FATE OF THE ALPHA: EPISODE 1

A TARKER’S HOLLOW SERIAL

TASHA BLACK

13TH STORY PRESS

Contents

Copyright

Foreword

Episode 1

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

13. Chapter 13

14. Chapter 14

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

17. Chapter 17

18. Chapter 18

19. Chapter 19

20. Chapter 20

21. Chapter 21

22. Chapter 22

Afterword

Also by Tasha Black

Copyright © 2014 by 13th Story Press All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Edition: December 18, 2014

13th Story Press PO Box 506 Swarthmore, PA 19081

13thStoryPress@gmail.com

Cover design 2014 by Cormar Covers

www.cormarcovers.com

FOREWORD

Thanks for taking the time to read the first installment of Fate of the Alpha!

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And thanks again for reading my book. I know there is no shortage of books out there. It means a lot to me that you chose to read mine!

-Tasha

     Episode 1

CHAPTER 1

A insley Connor ran through the college woods, her wolf form moving so fast it felt more like flying.

Smooth pine needles tickled at her paws, and the scents of Tarker’s Hollow filled her nose. Ainsley still struggled to master her wolf abilities, and since becoming alpha, her already heightened wolf senses were off the charts. She inhaled deeply and practiced differentiating the myriad of smells.

She could pick out the subtle metallic tang of the nearby train tracks going all the way to Philadelphia. The denizens of the forest all had their own unique aromas. The scents of squirrels, assorted birds, raccoons, a family of deer, and a lone fox danced across her muzzle. There was even the sweet woodsy aroma of the chipmunks living in the abandoned terra cotta gutter drain of the Hooper’s Victorian a mile away in town.

And of course, she thrilled at the deep, spicy musk of her mate, Erik Jensen, as he ran just ahead of her. She could also pick up on the smells of other wolves who had recently run these woods. She immediately recognized whiffs of Cressida and MacGregor, but the others eluded her for now. She would have to learn them all, eventually.

The scents of the woods intrigued her, but they were overpowered by the full-out assault of the campus cafeteria, now in full swing for fall semester. Even before the first rays of dawn had dared to peek over the horizon, the air was filled with the aroma of bacon and eggs and hot fluffy pancakes.

But still no sign of the intruder.

There had been several reports of a rogue wolf in the college woods, but so far, no one had actually seen anything outside of some vague hints and tracks. Ainsley and Erik had come to investigate for themselves, although she honestly had no idea what she was meant to do if she found an outsider wolf trespassing on pack lands.

Erik, in the form of his giant black wolf, spread his paws and skidded to a stop in front of her. Ainsley barely reacted in time to avoid a collision.

Erik’s body slid gracefully upward into human form.

Even when she was a wolf, Ainsley loved looking at Erik. And right now he was naked, which enraptured her.

Silky black hairs kissed his long legs. His buttocks swelled to perfect globes. A satisfying inverted triangle formed from his narrow waist to his wide, muscled shoulders. And he smelled like heaven.

Ainsley rose into human form before he could turn around. As she reached out to wrap her arms around him, she realized he was deep in thought and dropped her hands to her sides.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Tracks.”

Great. She hadn’t even noticed the tracks. One more example of what a crummy wolf Ainsley was.

“Is that why we were running?”

“Of course,” he said. “Why did you think we were running?”

“Because we can?”

Erik’s deep laugh put her at ease, as it always did.

Good thing too, because Ainsley was surely one of the worst wolves to ever trot through the woods of Tarker’s Hollow College. If she weren’t the alpha, it probably wouldn’t bother her. But as things were…

Well, Ainsley was going to have to learn to be a better wolf quickly.

The problem was that she had left Tarker’s Hollow when she was only seventeen, immediately after learning she was a wolf. And she’d spent the years in the interim denying the change.

The first four years she’d passed primarily in the library at college. After that, she went straight to Manhattan and dedicated her time to selling luxury co-ops in the high-rises of the city, as far from nature as she could get.

Now she was back in her childhood home. Not just a wolf, but the alpha of the whole pack. It had taken the tragic death of her parents to bring her back, and without their loving guidance, she had a lot of catching up to do on her own.

Thank god for Erik.

“It’s tracks, and fresh ones too.”

“Whose are they?” she asked.

“You tell me.” His voice took on the serious tone he got whenever he was teaching her a lesson in How to Be a Wolf 101. “They’re not from an outsider. It’s a Tarker’s Hollow wolf. Can you figure out who?”

“You recognize all the Tarker’s Hollow wolves’ tracks, just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“All of them?”

“Sure.”

Ainsley sighed.

“What?”

“Would every wolf in this pack besides me recognize all the other tracks?”

“I’m a pretty good tracker.” Erik smiled modestly.

Ainsley tried not to voice the question that was in her head all the time these days.

Why wasn’t Erik the alpha?

Unlike Ainsley, Erik had been excited to discover that their small college town was home to a small pack of wolves who lived among the human population. He had been an integral part of the pack since puberty. Erik was strong, and smart, and everyone in town loved him. He would have been the perfect alpha.

But for some reason, she was.

When they had finally gotten together, she assumed she was choosing Erik as the new alpha. That was the way it was supposed to work - when she chose a mate, she would draw the alpha. But when the deed was done, no one was more surprised than she was. The alpha she had drawn was herself: Ainsley Connor, prodigal daughter, ersatz witch, and all-around terrible wolf.

As one, they squatted to study a single track that was perfectly preserved in the mud.

Ainsley saw paw pads, claw marks - a bog standard wolf print.

“How big is it?” Erik asked.

“Not as big as ours.”

“How deep?”

“Not very.”

“What does that tell you?”

“The mud is pretty wet, so it must not be a very heavy wolf. Is it a female?”

“Yes, very good. What else do you notice?”

Ainsley looked at her own tracks and Erik’s, then back at the one in question.

“Looks… furry compared to ours.”

“Yes, she’s pretty shaggy. What else?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re ignoring your most powerful sense.”

Ainsley dropped to her knees and lowered her nose down to the track.

It was no use. She could smell about fifty different wolves from here, as well as a town full of humans, and even the sleeping students in the dorms. As usual, she was a slave to her heightened senses, not the master of them.

“I feel like I can smell the whole world. How do you separate it?”

“I’m not sure, Ainsley.” Erik shrugged, and ran a hand through his too-long dark hair. “It’s like asking how you tell one color from another. I just do.”

“The Inner Game of Tennis, right?”

He laughed again. And again she felt the tangle of worry in her belly loosen a little.

“Just relax and try again. Try shutting your eyes this time.”

Relax.

Easy for him to say. Standing there, naked, he looked like a statue of a greek god. Ainsley’s own image resembled artwork that was slightly more Rubenesque.

There was a time she would have been terrified to stand completely naked in front of any man, even in the pre-dawn gloom. But she only had to look at the expression of adoration on Erik’s face, more naked than either of their bodies, to forget her inhibition.

Plus, you ruined a lot of good clothes if you were a wolf who didn’t like being naked.

Ainsley exhaled and closed her eyes. She lowered her head to the ground again and inhaled deeply.

In her mind’s eye, a figure appeared. An older woman, in a smart pantsuit, pulling up to the college to her old Volvo.

“Carol?” Ainsley asked, thinking of her father’s longtime colleague. It had to be her. Ainsley’s confidence strengthened. “Definitely Carol Lotus!”

She opened her eyes and looked up. Erik was smiling down at her, his dark eyes crinkling.

“Very good.”

She grinned back at him.

The breeze pushed her hair forward over her face and in an instant she could see his face transform. His gentle smile was gone, in its place an expression of desperate hunger. Her scent must be overpowering.

The moon.

Its pull was so strong. She wasn’t sure how they’d survived her first full moon. Now the moon was swelling for the second time since she’d come home.

Mating during the full moon thrilled and excited Ainsley. But it was hard to get anything else done. She knew they’d come into the woods with a task to complete, but she couldn’t be bothered to care about that right now.

There was only Erik. Her tall, dark, handsome, warm, naked mate.

Before she could process what was happening he had thrown her to the ground and pinned her down on her back, covering her with his hard body. As the pine needles tickled her shoulder blades, he fed on her mouth. She could feel his swollen cock pressed against her thigh and her whole body tightened with longing.

Her mate did not deny her. With each lovemaking he seemed to refine his study of her pleasure. As wild as he had been for her in the beginning he seemed even more desperate to please her now.

Ainsley gasped as his hot mouth found her breast. He licked and teased at her nipples until she let her nails sink into his arms. Then he latched onto one firmly.

Just as Ainsley felt her hips lift involuntarily into his, he froze.

Always a step behind, she heard it right after he did. College students, jogging on the path past the woods.

“Shit!”

There was just enough time for them to dash into the underbrush before the entire Tarker’s Hollow Men’s Soccer team breezed past. Most of them were shirtless even in the cool fall air.

Ainsley’s inner wolf pricked up its ears. With the moon swelling and her libido in this state, she would have devoured them all.

Ainsley wished she could swat her on the snout with a newspaper. Pay more attention to tracking and less to boys, you furry slut! But she was pretty sure it was a lost cause.

There was a snuffle behind her and she whipped her head around to see Erik try to hide a half-smile.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. You want me to jog a little too?” He demonstrated, and managed to look hot and ridiculous at the same time.

Ainsley looked away.

“Aren’t I supposed to be learning wolf skills or something?”

“If that’s what you want, you’d better shift before we get any more ideas.”

Ainsley sighed. It wasn’t what she wanted at all, but she was never one to shirk responsibilities. And right now, it looked as though they were piling up.

It seemed that every moment that wasn’t spent sorting pack business had to be spent catching Ainsley up on some aspect of her unconventional abilities. At least when she’d been this busy in New York, she was earning piles of money.

Regretfully, Ainsley let herself slip into the slender form of her russet wolf. Erik dropped into his enormous black wolf again and trotted into the woods.

The crisp autumn breeze was delicious and Ainsley drank it in deeply. In wolf form, she felt like she was just a pair of giant lungs with legs. She drew in air almost to her hips.

Just as Ainsley found her stride, Erik took off at an incredible speed.

Joyfully, Ainsley opened up. Once again she felt the ecstatic bunching and loosing of her muscles as she soared through the forest. She was enjoying the sensations and really hitting her stride, when Erik stopped in front of her again. She coiled the muscles in her rear legs and leaped, sailing cleanly over his head to avoid smashing into him.

She lifted into human form immediately and turned back to face him.

“You have to stop doing that!”

Erik didn’t change, instead he froze in place, massive muzzle hung low, snuffling and tasting the scent of a single paw print.

“Erik?”

He turned and gazed at her, intelligent eyes glowing in the fading dark. In a heartbeat, he stood tall as a man again.

“Look at the size of it,” he said gesturing to the print.

“That is big. Whose is it?” Ainsley sunk to her knees to find out.

“It’s not one of ours.”

“It isn’t?”

“And I don’t get it.” He shook his head. “Why would there only be one?”

“One print?”

“No, one wolf. Wolves don’t travel alone. We need to get back.” He turned, scanning the woods. “We need to get back now.”

Erik changed back into his wolf form, amber eyes gazing at her expectantly, black fur shining where the rising sun reached between the trees.

Ainsley shut her eyes and dropped back into her red wolf. They dashed through the woods in the direction of town.

When they reached the edge of the woods, they shifted again. Erik grabbed his leather backpack off the tree where he’d left it and threw a bundle of clothes to Ainsley.

She snatched it easily out of the air. At least her reflexes were getting better. She wondered absently if her metabolism might speed up now that she was a wolf.

Funny thing was, she didn’t care anymore. Ainsley had spent her adult life fighting off the curves that now drove her mate mad with lust. All those calories counted and rationed just to lose a few pounds he would have missed if she’d succeeded. Classic.

They dressed quickly. Erik held his gaze away from her. She knew he was fighting against the draw of her body.

“Let’s move. I’ll explain on the way.”

He held his hand out to her. She took it and they half-jogged into the village. As the tangerine sun began to light the sky over the quiet town, Ainsley wondered what the lone wolf might want that had her mate so concerned.

As usual, Ainsley was the one off-balance. And she was supposed to be the alpha. She gave Erik’s hand a squeeze.

Trouble was headed for Tarker’s Hollow.

At least one of them was wolf enough to lead this pack through the coming storm.

CHAPTER 2

Grace Kwan-Cortez looked on as Landon Shepard surveyed his lunch with the kind of unspoiled delight reserved for men under thirty.

Good old-fashioned Pennsylvania fare covered the entire plate. Buttermilk pancakes, swimming in golden syrup, rose to a four inch tower. A slab of greasy scrapple sidled up to the stack, and a Spanish omelet oozed gooey cheese to compete for Landon’s satisfied gaze.

Grace glanced down at her own plate. Fluffy yellow scrambled eggs looked back at her placidly.

“How can you eat plain scrambled eggs?” Landon asked, mischief sparkling in his pale blue eyes.

“Believe me, I get enough food adventures with my abuela.”

She grabbed a half-empty bottle of Sriracha and squeezed the hot sauce liberally onto her eggs.

“Everything okay with your meal?” Their waitress, Cressida, managed to sound bored and rushed at the same time.

“Um, fine, thanks,” Grace said.

It was odd to have Cressida wait on them. Grace knew that Cressida was one of Ainsley’s Lieutenants, and a trusted companion. Few wolves held a higher place in the Tarker’s Hollow pack.

Grace had spent most of her life around wolves, and had never paid much attention to pack politics. It was easier that way. But then her best friend had swept back into town and become the alpha, which put Grace in an awkward position. As a human, she had no real say in pack business, but everyone knew she had the ear of the alpha.

And of course Landon was blissfully ignorant of the whole thing. Sometimes Grace wondered how so many people could live in this town and never notice anything strange. Maybe there was something to the theory that people only see what they want to see.

“Cressida,” Landon said, carefully reading the name on her tag. Grace tensed up, unsure what Landon was about to get them into. “I really couldn’t be happier.” His voice dripped more syrupy sweetness than the pancakes on his plate. “I love the food, I adore the presentation. How do you do it?”

Cressida’s expression wavered between confusion and hostility. True to form, she chose the latter, spun around and flounced away. The effect was only heightened by the flourish of the 1950s-style skirt and apron she wore.

The Barry White Diner had a small staff and a strict uniform policy - all waitresses wore white blouses, red skirts (the shorter the better) and white aprons. A few years back, some guy had threatened a lawsuit over their sexist hiring policies. The management had agreed to bring him on as a waiter, with the stipulation that he wore a white button down shirt, red pants, and white apron. He’d lasted about a day.

A town as small as Tarker’s Hollow was lucky to have a diner and Grace had drowned many a sorrow in their bottomless coffee - first as a teenager during late night study sessions, and especially now, as a Tarker’s Hollow cop, patrolling at all hours.

“Do you think I pissed her off?” Landon asked in a stage whisper.

He cocked his head, and the gesture was echoed in the movement of his mop of chestnut curls. Grace was tempted to tousle them, but this was only their third date.

“It wouldn’t take much.”

The diner stayed open twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year. And any waitress who stuck it out more than a year or two had to be tough as nails for dealing with the drunk kids on weekends.

“Sorry,” Landon said. “Is she a friend of yours?”

Grace sighed. This was the problem with dating. How much of your life did you have to share with someone before you decided whether or not they were important enough to keep around?

“She’s sort of friends with Ainsley.”

“Ah,” Landon said, in a way that made it sound like he didn’t understand.

Which made sense, since there were probably no two people in the world less likely to be friends than Ainsley Connor and Cressida Crow.

“Ainsley’s got a lot of friends,” Grace offered.

“Of course she does.” Landon reached across the table, deftly avoiding the coffee and juice glasses, and took one of her hands in his. “She’s a nice girl with a hot best friend. What’s not to like?”

He traced a line on Grace’s palm with his index finger.

She smiled and waited for a shiver of pleasure that didn’t come. What was wrong with her? She pictured herself as a wizened old crone drinking a cup of coffee alone at this very table forty years from now, watching Landon come in for ice cream with his grandkids.

“And if my sources are correct,” Landon continued. “A hot best friend who is soon to be sheriff.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Election’s still a long way off.”

“So?”

“So…I’m pretty new to police work, and pretty new to the Tarker’s Hollow force…”

“Everyone loves you, right? And they know you know your stuff. What was your major again?”

Grace smiled. Landon had a gift for getting people to talk about themselves. He would be good in the interrogation room.

“I was a double major,” Grace said. “Criminal Justice and Forensics. Not that there’s a lot of call for forensics when your biggest cases involve who stole some change from an unlocked car, or which kids egged houses on mischief night.”

“See. You’re overqualified.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

Grace wondered if he was even capable of opening his mouth without a question coming out. That was what you got when you dated a reporter, she supposed. At least he was a good listener.

“Shoot.”

“What really happened to Sheriff Warren?”

Grace sighed. She hadn’t been ready for that one. Her parents had always hammered into her that a relationship couldn’t go anywhere without honesty. On the other hand, she couldn’t tell anyone outside the pack a damned thing about what happened to Clive Warren - especially a reporter.

“It’s very sad. Sheriff Warren suffered a mental breakdown.”

Which was mostly true. He had been so insane with rage after he challenged Ainsley for control of the pack, that he’d shot her, with a silver bullet. Grace had arrived on the scene a moment too late to stop him. It was the only time she had ever fired her service weapon at another living person.

“Is it true he actually fired a shot at Ainsley.”

Grace only nodded. The memory of cutting the bullet out of her best friend was still too raw to talk about.

“Wow. What happened to him?”

“He ran. No one has seen him since.”

Which was also true. Grace’s gun hadn’t been loaded with silver. She’d taken him down, but in the confusion, he’d slipped away and fled.

“Why do you think he did that?”

“Why does anyone have a mental breakdown?”

“No, I mean why did he shoot at Ainsley in particular?”

“Um… I don’t really know. He wasn’t in a sound state of mind.”

“And how did he miss, aren’t you guys trained?”

The buzz of Grace’s cell phone cut through the bevy of questions - a welcome excuse from answering any more.

“It’s work - sorry.”

“Aren’t you were supposed to be off tonight?”

She shrugged.

For better or for worse, things were a mess without the sheriff. Now Grace reported to Dale Evans, who acted as the interim sheriff. Dale was a good man, but he wasn’t as sharp as he used to be.

“This is Officer Kwan-Cortez,” she said as she scooted out of the booth.

“Gracie, thank goodness you picked up!”

She winced at the nickname. Dale had known her since she was a girl, and sometimes he still treated her like one.

“What can I do for you, Dale?”

“It’s about Sadie Epstein-Walker, her daughter called from Boston. Said her mom wasn’t picking up the phone. She was worried sick.”

Sadie’s daughter from Boston was a pain in the ass. She had them over to check on her mother at the house on Princeton Avenue every other week. Sadie probably didn’t pick up the phone because she didn’t want to talk to her daughter any more than Grace did.

“Is Dylan over there?” she asked.

“Yes, he is. She didn’t come to the door but he says the lights are on and Camilla Parker Bowles is barking like crazy.”

That was something different. Sadie Epstein-Walker didn’t leave lights on, and she never went anywhere without Camilla Parker Bowles.

The King Charles spaniel accompanied her all over Tarker’s Hollow, and was allowed in many places that normally frowned on dogs. Sadie had buried both Misters Epstein and Walker, and it seemed to be understood that her line was drawn at being separated from the dog.

“Tell Dylan I’m on my way.”

“Gracie, you’re an angel from heaven.”

She turned to head back and almost jumped out of her shoes. Landon had been standing right behind her.

“Whoa, are you okay?” he asked.

“You just startled me. I thought you were still inside.”

“You seemed worried. I wanted to be there for you.”

She looked up at him. His face was so kind. The afternoon sunlight made a halo around his head.

Before she could think the better of it, she put her hands on his chest and went up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

He turned his head at the last moment and took her face in his hands. His mouth was warm on hers and the gentle kiss felt just like she’d imagined it might. He tasted like maple syrup.

When she pulled away, he kept his arms around her.

“That was nice,” he said simply.

“I have to go check on an old lady.”

“Me too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I drove, remember?”

The door to the diner banged open.

“Just cause you’re a cop doesn’t mean you get free stuff.” Cressida yelled after them, one hand planted on her hip defiantly, the other holding their check.

“Sorry,” Landon called back. “We weren’t pulling a dine-and-dash. Grace just got a phone call, but we’ll be right back in to settle up.”

His words seemed to placate Cressida, she turned to the door and went back in after giving Grace one last glare.

“I’ll take care of her,” Landon offered, handing Grace the keys. “You get the car started?”

“Perfect.”

Five minutes later, they pulled up to the old Victorian house on Princeton. Grace had made this trip about a thousand times before, since Sadie lived directly across the street from Ainsley.

Grace was out of the car and up Sadie’s front steps in a flash. On the other side of the door, Camilla Parker Bowles yipped in distress.

Grace looked around. Dylan Peterson, another deputy, came swaggering around the corner of the garage, his mirrored aviator sunglasses making him look like an extra in cheesy cop drama. Landon was just exiting the car. She had a few seconds.

She placed her palm gently against the door and closed her eyes, willing the magic to flow.

Immediately, her pulse sped up and her cheeks warmed.

She ignored the warning of what the magic might do to her, she would worry about that later, and was rewarded with a vision of Sadie, unconscious on the floor at the bottom of the steps.

Grace opened her eyes and focused carefully on the spot just below the bronze doorknob. With a swift exhale, she neatly kicked in the door on her first try. She felt bad about the damage, but at least the beautiful chestnut door was still in one piece. Only the frame had suffered.

Landon whistled in appreciation behind her, but she didn’t turn.

Sadie sprawled on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. A pool of dark blood congealed near her head. It didn’t look good.

Camilla Parker Bowles had taken up a post between them and Sadie. The King Charles Spaniel snapped the air frantically between barks, her tiny body quaking.

Grace studied the old woman’s prone body. Something wasn’t right.

She felt Dylan’s presence behind her and heard Landon’s footsteps behind him.

“Dylan, get the dog,” she said.

“Hey, there little puppy,” Landon cooed in a sing-songy way.

Camilla Parker Bowles stood her ground, hackles slowly rising.

“I don’t think she knows you’re talking to her, man, she’s used to the way Sadie talks to her,” Dylan explained, taking off his jacket. He turned to address the dog himself.

“Camilla Parker Bowles, you did just right. We’ll take it from here.”

The little dog seemed to waver.

“I know you’re tired, old girl, you earned your rest. We’ll take care of her.”

With quiet dignity, Camilla Parker Bowles stopped barking and curled up at her mistress’s feet. She didn’t fight it when Dylan wrapped her in his leather jacket and lifted her up to cradle her to his chest.

Despite an excess of false bravado, Dylan really was a good cop.

Grace dropped to her knees to examine Sadie.

