Howl

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Lukas and Jason walked through a mall on a Saturday afternoon in February. With Emma at work, Lukas had nothing to do. He had spent the morning looking through his course materials for the police academy, but he simply didn’t feel like reading through it. He first tried to contact Talon, but his phone was off, so he called Jason.

The beta had been planning to meet with a wolf from outside the pack at the mall, and Lukas volunteered to accompany him. That hadn’t been the best idea, as the young wolf was already nervous about meeting Jason. Having two of them had made Shane almost flighty.

Even after Jason bought pizza and drinks, Shane didn’t calm down much. It wasn’t until they got him talking that they felt like he wasn’t going to take off running. After speaking to him, it was quite apparent why he was so nervous. Although most wolves lived amongst humans in large, relatively loose packs, there were those that lived in family groups, isolated both from humans and other wolves.

Shane had been a part of such a pack, what the “city wolves” often referred to as “feral packs.” According to him, they were victims of a group of lions who tried to run them off. Shane had no idea what they wanted, but his family fought back, which resulted in their deaths. Only because he’d been knocked out in the beginning of the fight had Shane survived.

Jason offered to let Shane join the pack, but he wasn’t sure about that idea. Understanding that he needed time, Jason simply traded phone numbers with him and walked away. Because Sophia wanted him to spend at least two hours with the new wolf, Jason had time to kill.

“Do you think I should get Emma something for Valentine’s Day?” Lukas asked.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because you’re here. I really think I should get her something. I just don’t know what.”

“Wasn’t Valentine’s Day last week?” Jason glanced at his watch to check the date, and sure enough, it was the 26th of February, almost two weeks past Valentine’s Day.

“Yeah, but everyone celebrates it on the fourteenth. I thought I’d do something for her later so it’s more special.”

“Your logic makes no sense.”

“Maybe not. But do you think I should get her a gift? Or should I just do something special for her?”

“You’re asking someone with absolutely no experience with anything at all romantic.”

“I thought you’d at least be a little help. Talon’s been AWOL for a while and Sophia just stared at me like I grew a second head when I asked her. You think with her being a woman, she’d at least have some idea of what to do for stuff like this.”

“Sophia doesn’t count as female,” Jason said, shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure she’s got a lot of testosterone and not enough of whatever it is women are supposed to have.”

“That would explain a lot. So you have absolutely no ideas?”

“I don’t know. She’s your mate. You should know what she’d want.”

“Tickets to an Avs or Nuggets game.”

“There you go.”

“That’s not special. We’ve gone to games before.”

“So get her a ring and ask her to marry you. You probably haven’t done that.” Jason simply blurted out the first thing that came to mind, not caring it was ridiculous.