Leila and Zenia scoured the lot looking for guests, especially ones that looked like tenants. A man in a dark hoodie in the mid-July sun didn’t stop to even acknowledge them, which was probably for the best. He made a beeline across the cracked asphalt and disappeared into a room. It was likely he was about to take a hit of whatever he’d just scored. The sores Leila had seen on his face held credence to her theory. Meth and Heroin were the drugs of choice in these parts. Leila wasn’t as sensitive to the hot or cold since being turned, but even she began to feel like an egg frying on the pavement after twenty minutes of loitering around the rundown motel. She swatted at a mosquito and then it’s entire family it’d brought along to feast on her. Zen’s mood was deteriorating just as rapidly, especially when she stumbled on a pothole and about twisted her ankle. “Fuck this. I don’t want to catch hepatitis around here. I think this is a waste of time girl. Most of these people are asleep a

Leila was surprised how easy it was to carry on a conversation with her boss without Zen around to fill lingering silences or nudge the lovebirds into the right direction. Of course, now the man was so much more than just her boss to her. Looking back though, she realized Sterling Mount had always been more to her from the start. A friend when she needed it starting over in a new town with little money and no prospects. Never pressuring her like the others before him did and expecting her to sleep with him to show her gratitude Those friends had come with conditions. But the handsome bar owner had never expected anything in return for his good deeds of finding her housing and giving her a job. He was a good man and those were hard to find.They continued on with their flirty banter throughout their first course, and some of that nervousness dissipated like the ashes in the wind from the fire. Leila knew Sterling was also feeling more at ease and enjoying himself, if not for the smile

It wasn’t the warm, welcomed summer rain that sent Leila and Sterling indoors, as they lay naked and entangled in one another by the smoke of the dying out fire. Their passion for each other was not cooled by the rain or dampered by the smoke that curled around their still heaving bodies like the ivy that snaked up the side of Ster’s cottage. If anything, both Leila and her wolf were ready for round two, in fact she stole a kiss from his plump lips, and deepened the kiss when her tongue plunged into his mouth. He rose up to meet her kiss and the ferocity of her tongue stroke for stroke. One glance down between his muscled thighs told Leila all she needed to know. She threw a leg over his hip and made to straddle him. It wasn’t even the clash of thunder that parted the lovers, but rather the streaks of lightening reaching out across the inky sky. It touched down far too close to the ground for comfort. Thanks to her wolfblood, taking a lightening strike would likely only stun her, but

Leila should have been stunned, but she had heard versions of this before. The Sheriff had made claims that she’d been sleeping around with several men at the bar. But she was curious to hear this latest gossip on how Clyde’s death was her fault. Had Peggy fed this line to the Sheriff or had it been the other way around? Thorne had been insinuating Sterling had killed Clyde in a jealous rage because of Leila.Leila chuckled, “Let me hear it then Peggy. Go on. This town calling me a slut is nothing new because I don’t wear a wedding ring and don’t go to church, which neither do you come to think of it…But tell me why I’m the reason Clyde is dead?”The look on the shrew’s face was worth it alone. Peggy was insecure and jealous of Leila, and was probably the one who had spearheaded the smear campaign against the pretty young newcomer since Leila moved to Stillwater. Leila had never been overly flirty with anyone in the bar, except for Sterling, and had staved off all unwanted advances fr