There was a faint pulse and her chest was moving slightly. That was surprising but good.

“Landon,” Grace said, her voice exuding confidence. “Go get me some towels from the kitchen.”

He scampered off, and she turned her attention back to the injured woman.

“Mrs. Epstein-Walker, it’s me, Grace Kwan-Cortez, Eva’s daughter. I’m here to help you.”

No response.

“Dale called the ambulance same time as he called you,” Dylan offered.

Grace looked up the staircase and got another wave of wrongness.

“Looks like she fell down the stairs,” Dylan said, following her gaze.

At the top of the stairs, two of the sepia-toned pictures of Sadie’s family from the early 1900s had fallen and another was hanging crookedly by its wire.

“Let’s check the house anyway,” Grace said. “You know the drill, windows and doors,”

She took the towels from the returning Landon and used them to cover the nasty wound at the back of Sadie’s head, then instructed him to keep pressure on the spot while she searched the house. He looked a little squeamish, but Grace thought he would hold it together.

They started the sweep with the upstairs. Sadie’s home was immaculate, although a bit fussy for Grace’s taste; antique settees and vanity mirrors everywhere.

All the windows were intact.

Same with the first floor. Even the windows on the sun porch were closed and locked.

No signs of forced entry anywhere.

She and Dylan returned to the foyer and Grace’s skin began to tingle. There was more going on here than a simple slip and fall. Sadie was old, but she was still pretty spry. Plus, Grace knew Sadie was a wolf. That head wound should have been healing by now.

But everyone loved Sadie. Who would ever do anything like this?

Grace thought of the new guy at the college. Anderson? No. Sanderson. He and Sadie had become something of an item in the past few weeks, despite the age difference. No doubt, it was the talk of all the local knitting circles and early-morning mall walking groups.

Sanderson seemed nice enough, but Grace didn’t really know much about him. She made a mental note to call him in for questioning.

In the meantime, if Grace could just get a moment alone, maybe she could use her gift to gain some insight.

Landon was still cradling Sadie’s head, and looking green in the gills.

“I’ll take over here,” Grace said, kneeling by the old woman. “But I think I left my phone in the car. Can you find it for me, please?”

Landon smiled at her in relief, and left.

“Take a walk around the perimeter, Dylan.”

Dylan nodded and headed out.

She had only a few moments. It was awful to use magic at a time like this – even if she found something out she couldn’t tell anyone. And the side effects were cumulative. But she needed to get to the bottom of this.

Grace placed her own hand over Sadie’s. Sometimes she could pick up on residual energy after a traumatic event. Intense emotions usually left a sort of psychic echo in their wake.

She exhaled and reached out with her mind.

A shockwave of static hit her so hard it nearly knocked her to her back. Her blood and bones seemed to be reverberating with something that was like overly loud feedback from a microphone.

She ripped her hand away from Sadie’s, and the static blast stopped just as the paramedics stormed through the door.

“Hey, Grace, glad you made it,” Trudy Jacobs said as she and Henry Talbot knelt to lift Sadie onto the stretcher.

Grace didn’t trust herself to speak. She clenched her jaw and nodded.

What the hell had just happened?

The aftereffects of the magic were already playing at the edges of her consciousness. She fought to regulate her breath as she felt her nipples harden.

Everything has its price, Grace, Abuela had told her.

If only Grace had felt the craving for a cigar after magic like her grandmother did, instead of these waves of honeyed desire.

She pulled her cardigan around her chest to disguise her unwanted feelings as Landon came in.

“I really can’t find your phone, Grace, do you think you left it at the diner?”

He was the same puppyish man she’d been trying to convince herself deserved a kiss on the cheek earlier today.

Why did he seem so…hot right now? Landon’s big blue eyes seemed to flash with vigor. His shoulders looked wider, his jaw more defined.

She tore her eyes away.

“It was in my pocket,” she said breathlessly. “Sorry.”

“Glad to know I wasn’t the only one who was thrown by this. Is this what you do every day?”

The darker notes in his voice seemed to strike harmonics across her bared nerves.

Grace needed to get some air and walk home alone. She wasn’t sure if she could trust herself with Landon right now. It usually only lasted a few minutes, but she had used the magic twice in a row this time.

“I need to call Dale and this is police business so I’m going to walk home. Call you tomorrow?”

She couldn’t believe she’d managed two sentences.

Much to her surprise, he dropped down to crouch next to her.

Before she could react, he stroked a tendril of her hair. Desire rippled through her, curling so tightly in her belly it hurt.

He tilted her chin up and she lost herself in his eyes.

When he leaned down to kiss her she shuddered and pressed herself against him helplessly.

He stiffened for a fraction of a second. Fleetingly, she thought about how surprised he must be at her display of passion after three polite dates without so much as a kiss at the end.

But he seemed to recover quickly. With a gentle moan, he sunk to his knees and wrapped his arms around her.

He was so warm and she was so ready. She felt like she was melting and churning inside.

He pulled away.

She tried not to whimper.

“Listen, Grace, I like you, I mean I really like you. And I have been wanting this to happen for so long. But it seems kind of weird to be doing it here. Can I take you home?”

The desire began to recede and Grace remembered herself.

“Right,” she said. “We’re in a crime scene.”

“I thought she just fell.”

“Sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” she lied. “I guess adrenaline does strange things to you. I really do need to go. We’ll catch up another night, Landon. And thanks for the ride.”

By the time she had finished speaking she was at the door. Dylan met her on the front steps.

“I didn’t find anything outside,” he said.

“Can you secure the house? I need to call Dale.”

“Sure.”

She was halfway up Princeton before she heard Landon’s car start.

CHAPTER 3

J ulian Magie held his post in the window of the old stone cottage.

Motes of dust danced past him, but his eyes were turned inward. Allowing himself only one slow and even breath every sixty seconds, Julian drew his consciousness deep into himself. He compressed it into a tiny shimmering ball, no larger than the period at the end of a sentence. Then he allowed it to slowly expand into his whole self, the abandoned stone cottage, the overgrown front garden, the ghostly neighborhood, the town, the country, the world, the past and the future, before drawing it back into himself with his next breath.

Passing the time in this way was his age-old habit. He did it in the same way most people seemed to check their phones or worry their keys.

He sensed Ainsley’s approach.

She was late, but unhurried. Her new role as alpha had changed so much about her, even her timeliness. Their brief fling couldn’t have ended more definitively. Julian was beginning to question why he was still fascinated.

He didn’t allow the question to disturb him. Instead he permitted his breathing and heart rate to float back to their normal pace.

Muttering a simple spell of silence, Julian stepped through the open door to the porch and paused for his eyes to adjust to the sunlight and take in the surroundings.

Julian had come to Tarker’s Hollow a few months ago as a visiting Russian Lit professor, in order to work more closely with Ainsley’s father. But when he’d heard the unlikely story of this little neighborhood, he had to see it for himself.

The houses on the street had been abandoned nine years ago in preparation for the highway to come through. While the greater community fretted, stormed and ultimately waged court battles over the coming of the interstate, the owners of two ear-marked cul-de-sacs in the tiny Sycamore Woods neighborhood quietly accepted eminent domain checks for more than their homes were worth. They moved to larger houses or downsized to the condos in town as they would have done one day anyway.

Now nature was reclaiming the stone cottages. The macadam of the cul-de-sac was cracked and sprouting wild flowers. Pine trees had begun to grow all over the lawns. Fingers of ivy on the stone walls reached up toward roofs that were frosted in soft green moss.

One owner had made the unlikely choice to have his home transported to another location. The gaping foundation in the middle of the block was full of water and gave the appearance of a missing tooth.

The process of secondary succession at work so near the heart of a living town fascinated Julian.

It was also a perfect place to begin Ainsley’s education in magic.

She stood in the middle of what used to be the street, staring at her telephone now in the most pedestrian way - mouth set in a narrow line and a furrowed brow. Julian hated to see her killing time by drugging her mind with the numbing screen of the masses.

He started towards her. The plan was ambush. This, he hoped, would gain her interest.

Ainsley was pulled in so many directions now. She was smart and determined enough to be good at almost anything she’d ever tried. But for some reason, her magic training failed to make much progress.

He assumed this was why she never seemed truly engaged in its study.

Or maybe it was just that she could turn into a wolf the size of a small donkey and demolish her enemies that way. Most of them at least.

Hopefully, his little demonstration would capture her enthusiasm when he caught her unawares.

As he lifted his hands and prepared to shove her with a shockwave spell, she spun around and stepped neatly aside.

“If you want to sneak up on me, you’ll have to be more than just silent. I could smell you two blocks away.”

“Oh dear,” he said. “Are you suggesting a shower is in order?”

“No, but you should have that mole checked out - I smell something serious.”

“What?”

“Kidding! I’m kidding, Julian!”

It was a terrible joke, but he was so pleased to hear her laugh that he laughed too.

The sound of it was swallowed by the pines. Somewhere on the other side of them, her mate was barking orders and digging up dirt. One day, when he was finished, this magical place would be gone.

Julian tried not to mind too much. They had work to do.

“Alright, well, we have a couple of hours today so we may be able to accomplish great things.”

She winced.

“Do we not have a couple of hours?”

“There were strange wolf tracks in the college woods this morning. Erik says the alpha should be accompanied after dark until we sort it out.”

“So what’s the problem? Can’t Cressida come for you?”

“I don’t like anyone else here when I work on magic.”

Ah. She did have an image to uphold.

“So you need to leave before dark.”

She nodded. Julian was glad to have her to himself, even if he had less of her.

“Fine then. Let’s head to Happy’s backyard.”

They had named the houses on this street after the seven dwarves. It felt appropriate and at any rate, it was easier than trying to find street numbers in the overgrowth.

Happy was aptly named. Set on the largest lot in the neighborhood, Happy’s property included the remnants of an old grape arbor swaying behind the curve of a kidney shaped swimming pool. Frogs lounged on the brick patio, which overlooked what had once been an enormous backyard with a vegetable garden around the perimeter. It was now more of a meadow. But there were still dozens of pumpkins, swelling comfortably in the deep grass, fertilized by the carcasses of their departed brethren.

Julian had placed an old Coke bottle from the faded green recycling bin on top of a stump in the middle of the tall grass.

“Old fashioned target practice, eh?” Ainsley asked.

“Precisely. I thought we could work on some evocation.”

“I can’t believe it. Tell me more.”

“Sarcasm noted. Can we get to work?”

Ainsley’s lips quirked up in a half smile, in spite of herself, though she didn’t answer.

“Let’s begin.”

He looked at her expectantly and she rewarded him with the view of her lush breasts swelling out as she obediently took a deep breath.

As she exhaled, she lifted her palms up.

A tiny glimmer of blue electricity arced from one palm to the other.

She looked up at him, hazel eyes flashing with triumph and he felt his heart ache a little. Her skills should have been well past this stage of development. Unlike Ainsley, Julian knew exactly what type of dark forces were gathering in Tarker’s Hollow. He also knew that she was nowhere near being prepared to face them.

“Good girl. Now bigger.”

Her eyes took on a flinty quality, but the blue light between her palms remained stubbornly pixieish.

“Breathe, Ainsley.”

Her lips formed an “o” as she carefully released a breath.

The energy in her hands expanded and took on a warmer quality. It had the girth and sparkle of water coming out of a drinking fountain, but was a brilliant topaz blue.

“Lovely. Keep it just that way.”

Ainsley continued her measured breaths.

She would never have been able to do this a month ago. He loved the earnest way she studied the energy, but was concerned at the way she still looked at it like it was something foreign to her. As though he had just handed her a newborn and she was afraid to drop it.

“Now, I want you to knock that bottle over with it.”

The moment her eyes went to the stump the light dimmed slightly.

“How?”

“Project it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Envision it and compel it.”

Julian lifted his own hand. A kernel of blue light curled into his open palm almost before he consciously evoked it.

Gazing at Ainsley to make sure he had her attention, he willed it to the stump.

It sailed across the grass and pinged against the bottle delicately, knocking it neatly into the pumpkin patch.

“Wow.”

Julian grinned and jogged over to retrieve it.

“Your turn.”

Ainsley closed her eyes and drew in a careful breath. She opened her eyes and exhaled, concentrating on the stump.

The blue light in her hands hopped and spluttered out.

“Fuck.”

“Calmly, Ainsley. Again.”

She pursed her lips, and took in another steady breath.

But this time the light between her palms was thin and reedy.

“Release your emotions. Breathe.”

A fraction of the tension left her face.

Immediately, the energy swelled.

“Now look at the bottle.”

This time when she looked up, the energy continued to flow merrily between her palms.

“Brilliant! Now project.”

He watched proudly as her light sprung gamely toward the bottle.

It wasn’t enough to knock the bottle over, but it did manage to wiggle it slightly before faltering and flickering out.

“Ainsley, well done!”

She turned to him with fire in her eyes.

“That wasn’t well done. I’m not good at this. My pack needs me, and there aren’t enough hours in the day as it is. I don’t know why I’m here.”

He knew he should tell her more about the nature of the magic she would be facing, but he feared the truth would do more harm than good. She could barely concentrate as it was. If she knew how powerful her enemies really were, she might freeze up completely.

That wouldn’t do at all.

“You need this, Ainsley. And you will be good at it. Have you been meditating like we discussed?”

“I don’t have time to meditate,” she said, obviously exasperated. “Every minute of my day is scheduled.”

“Then schedule time for meditation,” he suggested. “If you won’t meditate, you’ll have to pay it forward some other way. Give up sugar and caffeine, give up… mating, sacrifice something, or the magic won’t always work. And when it does work, it will take something from you and you won’t get to choose what.”

“Are you seriously telling me not to have sex?”

Her eyes blazed and her dark hair danced wildly in the breeze. Regretfully, Julian noticed that she had probably never looked more desirable. On the other hand, she had become so wild. There was no trace of the glorious restraint that had drawn him to her before. A disappointment. But he supposed the poet was right, Nothing gold can stay.

“No, I’m asking you to meditate,” he said wearily.

“I’m a wolf, Julian. I beat out the biggest wolf the town had to offer. What’s coming that’s so bad I can’t handle without learning more magic?”

He tried to dodge her question.

“Being a wolf isn’t enough when you’re up against the kind of magic in your father’s book, Ainsley. You know that already. Remember when I stopped you from shifting?”

“Remember when I blasted your ass out the window two seconds later?”

Julian remembered all too well. She’d caught him snooping in her father’s study. He thought she was going to tear him to pieces, so he flung a spell designed to temporarily halt her transformation. Somehow, she had managed to send the energy back to him. His pride was the worst injury sustained in the two-story trip out the window and into Ainsley’s rhododendrons.

He still wasn’t sure how she’d managed something like that with no training. But at least it had uncovered her hidden talent for magic.

“That is what I’m talking about here, Ainsley. I’ve seen you hurl powerful magic. I’m not asking you to do anything you haven’t done before. Why are you holding back on me?”

“That’s rich, coming from you. I know you’re not being up front with me, Julian. I don’t need you to shelter me. I’m a big girl. And don’t tell me I’m doing well, when I can’t even defeat an empty bottle.”

He looked away. She was right, of course.

Movement behind her caught his eye.

Ainsley must have seen the alarm in his expression. She turned to find the source.

The stump they had been using had begun to grow upward, and was now enveloping the Coke bottle.

“Shit,” she said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s quite alright, Ainsley. Now make it stop.”

She pursed her lips into an “o” again, then drew the air in and out and lifted her palms, but nothing came. She wasn’t letting go of the anger.

The Coke bottle exploded into a cloud of glass fragments, and the stump continued to grow. Now the vines from the pumpkin patch began to snake towards them as well.

“Ainsley?”

She didn’t respond, only furrowed her brow in concentration as the plants continued to grow.

Julian was beginning to wonder if it might be prudent to relocate, when shivering in the grass around the corner of the house alerted him to someone else’s arrival.

“Why are you breathing like that, Ainsley?” A clear female voice called as the newcomer approached. “Just relax, let it flow.”

The bell-like voice was somehow irritating. Even more so when Julian looked to see Ainsley’s countenance relax and the plants immediately cease their growth.

“Grace!” Ainsley said happily.

Julian was curious to finally get a look at Ainsley’s best friend. Over the last month, he seemed to be always arriving just after she’d left. He had joked once that he was Superman and she was Clark Kent. No one had laughed. All of Ainsley’s friends hated him. He was beginning to regret his pledge to protect the book.

Grace was not at all what he expected.

Julian had been picturing a curvy policewoman in full uniform - cold and dead serious where Ainsley was fiery.

Grace must have been off-duty. She wore a simple white t-shirt and a pair of worn blue jeans with a crushed velvet jacket the color of the night sky. Her inky black hair was smoothed up in an intricate bun.

Her body was the opposite of Ainsley’s - tiny and trim without a hint of Ainsley’s delicious voluptuousness. She carried herself like a ballerina, or more accurately perhaps, like a tiny woman who hoped to look more imposing.

Her dark almond eyes flashed to Julian. She must have been curious about him too.

The moment their eyes connected, a shock like cold water rushed through Julian’s veins.

Confused, his first thoughts ran to the defensive. Magic shimmered along the surface of Grace’s skin, visible to his inner eye. Ainsley had told him her friend was skilled in cottage magic. Was she actually capable of ensnaring him in a spell?

But she looked as stricken as he did.

Julian felt his heart blast out an unfamiliar cadence as he took in her parted lips, her tiny clenched fists, her unblinking gaze. Suddenly he was overcome with a longing to take that determined little body in his arms and soften it with his embrace. She was beautiful. She was perfect.

Grace shook herself slightly and addressed Ainsley.

“I stopped by the construction site on my rounds. Erik seemed worried. I told him I’d pick you up. How’s it going?”

“Not well,” Ainsley answered honestly.

“You’re trying too hard, that’s all,” said Grace. “Let it do its thing. This is part of you, it should feel natural. Right, Julian?”

How could she speak with such nonchalance when something so intense was obviously happening between them?

He couldn’t bear to look into those eyes again, so he looked to Ainsley as he answered.

“Ainsley is learning formal magic. It requires hard work, study and sacrifice, but it will give Ainsley control and precision. It’s a little different from cottage magic.”

Ainsley sighed in exasperation and tromped toward the cul-de-sac.

Too late he realized that what he’d said might offend Grace.

“Though of course, cottage magic can be very helpful in its own right.”

“It was nice to finally meet you.” Grace gave Julian a tight smile and headed after Ainsley.

A jolt of sweetness that almost made him feel faint followed their brief eye contact.

Mortified, he realized he was sick with love for her.

And now she hated him.

But surely everyone knew that formal magic was preferable to cottage magic? It wasn’t snobbery, it was a fact. Cottage magic was unpredictable and took its toll on its own terms. Formal magic was powerful and reliable.

He turned back to the pool. It felt like even the frogs were giving him the stink eye. Who could blame them when he had managed to screw up love-at-first-sight?

He tried not to imagine making love to Grace Kwan-Cortez on the abandoned brick patio, or in the tall grass as he trudged away from Happy to set up tomorrow’s lesson.

CHAPTER 4

Erik hummed as he tapped out the next morning’s agenda on his iPad. He didn’t spend much time in his trailer - he much preferred the fresh air and blue sky, but at least in here he was surrounded by blueprints.

A bad feeling broke his concentration. Something was different.

He put down the iPad to listen for the sounds of trouble.

Silence.

There should never be silence on the site.

He flew out the door of the trailer, praying that there hadn’t been an injury, and ready to tear into whoever was holding things up if there wasn’t.

His eyes took in the familiar acre of overturned ground, auburn as his mate’s fur. His men stood around looking nervous, but there was no sign that their medical emergency plan had gone into effect.

An unfamiliar man approached. He was short, with round wire-rimmed glasses. His white button down shirt and khakis looked like they came from a cheap department store. A clipboard jutted from beneath one arm.

Government.

Shit. What could be wrong?

“Erik Jensen?”

“That’s me. What can I do for you?”

“This site has been closed down indefinitely.” He tapped the clipboard with a cheap Bic pen. “I’ll need you to sign here, here and here to acknowledge that you received this cease and desist and that you understand your obligations.”

“May I see some ID?” Erik asked.

That got the little guy’s attention.

“Excuse me?” The man blinked behind his thick glasses.

“If you work for the government, I have the right to request your identification and even your pay grade. Just identification will suffice, for now at least.”

The man shook his head as he pulled a lanyard with an ID out of his pocket and handed it to Erik.

Leopold Pruitt - Environmental Protection Agency.

“EPA, wow.” Erik returned the ID card. “May I ask why the EPA is interested in this site? We’re on private college property. I think you’ll find all our papers are in order.”

“It’s all right here,” Leopold pointed at the clipboard again.

“I intend to fully review that document with an attorney. Can you explain it in layman’s terms?”

“We’ve had reports that this site is a habitat for the endangered short-eared owl.”

They looked together over the already treeless lot.

“This was an athletic field, Leopold. We dug up the grass and removed 6 trees that had been planted to screen the field from the road. I don’t really see how it could qualify as an owl habitat. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

Leopold looked down at his clipboard.

“Is this ‘The Proposed Site of the Tarker’s Hollow College Inn and Bookstore’?”

Erik nodded.

Leopold shrugged.

“Then please sign, here, here and here.” Tapping the clipboard again.

“Do you have a supervisor I can speak with?”

Leopold blinked up at him again. Fleetingly, it occurred to Erik that the man himself actually looked sort of owlish. No wonder he wanted to protect them.

“Sir, maybe you don’t understand. These are endangered birds. We need to take all reports seriously. You can go over my head, but you can’t keep building here.”

Erik fought his wolf, and even his human temper. The man was just doing his job. If only they hadn’t lost two days of progress to Clive’s hissy fit just last month.

“How quickly will you be able to wrap this up?” Erik tried his best to sound civil.

“This seems like an easy case to …evaluate.” Leopold smiled at him politely. “I expect we could have you back to work within six months to a year.”

Erik ran a hand through his too-long hair.

His men were watching him closely. It was important to lead by example.

“I will take your card and a copy of this document. As soon as my attorney has reviewed it I will be glad to sign off and get it back to you.”

Leopold took the sheet off the board.

“It doesn’t really matter if you sign it or not. If you start work again you will be in violation of the law. The clock on our evaluation process won’t start ticking until after you sign.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. You have a good day now, okay?”

The setting sun silhouetted Leopold Pruitt as he ambled back to his little gray car.

Erik fought to keep his head from exploding as he figured in his losses and the losses of the men who waited in silence on the red dirt. He had to find a way to keep them working.

He’d already lost a few good men this year. His crew were all young, male wolves from the Tarker’s Hollow pack. It was no secret that there was a shortage of available female wolves in town.

He and Ainsley had wondered together what that meant for the future of the pack, and what, if anything, they could do about it. If the remaining young males left to find mates in other packs, the Tarker’s Hollow wolves would be in trouble.

