Little Wolf

"You're mine, little wolf."

The growled words were low, spoken softly into my ear over the noise of the bar. I shivered despite myself, before steeling my body against further reactions. Interest was always flattering but execution was everything. Any type of pick up line that assumed I was somehow less because I was a she-wolf meant that the guy was immediately disqualified as a potential mate. 

"That doesn't sound very fair, does it? I'm not a piece of property lying around for you to stake your claim on."

I sipped on my vodka cranberry and faced forward, not bothering to give the man beside me a glance.

A deep chuckle rumbled, soon drowned out by the scraping of a bar stool on the wooden floor as he dragged one over to where I sat.

"I can honestly say no one has ever replied to that line like that," he mused, plonking himself down beside me. In my peripheral vision, I saw him lean one elbow on the bar to stare at me with a little crinkle between his eyes. Clearly he needed to be told no more often if this was how confused he got whenever he heard the word. 

I downed the rest of my drink in one gulp, before swivelling to face my unwanted guest.

"Ah, so you admit you pull this type of bullshit often?" I raised an eyebrow and gave him a once over. "And you're not even hot enough to pull it off. Shame." I paused to tut and shake my head. "Obviously, I wasn't clear enough the first time so let me spell it out for you. I'm. Not. Interested."

The man threw his head back and laughed. I took the time to look him over again despite myself.

He wore a crisp grey suit with a white shirt and emerald tie that matched his piercing green eyes. His jaw was well defined and covered in dark stubble, and as he leaned forward on the bar, his arm muscles threatened to burst through his suit. Everything about him was controlled, put together.

I wanted to see that control shatter.

"Sheath your claws, kitten," he murmured. "I'm here to play nice. Unless you demand otherwise." He leered at me with the intimate gaze of a lover, when he'd done nothing to deserve the title. 

"I didn't ask for, nor care about, your intentions. I care about mine." I signalled to Crystal, the bartender, for a refill, hoping that this man would be gone by the time my drink reached me.

"And what are your intentions?" he asked, leaning close enough to surround me with a cloud of his minty breath. He fixed me with the full intensity of his stare and I knew from that practised smoulder that he was used to getting whatever he wanted with it.

I sighed when Crystal slid another glass towards me.

"You good, Arianna?" she asked, glaring at the stranger beside me. I smirked and nodded.

I could handle a pup like this.

Though I didn't make a habit of making friends, Crystal was the exception. The bar, which she'd been new to when we'd first met, stood in neutral territory between two large pack grounds, Animo and Fortitudo. Both of us were lone she-wolves, free of the obligations of pack life and happy with that. This was a fact that many of the young, entitled men who frequented the wolves-only bar often failed to understand. I'd stepped in to defend her when a group of rowdy young wolves were giving her a hard time, scattering them before they gave her too much verbal abuse. That had been about six months ago, and ever since then, we'd formed an alliance of sorts.