by Tasha Black
Ainsley shook her head.
“And he’s got his own patrol. They’re just waiting for one of us to let our guard down. There’s a battle coming, Ainsley, and you need to pick a side.”
That last gave Ainsley a little shiver of anticipation. What was happening to her? She really was becoming more of a wolf here.
She glanced over at Cressida, who was observing her with curiosity.
“The thought of a good fight got you excited?”
Ainsley gave her a crooked smile.
“You’re changing, Connor,” Cressida said approvingly.
Was that true? Ainsley looked down at her hands, but the smile didn’t leave her face.
“One more thing,” Cressida whispered.
Ainsley leaned in.
“I know you want me to fuck you again, but I won’t today – for two reasons. One- you smell like whatever awful thing is in that bucket. Two- you need to fuck Erik.”
“Wh-what?”
“You heard what I said. It’s not right for the whole town to pay the price while the two of you pussyfoot around. Just fuck him. While you still can. He’s a fantastic lay – you won’t regret it.”
“Doesn’t that make you jealous?” Ainsley heard herself ask.
Cressida drew back. She seemed surprised to be asked.
“Erik and I are friends. And we help each other out sometimes. Just like you and me.” Cressida made and held eye contact with Ainsley a little too long and Ainsley felt her cheeks go red again.
“But at the end of the day, no, he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Oh.”
“But thanks for asking. Hos before bros, huh?”
Ainsley grinned. Then she thought of something.
“What makes you think it would work anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, after what you and I did yesterday… nothing happened. And I tried to draw Clive’s alpha last night but nothing happened then either. Why do you think it would happen with Erik?”
“Are you kidding me?”
Ainsley bit her lip and waited.
“You are the two most fucked up people I ever met. The whole alpha thing is about choosing a mate for life. You didn’t care about Clive. You and I were only having some fun. But you’re clearly head over heels for Erik.”
Ainsley could have tried to argue. But what was the use? Erik was the total package and while she couldn’t exactly say she was in love with him, she knew that she was grateful to him and she wanted him badly. Erik, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be interested. The way he’d hopped out of bed this morning, he probably wasn’t really even attracted to her. He’d just felt sorry for her.
“I don’t think he wants that with me,” Ainsley said sadly.
Cressida rolled her eyes.
“How did you end up here last night?”
“Well, I was running away from Clive in the woods and suddenly there was Erik.”
“What was Erik doing in the woods?”
“Um…” She hadn’t thought of that.
“I feel like maybe I’m making this too easy for you guys,” Cressida sighed dramatically.
Ainsley clenched her fists and waited. Finally Cressida continued.
“Last night I stopped by here. Erik was pacing holes in the floor because he had seen Clive’s truck in your driveway. I asked him what he was doing here and, a fucking light bulb went on in his dim head and he took off to stop you.”
Ainsley was dumbstruck for a moment.
“So…so… He knew Clive was going to hurt me?”
“No, you moron, he was going to stop you because he loves you and he wants you for himself.”
Ainsley’s heart leapt.
“Then why doesn’t he want to…?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, never mind,” Ainsley said, turning away.
“I insist.”
Cressida was crawling closer, her face brimming with curiosity.
Ainsley threw a wet rag at her. Cressida swiped it out of the air and kept coming.
“Nothing. I didn’t mean anything.”
“Did you try your sexy alpha thing on him?” Cressida asked, fascinated.
“Well, no, but something was happening and then he just…stopped.”
“Next time don’t let him stop!” Cressida advised her sarcastically
Ainsley rolled her eyes.
“You can roll your eyes, but people’s lives are at stake, Connor. It’s time for you to man up and do what has to be done.”
Cressida leapt to her feet in a single motion and headed for the door.
“Cressida!”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
Cressida grinned at her like a pirate.
“That’s the spirit, Connor. You might just get through this alive after all.”
The screen door banged like a gunshot and Cressida was gone.
CHAPTER 7
A insley was still kneeling on the floor, scrubbing the baseboard and mulling over Cressida’s visit when she heard a car pull up. She jumped to her feet, expecting it might be Erik, home early.
Instead she saw a police car. A wave of cold panic washed over her. It must be Clive. Where were Erik’s patrolling wolves? She knew she should hide but she was frozen in fear.
When Grace hopped out of the driver’s side, Ainsley almost wept with relief. She ran onto the porch to greet her friend.
Grace’s worried expression told Ainsley all she needed to know about what was happening in town. Ainsley had never seen her friend looking so grim.
“Grace!”
“Ainsley, I’m glad you’re okay. I have no idea what’s happening in the wolf community but I assume its bad and it has something to do with you.”
“Come on, I’ll tell you on the way – let’s walk so no one sees your car outside my house.”
They kept to the main roads, Grace agreed with Erik on that point. By the time they reached the Connor home, Grace had heard it all. She nodded grimly as Ainsley came to the end of her tale.
Ainsley was concerned at her friend’s uncharacteristic silence.
“Do you believe me?” she ventured.
Grace turned quickly to look at her.
“Of course I do. I just wonder what this means for my career working for that man. And what it means for the town if he… finds a way to get what he wants.”
Ainsley had a feeling that there was more Grace wanted to say. But she was pretty sure it had to do with Ainsley choosing an alpha. Since she was darned sure going to try to choose Erik, but had no idea what the result might be, she didn’t feel like sharing her plan. Instead she changed the subject.
“What did you find out about Brian?”
They were heading up the steps onto the front porch when they noticed the eggs. It looked like about five dozen of them had been launched at the house. Every surface stunk under a coating of the sticky yellow mess.
