Curse of the Alpha: The Complete Bundle (14 page)

“
A
insley
?”

Grace’s clear voice bounced off the walls and her steps drummed swiftly up the stairs.

“I’m… I’m here!” Ainsley managed, tearing her eyes from Erik’s.

“You need to mate with Clive right away, like your parents wanted you to,” he whispered fiercely.

Grace was already in the doorway and her raised eyebrows suggested that she had heard Erik’s last comment.

“Hello, Erik,” she said politely.

“Grace,” he nodded with a deference that Ainsley couldn’t help but notice. She made a mental note to ask Grace about it later.

“Ainsley, what happened?” Grace asked, eying the bloody rags and bandages.

“I’m going to head out now,” Erik said. “She’s got some minor lacerations but nothing that needs a doctor. She’s cleaned up.”

He stood smoothly. Her whole body felt cold at the loss.

“Erik,” Ainsley called.

He turned back to her and his dark eyes glimmered.

“Thank you.”

He jerked his chin up in acknowledgement and strode away and down the stairs.

A moment later she heard the screen door bang.

“What was
that
about?” Grace asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Trust me, even I don’t know what’s going on with that guy.”

“What did he mean about Clive?”

Ainsley shifted uncomfortably, she should never have lied to Erik. One lie always begets another. She smoothed her hair behind her ears.

“My parents wanted me to choose Clive Warren as my, um, mate.”

“Really?”

Ainsley shrugged.

“I wouldn’t have expected that,” Grace said finally.

“Why not?”

“It’s really not my place. I’m not a wolf. I’m sure they had their reasons. I just wouldn’t have expected your parents to choose Clive. So…” she looked Ainsley up and down, “what happened here?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Julian came by last night. He just showed up with dinner and a bottle of wine.”

Grace nodded and waited for her to go on. Ainsley thought to herself that it was good to have a policewoman for a friend. Grace knew how to listen without judgment.

“We had a nice evening. I probably drank too much.”

“That’s not usual for a wolf.”

“I know. Normally, I can drink as much as I want. Anyway, I overdid it. When I woke up I was really groggy. I heard Julian in the other room and I snuck down the hallway. And he…”

Ainsley paused. Time for another lie?

No. She would be honest with Grace, about this, at least. Maybe she could help Ainsley understand what was going on.

“He was chanting something,” Ainsley continued.

“What was he chanting?” Grace asked. “Can you remember the words?”

She remembered. The sights and sounds of tonight had etched themselves on her brain. She didn’t think she would ever forget.

“Invenies quod perierat,” Ainsley repeated the words. “I’m not sure what it means. My Latin is a little rusty.”

“Okay.” Grace said, clearly intrigued. “Go on.”

“There was this horrible blue light. And what looked like a compass in the air – floating. And then it pointed at me.” Ainsley hesitated, remembering the pain of what happened next. “So I tried to change – into my wolf. But he blasted me with the blue light and stopped me.”

“He stopped you from shifting?”

“Yes. It hurt so much. And then…” This was the part that frightened her the most. “I pushed it back into him. And he crashed through the window. But by the time I looked out, he was gone.”

Grace was silent.

“Am I crazy, Grace?”

Grace shook her head slowly.

“And the blue light thing, is that a wolf thing? Because it didn’t feel like a wolf thing.”

“It’s not a wolf thing, Ainsley.”

“Is it a wolf thing to throw it back at the person who hit you with it?”

“You don’t really know much about being a wolf, do you?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

Grace shook her head, “No, that part’s not a wolf thing either.”

Ainsley smoothed her hair behind her ears.

“So then, what… what
am
I?”

“Ainsley, did you know that your mother was not a wolf?”

Ainsley shook her head mutely, numb with shock. She knew her father was a wolf. She had always just assumed about her mom.

“She wasn’t. There is so much you don’t know. I’m just beginning to understand how lost you must be. There are other things in Tarker’s Hollow besides wolves. Did you know that?”

Ainsley shook her head again.

“Well, there are witches. And warlocks. Julian must be a very powerful warlock. Do you know what witches and warlocks are, Ainsley?”

“Um, they do magic spells, right? Like Harry Potter?”

Grace threw her head back and laughed.

“Thank God for Harry Potter! He’s been great PR for us. Yes, we do magic spells. Most of us are small potatoes. Like me, I do divinations mostly. I can help find lost things. It comes in handy on the job. Sometimes I can get a glimpse of the future or even far speak.”