The Inn job they were on now, and the upcoming highway project, were all that kept his remaining crew from seeking greener pastures.

“Let’s call it a day, guys. Everyone back on time and ready to work in the morning.”

There was a collective sigh, and the men scrambled, glad to have an early night and hopeful that it meant they weren’t out of a job.

Erik knew his night would be a late one. Why would someone think short eared owls had been living on an athletic field?

He didn’t need to be wolf to notice something about this whole business smelled funny.

CHAPTER 5

Grace could not believe her luck as she stepped into the interrogation room.

“Dale,” she shouted through the open door. “Not today!”

“Sorry, Gracie,” came the muffled reply from the front desk. “You know it rained on Tuesday.”

Tarker’s Hollow police station was not large. Once a month, when the parking meters were emptied, the change had to be spread out somewhere to dry before they could deposit it.

The most likely place was the interrogation room, since it was seldom in used for its intended purpose. So now the table in the middle of the room sparkled like the Potters’ vault at Gringotts. And there was barely time to get it out of here before Sanderson got here.

“Hello?” came a soft voice from the station door.

He was early. Perfect.

She’d hardly been able to concentrate on normal day-to-day life since meeting Julian Magie last night. The electric feeling when they had locked eyes set her pulse racing just thinking about it. And she couldn’t stop wondering if he’d felt the same.

Of course, his attitude toward her “cottage magic” gave her a pretty clear idea of his feelings toward her. But still…

No time to dwell on it now. Now, she had to conduct an official interview in a place that looked more like the back room of a Chuck E Cheese’s than a police interrogation room.

“Come on in.” Grace pushed away the distractions and turned her mind to the business at hand. She had a crime to solve.

A man turned the corner from the hallway. He was probably in his late fifties and walked slowly with a cane. But his posture was faultless and there was a youthful sparkle in his cornflower blue eyes.

Dale Evans followed a few steps behind.

“Hello, Mr. Sanderson, thank you for coming in,” Grace said.

“I see you got lucky at the slot machines,” he said, nodding at the change.

“No, this is from the parking meters.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“They aren’t water tight,” Dale explained. “We have to dry the change, or the girls at the bank won’t take it anymore.”

“Ah, the responsibilities of our small town police force. I wonder if any of us are really aware of all you do for the village.”

Grace wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not, but she was very sure he had no idea about some of the things Tarker’s Hollow officers had to do. She gave him the benefit of the doubt and gestured for him to sit.

“Can I bring you a cup of coffee?” Dale asked.

Grace was sure he was only stalling because he was curious about the ‘younger man’ Sadie had been seeing.

“No, thank you.”

Garrett Sanderson sat down carefully, elegantly crossing one long leg over the other and holding his cane to the ground like a king with a scepter. The cane was polished black wood with a wrought metal handle.

Grace thought it might make a good makeshift weapon.

“I’ll let you get to it then, Gracie,” Dale said, backing out and shutting the door.

Grace tried to turn her wince into a smile.

Garrett Sanderson smiled back at her expectantly.

“How may I help you today?” he asked, gazing earnestly at her with his penetrating blue eyes.

She tried and failed not to let them remind her of Julian’s sparkling eyes.

Grace wasn’t sure how to begin. The whole town had been aflutter for weeks because of Garrett’s presence in Sadie Epstein-Walker’s life. Though he was no spring chicken himself, he was much younger than she. And there was not much to talk about in a small town - especially for the non-wolf majority. They had the weather, the Inn, the highway, and Sadie Epstein-Walker’s new beau.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about Sadie’s injury?”

“Yes, of course, I’ve been worried sick ever since I heard. I just came from the hospital. Nasty business, taking a fall like that.”

“Because she isn’t awake to tell us what happened, we need to do a routine investigation.”

“Ah, I see.”

Grace looked through the pages on her clipboard.

“Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Sanderson?”

“Please, it’s Garrett, and of course.”

She stepped out of the door and closed it behind her. One of the best tactics she had learned at the academy was that a suspect who was given time to get nervous usually did just that.

She grabbed a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge in the kitchenette and drank a little. She checked her iPhone and read the headlines and weather.

When she entered the room, she found Sanderson just as she had left him.

“Was that a test to make sure I wouldn’t steal any change?”

Rather than acknowledging him, Grace sat down on the other side of the table.

“You’re the Department Secretary for Russian Lit at Tarker’s Hollow College, is that right?”

“I believe the politically correct title is Administrative Assistant.”

“How long have you been in town?” She ignored his natural charm and focused on his reactions to the setup questions.

“About three weeks now.”

“I see. And where are you living?”

“The college didn’t have any apartments available so I’m staying at Thayer House.”

Now to get down to business.

“What is the nature of your relationship with Sadie Epstein-Walker?” Grace tried not to allow any inflection in her voice, as she asked the question she knew every old biddy in Tarker’s Hollow was dying to know the answer to.

Garret smiled, deepening the sexy lines in his face. He reminded Grace of that television show with the doctor who solved medical mysteries.

“Sadie and I are companions.”

Grace didn’t reply.

They stared each other down. When she was sure he wasn’t going to offer anything more, she continued.

“Do you mean you have a romantic relationship?”

“I don’t see how that is relevant here,” Sanderson replied. “But sure.”

“Have you had any altercations lately?”

“Miss Kwan-Cortez, when you reach a certain age you realize that altercations are more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Where were you last night between the hours of six and eight?”

“I was at Thayer House.” He uncrossed his legs and straightened up a bit. “Officer Kwan-Cortez, am I to understand that I’m suspected of something?”

“This is routine, Mr. Sanderson. Can anyone corroborate your whereabouts?”

“No. I was reading a book, alone. My leg doesn’t respond well to cool moist weather, so I don’t go out at night much in the fall.”

He twirled his cane in place and looked into her eyes impassively. The metal top caught the light, revealing it to be an ornate silver wolf’s head.

Though it was unlikely, Grace fed him the pack line.

“Did you notice the moon last night?”

He studied her in silence. His hesitation surprised her and she almost expected him to respond with, I’ve noticed it all of my life - Tarker’s Hollow code for pack membership.

“No. As I said, I was inside, reading a book.”

It had been worth a shot.

“I’m beginning to think that I might need an attorney for the rest of this routine investigation,” he said, his warm demeanor cooling.

He didn’t actually ask for one, so Grace wasn’t obligated to cease questioning yet. She pressed on.

“I only have one more question.” Her instincts told her she wouldn’t get much more out of him today. “You and Sadie were close, do you know if anyone was angry with her?”

He looked out the window. There was nothing to see out there except the top of the Habers’ Elm tree, which was nearly bare of leaves.

Here would be the point where he fabricated something to throw suspicion away from himself. Something she could catch him in later.

He turned back and looked her in the eye.

“Official investigations aside, you know Sadie, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “Of course no one is angry with her. She’s the sweetest lady in Tarker’s Hollow. All she does is garden, walk the dog, and smile at everyone she meets. You could interrogate the whole town and not find anyone with a grudge. Now, if you’re finished, I’m going back to sit with her.”

Grace nodded slowly.

“We’ll be in touch if we need anything else,” she said, rising from her chair and offering her hand. “Do you need any help getting out?”

“No, thank you, officer.” He leaned heavily on the table as he stood. “And I’m sorry I lost my temper. I’m worried about Sadie. I know you’re just doing your job.”

“We are all worried about her, Garrett. Hopefully she’ll wake up soon.”

He nodded, his lips pressed together tightly. She assumed he was trying not to cry. Or at least he was trying to make it look that way.

She watched him walk away slowly, the metal tip of his cane tapping sharply with each step.

CHAPTER 6

A insley stood in the open field behind Erik’s house.

The wind blew the long grass, and the swelling moon lit the sky. All she wanted was to sink into her wolf and run the woods and creek. She could almost taste the crystal water from here.

Instead, she exhaled and lifted her palms. After a moment a tiny blue flash of lighting began to dance between her hands.

A month ago that would have been a victory. But it was all coming too slowly.

Julian said she should meditate. Ainsley had always meditated. Back when she still tried to deny her wolf, it was the only way she could block the change. This should have been easy.

She was afraid to tell Julian that something in her had changed. She didn’t want to believe it herself.

But with this wolf’s brain, she could no more tune out her senses than she could fly. It was frightening and freeing all at once.

She exhaled again, and if she wanted to she could have listened to each cell of her lungs squeal the air out like a balloon being stretched empty by a child.

The blue light in her palm strengthened. She wanted it to shoot across the field. She was unsure of the best way to make that happen. Julian said to just will it forward.

She tried.

It flickered out.

Damn.

She’d hoped that once she had the privacy to try on her own, she could master this and then show Julian her progress.

Ainsley could scoff at him and give him a hard time on the outside, but in truth she loved her pack, and if they were in danger, she would have to do whatever it took to protect them. Even if it meant learning formal magic, which confounded her. Even if it meant giving up the sugar and caffeine that kept her going. Even if it meant giving up Erik’s warm bed.

Just the thought of her mate brought his scent to her from inside the house.

The moon was nearly full. Its soft light was slowly making her dizzy with lust. She wouldn’t be able to stay out here much longer tonight.

But she couldn’t practice magic inside. Nor could she practice during the day when she was constantly accompanied by one wolf or another.

Her pack relied on her. She couldn’t let them see her lose face again and again, trying and failing to do a simple evocation. She was supposed to be the great unifier of magic and wolves.

These days she felt like a fraud.

Never one to sit around feeling sorry for herself, Ainsley returned to her practice.

She had managed to build the blue light back up again and had it humming cheerfully in her hands when she heard Erik stir in the bedding upstairs in the house.

Before she could go to him she heard him on the porch.

“Ainsley!”

His voice was hoarse, panicked.

“I’m here, Erik. I’m right here.”

The blue light in her palms spluttered out.

She turned back to face him. The way the moonlight highlighted the triangular shape of his shirtless shoulders and narrow waist and hips sent her instincts into overdrive.

He jogged toward her and she fought the urge to run to his arms. Her inner alpha wouldn’t allow it.

By the time he was in front of her she was trembling and ready for him to take her right there in the field.

“What are you doing?”

The anger in his voice snapped her out of the fog of desire.

“I’m practicing.”

He ran a hand through his hair, releasing his intoxicatingly male scent.

“Ainsley, I know you feel like you’re unstoppable. But there is a lone wolf out there. You cannot pull this shit.”

Before Ainsley had a chance to react, her alpha roared in her chest. Desperately swallowing down her urge to discipline him for his impertinence, she let out a careful breath.

“There has been no trace of that wolf since we found the print. I need to learn magic to protect my pack. If you don’t want to help, then at least stay out of the way.”

Erik opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again and turned to stalk back toward the house.

It was too much. The human part of her wanted to follow him, but that part of her was less in control than it had ever been. How did anyone live with two halves of themselves constantly at war?

Ainsley sunk to her knees and wrapped her arms around herself to fight back the tears.

There was movement in the cool grass and then she felt him.

Erik had returned, and knelt to join her. His arms circled, warm and safe around her. His respectful posture and soothing touch assuaged her alpha, and ignited her passion.

Ainsley wanted to explain, to tell the man she loved why she would risk terrifying him to come out in this field and work.

Oh, but the wolf. The wolf inside her made demands and went from A to C without bothering about B.

And once again Ainsley Connor found herself racked with desire and power. She was the alpha, and yet she found she was no more behind the wheel than she had been before.

Ainsley’s nails sunk into the rippling muscles of Erik’s shoulders.

He lifted his head.

For a moment the moonlight reflected in his sad brown eyes and Ainsley thought her heart would break.

But too soon, the wolf was on her again and she pressed her lips to his.

He returned her kiss fiercely. In it, she sensed his barely restrained anger, fear and jealousy.

His tongue invaded her mouth. He took her face in one of his big hands and seemed almost to devour her.

She ran her fingers through his dark hair and clutched it tightly to pull him even closer.

Instantly, his other hand was on her hip, gripping her hard enough to leave a bruise.

The pain felt good, but somewhere in the back of her head another Ainsley worried. The full moon made mating harsh sometimes, but Erik had never hurt her.

The alpha ignored her and bit Erik’s lip until she drew blood. The coppery taste made her wild and she let go of his hair to push against his chest so that he would lie back and let her mate with him.

Erik usually loved that moment. Sometimes he would resist her playfully and try to draw things out. Sometimes he would laugh his deep laugh and flip her over to pleasure her first.

Tonight he growled and pushed her on her back.

Ainsley landed so hard her breath left her in a whoosh.

While she hesitated, Erik ripped her shirt down the middle and tore her lace bra in half to get to her breasts.

Ainsley lay on her back and looked up at the swollen moon. Erik’s harsh breath and the swish of the grass in the cold breeze filled her ears. Her nipples stood rock hard and she ached in anticipation.

She looked up at her mate, but he had eyes only for her breasts. He fell on her, ravaging her left breast while his hand kneaded and pulled at the other.

Ainsley keened with desire and wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her heels against his hips and pulling him into her insistently.

Erik looked up and growled at her, then pinned her hands over her head with one big hand. He glared threateningly into her eyes and fell back on her breasts.

Ainsley unwound one leg from his waist, and used it to push at the knee that held most of his weight. The result sent them rolling over in the grass, with Ainsley ending up on top.

She straddled him and pinned him with her alpha stare.

He held her gaze longer than he should have, but finally his lashes kissed his cheeks in submission.

She roared in satisfaction and snapped his jeans open. He lifted his hips so that she could slide them off. His erection sprung out instantly.

The other Ainsley quietly noted that he must have pulled those jeans on without bothering to put on boxers because he loved her and was afraid for her life.

Alpha Ainsley didn’t really give a shit. She was just glad she didn’t have to rip off boxers to get to him.

She slid out of her own jeans and panties and was ready to mount him, but his scent was too delicious.

She nuzzled his testes and ran her tongue upward to taste the saltiness of his swollen cock.

Under her, he moaned helplessly and fisted his hands in the grass.

His sounds stoked her hunger, and she drew him into her mouth, tonguing his head and swallowing him into her throat.

Within moments, he was so large she couldn’t contain him. She dragged her mouth away from his cock to nuzzle his abs.

Erik growled and lifted her until she was straddling his face.

She was so ready, so sensitive she was almost afraid. But as soon as she felt his tongue stabbing and stroking her she threw her head back and howled. With her body arched, the moonlight bathed her bare breasts and she thought she would go mad with excitement.

Erik’s ministrations had grown frantic and Ainsley decided she’d had enough teasing.

She slid her body down and impaled herself on his rigid penis.

The pleasure was so intense she was afraid she would come immediately. She stilled and looked down at Erik.

His jaw was clenched and there was barely suppressed fury in his eyes. As she studied his face, he rolled them both to the side.

Once again, Ainsley found herself below him, looking up, both her hands pinned beneath one of his. Rage warred with lust in her heart.

And then Erik began to move inside her. Slowly, slowly he withdrew himself from her, and just as she was ready to die from the loss, he slid back in to fill her to bursting.

It was excruciating to taste such pleasure but not be satisfied. He gave her just enough to hold her still but not enough to give her relief.

Soon she was panting and moaning beneath him. She didn’t care that he was mounting her, she didn’t care that she was mad at him, all she cared about was the fire he was stoking inside her.

Erik released her hands. Before she could register that she was free, she felt him slide a hand between them to massage her throbbing clitoris in agonizingly slow circles.

Ainsley came apart instantly, the delicious contractions seemed to go on and on and on.

She opened her eyes to see Erik’s eyes flashing with lust.

Before she could catch her breath he was pounding into her fiercely, almost cruelly. The cold look in his eyes was nothing she had ever seen before.

He came hard, crushing her to his chest as he did.

When it was over he rolled off her immediately and lay on his back looking up at the moon.

Ainsley would have liked to roll on her side and put her head on his chest, as they often did after mating. She loved the steady beat of his heart under her cheek and the rich scent of their love.

But her wolf and his anger lay between them, and there was no room for Ainsley.

So she stretched on her back instead and studied the moon.

A moment later she felt Erik’s warm hand grab hers.

Ainsley’s heart melted. She rolled happily onto his chest.

“I feel much better,” Erik whispered, and she could feel him smiling against her hair.

“Me too.”

He stroked her hair and she traced circles on his abs.

“You can do whatever you want, of course, I know that. But please, Ainsley, let me protect you. That wolf is a real threat. And we don’t know what else might be out there.”

“Okay.” Ainsley ran her fingers up to find the dimple in his smiling cheek. “Do you really think he’s still anywhere near Tarker’s Hollow?”

“I know he is.”

“How do you know?”

Erik shrugged.

She put his noncommittal response out of her head and instead concentrated on how the warmth of his skin contrasted with the cool night air.

“Why are you practicing magic at night anyway? How’s it going?”

“Fine.”

“It seems like you’re spending a lot of time with… practice.”

She could tell he really meant with Julian.

Ainsley had no clue how to proceed, except that she would die if Erik knew how lousy she was at magic.

“It’s difficult. Requires a lot of focus. Which is something I lack at the moment.”

She scrambled on top of him and looked down into his worried eyes.

“I love you, Erik Jensen. You know that right?”

He rewarded her with another warm smile.

But the moon would have no more of their sweetness and they were pulled back into the mania of mating.

Before Ainsley completely lost herself in the wild embrace of her mate, she implored herself, Remember that you love him. Please don’t forget.

CHAPTER 7

Grace decided she needed to pay a visit to her abuela.

She swiped her key fob and entered the opulent lobby of Tarker’s Tower. The harsh fluorescents aggravated her building headache the second she removed her sunglasses.

The most recent renovation of the former hotel had been planned by a new board member from out of town. Gone was the Quaker simplicity of dark hallways and plain blue rugs. Now the condominium’s foyer was choked in Oriental carpets and gilt framed prints.

Grace caught a glimpse of her face in a particularly gothic looking mirror as she pushed the button to call the elevator. Having Asian features sometimes helped her mask her emotions from strangers - but she easily saw the anguish in her own eyes and she knew Abuela would see it too.

What had happened with Julian? Why couldn’t she get him out of her head?

Had he put a charm on her? It had looked like he was as shocked as she was.

A delicious wave of excitement washed over her as she pictured him again, his thin lips parted, a look of wonder in his clear blue eyes.

The ding of the elevator brought her back to the present. Minna Randolf exited with a flourish, pulling her grocery cart behind her.

“Grace Cortez!” Minna bellowed, as usual ignoring Grace’s hyphenated last name.

Minna was on the record as opposing the Cortez family’s adding the Kwan to Grace’s name to honor her Chinese birth mother. Minna thought it was too much dwelling on the past and what was she supposed to do with all those last names when she got married anyway?

Grace was pretty sure it wouldn’t become an issue if her future love life went the way her current one was going.

“Hi, Mrs. Randolf!”

“Hello, Grace! Have a good visit. They don’t have the heat on yet, so it’s too cold up there, as usual.”

Grace smiled her thanks to Minna as she got on the elevator. Minna was always concerned that the heat wasn’t turned on in the building until October. She was so well padded both by her ample curves and by her fluffy sweaters that it was a wonder she wasn’t impervious to the cold.

“Nieta!” Abuela exclaimed as soon as the elevator doors opened. She liked to prop open the door to her condo to get a breeze and as a result, she’d heard the elevator ding Grace’s arrival.

Grace wondered how the neighbors felt about the scent of the black beans in the slow cooker filling the hallways through Abuela’s open door. But they never complained. And Abuela herself wasn’t one to worry.

“So what brings you here for lunch?”

Abuela didn’t wait for an answer, but began pulling bowls out of the cupboard. Like Grace, she was short, so she had to reach high above her head.

Grace took a seat at the small table by the sliders leading out to the balcony. Abuela’s unit was not in the fanciest section of the building, but it did have a nice view of the hillside facing the college woods. You could just see the creek bending on its way out of Sycamore Woods. One day, when the highway was built, Abuela wouldn’t want these doors open anymore because they would let in the traffic noise.

“It’s about work, Abuela. I told you about Sadie-”

“-A shame too!-”

“-But I didn’t tell you everything.”

“Mm.”

Abuela always knew when Grace was hiding the truth.

“Something very bad was going on in that house,” Grace said.

“Did you use your gift?”

“I tried.”

“And?”

“When I touched her hand I got hit with something. It felt like a shockwave of…static or something.”

“Mm.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s possible that someone didn’t want anyone snooping.”

“Can you just erase something like that?” Grace asked.

“You can’t remove the psychic impressions, but someone could have muddied the picture with feedback or static. The way you might drown out car noise by turning up the radio. The noise is still there, it’s just too hard to hear it over all the racket.”

Grace nodded and then winced in pain. The headache had been getting worse all day. She hopped up to grab some Advil out of the cupboard in the kitchen.

“Headache again? You know those pills are bad for your stomach.”

“I know, Abuela. I can’t think straight, though.”

Abuela buttoned her lip and poured out two glasses of sweet iced tea.

Grace swallowed down three Advil before Abuela could admonish her further, then carried their drinks to the little table while Abuela carried two bowls of black beans.

They sat and closed their eyes briefly in the approximation of a pre-meal blessing that the Cortez family had settled on. Eva Cortez didn’t believe in digging right in, but no one else believed in praying out loud.

The moment of silence gave Grace a peaceful sense of being at home. It didn’t last long.

“Grace,” Abuela said. “If you’re going to call on your gift, you know you need to pay the price, or the price will be taken twofold.”

Grace sighed.

“Abuela, I’m a police officer and this is a small town. I can’t just let my urges take over. And besides I wouldn’t want to - not really.”

Abuela put down her spoon.

“Listen to yourself, Nieta,” the older woman urged. “When your friend Ainsley didn’t want to be a wolf, what did you tell her?”

Grace sighed.

“That she needed to accept her true nature and embrace who she is.”

“This is who you are, Gracie. You’re special. It’s not your magic that makes you that way, but your magic is a part of you as much as your determination or your wit, or even your arms and legs.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Grace returned. “All you get is a craving for sweets and cigars.”

“At my age those extra helpings of dessert add up!”

Abuela laughed her surprisingly deep laugh and patted her little belly.

“You know, it wasn’t always this way,” Abuela said, hopping up to pour more tea.

Grace could feel a story coming.

“When you’re young and your blood runs hot, the magic has a bigger appetite. It triggers the emotions that already run so close to the surface of youth. You are lucky. For me it was anger. Any time I used my gift, I got mean as a snake for days at a time unless I found a way to let it out. One time I tried to keep it bottled up too long and ended up punching the shift-boss at the mushroom farm.”

“Abuelo?”

Abuela smiled, and for a moment looked thirty years younger.

“I felt so bad about it, and I was so scared to lose the job. I made him a big pot of my special Pozole. Once he got a taste, he forgot all about the punch. I made him a lot of Pozole over the years.”

