet took a moment before carrying on. “Anyway. Egg said the sheriff walked in and they stared at each other, just stared and breathed so hard they were both practically gulping down air, like inhaling each other, and then the sheriff said, ‘You,’ in a stunned voice and—”
    “He knew,” Theo confirmed in a tiny voice. If the sheriff had been rejected, what chance had Theo had? Why hadn’t they taught that in their sex and mating talk in middle school? He would have pored over a book called How To Introduce Yourself To Your Mate . Or, even, What To Do When Your Mate Doesn’t Want You .
    “Well, then the kid must have known too, from the way he was staring. But when Sheriff Neri tried to talk to him, introduce himself, Littlewolf flinched as if the sheriff had insulted him, or scared him. That’s what Robin’s Egg said. Like the sheriff scared him, and then Littlewolf accused Sheriff Neri of”—Violet whispered in confused panic—“wanting to have his way with him or something.”
    “That’s… what?” Theo’s mind wasn’t working properly today. “He thought the sheriff was going to….” He didn’t know how to finish that. It sounded like something from a human novel exaggerating the Old Ways and alpha wolf behavior.
    Violet seemed to understand. “I know . He seemed to think he was going to be forced to say