“Far speak?”

“Talking to someone who’s not there.”

“Is that what you meant about my parents?”

“Something like that.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, what you are describing Julian doing is on a whole other level. The spell he used was an evocation - meaning he created something from nothing, and he manipulated energy. Those spells are very hard to master.”

“Why was I able to send it back? Does it have something to do with my mother?”

Grace nodded.

“And I’m amazed that he was able to stop your change. Most wolves are very resistant to magic.”

“Why was I affected?”

“I’m not sure but my abuela might be able to help answer that question. Ainsley, I know this is a hard time to leave you, but I’m on duty right now. I took my report here and I need to get back to the station.”

“You can’t report this!” Ainsley said, panic filling her voice. The whole point of her coming to Tarker’s Hollow was to make sure her parents’ secret life remained hidden. The last thing she needed was an incident like this splashed all over the local papers.

“I’ve been a cop in Tarker’s Hollow for years now, Ainsley,” Grace laughed. “I know how to write these reports. No one will know anything about magic or wolves. But the neighbors heard a commotion so I need to put in a report.”

Ainsley had a whole new respect for her friend’s career.

“Can you come back tonight?”

“I can do better than that. We’re having a family dinner at my parents’ house. Come, eat a real meal, and we’ll ask my abuela for help afterward. Just don’t say anything about this stuff in front of my parents. They’re in the dark on all the special stuff in Tarker’s Hollow and they think Abuela’s crazy when she talks about magic.”

“Thank you, Grace. That sounds really good.”

“In the meantime I suggest that you eat something and then try to get some rest. Can I fix you anything before I go?”

Ainsley shook her head.

“I will patrol your house now and again for the rest of my shift. I don’t think Julian is coming back – you probably scared him to death- but we can’t be too safe.”

“Thank you, Grace. I’m so glad you came.”

Grace grinned and gave her a salute, then rocketed down the stairs again, leaving Ainsley alone to digest a wealth of new information.

A
fter a short rest
, Ainsley dragged herself out of bed to clean up. She ached all over, but she knew the sooner this was done, the better she would feel.

She pulled her hair back into a neat ponytail. Then she put on her apron and found a pair of pink plastic cleaning gloves under the kitchen sink.

She used a broom and dustpan to pick up the glass. Then she used some bleach to clean up the blood. The smell of the chlorine almost overpowered her elevated sense of smell. It was caustic, but it did cover up the smell of the blood.

Ainsley thought about the night she’d come home to find her dad’s study ransacked. She hadn’t smelled an intruder. Same thing with her father’s office at the college.

Was it possible for someone to erase their smell?

Everyone was right. She really didn’t know anything about being a wolf.

She stood back to admire her handiwork.

Much better.

The only thing left was the window. It was really a shame. That wavy old glass had been installed when there were still cowboys in the wild west. She made a mental note to call MacGregor at the hardware store for replacement glass.

In the interim, she decided to install plastic sheeting. Her parents kept scads of it in the attic since they used it to line the drafty windows in wintertime. She would take a quick ten minutes to install some.

It turned out to be a two-person job. She remembered her parents alternately bickering and laughing as they fought with the thin plastic – racing it into place and then blasting it with the hair dryer to seal it. It took her almost an hour to secure a billowing sheet of plastic over the window. The seal might not be as tight as she’d envisioned, but at least it provided an implied boundary between outside and inside.

She blew air out of her cheeks and spun to face the back wall of the study. Once again, it didn’t seem that anything was missing. Whatever Julian was doing in here, he didn’t take anything with him.

What
was
he doing in here?

What was the compass and why did it point at her?

And Erik.

Stupid Erik.

Why did he have to be right? She should have known that Julian was too good to be true. It wasn’t fair. Couldn’t there be one thing in her life that came easy and turned out right?

Her cell phone rang and she froze. She couldn’t help but think of Julian.

She ran back to her bedroom and saw it was Charley Coslaw. She had forgotten all about him stopping by to look at the house.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Ainsley, it’s Charley Coslaw.”

“Hey, Charley. How are you?”

“Just fine, Ainsley, and you?”

“Oh, I…I’m fine. It’s nice to hear from you. Were you planning on stopping over today?”

“Well, I’m in the neighborhood, if it’s a good time. If not, I can come whenever it’s good for you, Ainsley.”