Grace smiled sadly and thought of her abuelo in the rocker on her parents’ front porch. He was never too busy for a story or a boxing lesson.

“I miss him.”

“So do I. But he is always here with us.”

Grace straightened and looked around.

“Do you mean…?”

Abuela laughed again but softly this time.

“No, sweetie. Not like that. In our hearts and minds, same as anyone you love.”

“Did you ever think about…?” Grace knew her abuela could contact those who had passed on. They’d used those special skills together to try to contact Ainsley’s parents for her after their death. They had ended up getting a bit more than they had bargained for.

“Goodness, no,” Abuela said, shaking her head emphatically. “Your abuelo worked hard to get us to a place where we would be accepted for who we are. He deserves some rest. I’ll see him in good time. Meanwhile, don’t you feel bad or ashamed for one minute about any part of you. He would be proud of you. We all are.”

Their moment was ruined by the ringing of Grace’s mobile phone. The ringtone told her it was from the station. If no one picked up right away, incoming calls got bounced to one of the deputies’ phones. Dale was probably on the other line with his wife. Grace grimaced.

“Go on, then. You don’t get to be sheriff by ignoring your job.”

Grace stepped into Abuela’s bedroom.

“Officer Kwan-Cortez.”

“Um…I’m Lilliana.” The voice wavered, and she sounded a little muffled. “I’m a teaching assistant at the college. I…I have some information about the assault on the woman on Princeton Avenue.”

Grace thought quickly. No one should know that it was an assault. They hadn’t released any information at all to the public. Grace hasn’t even shared her suspicions with the other officers. She couldn’t, until she had something solid to go on.

“Thank you for calling me, Lilliana. Would you like to speak about this by phone or should I meet you at the station?”

“I - I don’t feel safe talking now. Can you meet me tonight at the college amphitheater? I don’t want anyone to see me at the station.”

The amphitheater was surrounded by the college woods. It was certainly private, but it was also exposed. Grace nearly offered to meet the girl in a public place in plainclothes instead, but she didn’t want to scare her off.

“That’s fine, Lilliana. What time?”

“I’ll be there tonight at seven. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I will see you at seven, and I won’t tell anyone. Thank you again for calling me - call me back if you want to meet sooner or somewhere more public.”

She came out of the room to find her Abuela packing Marranitos into a Christmas tin. The pig-shaped molasses cookies smelled delicious.

“These are for you to take to your new boyfriend.”

“How did you know?”

“I’m getting flashes of blond hair and blue eyes.”

Julian.

“No,” Grace said, thinking of Landon. “That’s not him. He has dark curls.”

“Like Bougereau’s angel, eh?” Abuela gestured to the framed print of The Abduction of Psyche over her sofa.

“Yeah, Abuela, kind of like him,” Grace replied, wondering if her abuela knew the man in the painting was supposed to be Eros - the opposite of an angel.

“No, that’s not right. Give these to the other guy,” Abuela said firmly, pressing the tin into Grace’s hands.

Not Landon. The other guy.

“And learn to cook! Because once he tastes these cookies, you won’t have to worry about paying the cost of your magic for long.”

She laughed her deep laugh again, and Grace couldn’t help but join her.

CHAPTER 8

Glistening red leaves mixed with the pine needles that carpeted the college woods. Each step that Ainsley took released the heady scent of the changing seasons.

But she hardly noticed. Ainsley and Erik were deep in conversation about the motives of the lone wolf they had yet to locate.

“What could he want?” she asked. “If he’s been here all this time, why doesn’t he show himself?”

“Maybe he’s gathering info for another pack.” Erik suggested. “Or maybe he’s planning to challenge you. MacGregor said it wouldn’t surprise him if another wolf tried to move in when leadership looked weak.”

“So my leadership is weak?”

“Not at all.” Erik laughed, as though the very notion were ridiculous. “Everyone is behind you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Any lingering doubts went out the window when you sent Clive packing. But we were without an alpha for so long, we were bound to get onto someone’s radar. Maybe he’s biding his time. Taking the measure of you. Deciding whether or not he should make a move.”

“So do I look tough enough to scare him away?” she asked.

“If he had any idea how tough you are, he wouldn’t be here in the first place. And if he sees you practicing any of that magic you used to blast Clive, he’ll be on the next bus out of town.”

Magic.

Ainsley was in serious trouble if her magic was the only reason they all thought she was tough. She pressed her lips together.

“Why do you always clam up whenever I bring up magic?” Erik asked. “You know I’m not against it. I happen to think it’s pretty cool.”

“It’s not that. It’s just…”Ainsley trailed off, unable to share her failure, even with her mate.

“Julian. You don’t want to talk to me about your special time with Julian.”

Dear god. He was jealous.

It was flattering and adorable and infuriatingly misplaced all at once. Her time with Julian was about the most dreaded and least ‘special’ part of Ainsley’s day.

Ainsley knew she should tell him the truth and ease his mind. Alpha image to uphold or not, he deserved to know. She opened her mouth to begin.

But her wolf rose up inside, closing off her throat, and whispering in her ear:

I am the alpha, I can mate with whomever I want, whenever I want.

Ainsley’s stomach turned. She certainly had no desire to mate with Julian. He wasn’t even a wolf. And since when was the wolf in charge? This was the man she loved.

As she struggled, Erik sighed.

“Never mind. I’m sorry I asked.”

“Erik.”

“Forget it. I’ll send Cressida by to pick you up when you’re done.”

He stopped walking.

Ainsley bit her lip in frustration. There was no time for this. As a matter of fact, she was supposed to be clearing her mind for practice.

She turned back to him, to tell him he didn’t need to worry, that she would tell him what’s going on later, when he came back for her.

But the look on his face froze her.

The air began to crackle and something stirred in the fallen leaves. A cascade of pine needles mixed with red and yellow leaves lifted from the forest floor and began to circle her.

As Ainsley watched in dismay, the circle began to glow a sickly yellow. The glow spread, illuminating a complex pattern inside. She knew the runes meant magic, but she couldn’t begin to decipher them.

“Ainsley, are you doing that?” Erik called.

She couldn’t move. Her feet rooted to the ground, and her muscles locked up like she had touched a live current.

The circle roiled, folding in on itself and regrouping. As they both watched, it took the form of a giant, glowing snake, encircling Ainsley.

Suddenly everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.

The snake reared up between them, baring dripping, silver fangs.

Erik crouched low and launched himself, shifting in mid-air and shredding his clothes.

Ainsley found herself thinking about how much she had liked that jacket as the snake began its strike in her direction.

Then, the enormous black wolf that was her mate crashed into her, knocking her out of the circle and putting time back in its place.

Before she could react, the snake’s fangs sunk into Erik’s back.

He howled in agony.

The wolf howl melted into a human scream as Erik shifted back.

It was the saddest sound Ainsley had ever heard.

Suddenly, the snake was gone and the leaves dropped back to the ground, as if they had never been anything but normal fall leaves.

Ainsley fell to the ground by Erik’s side. He seemed to be in one piece, but something was terribly wrong.

“What happened, Erik? What can I do? Can you shift to heal?”

“Ainsley.” His eyes were glazed and unfocused. “I can’t. My wolf… It’s…gone.”

Before she could take that in, the sound of crashing footsteps came toward them through the woods.

Ainsley struggled to hold her wolf in check. She opened her hand and a grapefruit-sized sphere of energy appeared instantly.

She turned toward the sound and prepared to throw.

CHAPTER 9

F or the second time since stepping onto the path, Grace thought she saw movement in the trees.

The college woods took on an ethereal quality every evening during the hour when dusk settled into Tarker’s Hollow. And this close to the full moon, there was no telling what might be prowling in the semidarkness.

She squared her shoulders and stepped up her pace. It was the light playing tricks on her - there was too much contrast between the dark shadows and spun gold of the oak leaves above.

To the rhythm of her steps, Grace repeated her questions. Why would someone harm Sadie Epstein-Walker? Why would a teaching assistant know details? Why meet at the amphitheater?

None of it made sense.

A hollow feeling filled the woods tonight. Grace couldn’t put her finger on it, but her inner voice was whispering of tragedy.

She tamped it down and kept walking.

Grace had never really gotten into exploring the college woods the way so many Tarker’s Hollow residents loved to do. While Ainsley was out here kissing Brian Swinton, Grace had been curled up on a chair with a text book, looking out over the trees from the safety of the library.

A stone monument marked the entrance to the amphitheater. Carved into a natural hillside, the half-circles of stone that formed the amphitheater’s stairs and seats were the blue-gray granite unique to nearby Springton quarry. The quarry had shut down two generations ago, but these stones had been in place for nearly one hundred and fifty years.

Grace took a deep breath and scanned the amphitheater from above. This was the best vantage point she was likely to get tonight.

In her periphery, the shadows seemed to move, but wherever she focused her eyes everything looked completely normal.

At the center of the amphitheater, far below, stood a young woman, presumably Lilliana. She stood out in a bright yellow raincoat with the collar turned up, though there had been no rain. Her too-bright red hair caught the last of the light, but Grace could tell, even from here, that it was a bad dye job - not her natural color.

Grace started down the deep carved steps toward the girl. As she descended, it grew darker, in part because the sun was setting, but also because the walls of the amphitheater blocked it out.

When she reached the bottom, the girl smiled at her. Her skin was so pale that her red lipstick seemed almost clownish in contrast. She was taller than Grace by a good six inches.

“Hi, I’m Lilliana.” She spoke with an exaggerated Southern drawl.

Grace immediately had a bad feeling about Lilliana. And she had learned to trust her instincts. But she was here now and had not called for back-up.

The weight of her taser in its holster reassured her. There were some unpredictable things in Tarker’s Hollow, but they all had the same reaction when introduced to 50,000 volts.

“Grace Kwan-Cortez.”

“Thank you so much for meeting me here, Miss Concordess.”

Grace nodded, ignoring her butchered last name.

“Please call me Grace.”

“Well, Grace, when I heard about that poor old lady, I just didn’t know what to do.”

Lilliana took another step closer and lowered her voice, making the conversation immediately feel more intimate and less professional.

“I swear, if I’d of known she was in any danger, I’d’ve called y’all right away. I didn’t think he was gonna hurt anyone.”

“Wait,” Grace said “Slow down. Who are we talking about here?”

“Mr. Sanderson,” Lilliana replied. “I heard him on the phone, telling someone that the old woman wasn’t cooperating, and he was tired of playing nice. He didn’t know I was listening, because I was in the storage closet-”

“Hang on a second. Where was this? And why were you in a closet?”

“Oh,” Lilliana said, with the air of having said too much.

“I need you to be honest with me if you want me to take you seriously,” Grace said firmly.

She tried to study Lilliana’s face, but by now they were in near full darkness, and the girl, who was several inches taller than Grace, was silhouetted against the barely lit sky that peeked through the tulip trees above.

“I didn’t want him to know I was there to meet the professor. No one really knows about us, on account of it wouldn’t really be appropriate for us to be having…a relationship until after I defend my thesis.”

“Where are you getting your degree?”

“Penn, but I got sent here to do a year as a teaching assistant. I did undergrad at LSU,” she added proudly.

“Which professor are we talking about?”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble…”

“Lilliana…”

The girl sighed.

Before the breath was out of her mouth there was movement in the woods. This time it wasn’t just a shadow, there was the light sound of jostled branches.

“Hello!” Grace called out in her most authoritative voice. “Is someone there?”

There was no reply, but sudden movement caught her eye just inside the tree line.

She was just in time to catch the shape of a man, dressed all in black, fleeing the scene.

Grace took off after him.

She tried calling for him to stop, and identifying herself as a Tarker’s Hollow police officer, but he didn’t acknowledge her commands.

Whoever it was, he was fast. Grace was no wolf, but she still held a few of the Tarker’s Hollow High track records. Her legs were short, but her lithe body gave her nearly endless stamina, and she hoped that her target would tire before she did.

She slipped her Maglite out of its place on her belt as she ran and sent a bouncing beam of light ahead of her. Grace couldn’t help but notice that whoever she was pursuing was doing an amazing job of running in the woods in almost full darkness without any kind of light.

As they approached the edge of the woods and the entrance to the path that followed the creek back out to the main campus, Grace gained on the mysterious runner and hoped to overtake him in a few more strides.

She pushed herself until her legs felt like they were on fire, and managed a burst of speed as she broke out of the trees right behind him.

She was just in time to see him dart behind a large tree.

Grace dropped her flashlight and rounded the corner of the tree with her arms out, hoping to snag him.

Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness without the flashlight’s beam, so by the time she was sure of what she was seeing it was too late.

The man in black was gone, and in his place a cluster of blackbirds flew straight at her. The flutter of their wings made a strange hushing sound and smooth feathers brushed her cheeks as they hurtled past.

She threw her hands up reflexively, but the last bird still slashed a deep cut across her cheek with its beak as it passed. Grace pressed her palm to the wound as she spun to look for the man in black.

He was nowhere to be seen.

Grace’s skin began to hum and tingle.

Magic.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then retrieved her flashlight. Luckily, it still seemed to be in perfect working order.

Grace thanked god for small favors and began to jog back through the woods to the amphitheater. Hopefully, Lilliana wouldn’t be too spooked to keep talking.

From the woods on the edge of the amphitheater, she could see that the grassy stage was empty.

Grace picked up her pace. Maybe Liliana had simply seated herself on the stone stairs.

She broke out of the woods and scanned the whole arena.

Empty.

“Lilliana?” she called.

There was no reply.

A swatch of color flashed in the beam of the light. Grace bent to pick up the belt to the bright yellow raincoat Lilliana had been wearing. It was the only sign that the girl had ever been there.

Grace took her time traversing the stairs back to the stone monument, hoping to see some sign of Liliana.

Though she told herself that the girl had simply been spooked, a flash of inner wisdom told her this disappearance was something more sinister.

Without warning, Grace was knocked in the chest with a horrible empty feeling. It echoed the whispers she’d heard in the woods on the way to this meeting, but amplified a thousand times.

And now she knew what it meant.

Ainsley needed her. Ainsley needed her now.

CHAPTER 10

J ulian paced the Sycamore Woods cul-de-sac waiting for Ainsley, too distracted to expand and contract his consciousness.

What was disturbing him? His skin was fairly crawling and yet there was nothing wrong.

Wildflowers growing from cracks in the pavement nodded at him in the slight breeze. As usual, there was a musty, leafy smell. The mournful sound of crickets cut through the stillness of dusk. Everything was as it should be in the abandoned neighborhood - just as it was at every sunset.

Suddenly he sensed a huge discharge of magic.

Deep in the trees beyond Sycamore Woods, a wolf howled. Julian ran toward the sound as fast as his legs would carry him.

As he approached the edge of the woods, the howl melted into a human scream with a note of despair so dark it turned his stomach.

He plunged into the woods. Ainsley was in there somewhere. And she wasn’t ready to protect herself. Though she should be by now.

As he crashed through the trees he was haunted by the image of the Coke bottle, wobbling on the stump.

He was moving so quickly that he was almost on top of her before he saw her.

Ainsley crouched low over a writhing body. So much magic coursed though her system that her eyes crackled blue. In her hand, an enormous blue ball of magic hissed and roiled.

Julian stopped in his tracks.

But it was too late. In her defensive state, Ainsley hurled the energy at him.

Julian tried to bring up a shield, but he was not prepared. He could feel the sizzle of the energy ball as it pushed aside the air between them.

Ainsley’s face was a mask of fury. She was terrifying but also somehow beautiful. Her nostrils were flared.

He had a flash of his failed ambush attempt yesterday afternoon. Would she smell him now? Did she know what she was doing?

Julian braced for impact, but it didn’t come.

Instead, the ball of energy crashed into the tree next to him, splintering it instantly into a million pieces.

The blue energy flickered out of Ainsley’s eyes.

Recognition softened her features.

“Help!” she called.

Her voice was high and reedy, utterly unlike her usual throaty purr.

Julian’s gaze dropped to the body at her feet.

Erik Jensen. He was unconscious, but sweating and moaning in pain.

“Please, I’m afraid I’m going to lose him!”

“Let’s get him to your house.”

Ainsley began to lift her mate in lieu of answering. Julian moved to help her.

A growl ripped out of her throat and he cringed reflexively.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, embarrassed.

“It’s very natural that you’re protective,” he tried to keep the shock out of his voice.

Ainsley hoisted Erik’s body like he was a child and draped his form over her shoulder.

“Let’s go,” she said, seemingly unbothered by the large man’s weight.

Ainsley was strong. Julian knew she would be, but her wolf qualities always seemed to surprise him. He had met her when she was almost all human.

They moved quickly and in silence until they got to the edge of the woods. They would have to cross the construction site and Yale Avenue to get to Ainsley’s house on Princeton. The streets were mostly empty, and Ainsley didn’t seem to be concerned with being seen by anyone.

They rounded the corner onto Princeton and Ainsley sped up again. She took the porch steps in a single leap, as though she weren’t carrying a full-grown man on her shoulder.

Grace Kwan-Cortez perched on the edge of the wicker sofa waiting for them.

Julian felt his heart lurch.

“I came as soon as I got your call,” she said in her soft, clear voice.

Julian didn’t remember Ainsley getting out her phone.

He was very glad to see Grace. This time he was determined not to be an ass.

“Let’s get him inside,” Ainsley said in a flat voice.

She carried Erik through the cozy living room with its built-in bookshelves. Julian couldn’t help but flash back to the moment they had let him in, in spite of everything, and he’d been allowed to explain himself. It was hard to believe that the angry young man who had been ready to send him packing was limp in Ainsley’s arms right now.

By the time they helped her lay Erik gently on the dining room table he was so pale he looked almost inhuman.

“Do you have a blanket?” Julian asked.

Ainsley nodded and sprinted upstairs.

Not wanting to look at Erik’s writhing naked body, Julian was left looking over the table at Grace. He hoped not in a lewd manner.

It was difficult to look at her at all without thinking of freeing her shining hair from the pony tail and running his fingers through it. He imagined it would smell like a summer night with evening jasmine blooming and fireflies winking in the plush darkness.

Ainsley was back and wrapped the blanket around her mate with such care. It seemed that she thought that maybe if she did it just right he would open his eyes and be well again.

“Can you tell me exactly what happened?” Julian asked.

She took a careful breath.

“We were walking in the woods. All of a sudden the leaves were circling me and there was this strange glowing pattern in them. And it turned into a snake. I was frozen in place. And just as it was about to bite me, Erik shifted and knocked me out of the way. And it bit him-”

She pressed her lips together tightly, unable to continue.

Dear god, the snake. Julian recognized the elements of that spell. Did this mean that Erik…?

He studied the younger man’s face out of the corner of his eye.

Erik did seem somehow…less.

But it could also be that he was passed out and in pain.

“Whoever set this trap is very, very good. I remember this spell from the book and it is a very difficult one,” Julian said.

“What do we do?” Ainsley asked.

“I don’t remember anything about a reversal or a cure,” Julian said carefully.

“The first thing to do for a snakebite is get out the poison,” Grace said firmly.

“This is not an actual snakebite. A cottage spell for venom doesn’t apply.”

Julian heard the dismissive tone in his voice as soon as the words were said. But he couldn’t take them back. So much for not being an ass.

Though he wasn’t a wolf, he could practically smell Grace’s disgust.

What was the matter with him?

“Turn him over,” Grace said calmly.

Ainsley turned Erik over like a mother rolling over a sleeping baby. A gasp escaped her as she saw the extent of the injury.

The wound was purple and swollen to the size of a softball. Black lines spread from it like a rotten spiderweb.

“It smells like…death,” Ainsley whispered.

Grace was unwavering. She traced a circle in the air over the wound with her arms, then another.

“This is going to be rough. Get him something to bite down on in case he wakes up in the middle.”

Ainsley dashed to the kitchen and came back with a wooden spoon. She placed it on the table next to Erik, then began to pace up and down the room.

Grace took a few deep breaths, drawing herself up to her fullest possible height.

She reached out over Erik once more. Her arms were strong, her movements fluid and graceful. Julian was reminded once again of a ballerina.

Slowly and deliberately she made motions as though she were gathering up cotton candy. Then she pulled.

Erik screamed. Ainsley placed the big end of the spoon in her mate’s mouth, and he bit down hard enough to make indentations in the wood.

Nothing happened to the wound.

Ainsley resumed her pacing. Four steps toward the kitchen, four steps back. The look on her face was terrifying.

Julian let out his breath slowly. Grace’s sheer determination had made him half expect her improvised spell to actually work.

“Damn it!” Grace hissed, squaring her small shoulders and beginning again.

Julian studied her face, sweat beaded on her brow and she breathed hard and fast, as though she were lifting a huge weight.

Grace wasn’t using the correct words - or any words. Her posture was dreadful and her breathing was worse. How could she possibly expect anything to happen?

Erik screamed again through clenched teeth.

Julian opened his mouth to shut her down. There was no point torturing the poor man.

A wisp of silver trickling out of Erik’s wound froze the protest in his throat.

The silver trickle had the appearance of oily smoke. It trailed upward, and hung in the air just over Erik’s back, shimmering in the light of the old chandelier.

Grace continued her labor, she was practically panting now. Sweat ran from her face down her neck and dampened the collar of her t-shirt.

The ominous smoke began to form a small silver cloud. More and more came out in silvery ribbons, like a stage magician pulling an unending scarf.

As Grace pulled, the swelling went down and the spiderweb of black on Erik’s back receded.

She was powerful. Incredibly powerful. Julian was thunderstruck. What could be the price for such magic?

Before he could try to imagine, the last wisp of smoke escaped Erik’s wound and the whole cloud dissolved like fog on the wind.

Incredible.

Ainsley went to Erik and rolled him gently onto his side.

He was out again, but his expression was peaceful now and his breathing steady.

Ainsley cradled Erik’s head tenderly in her arms. The indescribable expression with which she studied him thrust Julian far back in his memory to a visit to La Pieta. Ainsley’s ecstasy and despair reminded him of the Mother. A moment so intimate that Julian had to look away.

Grace lifted her eyes to meet his.

He braced himself for the comeuppance he richly deserved.

It never came. Grace’s knees buckled.

Julian was just able to catch her.

Here it was, the magic would take its price. She would be lucky to survive.

He was surprised to notice how good she felt in his arms. Her small body was very feminine in spite of its straight lines and hard angles. Somehow she fit him exactly. She smelled just like the jasmine he had dreamt of, but she was burning hot - her clothes were soaked through and clung to her frame.

Her eyelids fluttered, and then he was rewarded with that sable gaze. She observed him with confusion. And something else.

Something in her disposition had changed. Her fierceness was gone.

Why was she looking at him that way - like a fox in a henhouse?

Though Julian did not want to take advantage of her in her weakened state, his body did not agree. He could already feel himself responding to the question in her eyes. His heart pounded.

