Hunting Ilsa

“You motherfucker!” I scream, throwing the nearest object at the ugliest fucking head I have come to know and hate.

My husband’s.

The blue ceramic vase he had given me for our third-year anniversary flies past his ear, hitting the bubbled wall of concrete behind it. Of course I threw a vase. This whole situation is riddled with cliches.

Picture this: The naive wife (slash werewolf) comes home to find her husband’s wolf doing the nasty with one of their closest friends. Said husband then acts totally surprised, and proceeds to run after the wife claiming that “it’s really not what it looks like, baby.”

Except that it is. And he fucked her. It doesn’t matter that they were both in their wolf forms. It doesn’t matter that when you’re in said ‘wolf form’ that you’re technically not yourself anymore. It doesn’t matter that the entire situation kind of creeps me out, because ew, dogs humping.

I saw what I saw, and unfortunately, I can never unsee it again.

“Baby, you’ve gotta listen to me!” The idiotic coward nearly dodges his own cell phone from hitting his trachea, and we both watch as it bounces off his knuckles and onto the carpeted floor.

“The hell I do, Logan, you piece of shit! I won’t be satisfied until I’ve broken every single thing in this room against your thick skull.” To demonstrate, I proceed to lift one of our iPads (I seriously hope it’s his but the bloody things all look the same) and smash it on his shoulder.

Logan blanches, and he stiffens while shards of glass prick into various segments of skin. His muscular form contorts in an entirely sensual way that reminds me of his orgasmic spasms during sex.

He quickly recovers and yanks the device out of my arms, pulling me with it. I squeal and squirm my back against his broad, naked chest, doing my utmost best to break free.

“Let go of me, you moron!”

“No. Not until you’ve calmed down.” He somehow manages to pull me into some sort of headlock, and I glare blue-eyed daggers into his liquid pools of brown.

My dumb hormones are momentarily distracted.

So pretty…

No! They’re the colour of poo. And mud. If mud had giant, long eyelashes and thick, brown curls. Ugh, stupid, handsome idiot! He makes me so angry, I could just…

I lower my head and bite down as hard as I can on his wrist. The asshole doesn’t even flinch.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that, Ilsa. We practically grew up together. You’ve been biting me and every other living villager since you were three. Pretty sure they’ve started using your teeth marks as a residency stamp.”

I nearly snort out a laugh, but I don’t dare give him the satisfaction.

“I hate you.” I hope my words taste like venom.

“Yeah, I can tell. But you know what they say about hate and love?”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s the one.” He chuckles, lifting his palm to pat my head before gently pushing me away. “Now, can we talk? Please?”

My eyes immediately drift to the doorway, where I’ve already lined up three different suitcases full of the remnants of my closet. I would love to say that I had the foresight to see this coming, but as another one of mother nature’s cruel and twisted jokes, we were actually planning on going on a little vacation today.

What should have been a long, romantic getaway has now turned into this steaming pile of swamp garbage. Either way, I would be lying if I said I weren’t slightly relieved that I don’t have to stick around and listen to Logan lying his way out of this mess while I toss all my clothes in the hideous, puke-coloured luggage his pops gave us.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warns, and my feet immediately kick into gear. I sprint as fast as I can to the suitcase handles, grip them with all my might and run out the door.

The sound of his light feet make my heels itch, and I swiftly pick up the pace.

Only ten feet until I reach the car.

Just as I’m about to grab on the handle, a muscular arm blocks my way and the pile of nerves in my stomach make me want to scream. So I do. Loudly, so that the neighbours can hear. If there’s any semblance of sympathy left in the world, the Moon Goddess or whatever her name is will allow this door to open so I can get the fuck out of here.

“Ilsa. Is everything alright over there?”

Logan’s eyes widen, and I watch his mop of chocolate curls bounce as he looks for a hole to stick his neck in.

Score! It’s our nosy bloodhound of a neighbour, Mrs Thompson.

Her husband left her for his fated mate five years ago, and ever since, she’s a sworn enemy of every male with a penis. A huge grin stretches across my face, and I flash my husband a scornful look before I turn to my savior.

I smile sweetly in her direction.

“Actually, Mrs Thompson, I’ve been better. You see, Logan over here just cheated on me with one of my best friends, and I’d really like to leave him so that he can die alone and rot in hell for all eternity. But gosh darnit, he just won’t let me be!”

It’s a really good thing that my inner wolf is the world’s deepest sleeper. If Scarlet ever found out about all of this, I’d never hear the end of it.

Ugh, I could just hear her nagging voice lecturing me now.

'But Ilsa, he’s your mate. You’re each other’s destiny. Blah, blah, blah.”

Whatever.

I nearly do a happy dance when I see Mrs Thompson head in our direction, and I smirk as Logan side-steps out the way and falls in line behind me. Is he seriously trying to hide right now?

“Heeey, Mrs Thompson. You’re looking particularly lovely this morning. Did you do something to your hair?”

I give the old lady a quick once-over and decide that, yes, she did in fact do something to her hair. She dyed it blonde. But I doubt that’ll score my soon-to-be-ex-husband any brownie points.

“Don’t you ‘hey’ me you lying, sack of dog breath! I can’t believe you would do something so awful to our dear, sweet Ilsa!”

Her long arms fly out of nowhere and start swatting at his face, and I get the heck outta dodge.

A chorus of “Ow, ow, ow! Get off me you old hag!” echoes behind me as I sidle up to Old Bessie—a 1968 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500.

She continues to curse and threaten him while I unwrap my car keys from my pocket and unlock the door. After neatly tucking all my luggage in the back, I swiftly slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine, but not before catching the end of Mrs Thompson’s lecture to my husband.

“—just wait until Alpha Jordan hears about this. He will be so disappointed. He raised you as one of his own for God’s sake! Aren’t you ashamed? You were supposed to be one of the good ones!”

I flash the crazed woman a toothy grin and give a tiny little wave before pedalling out the driveway and into the street. Whatever fate has in store for Logan is up to the wolf brethren in our village. They’ll know what to do with him.

The smile I wear lingers in my rearview mirror, drastically growing smaller and smaller as the speedometer increases. It’s only when our quaint little house in Moonlight Corner fades into the distance that I take a deep breath and choke out a sob.