“Come now,” Ainsley insisted, excited to be one step closer to getting out of this crazy town. “Definitely now.”

He laughed. “Alright, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Ainsley flew around the place, tidying up as best she could. She was beyond caring about getting every last dollar out of the damned house. She just wanted it sold and done with. She could not get back to her apartment in Manhattan fast enough.

By the time she returned to her room and took down her hair, a car was pulling into the driveway.

As she came out onto the porch, she saw Charley standing on the front walk looking up at the broken window. He had his hand over his eyes to stop the glare and an old fashioned wooden clipboard under his arm.

No iPads yet in Tarker’s Hollow real estate.

Ainsley gave a little wave.

“Hey, Charley!”

“Ainsley!”

Charley strode over and gave her a big hug.

“You look great, kiddo! How are things going here?” he asked with a forced lightness.

“Charley, I’m overwhelmed and exhausted. As a matter of fact I’m embarrassed to say I even slipped on a book and managed throw a box through the window this morning,” Ainsley said with as much self-deprecating humor as she could muster.

His shoulders went down a little and his smile lost its edge and became more relaxed and sincere.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Ainsley. It’s hard enough to clean out a house. I had to do the same for my parents’ house, once upon a time. How can we help?”

“I’d love a list of people who do elder moving – maybe I can get some help just sorting and clearing out everything into storage or to GoodWill- except the furniture - so you can get it on the market quickly. I just want this to be over with.”

“I didn’t want to say so when you stopped in, Ainsley, but I think that’s probably best. It’s not good to go it alone with this stuff.”

“Agreed. It’s still a mess inside. You know I know what to do to get it ready, right?”

“Ainsley, no one will have it as ready as you will.”

They climbed the porch stairs, talking all the way about cleaning, staging, landscaping and the works. Ainsley began to feel more like herself as she discussed marketing and home prep.

After an extensive search of the home, during which Charley took copious notes they settled down at the kitchen table.

“Can I offer you some lemonade, Charley?”

“That sounds fantastic, thank you, Ainsley.”

Ainsley grabbed two mason jars from the cupboard and filled them with ice and deliciously tart lemonade. She set one in front of Charley.

“Charley, you’ve been doing this forever. Can you give me a ballpark today?”

“I know it seems like I should be able to do that, doesn’t it?”

Ainsley nodded.

“But I have learned after many mistakes to always do a full market analysis. I want you to have an accurate number, and, especially because you’ll understand it better than most – I want you to have hard comps along with it so we can dissect it together.”

Damn, he was more professional than she had given him credit for.

“Okay, I get it, Charley. How soon can you come back?”

“Very soon – I’ll try to call tomorrow.”

She walked him to the door.

“Thanks again for coming out. And for not making a big deal out of me going back to New York. I know my family was important here but you all will certainly be fine without me.”

Charley’s mouth opened and closed once or twice.

“Ainsley, I hope I haven’t offended you by asking you to join the firm,” he said “I was only kidding. I’d love to work with you, of course, but I know you’re well beyond what we do here. No one could really expect you to stay in Tarker’s Hollow.”

Jesus Christ, was it really possible that he didn’t know?

He wasn’t a wolf?

This town needed a program to keep the players straight.

“I’m sorry, Charley, you haven’t offended me at all,” Ainsley said, fumbling to cover her slip. “A few friends have been pressing me to stay, but of course I can’t. I guess I’m a little emotional.”

“Of course you are. You know, I get emotional myself whenever I pass by the hardware store. I can’t believe your mom’s not there. I used to see her almost every day. She was an optimist - saw the best in everyone. That’s not easy these days. And your dad was so generous. Not many of the professors can afford to give back much, but your dad made a priority of giving back – to Rotary and anyone else who ever asked.”

Ainsley smiled, looking over his shoulder at the stickers on the vestibule window. Her dad had given twenty dollars to anyone who bothered to show up with a worthy cause. He always agreed to put their free stickers on the door. Her mother had good-naturedly ribbed him that it was like leaving hobo marks out front and would only mean that more people would interrupt dinner asking for money. But Ainsley could see that she wasn’t really annoyed with him - there was pride in her eyes at knowing that her husband was a good man.

It meant a lot that Charley thought highly of her parents. He wasn’t part of the wolf stuff.

“Thank you, Charley,” she said with a catch in her voice.

He clapped her on the shoulder.

“I’ll call soon.”