Her lips parted and he longed to taste her.

As if in a dream, she lifted herself to him, fulfilling his wish with a kiss so light it maddened him.

He forgot himself then and pulled her close, coaxing her mouth open and tasting her. She tasted like citrus and he could feel her tiny nipples press into his chest, hard as pebbles. She was warm, so warm. Too warm.

Just as he remembered the circumstances and tried to pull back, he felt the bite of her nails on his chest.

He groaned as the bittersweet pleasure overtook him and he dove back into her, not caring about anything except losing himself in her.

Grace seemed to melt into him. Her hands slid down from his shoulders to mold his chest, then further still.

His erection strained against his trousers, anticipating her gentle touch.

Instead, she stiffened in his arms and pulled away.

Her absence left him cold and aching. He closed his eyes for a second to try and find his balance.

When he opened them, he found Ainsley was staring at him in wonder.

Grace ducked her head and darted out of the room.

“I have to go,” she called as the front door slammed behind her.

Julian stood speechless, feeling for all the world like Cinderella’s prince at midnight.

CHAPTER 11

Grace burst in the door of her apartment and pulled it shut behind her, then leaned back against it, panting.

Now that she was home safely, she had no idea what to do. She realized in a panic that she felt no better than she had when she left Ainsley’s house. Her breasts ached and her nipples were so hard they hurt. She had never been taken by the feelings so completely.

Against her wishes, she thought of Julian’s kiss. His body had been so perfectly matched to hers, and his tongue. Oh god.

Her phone began to buzz.

Damn it.

It would be Ainsley.

Wondering why Grace had been all over Julian.

In total violation of the code of friendship as pertained to ex-boyfriends.

And more importantly, as Ainsley’s true mate lay practically dying and bereft of his nature.

How could she explain that the magic had made her forget…herself? That she had known nothing except the exquisite touch of the man who held her?

A man who didn’t respect her, she reminded herself, and whom she found to be pompous and repugnant.

What was with Julian Magie?

If it weren’t for the fact that he clearly held her in contempt, she would have been sure he had put a spell on her.

Why did she feel like the earth was dropping out from under her every time she saw him? She pictured him arriving at Ainsley’s tonight and how he had looked at her in that strange hopeful way. Her belly clenched with desire.

The phone stopped buzzing, and Grace decided it was best to call Ainsley when she was feeling better. Right now she could still taste Julian in her mouth, feel his body wrapped around hers.

It was only the healing spell, she told herself. She had never used so much magic at one time.

Oh god, the migraine that was going to come from this would be crushing.

She ran to the bathroom and began emptying the medicine cabinet. She wondered vaguely if it was possible that she might end up with an aneurysm or something.

Her doctor had given her a small bottle of serious migraine medicine last month - it had to be there somewhere.

There was a knock at the door.

Great.

The lights were on. Her car was out front. There was no use hiding.

She opened the front door, expecting the accusing stare of her best friend.

Instead, Landon’s tall frame filled the doorway.

“You aren’t answering your phone, I was worried.”

There was a tiny instant when Grace thought that maybe she could tell him she had the flu.

But when he gave her a gentle smile it was all over.

She grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt and dragged him in, trying not to notice the stunned expression on his face.

Grace’s apartment was the third floor of a large Victorian that had been divided into three units. The ceilings were charmingly sloped and gave the place a cozy feel.

But Landon’s height made the house feel miniature. Or maybe it was the other way around. Did the house make Landon seem larger than life? The Alice and Wonderland question banged around senselessly somewhere in Grace’s head as she kicked the door shut behind him.

He looked down at her in eager confusion. He seemed to like this version of Grace.

“Hi-”

The deep male note in his voice took away the last of Grace’s defenses.

She planted her hands against his chest and went up on her toes to seal his lips with a kiss.

He stilled a moment in surprise and then relaxed into her.

When she wrenched a fistful of his curls to pull him deeper into the kiss, he moaned.

She took the opportunity to slip her tongue into his open mouth.

He tasted like Tic Tacs and hamburgers. Probably a pretty typical guy taste. Grace stroked his tongue with hers.

His surprise subsided and his desire ramped up to match hers then.

Grace gasped as Landon broke their kiss to spin them around and press her against the door with his hips.

He took her face in his hands and gave her a look of great intensity.

“Is this what you want?”

Grace was almost past understanding.

Instead of trying to speak, she reached for the button of his jeans.

He laughed out loud.

“Oh, no, you little minx. You first!”

Before she knew what was happening, he was lifting her shirt over her head.

Though she knew she had a strong, healthy body, Grace dreaded the moment when Landon would see that she was built like an ironing board. No bra had enough “wonder” to change her body into the soft, voluptuous form that made men think of sex and fertility. If it weren’t for the magic making her wild, she would have insisted on the lights being out.

But as things were, the dread was a tiny twinge in a sea of pleasure.

The heels of his hands caressing her ribcage as he lifted the shirt felt like a thousand tiny kissing mouths. The hard door at her back chilled her deliciously. The air in the room seemed to be swirling on her skin.

“So pretty,” Landon sighed as he revealed her sky blue bra.

Grace could feel her nipples hardening painfully against the friction of the lace. She arched her back, begging for his touch. Her whole body was drowning in desire.

Landon had other ideas. He unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her body.

At least in this area, Grace felt confident he would not be disappointed. Though she was short, she knew she had fabulous legs.

Landon didn’t take the time to notice them, though. He nuzzled the junction of her thighs and then groaned with need.

The feel of his hot breath through her panties against her most sensitive place was maddening. Grace whimpered and her legs began to quiver.

Standing, he lifted her effortlessly into his arms.

“Where is your bed?”

Grace knew he was speaking English, but she was too far gone to turn the words into a meaningful question. Instead she grabbed a handful of his hair again to pull him in for another kiss.

He gave up on talking and strode toward the sofa.

Unfortunately the slope of the ceiling was low. Landon’s head bumped against it and he bit down hard on Grace’s tongue.

“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” he asked, holding her in one arm while he rubbed his head.

Her tongue hurt but not as much as other parts of her were aching and crying.

“Fine. You?”

“Fine!”

He laid her gently on the sofa and pulled his shirt up over his head.

His lean body was lightly muscled.

Grace felt herself heating up, like butter melting and bubbling in a pan. All dignity lost, she squirmed on the sofa. The supple suede cushions seemed to press and caress her from beneath.

Landon groaned in response, and hurriedly unfastened his jeans and let them fall to the ground. He peeled off his boxer briefs, releasing a very eager member.

Grace reached for him with beckoning fingers.

He stopped to remove a sock, but her fingers reached his cock before he could get the other.

He groaned as she gently explored him.

It must have been the magic. Somehow she was already so attuned to his responses that she knew the exact moment when he gave up on his sock and focused on her hands.

After a minute of torture he pulled her hands away.

“No, I’ll come,” he whispered.

Then he knelt at her feet and hooked his fingers under her sky blue panties.

He pulled once, twice, and then she assisted him.

It helped that she was in a cloud of wanting. Grace was not exactly experienced and she knew she would normally have been nervous.

Landon was stroking and marveling over the muscles of her thighs. Then his hands approached her silky mound. He stroked her curls with his long fingers.

Grace arched up frantically.

His breath caught and he leaned close, spreading her open with his hands. He paused for a fraction of a second to gaze adoringly at her.

She wiggled her hips and he chuckled and got down to business.

Grace had never really liked a man’s mouth on her. It was over-stimulating and under-stimulating at the same time - too much soft wetness, and not enough friction. And it was so intimate it made her self-conscious.

And men expected women to like it. A lot.

She was prepared to produce a killer fake orgasm just to get it over with when his mouth came down over her.

The first lash of his tongue sent waves of pleasure crashing over her.

Then he got down to work.

Grace could feel every stroke, ever swirl as though he was burning his mouth into her. She could feel herself swelling on his tongue.

Landon felt it too and growled his approval into her.

The sound reverberated through her and she felt herself, soaring, tightening in response.

She lifted her hips to him and he clamped his big hands on her to hold her still while he teased and coaxed her over the top.

In utter disbelief, Grace felt herself fly to pieces on his mouth.

She heard her own scream as the pleasure pulsed and squeezed from her.

Landon didn’t let go, even when it was over. And as he continued his explorations, Grace found herself shifting and moaning under him, desperate to come again.

Landon wrenched his mouth from her and crawled up to look her in the eyes.

He was too lost to ask the question again, but she heard it nonetheless. Is this what you want?

She wrapped her legs around his narrow hips in reply and pulled him to herself.

It was all the encouragement he needed.

Instantly she felt the tip of his stiff organ against her opening. She was so wet and swollen from his attentions that she wondered if it was possible for him to find entrance.

He sighed, his hot breath caressing her ear, as he pushed into her excruciatingly slowly.

Grace held her breath, waiting for stretching pain that never came. Instead she felt her body clamp down on him.

He clenched his jaw and eased himself slowly out of her and then back in.

It was too much.

Grace sunk her nails into his back and angled her hips up to him.

He groaned in surrender and began to drive in and out of her.

As ecstasy approached, Grace bounced herself up, bucking her hips to help him.

Landon breathed through pursed lips, beads of sweat formed at his brow. It was obvious he was making a desperate effort not to climax.

“Again,” he urged her, looking straight into her eyes.

She screeched like a cat and came, hard.

He gasped and pulled out of her to explode in his own hand all over her stomach.

“Wow,” he breathed.

Grace finally felt the self-consciousness she had been dreading and smiled with downcast eyes.

“Oh, geez, I’m sorry!” Landon said, looking down to her belly, which shimmered with the evidence of their passionate encounter. He probably thought she had been looking down at the puddle on her navel.

“No, no, I’m a little shy. I’m not mad about that.”

“You’re shy?” he asked.

Uncertainty played on his features. Even his curls looked inquisitive.

Grace laughed.

“Hey, do you have a towel somewhere, Grace?”

“Yes, grab one from the kitchen,” she inclined her head to indicate which way the kitchen was.

He stood and gave her a view of his lanky form as he padded into the kitchen with one sock on.

The sex had been incredible. He was handsome and sweet.

But when he stood and left her, she didn’t feel empty or cold, or whatever you were supposed to feel when you longed for your lover’s embrace.

What had she done? This stupid magic.

Landon returned with a towel. He had wet it with warm water. He stroked her belly with it gently.

To her horror, Grace felt her libido rev up even more than before. Her hips moved of their own accord and her nipples crinkled into stiff pebbles.

“Mmm,” Landon murmured, placing the towel on the floor and returning his attention to Grace’s bosom.

He ran his hands up her ribcage to press her breasts together. It would take more than that to create cleavage, but it ached pleasantly and Grace didn’t fault him for trying.

Landon lowered his face and licked one nipple into his mouth.

Grace was pierced with a pleasure so sharp she almost lifted off the sofa.

Encouraged, he sucked the other nipple.

She cried out helplessly.

It was too much for Landon, he fell on her again, kissing, licking, sucking and tugging on her nipples with his teeth.

The pleasure blasted through Grace. She ripped his head off her breasts and sat up. Then she wrapped one leg around his waist, straddling him where he knelt.

He pulled her on top of him and she felt him squeeze into her again. His breathing was harsh already.

The pleasure radiated out of her body and made the air seem to pulse. She rode him frantically, rocking so hard that the lamp on the side table crashed to the floor and shattered into a hundred pieces.

They ignored it and continued to ravage each other.

After all, magic always had a price.

CHAPTER 12

A insley followed a few steps behind Grace, taking in the sights of the forest as the rising sun struggled to banish the chill of the night.

Heavy mist illuminated the shafts of sunlight filtering through the trees, making the college woods look like a scene from the cover of a Bible study pamphlet. A cloud of fog lifted a foot off the path leading to the amphitheater.

Ainsley usually felt her best in the early morning, but today she was off to a rough start. She tried to take comfort in the soothing presence of her best friend.

But Grace’s heart was beating a little faster than normal. And she smelled like that guy she had been dating.

And Erik’s wolf was gone.

It was hard to stay tuned in.

“So…will he be okay?” Grace was asking.

No. No he will never be okay again, I can feel it.

“Yes, he’ll be okay. But he can’t shift.”

“Is it like what you did to Clive? And what Julian did to you?”

“No, this is different. That spell just… held the wolf in check for a few minutes. I could still feel her banging at the bars. Erik says he can’t feel his at all. It’s just gone.”

The hollow feeling that had followed Ainsley since Erik’s first scream of agony threatened to encompass her. She took a deep breath of cool, wet air and tried to push it aside. If not for herself, then for her mate, and for her pack.

Optimism was a necessity now, not a luxury. She was going to have to keep things light.

“What does Julian say?” Grace asked.

“I don’t know. His tongue was pretty busy last time I saw him…” Ainsley teased, trying to bring back some sense of normalcy.

Grace’s lips tightened.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered.

Ainsley was mostly just messing with Grace. She knew the magic revved Grace’s engine.

But… with Julian?

It had been beyond weird to see Grace going to town with him.

In part, it was because they seemed to dislike each other so much. (Which in itself was an oddity, since Grace was so likable and accepting.)

It was also because she had never seen her friend display affection in public. Never. Not even handholding at prom.

And it was probably against some sort of girl code to get with a guy your best friend had been with - though Ainsley was not one to stand on ceremony.

Because the whole thing had happened practically over the body of Ainsley’s injured mate, she knew it was the magic. But was it all really a side effect?

“What’s going on there?” Ainsley asked.

“Nothing.” Grace’s heartbeat said otherwise. “You know what the magic does to me.”

Ainsley didn’t like using her heightened senses to gauge the truthfulness of her friend’s claims. It felt like cheating somehow. But it was hard to tune out.

“Yeah,” Ainsley said. “But I’ve never seen you act like that.”

“I’ve never used that much magic before.”

Fair enough.

The weight of what had happened hit Ainsley again and she took another deep lungful of morning mist.

“Thank you for what you did, Grace. You saved his life.”

Grace smiled and shrugged.

“How did you know what to do?” Ainsley asked earnestly, thinking of her own magical failings.

Grace shook her head.

“I had no idea. I just trusted my instincts, and hoped the magic would guide me.”

“You can just do that?”

“Of course. You have to trust the magic, and trust yourself.”

Ainsley bit her lip and studied the mist hanging on the surface of the creek. She thought of the energy she had sent Julian’s way when she thought she was defending Erik. It didn’t seem very trustworthy.

“That’s not what Julian says.” Ainsley pictured the tree she blasted into oblivion. “He says I need to learn to control it.”

“Ha!” Grace laughed. “You can’t control magic. It’s like a living, breathing thing. You can use it, shape it, and it can flow through you. But you could no more control magic than you could change the course of a river by dipping your toe in it.”

“He says if I master my mind, body and spirit, bring them to harmony, then I can master the magical energy too.”

“What do you think of that?” Grace asked.

Ainsley thought. The familiar earthy smell of the bright leaves turning back to soil grounded her in herself.

“It seems to work for him,” Ainsley replied after some consideration. “But it takes years of training and practice and sacrifice. I don’t think I can manage all that and still be alpha of the pack. It sounds like he wants me to lock myself up in a monastery or something.”

“He’s talking out of his ass.”

“Wow.”

“Sorry,” Grace said. “I just think he’s way off base. No one in my family has ever had any formal magic training. How does he explain that?”

Ainsley paused, not wanting to offend her friend, but hoping to be honest with her.

“He says your magic is…different.”

“Different how?”

Ainsley looked back at the creek.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No,” Grace said insistently. “I want to know what he has to say about my lowly cottage magic.”

Ainsley swallowed. If she really wanted to know…

“He says you can only get so far on raw talent. Like playing an instrument, or anything, really. You can’t get to Carnegie Hall without a ton of practice, no matter how much of a knack you have for playing the piano.”

“What do you think, Ainsley?”

Ainsley studied her friend. There was no malice in her eyes, only curiosity.

“When he says it, it seems to make sense,” Ainsley ventured. “I mean, you have to work hard if you want to be good at something, right?”

“Did you have to work hard to be good at softball back in school?”

“Yes.”

“What about being a big shot Realtor?”

“Hell, yes!”

“Do you have to work hard at being smart, or funny or loyal?”

“Uh, no…”

“How about loving Erik?”

“Of course not!”

Grace stopped and placed her hand on Ainsley’s arm.

“That’s because those things are part of who you are,” Grace said. “They come naturally to you, but you can’t fake them. Like you can’t just go through the motions with the magic.”

Ainsley thought of the times she had used magic successfully. To avenge her parents. To protect her mate. She certainly hadn’t been faking it then.

“Is the magic part of who you are?” Grace asked. “Or is it some foreign thing to be mastered?”

“I… I don’t know,” Ainsley replied.

“Well.” Grace clapped her on the arm. “You’d better decide one way or the other.”

They continued to walk.

“Julian wants me to do it his way,” Ainsley said.

“Where would Erik be right now if it weren’t for my way?”

Ainsley’s stomach clenched at the thought of the way Erik’s wound had looked before Grace had intervened.

“True.”

“And besides, since when do you ever not do anything the Ainsley way?”

“That’s also true,” Ainsley admitted. “Thank you, Grace.”

“No,” Grace replied. “Thank you for coming out to help me today. It means a lot that you would do that with Erik…not himself.”

Ainsley gulped. It was time to change the subject.

“How’s Sadie?”

“She’s stable at least.” Grace frowned. “But she’s still comatose.”

“Aren’t wolves supposed to be speedy healers?” Ainsley asked, embarrassed at her own lack of knowledge on the subject.

“I thought so, too,” Grace said. “A better question might be, what’s going to happen to her on the full moon, Ainsley?”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. How had she not even considered that?

“I don’t know,” Ainsley admitted.

“That’s not good.”

It certainly wasn’t. How would they explain a comatose wolf to the decidedly non-lupine staff of the hospital in Springton?

It would have to be a question for later. They had reached the stone monument that marked the entrance to the amphitheater.

Ainsley looked down over the rows of carved stone seating. It was hard not to envision the faculty weddings and graduations that she had witnessed here over the years. As a little girl, she had run squealing up and down the rows after the other staff kids. She had never seen it hauntingly empty and hung with mist.

“Lilliana was down on the stage,” Grace whispered.

Ainsley nodded and they headed down together. It seemed silly to whisper, but the place certainly inspired a mysterious feeling.

When they reached the bottom, Ainsley lifted her nose to the sky. The moist, heavy air played tricks with the scents. It was like trying to smell through a pond. She’d have to shift to have any chance of tracking in this.

Instinctively, Ainsley wished for Erik and his amazing tracking skills.

Then she remembered that Erik couldn’t track anymore. A lump formed in Ainsley’s throat. She swallowed it down and began to search the arena for prints without much luck.

Grace pulled a zip-lock bag out of her jacket.

“This was hers,” she said, handing it to Ainsley.

Ainsley opened it and sniffed the yellow fabric of the belt inside. There was something… but she couldn’t quite catch it.

“Hold it a sec’,” she said.

Ainsley lifted her dress over her head and draped it on her friend’s shoulder.

In a breath, she sank into the form of her shimmering red wolf.

Her human’s world of sight narrowed and faded at the edges. And her sense of smell and hearing accordioned out into another dimension like the pop-up illustrations in a children’s book.

She lifted her snout and sniffed delicately at the belt in Grace’s hands.

Instantly, the scent revealed itself to her. It was sweet and flowery, the flavor of freshly baked bread and honey, as yellow as the coat.

It stretched out to Ainsley and beckoned into the woods. She trotted after it.

But the scent weakened and disappeared almost as soon as she hit her stride. It must have been the way the woman had entered the amphitheater, not the way she had left it.

Ainsley sauntered back out to the stage and lifted her muzzle to the breeze.

There was nothing.

Something familiar tugged at the edges of her thoughts, unraveling her concentration.

Ainsley slid up into her human form and took her dress back from Grace.

She pulled it back on and turned to her friend.

Grace was staring at her in shock.

“What?” Ainsley asked.

“I’ve just… never seen it up close before. It was amazing.”

“I hope you’re talking about my wolf,” Ainsley teased. “You’re not going to try to make out with me are you? Have you been using magic today?”

“You’re really not ready to let that go yet, huh?”

“Not even close.”

“So,” Grace asked. “Did you find anything?”

“No, I didn’t have any luck. But there was something strange.”

“What was it?”

Ainsley paused.

“What did you smell?” Grace asked again.

“Nothing.”

“What’s so strange about that?”

“Grace, I can smell the residue from the lamp you broke while you were having sex with Landon last night.”

“Oh…”

“I should never smell nothing.”

“Hm.”

“Can you use magic to hide your scent?” Ainsley asked.

“Maybe,” Grace replied. “I’ve never tried.”

“Let’s go ask Julian. He’s coming to my house to talk about Erik anyway.”

Ainsley turned toward the wooded path that led back to town.

“Actually, I have to go,” Grace said quickly.

“Sure you do.”

“I’m serious,” Grace said. “I have a possible suspect coming in for questioning.”

“I’ll tell Julian you said hi!”

CHAPTER 13

Grace arrived at the station twenty minutes before the appointed time. The interrogation room was blessedly free of parking meter change today.

She grabbed the Lysol and paper towels from her desk drawer and used them to clean the table top until it shone.

Satisfied, she ran the cleaning supplies back to her desk, helping herself to a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge on her way past.

She sipped it slowly while looking out the single window of the interrogation room at the Haber’s elm tree across from the fire station. The elm’s nearly bare branches twisted in a way that made it look like it was in constant motion, though of course the only movement it actually made was at the microscopic pace of its growth. A classic example of the fact that things weren’t always what they seemed.

“Hello?”

Garrett Sanderson’s voice brought Grace out of her reverie.

“Thank you for coming in again, Mr. Sanderson.”

“Please, dear, it’s Garrett,” he said.

When she looked up at him, he gave her a wolfish wink.

“A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat…” he said in a sing-song way.

Grace studied him calmly.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was thinking of the treasure that was here before.”

“Is that from a song?” Grace asked.

She knew full well it was Edgar Allen Poe’s Gold Bug. In high school, Grace had been a horror junkie. She moved through Poe and Lovecraft, and into King and Koontz, devouring all the books the librarian threw at her. Finding out she actually lived next to werewolves had been the coolest moment of her formative years.

“A book, actually,” Garrett replied, his tone dipping just to the border of condescension.

Perfect. Let him start off with some false confidence.

“Oh.” Grace wrinkled her nose a bit for good measure.

He sat down gracefully with a pleased look on his face. Once again, he held his cane like a scepter next to his elegantly crossed legs.

Grace smiled back, with practiced guilelessness.

“That is such an interesting cane.” She leaned forward to examine it. “What’s the carving at the head?”

“A wolf.”

“A silver wolf.” Grace nodded. “Does it have any special meaning?”

“It means I can walk without assistance, which isn’t always easy, especially when the weather is foul.”

Okay, so he wasn’t going to play nicely. Grace couldn’t help but think back to how fast the man from the amphitheater had been.

“What exactly is the nature of your injury, Mr. Sanderson?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant to your investigation,” he said brusquely.

Grace waited. She was learning that with Garrett Sanderson, the trick was to stay neutral, and let him fill in the blanks.

“Forgive me,” he said almost immediately. “It is an old injury, and I don’t really like to talk about it.”

Grace nodded sagely.

“Fair enough. Do you know Lilliana Atwater?”

Sanderson exhaled through pursed lips.

“Oh dear,” he said. “I suppose this was bound to come out. I should have told you straight away.”

Grace’s heart lurched and she fought to keep her face a mask of calm.

Was he going to confess?

Could it really be that easy?

“I have had some involvement with Miss Atwater,” he said, recrossing his legs.

Nothing was ever that easy.

“What kind of involvement?”

“Romantic,” Garrett said, tenting his fingers over the knob of his cane. “Although that part is over now.”

Again, Grace clamped down her instinct to ask a follow-up.

Garrett rewarded her by spilling, as she had hoped he would.

“I started seeing Lilliana when I first came to town,” he began. “I didn’t know anyone, and she was a bit of an outsider herself, so we connected. Maybe it was her southern hospitality. In any case, it ran its course, or so I thought. When I started spending time with Ms. Epstein-Walker, Miss Atwater wasn’t what you would call agreeable. She started calling me at all hours of the night. I had to block her number. She even started following me around, spying on me, if you will.”

Grace heard Lilliana’s voice in her head, He didn’t know I was there, because I was in the storage closet.

“I was with her the night of Sadie’s accident,” he continued. “I agreed to meet with her, simply to tell her that it was over, and it would be better for both of us if she moved on.”

He paused and smoothed his thumb over the silver head of the wolf on his cane.

“And how did she take that?” Grace asked.

“Not well, I’m afraid. She told me that I wasn’t cooperating, and she was tired of playing nice.”

Those were exactly the words Lilliana had quoted. The problem was, she’d told Grace that Garrett had said them about Sadie.

Grace fought the temptation to use her magic. This would have to be sorted out with good, old-fashioned police work. Fortunately, Grace was very good at that very thing.

“I didn’t think she was serious, or I would have reported it,” Garrett said. “Wait. You don’t think she had something to do with Sadie’s accident, do you?”

“We are still looking into every possibility,” Grace said, keeping her demeanor calm and professional.

“Have you questioned Miss Atwater?”

Though she didn’t need to tell him, Grace was curious to see Sanderson’s reaction.

“Lilliana is missing,” Grace said. “She hasn’t been seen since last night.”

Sanderson’s eyes widened. He rested his cane against the table and placed his palms on its cool surface. For once he remained silent.

Either this was news to him, or he was one hell of a poker player. Grace began to wonder if maybe she had been barking up the wrong tree.

Maybe Lilliana had run because she was afraid to be caught in a lie. Grace was back to square one.

Damn.

“Thank you for your time, Garrett,” Grace said.

She stood abruptly, anxious to be done with the man and back to her investigation. In her haste, she bumped the table, knocking over his cane. Without thinking, she bent to retrieve it for him.

As her fingers grazed the silver wolf’s head, a tidal wave of static washed through her, nearly knocking her off-balance again and reverberating in her head until her teeth ached.

The sensation matched what she had felt in Sadie’s house perfectly.

“Are you alright?” Garrett asked.

He swept the cane out of her hand, releasing her from the hold of the feedback.

“Sure,” Grace said, summoning all her willpower to hide any indication of what she’d just experienced. “I just stood up too fast. Sorry about that. We’ll be in touch if there is any new information.”

Grace smiled tightly and opened the door for the older man.

He gave her an enigmatic smile as he headed out, the tapping of his cane reverberating in the empty hall.

CHAPTER 14

Erik was having a hard time adjusting.

No matter what else was wrong in the world, everything was right in the hardware store. At least that was what Erik had always believed.

Today every corner of Tarker’s Hollow seemed to be painted in bright colors but was suspiciously devoid of smell. And nowhere was it more obvious than in Hollow Hardware, where the smell of saw dust was thin and two dimensional, and what Erik knew should be the heavy scent of axle grease barely met his consciousness.

Physically, his body was stiff from the wound, but no worse for wear. His senses, however, seemed impossibly dulled. Was this how most people really experienced the world?

Telling MacGregor his wolf was gone had been distasteful, but it was good to have it off his chest and there was no one else he would trust with it. MacGregor had been the pack’s beta since Ainsley’s father’s tenure as alpha.

Erik and MacGregor both leaned on the counter in a friendly way, like they always did when transacting business or talking about the pack.

“So, Ainsley can fix it?” MacGregor asked tentatively, fiddling with a display of mini-flashlights.

“She’ll find a way. She’s been spending a lot of time working on her magic. She’s training now.” Erik was pretty sure his own concern was evident in his voice, in spite of what he had said.

MacGregor nodded slowly.

“But I don’t want this getting out,” Eric added.

MacGregor slid the flashlight display aside and nodded at him with a serious expression.

“Agreed. If anyone found out, your place in the pack would be in jeopardy.”

MacGregor looked down again, as though he had said too much.

It was irritating as fuck not to be able to know how worried he was by his heartbeat.

The bell at the front of the shop jingled.

Charley Coslaw ducked in. The real estate broker was tall enough to ring the bell a second time with his head if he wasn’t careful.

“Hey Mac!” Charley boomed.

“Charley.”

“How’s business today?” Coslaw asked, slipping a key out of his pocket and handing it over.

“A little slow.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Charley did sound actually sorry. He grabbed two flashlights from the can on the counter and poked around the bin of gardening gloves while MacGregor ground a copy of the key.

“Everything alright with you?” he asked Erik.

“Sure,” Erik replied. Charley was a fixture in town, but he was human, not part of the pack. Erik had used him for a few real estate transactions in town.

Erik thought about asking for Charley’s advice about the EPA hassle on the job site. But his mood was low enough without talking about that right now.

MacGregor rang Charley up.

“Thanks much, Mac,” Charley said. “I’m glad you’re sticking it out. Tarker’s Hollow wouldn’t be the same without the hardware store. It’s an institution.”

With another jingle of the bells he was gone, carrying his purchases in a small paper bag.

“Is business really so bad?” Erik asked.

“The Inn construction slowed us down and we were never really ramped up to begin with.”

Erik glanced through the hardware store’s glass door to see his equipment sitting useless on the empty site across Yale. Traffic had already been sidetracked with an alternate route to the train station when he’d been shut down. God only knew how long this would go on.

“Charley worries about it almost as much as I do,” MacGregor continued. “He’s a good guy. I swear he comes in here ten times a day to copy a key, and he buys other stuff every time he’s in just to keep me going.” MacGregor lowered himself to lean on the counter again and whispered conspiratorially. “Those were ladies’ gardening gloves!”

Erik smiled. Everyone knew Charley was a nice guy. He wondered if Ainsley might go to work with him one day if things ever calmed down with the pack.

Of course, they might not.

It was best to rip off the band-aid.

Erik took a deep breath and tackled the elephant in the room.

“If I can’t get my wolf back, Ainsley will need another mate. For the good of the pack.”

MacGregor cleared his throat.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said. “We need to focus on getting through whatever this new threat is. And figuring out who the lone wolf is. And keeping your little problem a secret until we can fix it. Could be worse.”

“I don’t see how,” Erik said.

The bell jingled again.

They looked up to see a woman in an expensive-looking pewter gray business suit with a stern expression on her face striding purposefully through the door. Shining hair the color of black coffee skimmed her shoulders and perfectly matched her narrowed eyes.

The hardware store was a place of quiet contemplation. Her aggressive energy cut through the ambiance like the machete Erik used to clear the bamboo in his back field.

Erik didn’t recognize her. But MacGregor clearly did. He straightened, pushing himself off the counter swiftly.

Erik followed suit.

“Councilman Winter!” MacGregor said, coming out from behind the counter. “We’re honored to have you, Madam.”

“You should be.” The woman’s tone was as cold as her gaze. “Where can I find Ainsley Connor?”

Shit.

Ophelia Winter.

She was a member of the Federation’s Executive Council and a major bigwig. Erik had heard her name many times.

She wasn’t known as the forgiving sort. And she would not be happy to hear that Tarker’s Hollow’s new alpha was off taking magic lessons.

“Our apologies, Madam,” MacGregor replied. “Our alpha and pack master does not feel it necessary to keep us apprised of her whereabouts. We serve at her convenience.”

A cruel half smile played along the corners of the councilwoman’s thin lips. It seemed she was pleased by MacGregor’s answer.

Relief washed over Erik. MacGregor was quick on his feet.

“Very well, then,” she said. “Show me to my lodgings and send word to her that I require her presence before the night is over.”

Lodgings?

“We haven’t been honored with a visit from the Federation in a generation-” MacGregor began.

“You can stay at my house,” Erik offered. Ainsley had just helped him furnish the guest room. It might be best if the Councilman stayed somewhere they could keep an eye on her.

“This is Erik Jensen,” MacGregor said quietly.

Councilman Winter’s flint gaze moved to Erik. She looked him up and down, openly appraising him. The edge of hunger in her gaze would have roused his wolf in spite of himself. As a man, very much in love with Ainsley Connor, Erik felt decidedly uncomfortable.

“That will do nicely,” she said.

Fuck.

She had already turned on her heel and headed to the door.

“I understand you are in charge of all this unsightly construction,” she said.

“Yes, I am.”

“Excellent, Mr. Jensen. Walk with me, we have matters to discuss.”

Erik threw one helpless look at MacGregor over his shoulder.

MacGregor shrugged almost imperceptibly.

The councilwoman’s heels rapped the sidewalk with every step, reminding Erik of Ainsley’s spiky sandals. They crossed Yale without speaking and arrived at the chain link fence separating the construction zone from the sidewalk.

“Why is this site not operating?”

“The EPA shut us down temporarily. They were tipped off anonymously that the site may have been a habitat for short eared owls.”

“Is that true?”

“No.”

“I’ll look into it. But it could be felicitous. We have need of someone with your skills. Perhaps if you can help us, we can help you with the EPA.”

“Sure. I mean, yes, Madam.”

Ophelia Winter had been studying the machinery. She turned back to Erik with a practiced smile.

“Which way is your house? I’ll explain while we walk.”

Erik indicated the path through the campus to the north end of town and his home.

Ophelia smiled and started off.

“Are you familiar with the Copper Creek pack?” she asked.

“That’s in Jefferson county, right?”

“Exactly. We got word this morning that they are in a state of emergency. There’s been a mining disaster. The whole town is devastated. We need someone with your expertise to get out there right away and get the pack back on its feet.”

Erik nodded quietly. He knew without his wolf senses that he didn’t really have a choice. It was awful to think of any pack losing so many members at once. But Ainsley needed him here.

“Most of the pack males were in that mine. The Copper Creek alpha is presumed dead. If you handle the matter well, you could be in the running to take over the pack.”

There was a time in Erik’s life when he would have been pleased at the idea of becoming an alpha. He wasn’t sure if it was the absence of his wolf, or the experience of watching Ainsley tackle pack leadership, but the idea didn’t really appeal to him anymore. And of course, he was Ainsley’s mate and couldn’t be spared.

Though she kept herself pretty busy without him these days.

It certainly didn’t seem wise to address any of this with Ophelia Winter. He nodded and they walked on in silence. Soon enough they reached Erik’s house.

“This is me,” Erik indicated the house.

“Very nice,” Ophelia said.

As they entered the porch, Erik saw Ophelia’s nostrils widen. He figured she must be scenting that there was a female here often. That was good. Hopefully she wouldn’t eat him for lunch.

He opened the front door and led her though the living space to the first floor guest room. It wasn’t large but it was handsomely decorated, thanks to Ainsley. The walls were covered in gleaming chestnut wainscoting. Ainsley had brought over an antique black rocking chair from her own attic and bought an arts and crafts quarter-sawn oak headboard for the bed. The window behind the rocking chair overlooked the trees on the hill that separated Tarker’s Hollow from the borough’s open space and ultimately the neighboring town of Springton.

“You have excellent decorating taste, Erik Jensen,” the councilwoman said, looking around appreciatively and allowing her gaze to rest on him.

“Thank you, Madam, I had help. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

“Yes, travel can be such a burden in my position,” Ophelia said, unbuttoning her suit jacket to reveal a creamy satin blouse.

While Erik watched, she slowly opened the top button of the blouse.

“And with the moon waxing, it’s important to get comfortable as often as possible,” she added, giving him a frank look.

Shit.

Ainsley.

“Ainsley may be going for a run,” Erik said. “She often does at this time of the evening. I’m going to fetch her for you before she gets too far out.”

Ophelia blinked and an unpleasant expression flickered across her face. It was gone by the time her eyes were open again, replaced with her professional smile.

“Don’t be too long,” she smirked and nodded dismissively at him.

Erik was nearly rooted to the spot in panic.

“No, Madam, I’ll be right back with her.”

Ophelia took a single step forward and lightly ran her hand down the front of his t-shirt.

“Yes. Yes you will,” she purred.

CHAPTER 15

J ulian walked briskly down the sandstone sidewalks.

The tree canopy overhead burned with fall colors, but he didn’t allow himself to take it in. The sooner he got to Ainsley, the sooner he would have this weight off his chest.

He hadn’t slept last night. Instead he’d spent hours combing the books, researching online through his magical community, and even making a midnight call to a colleague in Europe who had obliged him by rushing out to pore over an ancient tome.

He reached her front hedge and saw that she was on the porch, sponging the wooden door. Some things about Ainsley hadn’t changed when she became alpha.

“Are you cleaning?” he asked.

She shrugged and her ponytail bobbed.

“If we’re putting a spell on it,” she said, “let’s put a spell on it, not the dust on top of it.”

He laughed in spite of himself.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said. “I know you came to do wards on the doors, but can we talk about Erik first?”

He paused and she grinned at him.

“Or we could talk about Grace…”

Fuck.

“Let’s do the wards first, I’ll feel better when that’s done,” he said quickly.

“I thought you guys looked almost like you belonged together. Even though I know you don’t like each other.” She shrugged and moved the bucket and sponge to the wicker table. “I guess magical side effects conquer all.”

“Pardon?”

“Like you always say, magic has its price.” Ainsley wiped her hands on her jeans. “For Grace, the price is, uh, desire.”

Dear god. How had he not put that together himself?

“So, how do you put a ward on something?” Ainsley asked, changing the subject.

Julian shook his head, willing himself to put thoughts of Grace and her affliction aside.

Since that incredible kiss, Julian’s chest had been filled with a lightness he hadn’t felt for many years, in spite of the gravity of the work he was doing for Ainsley. He hadn’t realized how hopeful he’d felt until this moment, when those hopes were dashed.

Suddenly, the colors were draining out of the radiant fall day and his heart was heavier than before the kiss. Why must the shadows obscure every bright thing?

Why did Grace hold such power over him? He was no melancholy schoolboy. He had important work ahead. Work that would require all of his concentration.

He ran his hand through his hair and looked back to Ainsley.

She gave him a crooked smile.

He shuddered inwardly, wondering when he might see her smile again after the news he had to give her.

“To begin with,” he said, “the magic we will need today is abjuration. Where the evocation we’ve practiced deals mostly with damaging an enemy, abjuration is designed to protect, or interfere.”

Ainsley’s eyes were already beginning to glaze over.

“Let me demonstrate,” he offered, glancing around to be sure the sidewalks were clear of any potential onlookers.

Julian spoke the proper words with perfect inflection. Instantly, his hands held a writhing mass of energy that shifted and squirmed, in contrast to the smooth blue spheres they had used for target practice.

“Now you,” he said.

Ainsley took a breath and repeated his words. A fragile handful of what looked like blue worms appeared in her palm.

After the unbelievably powerful evocation she’d nearly killed him with last night it was pathetic. But he didn’t feel right pushing her today.

“Now we’ll paint a symbol around the portal in question.” He lifted his right hand and used it to wrap the blue light around the frame of her front door. At first, it didn’t want to take, as though there were already some kind of magic on the door. Julian examined the wood carefully, but saw no trace of any kind of spell. On the second attempt, he managed to make it stick.

He looked back at Ainsley who watched him in wonder.

“Come on, you take the other side,” he said.

She stepped forward and tried to wrap her light around the other side of the frame. It didn’t want to stick either.

How odd.

Ainsley scowled and tried again. This time, a delicate thread of blue trailed her hand and clung to the door. She looked to Julian.

“It’s enough,” he said.

They stepped back.

“Now the binding spell: Avertat ab inimicis Clausa custoditur,” he intoned.

They watched as the shimmering blue paint turned white, then disappeared.

“That’s all?” Ainsley asked.

“That’s all. How many more doors are there?”

“Sunporch, back door, family room door,” she counted them off on her fingers.

“Okay, you’ll do the next one on your own, Ainsley.”

She cocked her head and remained in place.

Julian made a move to go inside, but she held up a hand to stop him.

What was she up to?

The jingle of a leash and collar signaled the approach of a pedestrian on the sidewalk. Of course she had heard it before he had.

“Hey there!” boomed a familiar voice. A tall man with a small dog rounded the hedge. It looked like that real estate man.

“Hi, Charley!” Ainsley called back. “What are you doing with Camilla Parker Bowles?”

“I told Dale I’d keep her awhile. Until Sadie’s out of the hospital.”

The dog headed right for Ainsley’s house. Charley laughed and followed.

“I guess she knows her neighbor,” Charley said.

Ainsley knelt to pat the little dog. It had no interest in her. Instead, it headed straight for the rhododendrons and began to paw around. Julian recalled landing rather harshly in those same shrubs. Someone must have replaced them.

“Oh no you don’t, missy,” Charley admonished.

The dog didn’t want to take no for an answer, but a tug on the leash brought her back to the walkway, where Charley scooped her up.

“Have you two met?” Ainsley asked politely.

Julian shook his head. This was not a good time for a meet and greet.

“Charley, this is Julian. He’s a visiting professor.”

“Nice to meet you,” Julian heard himself say politely.

Charley immediately extended the hand not holding the little dog and shook vigorously with Julian.

“You too, I’m Charley Coslaw. And this is Camilla Parker Bowles.”

A King Charles spaniel named Camilla Parker Bowles. Fucking Americans.

“Camilla,” Julian said.

He swore the dog nodded at him coolly.

“It’s good of you to take care of her, Charley,” Ainsley said.

“I go for a lot of walks anyway - always wanted a dog of my own. Maybe this little lady will inspire me to take up dog ownership.” Charley smiled down at the dog.

Camilla Parker Bowles lunged out of his arms, and hit the ground running for the rhododendrons again.

“I guess we better get moving. You guys painting the front door?” Charley asked as he retrieved the little dog again.

“Thinking about it,” Ainsley said. “Any suggestions?”

“I always like a red front door. And black shutters. Shows well. But if you’re not selling, just paint it however you like. It’ll need it again soon enough after the winters we’ve been having. Speaking of not selling, I’ll stop by with a termination to that listing contract this evening if that’s okay?”

“Thanks, Charley,” Ainsley said.

He waved good-bye and headed down Princeton.

“Nice guy,” Julian said.

Ainsley sat down on the front steps. She had a serious look in her eyes. He knew the time had come.

“Julian, listen, I know we have three more doors. But I need to talk about Erik now. He’s my mate and he’s suffering. Please tell me you can fix him and I’ll evoke all afternoon, ok?”

Abjure. Julian thought twice about correcting her, and decided against it.

The plaintive note in her voice tugged at his heart strings and he knew that she knew already, must have known in some part of herself what he should have known from the beginning.

He took her hand in his. Her hazel eyes implored him.

“Ainsley, I’m so sorry.”

Her jaw twitched, but she held herself together.

“So you need to do some research,” she said.

“No. The research is done.”

“But there has to be some way.” Ainsley’s voice lifted a note.

Julian shook his head and squeezed her hand tighter.

“What if we find the one who set the trap?” she asked. “That’s the way it always works in the movies.”

“That might be helpful if there were a counter-curse. The caster would have no trouble reversing his own spell. But the people who wrote those spells weren’t worried about giving wolves back - there are no counter-curses to any of the spells.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again.

“So it’s over?” she asked.

The thought flitted through his head that there was a time when he would have been so happy to hear her ask that question - when he would have tried to win her for himself.

But that had been before he truly became her friend.

And before he’d met Grace.

“Ainsley, I don’t think there are options to bring his wolf back. If you love him, you’ll make it work. Wolf or no wolf.”

She was a woman of character and she would stand by her mate, he knew that about her.

But Ainsley stared through him with a blank, soulless expression.

“Right, Ainsley?” he asked.

“My pack…” she whispered.

And in spite of the warm sun through the maples, Julian shivered.

“I’ll do the rest of the wards,” he said. “Why don’t you go find Erik and talk with him.”

She didn’t even say good-bye. She just ran into the house.

He heard the back door slam a moment later, and he pictured her running into the woods, shredding the jeans and melting into a giant red wolf.

CHAPTER 16

A insley dropped into her wolf as soon as her feet hit the grass of the backyard.

She didn’t care about whether the neighbor kids might be outside, or how hard it would be to replace her favorite pair of jeans. She only knew that she couldn’t be human for one more minute.

As her paws hit the moist dirt, her vision contracted and the earthy smell of autumn filled her lungs. Though she still felt sadness, the delirious bunching and releasing of her massive muscles distracted her. And the sadness was all one thing, bound together - a lost mate - not the complicated tangle of history and guilt her human mourned.

A familiar scent beckoned. It was her mate and not her mate. His slow footsteps crashed clumsily through the brush.

With regret, Ainsley rose back to herself.

Erik was running toward her. His face had an unfamiliar flush and he was gasping. My god, she’d never seen him out of breath before.

When he caught sight of her he flinched. Had he not heard her coming?

“Ainsley!”

“Erik, what’s wrong?”

He bent over with his hands on his knees and huffed. After a moment he straightened and gave Ainsley an intense look.

“Someone is here, someone important from the Federation.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Ophelia Winter, she’s on the Executive Council. She’s a big deal. We have to get back to my house. And she absolutely can’t know about my wolf.”

Ainsley was shot through with a bolt of grief. She closed her eyes.

“Erik, we need to talk.”

“After you meet Ophelia, yes, come on!”

He turned and began to walk in the direction of his house.

A wave of fury at this insubordination washed through Ainsley’s wolf.

“No,” she said in her calmest, cruelest alpha voice.

Erik turned, amazed.

“Ainsley, she wants you, you have to come.”

“I’m the alpha. No one summons me.”

“She outranks you, Ainsley,” he said slowly. “And you need to be careful with her.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s here for the Federation, to sign off on you. If you handle it the right way. If she says the word you’re out.”

“I won the pack by inheritance and by blood,” she said.

“Yes,” Erik replied. “And until Ophelia Winter signs off, the Federation will not officially recognize you as the alpha.”

Ainsley’s wolf gnashed and shuddered near the surface of her skin. It was all too much, the anger, the pain. She needed to shift, to run. But Erik couldn’t run with her… She wanted to scream.

“How are we going to explain what’s going on when you don’t shift in two days?” she asked instead.

“I was kind of hoping we’d have this thing figured out by then,” he admitted, reaching through the distance between them to stroke her hand.

As it always did, Erik’s warm touch soothed her immediately. Ainsley felt her shoulders go down. They began to walk back toward his house together.

“We’ll have to think of an excuse,” she said. “Fake an accident or something. Something to keep her from asking questions.”

She thought of Sadie. Oh boy, there was another kettle of fish.

“Hey, would you shift if you were in a coma?” she asked.

“Don’t you think that’s kind of harsh?” Erik asked uncertainly.

“Not you!” She laughed, in spite of herself. “Sadie Epstein-Walker. She’s in a coma in the hospital in Springton. Is some orderly in for the surprise of his life when he comes in to check her bedpan and finds a sleeping wolf instead?”

“Why, Mrs. Epstein-Walker, what big ears you have!” Erik laughed. The sound made her tingle all over.

“I’m serious!”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it’s possible. The pull of the moon is pretty strong. Especially around here.” He gazed up with a wistful expression. “It’s so strange to lose that connection.”

Ainsley looked up at the swelling moon. It seemed to pulse and blur at the edges as she looked at it.

“Is this how regular people feel all the time?” Erik asked. “Even my senses are going. I feel like I’m being dragged down. Like Harrison Bergeron.”

Ainsley raised an eyebrow at him.

“You do know that I can read, right?” he asked, the smile returning to his face. “It’s just that I can’t smell anything, and my ears feel like they’re plugged with wet cotton.”

A rustle in the woods nearby caught Ainsley’s attention.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“Very funny.”

“No, I’m serious! Shut up.”

They froze. A twig snapped.

“There it is again!” Ainsley lifted her nose and sniffed the night air.

There was the homey warmth of rotting leaves, the light musk of the small animals, and another scent. It was rich and strong. A wolf.

But not one of the pack. A stranger.

Ainsley grabbed Erik by his t-shirt and inhaled.

“This Federation chick, was she close to you?” she asked.

“Well…” Erik looked almost guilty.

Ainsley took in the scent of the woods again.

“This isn’t her.”

Before she could extrapolate, a brown form exploded into the clearing. He was enormous. Though not as tall as Erik’s missing black wolf, the stranger was much wider in the chest and shoulders.

Something in his wide-legged stance and the soft look of his chestnut coat made her think this was a younger wolf. His snarl made it clear that he had something to prove.

Well, he’d come to the wrong place. Ainsley looked forward to kicking his ass.

“Ainsley!” Erik cried helplessly.

Fuck. Erik would be defenseless now.

“Stay back, Erik, I’ve got this under control,” she said, carefully modulating her tone.

She turned to the chestnut giant and gave him a disdainful stare.

“I don’t know who you are,” she said. “But you picked the wrong time to come trespassing on my territory. I’ve had a really bad week, but it will be nothing compared to what’s going to happen to you if you don’t turn tail right now.”

To his credit, the young wolf held his ground. He really was enormous, which probably made him used to getting his way. This was going to be very disappointing for him.

As she studied his form, he growled. The sound seemed to emanate slowly from the tips of his paws and rumble through his belly.

Ainsley pulled her dress over her head and tossed it to Erik. The cold air on her skin barely registered as her wolf moaned and pawed to come out.

“I am Ainsley Connor, alpha of the Tarker’s Hollow pack, and I accept your challenge.” Her voice echoed off the trees.

She slid gracefully into her red wolf.

The two wolves faced off, circling each other. The familiar woods reached out to Ainsley, she knew every tree, every contour of the forest floor. She had only to keep a small part of her awareness on her enfeebled mate, and the rest could be focused on her enemy like a laser.

The lone wolf rushed at her. But his enormous form needed momentum, and he projected his intentions long before he moved. She dodged him almost before he took a step toward her.

The waxing moon and the pull of her pack coursed through Ainsley’s veins. She felt invincible.

He rushed her again without heaving and this time came closer. He was strong and fast, and a quick learner.

But Ainsley was faster and stronger.

She dodged him a few more times, enjoying the game. Each time she stayed put longer, teasing him. Then her heart leapt as she sailed away from him at the last moment, landing on stiff, prancing legs.

Infuriated, he circled Erik then, and snapped at him.

That was not acceptable.

In a flash of red fur, she was on him. Frantically, he tried to shake her off. But Ainsley had a huge mouthful of his scruff in her teeth. She bit down hard and splayed a paw against his back, pressing hard.

The sheen of his fur in her mouth went salty with blood and still Ainsley bore down on him.

In a single breath, he relaxed under her and rolled onto his back, showing her the creamy fur of his belly and the tip of his brown tail between his hind legs.

Then he shifted.

Ainsley shifted too.

She quickly wrapped a hand around his throat in place of her teeth, and looked down at her assailant.

He was short, but bursting with muscles. A tribal tattoo encircled each of his biceps, which were immense and chiseled. He peered up at her with large hazel eyes through too-long soft brown hair the exact color of his wolf’s fur.

Strong as he was, she held him easily.

He glared up at her and bared his teeth.

Ainsley simply stared back until he broke eye contact and looked away.

Her wolf was delighted with this show of submission. The approval was followed by an immediate instinct to mount and claim him.

Before she could consider it fully, she felt him stir under her. His nostrils were flared slightly and his eyes were locked on her breasts.

She felt a jolt of heat between her legs that was echoed in his feverish shiver beneath her.

The moonlight drenched her skin and left her feeling half-drunk with power and desire. Her nipples hardened painfully.

His whole body tightened in response and his cock throbbed helplessly where it was pinned to his washboard abs by her posterior.

Ainsley nearly succumbed to her wolf’s command to slide herself against him.

Oh god, Erik was right there.

Was this what wolves did?

The alpha inside her commanded her to claim the omega beneath her.

The human part of Ainsley Connor reached blindly for control.

In a heartbeat, she slid her hand down the muscular planes of his chest, and then further, to grip his stiff and quivering organ.

She tightened her fists to squeeze his penis and his throat at once until he whimpered.

“Your life is mine now,” she said in her coldest alpha voice, tightening her grasp on his throat as he began to sputter.

“This is mine now,” she said, squeezing her other hand tightly. “And if you ever fuck with anyone in my pack again, I will rip this off and serve it to you before I tear your throat out with my teeth.”

From somewhere in the darkness of the trees, Erik let out a low whistle of admiration.

Ainsley sprang to her feet.

The male prostrated himself and backed away.

A sharp tangy scent told Ainsley he had peed a little. Again, her wolf pranced in her chest.

She turned her back on him, posturing a complete lack of concern, and padded over to Erik for her dress.

Erik’s eyes were wide.

Ainsley raised her arms and he slipped the dress over her head, allowing his hands to caress the flare of her hips as he pulled it down.

“I’m sorry,” a deep, soft voice came from behind her, “I heard there was no alpha in Tarker’s Hollow.”

“You heard wrong,” she said, and began to walk toward Erik’s house. Erik scrambled along in her wake.

“Wh-what do I do now? Do I have to go?” the stranger implored.

Ainsley stopped walking.

“I’m sure I could find a use for you,” she said, with her back still to him. “You’ll have to think of a way to prove your loyalty first.”

Ainsley strode away again and Erik followed her.

There was silence in the woods behind them, but she could still smell the fear and excitement of the strange wolf.

CHAPTER 17

Grace squared her shoulders and let her feet beat a tattoo across the courtyard of the college campus.

The gray cobblestone circle she followed linked the Performing Arts building and the back of nearby Scott Hall. It was one of the few wide open spaces between the wooded paths. Students lounged in small groups, leaning against the campus map carousels and trying to look cool. They had only been on campus a few weeks.

They were all so young, just kids, really. It was hard to believe that Grace herself had been a college student a few years ago.

Now, instead of trying to maintain a 4.0 GPA and still get boys to notice her, she patrolled the campus, investigating an assault and a possible abduction, with about the same amount of success.

Today had been absolutely frustrating, with nothing but dead ends to support her suspicion that Garrett Sanderson had attacked Sadie, and a preponderance of hearsay that made it sound like Garrett’s version of things might just be the truth.

She had talked to Lilliana’s landlady, who had never heard anything about a relationship with a professor. Of course she might never have heard anything about anything - Grace had had to practically shout at Mrs. Hay to get her questions across. It was quite possible that Lilliana had entertained guests in the rented room on her third floor, or even bared her soul in a heart-to-heart confession that Mrs. Hay wouldn’t have even noticed because her hearing was so poor.

Then Grace had talked to professors, who were no help at all. Grace had to wonder if they had some sort of fraternal code requiring them to protect each other when it came to their personal lives. She supposed police weren’t so different.

Grace was determined not to let the whole day be a waste. It was a long shot, but she’d decided to canvass the area outside Scott Hall.

Grace scanned the courtyard. She spotted a group of kids smoking near the back entrance to Scott. They looked pretty comfortable. Maybe they had hung out there before, maybe it was a regular gathering place. If so, they may have seen something.

She headed over. As soon as they saw her coming, they threw away whatever they had been smoking. She realized belatedly that she shouldn’t have been in uniform for this. Oh well, too late now.

“Good evening, kids.”

They nodded and grinned nervously. The leader of the group was a tall young man wearing a flannel over a Green Lantern t-shirt.

“Good evening, Officer,” he said brightly.

One of the girls looked like she was about to cry. Grace hoped she had learned her lesson.

“I’ll tell you what, if you can help me with what I’m looking for tonight, I won’t try to figure out what you were smoking just now.”

There was a perceptible change in the atmosphere and even one audible sigh.

“What can we help with?” Green Lantern asked.

Grace pulled a photo of Lilliana out of her pocket. It was just an enlargement of her Louisiana driver’s license from a few years ago. She worried that without the garish color of her hair and lipstick, Lilliana didn’t look much like herself. But her FaceBook page and Twitter feed were set to “private” so Grace couldn’t get more recent pictures that way without an injunction. And there was no time for that.

“Have you seen this woman?”

The kids leaned in.

“Her hair is red now, and she wears bright lipstick,” Grace suggested.

The girl who had been ready to cry a moment before said, “Oh!”

“When did you see her?” Grace asked.

She tried to keep all emotion from her voice in order not to scare the girl. She hoped the girl wasn’t lying just to save her skin about the pot.

“It was last night. She had on a yellow raincoat. I noticed her because her hair was almost as bright as the raincoat. And it wasn’t even raining.”

Grace nodded evenly. She was telling the truth about seeing Lilliana at least.

“Do you remember where you saw her?”

“She was going into Scott Hall, right here.”

“Was anyone with her?”

“No. But… Well, that was later.”

“Did you see someone else enter the building?”

“Yes, a guy with a cane. He was old but sorta… hot.”

Garrett.

“Did you notice anything else?” Grace asked. “Did she seem upset?”

“I wasn’t really paying attention.” The girl’s eyes darted in the direction of the joint they had tossed, then back to Grace. “I guess she was walking kind of fast,” she said uncertainly. “But the man, he was walking fast too - I noticed because he had a cane and all. You wouldn’t think he’d be going so fast, would you?”

“That’s an excellent observation,” Grace said. “I’m going to give you my card in case you remember anything else, okay? Please write down your info here in case we need you.”

The girl hesitated to take the pad of paper.

“I’m not worried about anything you were doing with your friends tonight. You seem like a nice kid though, and if I ever see it again, I will hunt you down. Okay?”

The girl nodded quickly and wrote down her info. Grace asked for her student ID and snapped a quick picture of it with her phone, then handed her a business card.

“Thanks for your help!”

“You’re quite welcome, officer!” Green Lantern said bravely, as soon as it was clear she was really leaving.

She smiled and headed for the back door of Scott Hall, where the girl had indicated.

The hallway was slightly warmer than outside. Grace’s footsteps rung on the marble floor as she counted three doors off the main hall.

The first was the administrative office where Garrett worked. She could see the cubicles through a large window.

The second bore a metal plate that said Storage Closet.

Lilliana’s words came back to her - He didn’t know I was listening, because I was in the storage closet.

She opened the door to find two rows of metal bookcases with old fashioned paper filing boxes on their shelves.

The third door was unmarked. The lights were off, but there was movement inside. Remembering the chase through the college woods, Grace popped the snap on her taser’s holster and rested her hand on the cool plastic. With her other hand, she reached for the brass knob.

Without warning, the door burst open.

Grace stepped back just quickly enough to avoid being smacked in the face with it.

Carol Lotus, from the World Literature department, popped out with an armload of papers. When she caught Grace in her periphery she startled and dropped everything. Pieces of snow white paper filled the air and fluttered across the hallway.

“Oh! Officer Kwan-Cortez,” Carol said in her usual quavery voice. “You gave me quite a fright. I was just closing up shop. What brings you to our hallowed halls?”

“Sorry to scare you, Carol.” Grace bent to help her retrieve the papers. “Let’s get you picked up and maybe you can help me.”

When the last of the papers was stacked neatly on Carol’s desk in the admin office, Carol turned to Grace.

“What can I help you with?” she asked.

Grace pulled the wrinkled picture of Lilliana out of her pocket and smoothed it on the table between them, facing Carol.

Carol’s face froze and began to turn pale.

“This young woman is missing,” Grace said.

“I-I need to sit down,” Carol whispered. She lowered herself slowly into the wooden student chair, leaving Grace to sit on the office chair behind the desk.

“Do you know who she is?”

Carol nodded.

“Lilliana Atwater.”

“A source told me that she was seeing a professor. Do you know who she was seeing?” Grace thought she already knew the answer.

“Oh dear. This isn’t easy to say. But in the circumstances of course, well, There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth as Count Tolstoy would say,” she laughed nervously and fiddled with one of two tea cups that sat on her desk.

Grace waited.

Carol sighed, put the cup down, and folded her hands in her lap.

“I’m seeing Lilliana,” she said in a voice free of its usual quavers. “I’m not proud. Although she’s a teaching assistant here she is still a student at Penn. And younger than I.”

Grace waited again. But Carol seemed to have unburdened herself as much as she would without prodding.

“Did you see Lilliana last night?”

“We meet in the office after hours sometimes.” Carol smiled sadly. “She was supposed to come last night, but I had a meeting that ran late. I thought she got tired of waiting.”

Grace had a flash of Lilliana waiting in the hall for Carol, and ducking into the storage closet when she heard Garrett approach.

“Thank you for your help,” Grace said. “She hasn’t been missing long enough for it to be official. No one has filed a report. But if she doesn’t turn up soon I may need a statement from you.”

Carol pressed her thin lips together miserably, but nodded.

CHAPTER 18

Erik’s heart was still pounding from the confrontation with the strange wolf in the woods. He knew that his wolf would have been able to run off the tension, but there was no instinct to shift.

And something was wrong with Ainsley. Her nature would normally have had her crowing about the victory. But her mind seemed to be a million miles away.

She had refrained, with difficulty, from mounting the stranger. It was natural that she wanted to - he wouldn’t have held it against her if she had. Though it would have been painful to watch and he was deeply grateful that she hadn’t. Maybe she was feeling guilty about wanting to. Ainsley didn’t know nearly enough about being a wolf.

She didn’t seem to be in the mood to dissect it though. And a small part of Erik worried that he might not want to talk about it with her. Was she even attracted to him without his wolf? He was pretty sure he didn’t want to know the answer.

At any rate, he hoped that the fight had mellowed Ainsley out a bit. Being on good behavior with Ophelia was crucial.

He glanced over at Ainsley. They were both a mess. Ainsley’s dress was wrinkled and there was dirt on her cheek. He was still sweating from his mad dash through the woods to find her.

He’d been stunned to find himself winded. The pain in his ribcage must be the “stitch in the side” characters in books were always getting after they ran too far, too fast.

Amazing.

Too soon, they reached his house. Ainsley bounded up the steps.

“Ainsley,” he heard himself say.

She turned, and her look of determination was indescribable.

“Let’s get this over with,” she said.

He nodded and they went in.

Ainsley immediately cocked her head.

Erik listened hard and heard sounds upstairs. Odd, Ophelia was supposed to be in the guest room.

Ainsley was up the stairs before he could stop her. Erik followed, ready to protect his mate from herself, if he could.

Ophelia was lounging on his bed, her suitcase open on top of his bureau. He tried not to notice the silky, lacy underthings in it.

“I took the liberty of moving up here since you won’t be in town during the duration of my stay, Erik.” She turned without waiting for him to acknowledge her. “And you must be Ainsley Connor.”

“What do you mean he won’t be in town?” Ainsley spat.

“Ainsley,” Erik answered quickly. “There’s a pack in Copper Creek, Pennsylvania - it’s a mining town. There’s been a mining disaster and the pack is in trouble. Ophelia has asked me to go there and help.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Send your foreman if they need help. But you’re not going anywhere.”

“Sit down, Ainsley,” Ophelia commanded.

Ainsley sat immediately in the bedside chair. The look of horror on her face at being compelled to obey the other alpha’s command would almost have been funny, if Erik hadn’t been so afraid for her reaction.

“Ainsley, it is not uncommon for a new alpha to need to be reminded of their place in a larger pack,” Ophelia said, stretching and standing in one fluid movement. “I am willing to overlook that outburst.”

She approached until she stood directly over her chair, looking down her nose at Ainsley.

“Now,” she said with icy calm. “I can continue to compel you to stay in line, or you can learn to behave respectfully to your superiors and make it easier on everyone.”

She paused and the tension in the air almost hummed.

“Can you keep it civil, Ainsley?” she asked.

Erik willed Ainsley to remember the pack.

“Yes, I can.” Ainsley’s voice carried no inflection.

Erik held his breath and hoped it was enough to satisfy Ophelia.

“Excellent!” Ophelia said, the tension in the room diffused, for now. “Do you know why I’m here?”

Ainsley shook her head.

“I am here on behalf of the Federation to judge your suitability as pack leader and to report my recommendation.” Ophelia placed one hand on the back of Ainsley’s chair and squatted down to look Ainsley in the eye. “I asked to come here, Ainsley.”

Ophelia let her words hang in the air for a moment. Ainsley slowly raised her eyes to meet her gaze.

“There are so few female alphas.” Ophelia said. “I thought I might be able to offer you the advice you need to succeed. As long as you follow my lead, I see no reason to pull you out of this pack.”

Comprehension seemed to dawn on Ainsley. Erik watched her face move through emotions quickly: frustration, anger, curiosity…

“Do you have any questions for me, Ainsley?” Ophelia asked.

“Do you really get to decide who is alpha? I thought that was up to the pack.”

“If we feel someone is not fulfilling their duties we are sometimes required to step in. Most alphas are groomed and trained for the position from an early age. You turned your back on your pack, so you have not been properly prepared.”

Erik waited for Ainsley’s hackles to stand up, but she was laudably calm.

“May I have some time with my lieutenant to make preparations for his absence?” Ainsley asked.

“Very well,” Ophelia said, standing. She turned to Erik and he felt himself nearly paralyzed by her dark gaze. He could only imagine what her power would have been like over his wolf.

“Don’t exert yourself too much, I may still require your services later,” she said.

He gulped, ripped his eyes from hers and nodded.

Ainsley slipped off the chair and down the stairs as though her tail were between her legs. He followed her, trying to read her mood.

They didn’t speak until they were outside in the field.

“Let’s go to our spot,” Ainsley whispered.

He nodded and took her hand. They walked silently through the tall grass, bathed in moonlight.

At the end of the grass, a stand of bamboo led all the way down to the creek. Erik had cut a wending path through it last month. They made their way through the bamboo to the edge of the creek.

Silently, they followed the water until they reached the cave and the giant sycamore - the setting for so many of their happy childhood memories. Erik always felt a sense of timelessness in this place.

“What are we going to do?” Ainsley asked, breaking the silence.

“Maybe it’s best for me to leave, while we figure out how to get my wolf back. If Ophelia finds out, I’m in real trouble. Any progress on that?”

Ainsley took both of his hands in hers and squeezed.

And that was when he knew.

“Julian says there is no way to reverse it.”

The ground seemed to fall away beneath him. He struggled to stay calm, be strong for Ainsley.

“Okay, that gives us a course of action then.”

“What do you mean?”

The love in her eyes almost unseated him, but he managed to hold on, to do what was right.

“I am no good to you without my wolf. You need to find a new mate, as soon as possible, to secure the future of the pack.”

“That’s ridiculous, you’re my mate.”

“You only inherited your wolf on your father’s side as it is. You need to mate with a wolf or the next alpha by inheritance will be uncertain. This is bigger than you, Ainsley.”

“No, we don’t need an alpha by inheritance.”

“How many young wolves are there in town, Ainsley?”

She paused, thinking.

“The pack won’t have to worry about staying under the Federation’s radar if they just die out,” he continued. “This is your responsibility now.”

“I want you. I’m the alpha, I can do what I want,” she said impetuously. But her tone told him his message was finding its way home.

“No, Ainsley,” he told her sadly. “You can’t. Not this time. Ophelia is here to make that clear. She is testing you. You need to convince her you will do whatever it takes to ensure the future of this pack. Even if that means finding another mate.”

“Fuck her. Let her kick me out of the Alpha Club, then.”

“It’s not that easy. You would be banished forever. And the pack would fail without you. You have a connection to us. To them. You can feel that they’ve put their trust in you. And you’ve earned it. That’s why you don’t need to work your alpha powers on everyone to get them to follow you. They do what you say because they love you. We love you… I love you.”

She searched his eyes and then reached up to hold his face in her hands.

“I love you, Erik.”

“I will always love you, Ainsley, none of this will change that. But I need to go away. It’s what is best for the pack.”

Her expression was torn. “We can talk about it in the morning, right?”

He nodded.

She smiled at him then. And her smile, with all its sadness, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Her hands slowly moved down his cheeks to his chest and rested over his aching heart. Though he knew it would only make everything harder, he longed to kiss her. Before he could stop himself, he pulled her in. When her face was an inch from his, he hesitated, allowing her to choose.

She pressed her mouth to his passionately. Though he couldn’t smell her excitement he could feel the intensity of it.

His own body responded immediately. It was always this way with Ainsley. He found himself going from zero to sixty in a heartbeat. And apparently, it had nothing to do with his wolf.

He ran his hands down her back, molding her tousled hair against her shoulder blades.

She moaned and pressed herself against him in response, sliding her hands up onto his shoulders and sinking her nails in.

The touch of pain didn’t excite him the way it did his wolf. But it still felt good. Very good. He was already hard as a rock and straining painfully against his jeans. But he wanted to go slowly. This might be their last time.

She was melting into him already though. Her breasts flattened against his chest, her nipples stiff against him.

The last time they had been here like this was the first night they were together. It was the night Ainsley had been drawn as alpha.

It was colder now, but he didn’t care. With Ainsley soft and whimpering with need in his arms, he was overwhelmed with the urge to protect and comfort her.

He bent and lifted her in his arms. She was so warm and soft, he felt he could have carried her a hundred miles.

He didn’t have to, though. Just like the first time, he carried her to a bed of pine needles on the bank of the creek where he laid her down gently, as if she were delicate instead of unbelievably powerful. As if she were the child they would never have together.

She reached for him and he stripped quickly and covered her with his warm body.

Her sigh of relief broke his heart. He knew his touch gave her peace.

He paused to take her in. Willing himself to remember everything: the curve of her hip, the softness of her hair, the fragrance of her that didn’t escape even his human nose.

But she was already writhing under him, tugging at her own dress.

He smiled. She had never liked to take it slow.

He rolled off her and she sat up, lifting her arms so that he could slide the dress over her head. He laid it carefully next to her, then moved on top of her again.

She looked up at him longingly. Erik knew he could lose himself in her eyes. If she asked him to run away with her now he would do it. He would renounce his pack and his duty just to stay with her. Was it really fair for one woman to be so responsible to so many?

But she stirred beneath him again and he lost all thought.

He bowed his head to nuzzle her breasts. They were so full, so warm.

She arched her back and tangled her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, always closer.

He sucked one nipple into his mouth and marveled at its sweetness.

Ainsley moaned and he worked the other with his fingers, soothing and exciting her at the same time. Her hips began to lift to him.

He was so hard now it almost hurt. It took all he had not to take her now, or grind himself against her. But he was determined to give her ecstasy one last time.

Slowly, Erik lowered his mouth, kissing and tasting her soft belly, and lower still until he could smell her arousal through silken curls, even with his weakened senses.

“Oh,” Ainsley breathed.

He lifted his face to take her in. The moonlight made her skin seem to glow. Her dark hair spread on the pine needles, and her face wore an expression of pure rapture: eyes closed, swollen lips slightly parted.

It was too much. Erik fell on her, spreading her folds with loving fingers and lapping and sucking at her frantically.

Ainsley cried out. Her hips bucked involuntarily.

She tasted exquisite. He tried to prolong her pleasure, alternating long slow strokes of his tongue with teasing flicks on her clit.

Erik’s wolf had always known by instinct what Ainsley needed. Now he felt like a blind man, trying to read her signals - to see how far he could push her. The mystery of it was irresistible. He lavished her until his attentions seemed to inflame her beyond her self-control.

“Please,” she begged, her alpha voice gone.

He rewarded her immediately by sliding one thick finger into her. She was so wet, so warm. She cried out when he found that special spot inside her. His cock bobbed against his abs in response.

He ignored his own need and continued to work her with his fingers and mouth. Slow, then fast, soft, then hard. He was lost in the rich taste and feel of her.

The moment before she came apart for him her whole body froze.

Erik sucked her clit into his mouth and drew on it hard. Almost in slow motion, her hips lifted to him one last time, and then she convulsed around his fingers, crying his name.

It was more than Erik could take. He slid up to nuzzle her neck and then bite it. She was still trembling when he pressed against her.

Gritting his teeth and praying to last more than a minute, Erik squeezed himself slowly into her. He was so hard he was afraid he might hurt her.

Every inch of Ainsley was exquisite. At last he was fully seated.

Against every demand of his frustrated body, Erik held still and luxuriated in the tight hot feel of her. No matter how many times they did this, he was filled with a drunken pleasure at the idea that he was inside Ainsley. It was almost like being a part of her - like they were one person.

But her nails sunk into his shoulders once more and she rocked herself up against him eagerly, as usual dissolving his determination to take it slow.

Caging her head with his hands, and looking into her hazel eyes, he slid all the way out of her and thrust himself back in. She growled in delight. And he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from coming right then.

He knew that soon her alpha would take over and she would flip him onto his back and finish him that way. Tonight he felt so protective of her, he wished he could keep her like this, sheltered by his body. Maybe it was only because his wolf was gone that he wanted things to be different. She felt so good that he couldn’t really think straight. Didn’t want to anyway. He pushed the thoughts aside and sunk into her again, slowly, deeply claiming her, if only for tonight.

Ainsley bucked up to him, moaning. She placed one hand against his cheek again.

“I love you, Erik,” she whispered through the haze of her desire. Her eyes were filled with love and fear and a wisdom beyond her own years.

“I love you, Ainsley Connor,” he whispered back, and didn’t want to know how he must look to her - lost, bereft.

One last time he filled her and felt her lock down on him as she came again. He surrendered his pleasure to her then and filled her with his seed. The waves of pleasure seemed to join them for long minutes.

When it was finished, he rolled on his side and stroked her chest and belly with his palm.

“That was amazing,” she blinked up at him.

“It’s always amazing. Every time,” he told her.

For a few more minutes they lay in the moonlight. At length, Ainsley rolled on her side to face him.

“I guess we need to go back to Ophelia. At least you do. Maybe you’d better rinse off first,” she indicated the creek with her eyes.

Erik winced. There was no way he was going to service Ophelia. Not if he could help it.

“I’m trying to come up with a plan to avoid…that,” he said.

“Well, I think I’ll go to my house anyway. I don’t think I can deal with her tonight. I’m going to have a cup of tea and think about Copper Creek. Maybe we should send some of your guys and your equipment. You have some good guys, right?”

“Sure,” he replied without committing. He already knew that wasn’t an option. “I’ll stop over and see MacGregor to get his take on everything. He knows the rules and the bylaws better than anyone. Maybe there’s a workaround.”

They walked slowly to Ainsley’s house. She waved to him sweetly from the porch and went inside.

It took all he had not to break down as he turned his back on the Connors’ old Victorian and walked away.

CHAPTER 19

Grace had been on the phone so long, she was starting to lose feeling in her butt. And all for nothing. At least so far. She tried to shift her weight in her office chair to return some circulation.

Grace had decided that rather than looking for evidence, maybe she’d be better off looking for Lilliana. She’d begun by calling Springton Hospital. No luck. County General. Nothing.

Now she was on her thirteenth call to a municipal police force.

All the local townships and boroughs had their own departments. If something suspicious had been reported, or a person with an injury found, Grace ought to be able to track it through a colleague. The county had twenty-seven municipal police forces. And most of them were fairly sleepy, which meant that Grace’s colleagues had plenty of time to chat.

It had been a long night.

The Lower Providence Township phone rang once.

“Lower Prov Police, Fire and Ambulance,” said an eager voice.

Crap it was Joy Leipers. Grace would never get off the phone.

“Hey Joy, it’s Grace, from Tarker’s Hollow.”

“Graaaace! Have I got a story for you! You have a minute right?” Joy didn’t wait for an answer. “You know how it always gets wacky around here about the time of the full moon?”

“Uh, yes…”

That was the understatement of the year.

“Well, this month is no different. The Malones just got a chicken coop! You know the Malones right? Molly and Hal? Anyway, it’s the thing to do to raise chickens now and eat organic eggs and whatnot.” Joy took a moment to laugh at the upper middle class citizens of Lower Providence. Grace was decidedly alone among local police in serving the population to which she belonged. She tried not to make a big deal of it and over time they had seemed to forget.

“What happened?” Grace asked, knowing it would be quicker to get to the end of the story then to try and circumvent it.

“Well, you know these folks’ll call in an engineer to hang a picture on the wall. They brought in some Amish carpenter to design the prettiest chicken coop you ever saw. It was tucked under their porch with two levels and teak wood doors and stuff.”

“Um-hm,” Grace looped the yellow belt to Lilliana’s raincoat around her fingers and released it again. She had been holding it all night, hoping to get a reading out of it somehow, but it was just flopping around in her hands like any other raincoat belt.

“So, we get a call from Molly, she’s frantic. She says There’s been a break-in! They’re gone - they’re all gone! We send Phillip over there in a patrol car, sirens blazing! Guess what happened?”

“What?” Grace pretended not to see the punchline coming.

“Something broke into their chicken coop, took the chickens! Hal Malone was cursing like a sailor, Molly was crying, the kids were standing on the lawn in their pajamas. All over a couple of chickens. And some dumb box.”

Shit. Sounded like the work of juvenile wolves.

“What did Phillip think happened?”

“Oh who knows? Probably a fox or a dog! Anywho…What can I do you for?”

Grace blinked back into the matter at hand.

“We have someone missing but it’s too soon for missing persons. Her name is Lilliana Atwater. Mid-twenties, dyed red hair, was last seen in a yellow raincoat. Any reports or injuries or anything in your neck of the woods?”

“Nope,” Joy said, “can’t say that it rings a bell. Have you tried Springton?”

Gee, no, I didn’t try the town NEXT to Tarker’s Hollow.

“Yes, that was my first call. Working my way out from there. I’ll keep going. Something about it isn’t right.”

“Well, just keep an eye out for the chicken kidnappers while you’re at it, will you?” Joy chortled, hanging up.

Grace set the phone back on the receiver and went to cross Lower Providence off her list.

When she looked down at the paper she nearly jumped with surprise.

There, in the margin of her list, sat a hastily scrawled note.

A note that had not been there before.

The ink matched the pen in Grace’s hand.

But it wasn’t written in Grace’s neat handwriting.

The Rustic Kitchen - 9:30pm

The Rustic Kitchen was an old Victorian house that had been converted into a restaurant years ago. It also sold knicknacks and desserts, and was beloved by children and the blue haired set. Last Christmas Eve it had burned in an electrical fire, just after the owners had prepared two hundred dinners to donate to the homeless. Now the burnt-out shell was on the market.

Who would meet there?

And where did this message come from?

Grace looked down at the belt in her hand and up at the big clock over the station door.

9:14 PM.

She could make it to the meeting if she hustled.

CHAPTER 20

Erik tried desperately to pull his thoughts from Ainsley as he marched back to his house.

But tugging his mind outward only drew his attention to the other love of his life.

The sandstone sidewalks of Tarker’s Hollow absorbed the beat of his footsteps without complaint. Red and yellow leaves skidded across the quiet street, turning gray out of the circles of the street lamps, each of which illuminated the house of a friend. The tree canopy rustled above, filtering the moonlight over his head.

Erik loved the stone of the houses and the wind worn cedar shake of their upper floors. Waxy leafed rhododendrons had begun to wilt and retract for the winter, revealing the intricate gingerbread woodwork of the porches.

There was no place in the world like Tarker’s Hollow. And Erik was about to leave it forever.

He turned right onto Yale and walked through the small town center, passing the hardware store one last time. Of course he wasn’t really going to call MacGregor. He already knew there was no workaround.

Crossing Yale and passing the construction site, he mourned that he would never finish excavating. Never see the Inn and the bookstore rise to fill the holes. Never bring in the highway, after all, and see himself and his men change the history of a place.

He turned and entered the college woods to take the path that led him home.

The sudden darkness spooked him a little for the first time in his life. Erik had grown up in these woods. But now he knew there were more things in the woods than he had ever dreamt of. And he was no longer one of them.

That brought him back to thoughts of Ainsley. In the pain of losing his wolf he had made a fatal error.

He had failed to impress on her the danger of being alone with someone after her. The lone wolf she’d bested tonight was child’s play compered to whoever set the trap that had robbed him of part of himself.

Julian had been at the house today to protect it. She would be safe there.

Torn, Erik paused under one of the globe lamps on the edge of campus before the path went fully into the trees.

At length, he sighed, and plucked his cell phone out of his pocket and began to type.

Ainsley, whatever you do, don’t leave the house alone. Don’t forget that someone wanted to take your wolf. Call Julian, call Grace, call someone, but don’t leave the house alone.

He turned his phone off before she could respond.

When he came out of the trees, he could see Ophelia silhouetted in the porch light. She was pacing and talking on the phone. Perfect.

He climbed the front steps, nodded at her, and ran upstairs.

His old duffel bag was in the closet. He threw a couple of changes of clothes into it, then took it in the bathroom and swept the items on the sink top into it, then headed back down the stairs.

The only way to keep Ainsley out of trouble with Ophelia, and to avoid sleeping with her, was to get out of town tonight. If he was lucky, he’d be gone before she got off the phone.

He wasn’t lucky.

“Erik,” she said brightly, nostrils flared.

Fuck. She would know he had been with Ainsley.

She circled him slowly.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she purred.

“Ainsley sent me away,” he tried to look ashamed.

“Why would she do that?”

“She told me I had to leave first thing tomorrow. And then… I tried to convince her not to make me go…”

“And then what?”

“And then she told me I’d better get my ass on the road tonight.”

Ophelia laughed, it was a cold, glittery sound, like broken glass on a dance floor. She leaned in slightly to sniff him.

“It’s too bad your pleas weren’t convincing. Would you like to try to convince me instead?”

“I, uh, I’d better do what Ainsley said. I don’t know what she’ll do if I’m still here in the morning.”

She laughed again and grabbed his ass, hard, sinking her fingernails in.

“I’m starting to think Ainsley and I have a lot in common. Go on then, I won’t stop you.”

He strode away quickly. The shattering sound of her laughter accompanied his exit.

CHAPTER 21

Grace cut through the dimly lit park to approach the Rustic Kitchen without being seen.

The triangle shaped field had a fancy name now, but when Grace and Ainsley were kids it was simply known as Triangle Park. The only thing in it was a bench. Otherwise, it was all open space with trees along the perimeter. The rare open area without trees made it the best place in town to fly homemade kites.

Surrounding the park were some of the oldest homes in Tarker’s Hollow. A retired professional ballerina lived in one of the old stucco center halls. Elizabeth Stile was one of the town’s mini-celebrities. The windows of her house glowed tonight, and Grace looked over, wondering if she would catch a glimpse of the elegant dancer.

Silhouetted in the glow of the lights, a very familiar form traversed the sidewalk toward the Rustic Kitchen.

Grace caught her breath.

Julian.

She had been picturing him so often lately, it was almost strange to see the real man. His blond hair glinted in the light from Elizabeth’s windows and Grace was nearly hypnotized.

Then the significance of his presence hit her.

No. It couldn’t be.

In spite of the feelings he brought out in Grace, she still didn’t really like him. But he was Ainsley’s friend. Ainsley trusted him. It wasn’t possible that he was wrapped up in something awful. Was it?

Grace drew back into the shadows and counted slowly to one hundred. She couldn’t risk him seeing her. But she didn’t want to miss the meeting either.

She peeked through the dogwoods and there was no sign of Julian, so she stepped out of the park and slipped across the street to the Rustic Kitchen.

She chose to enter on the side the kitchen staff used to use to bring supplies in and out. It was surrounded by large rhododendrons which could mask her exit. She held still behind the bushes for a moment but couldn’t hear anything inside. Whoever Julian was meeting they must be out in the dining room.

Grace stepped into the open door. The stainless steel appliances in the kitchen had survived the fire, but were painted with soot. The whole place still smelled smoky.

Suddenly, she heard voices. And they were close. How had she not heard them before? She ducked quickly into the alcove formed between the gigantic freezer and the backdoor, trying not to breathe.

The voices were in the kitchen now, both male, one must be Julian. The other was deep and gruff and somehow familiar. She closed her eyes to listen, but couldn’t quite place it.

They were having a heated conversation but she couldn’t make it out with the odd acoustics of the place. Everything echoed.

The men took a few more steps into the kitchen and Grace felt sweat form on her brow. They were just on the other side of the freezer.

“We can’t wait any longer. We need to get the Connor girl out of the picture.”

“Everything is under control,” said the deep voice.

“That’s what you told us about her dad. His loss was supposed to be the end of this pack.”

Was Julian a part of that?

“How was I supposed to know she would come back?” the deep voice complained.

“And then you tell us you’ll have the new alpha under your control. What happened to that? How did an untrained little girl defeat your champion?”

“She proved to be more than we bargained for,” said the deeper voice.

“Excuses. This is why they had to send me. To get some results.”

“Like you did with the old lady?” the deep voice asked with barely masked satisfaction.

Grace’s heart wrenched in her chest. Could that be true?

“That was unfortunate, I admit. But not tragic. Once the girl is out of the picture, we will have the time we need to find the key.”

Key? What key?

“She is not alone. She has allies,” the deep voice continued.

“No one of consequence.”

“What about the cop?” the deep voice demanded.

“She’s nothing but a two-bit palm reader. Trust me. I’ve fooled her every time we’ve met.”

Son of a bitch.

She’d like to see him trying to magic his way out of prison for that comment alone - let alone what he’d done to Sadie.

“Well, tonight’s the night. Let’s go deal with the alpha.”

Footsteps told her that one of them was heading her way.

No, no, no. They must be planning to leave through the door she was crouching in front of.

Grace craned her neck, looking for anyplace to hide. But she was literally backed into a corner.

Her hand moved to the holster on her back. She had heard enough to make an arrest, but what if they didn’t come peacefully?

She took a deep breath and wrapped her fingers around the cool plastic of her taser. At least she still had the element of surprise.

A familiar sound accompanied the footsteps.

Tap, tap, tap.

What was that?

Before Grace could put the pieces together, a blanket of darkness enveloped her and a firm hand locked onto her mouth from behind, pulling her silently through the door and into the night.

CHAPTER 22

A insley stepped out of the hot shower, feeling decidedly less invigorated than she normally would after letting the steaming water pound away at her.

She slipped into her favorite night shirt and a pair of boy shorts with lace edges, then wrapped her fluffy robe around herself and made her way down to the kitchen.

When the kettle was boiling away merrily, she reached for her phone on the table. She had a message.

Erik.

Ainsley, whatever you do, don’t leave the house alone. Don’t forget that someone wanted to take your wolf. Call Julian, call Grace, call someone, but don’t leave the house alone.

Good god, with everything else going on she had almost forgotten.

I won’t. How did it go with MacGregor? she replied.

She waited a moment but there was no response. He must still be with MacGregor now. That was a good sign.

But why did everything feel so wrong?

She pulled the mug she’d made in senior pottery class out of the cupboard and stuck a peppermint tea bag in it.

When the boiling water hit the cup and steam rose to greet her nose, she felt a tiny bit more like Ainsley. Determined not to sit around feeling sorry for herself, she sat down at the table and slid a piece of paper and pen in front of her.

Placing the mug on the ring that had formed on the table after many other cups of tea, Ainsley exhaled with purpose and began to write.

I am grateful for a mate who loves me even in trying times.

I am grateful for a best friend who helps me without worrying about what it will cost her.

I am grateful that the Federation sent Ophelia and didn’t just take my pack from me.

I am grateful for my abilities, even if I can’t fucking figure them out.

The phone buzzed again before she could think of another item for her list. She dropped the pen.

Erik.

But it wasn’t Erik. It was Charley Coslaw.

Hey Ainsley, I’m out front, are you home? I have that termination for you.

Shit.

Ainsley walked to the door. Through the glass panes of the vestibule she could see Charley’s trademark green convertible. Though it was a chilly night, he had the top down.

She went through the vestibule and opened the front door, but remembering her promise to Erik, she didn’t step through.

Charley was blasting classic rock. He flashed her a friendly smile and waved. Camilla Parker Bowles stood on his lap, grinning with her tongue hanging out.

“Hey Ainsley, I’ve got your papers here, but I don’t want to leave the dog in the car. Do you mind grabbing them?”

Camilla Parker Bowles barked happily at Ainsley.

“Hey Charley, just bring her in! I’d be glad to find her a snack.”

“I don’t think she’s feeling well,” Charley shouted back. “Besides, I don’t want to keep you.” He waved the manilla envelope at her. “Never been happier to terminate a listing contract, by the way! Glad you finally came to your senses and decided to stay!”

Ainsley took a step out of the door and felt the tingle of the magic from the ward as she passed through it.

She paused.

Ainsley knew she was in some danger in general, but for heaven’s sake, it was only Charley. She had known him all her life. She couldn’t be paranoid all the time, she was the alpha. She would just grab the envelope and head back in - problem solved.

Ainsley took a few more steps across the porch toward the car.

She couldn’t hear Charley’s heartbeat with the loud music on and the engine running. But she would smell a trap.

And she didn’t smell anything.

Shit!

Ainsley wheeled around just in time to catch a lightning bolt to the chest that took her off her feet.

She landed hard, her back slamming into the porch floor. Instantly, she was hit with the sensation of being drenched with a bucket of ice water. It was a familiar feeling. Because Julian had used it on her to stop her from shifting only a month ago.

Her wolf threw itself heedlessly at the bars but couldn’t come out. And Ainsley threw her head back and howled in rage and pain.

READ EPISODE 2 on your Kindle NOW!

Fate of the Alpha: Episode 2

AFTERWORD

Did you know that only about one percent of readers leave a review for the books they read?

If you enjoyed Fate of the Alpha, I invite you to become part of my One Percent Club by leaving a review.

And if you email me at AuthorTashaBlack@gmail.com to let me know when you leave a review, I’ll send a you free book!

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I’ll let you know when I have something new coming out. Plus you'll get the chance to read unreleased sneak previews, snag free stuff, and even make suggestions on future installments!

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Drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you!

And thanks again for reading my book. As long as you keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them.

-Tasha

ALSO BY TASHA BLACK

Fate of the Alpha: Episode 2:

Something wicked is coming to Tarker’s Hollow…

Ainsley Connor is faced with her toughest challenge as alpha. Her mate is gone, leaving her alone to defend her territory from rival wolves, dark magic, and worst of all, the threat of losing her pack if she doesn’t impress her superiors.

Erik Jensen, torn from his place at Ainsley’s side by pack politics, finds himself at the center of a mystery that might just hold the key to saving Tarker’s Hollow. The real challenge might be surviving long enough to share his revelation.

Grace Kwan-Cortez knows how tough it is being a cop in a town full of shifters, magic and who knows what else. What she isn’t prepared for are the feelings she can’t seem to shake since meeting Julian. And she can’t decide which option she dreads more, that he ensnared her in some sort of spell, or that the feelings might actually be real.

Julian Magie has a secret. A secret that could change Tarker’s Hollow, and the world, forever. Torn between his sworn duty and his allegiance to his friends, Julian must decide who to trust, and where is true loyalties lie.

Winter Heat:

Set in Bella Andre’s Game for Love world, Winter Heat is the story of a young artist that falls for a bad-boy snowboarder with a dark secret. If think you know enough about me by now to take a guess at the secret, you might be surprised!

Table of Contents

Copyright

Foreword

Episode 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Afterword

Also by Tasha Black