The women nodded grimly at each other. Ainsley set her jaw as she headed for the front door. In all the years her family had lived in Tarker’s Mills they had never locked their doors. She wondered if she was about to regret that.
There was a notice taped to the door. The top line read Sheriff’s Department – Property Condemnation and Notice of Eviction. Her eyes blurred with angry tears before she could read the rest. Instead she tore it off the door and crammed it in the pocket of Erik’s jeans.
The living room looked like a crime scene. There were no more eggs, thank god. But someone had spray painted Fuck you, city bitch in red spray paint over and over on the walls. Ainsley felt her breakfast threaten to come back up. She ran up the stairs to her room.
Please not the pictures of my family. Please not the books and mementos.
The door swung open and the room was absolutely empty.
Grace was pounding up the stairs behind her.
Ainsley forced herself to stay calm. She couldn’t bear to thi
nk that she might hurt her friend. But she could feel her skin crawling and her muscles clenching to shift.
She lowered herself to the floor and took the yoga child’s pose. Breathe in, breathe out she told herself. If she could do this under excruciating pain every month in a NYC apartment, she could do it here too. It wasn’t the full moon yet.
Somehow the draw to shift was stronger anyway. Pain settled into her bones and she rocked herself forward and back. After a few minutes the compulsion eased. She sat up.
Grace was staring at her wordlessly.
“I would never risk shifting near you, Grace, don’t worry.”
“How did you do that?”
“It’s what I always do.”
“I’m not sure the others can control it like that.”
“I get the same impression. Please tell me about Brian now. I need distraction.”
Grace sat down next to her.
“I checked the file at the office. I knew before I opened it that something was fishy.”
“How?”
“When a teenager dies in an animal attack in a small sleepy town, you’d expect a massive file, right?”
Ainsley nodded.
“The file was only a few pages long. There was no autopsy report. There was nothing in there from Animal Control. There wasn’t even a statement from you. Someone didn’t want a record of what happened.”
“Maybe that’s because I’m a wolf. What did you say you do when a wolf crime happens here?”
“It doesn’t make it to the report in those terms, Ainsley, but it is recorded. If someone thought you had killed Brian, there would be references here that would make sense to a person reading for them. But there are no code words here, no mis-directions. There’s really nothing here at all.”
“Who filed that report?”
“Sheriff Warren, Sr.”
Ainsley was silent.
“So, Ainsley, it sounds like Brian is telling you the truth. Do you want to see for yourself?”
“What do you mean? Did you bring the file?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant do you want to see what really happened?”
Grace’s hands were held out to Ainsley. She was offering to make a circle.
Well, she had certainly hit rock bottom. There was no way anything could make her feel worse. Ainsley took Grace’s hands in hers and closed her eyes.
“Brian,” Grace called in her soft voice.
Ainsley felt him immediately. She opened her eyes. He was standing by the window.
“I’m sorry for what happened last night, Ainsley,” he said without looking at her.
“It wasn’t your fault, Brian. Thank you for warning me.”
“Brian, I know it’s not pleasant for you, but can you take Ainsley back to that night. She needs to see what happened,” Grace interjected.
“I told her what happened.”
“She needs to see it.”
“Ainsley, I don’t want you to see this.”
“It’s okay, Brian,” Ainsley heard herself say, “I can handle it.”
“Please pay attention. I don’t want to do this ever again.”
Ainsley nodded.
“Shut your eyes, Ainsley,” Grace whispered.
Ainsley shut her eyes.
In an instant she was floating above the college woods. She could see herself running across the pine needles into the woods below, with Brian in swift pursuit. They both wore excited smiles.
Ainsley had relived this moment a thousand times, but somehow, witnessing it all play out from above gave it a surreal, detached feeling.
She watched herself stop and turn to Brian, throwing her arms around his neck. Brian then spun her against a tree. The scene went from sweet to sultry very quickly. They made out for a minute and then suddenly she saw Brian pull away and her younger self begin to cry.
Brian began to talk to young Ainsley, but before he could say much, she cupped his face in her hands, whispered something to him, and kissed him again.
Her younger self had not been afraid to go after what she wanted.
Wrenching her thoughts away from her current problems, Ainsley turned her attention back to the scene at hand in time to see a younger version of Clive Warren groping his way between the trees. How long had he been watching?
Clive chose the moment of Ainsley’s kiss to take advantage of their distraction. He leapt up and knocked Ainsley away from Brian. Her head hit a tree hard and she staggered.
From above, Ainsley watched herself expand into a red wolf, bursting out of the clothes she wore before collapsing limply on the ground.
So she had shifted that day after all.
She looked like a fairytale creature. Her silken fur moved slightly with the breeze and her massive ribcage rose and fell.
Meanwhile, Clive had lifted Brian up by his shirt and was yelling at him. Brian yelled back and Clive’s face began to get red. He gestured madly and dropped Brian to the ground.
He let out a roar and dropped to all fours, shredding his football jersey as he shifted into a massive wolf.
She knew what came next. Ainsley wasn’t prepared to see Clive tear Brian to pieces. As soon as it began, she opened her eyes and let go of Grace’s hands.
Suddenly, back in the real world, Ainsley was assaulted with sensory information. The floor was cool and hard against her bottom. She could hear the tick of Grace’s watch clash with the tick of the clock in the bathroom next door. The smells of the egg outside mixed with the scent of her own lotion. Her eyes searched the room for Brian. He was still next to the window but he was fading. His outline was already harder to make out.
“Brian, I’m sorry. I wish I had known what was going on in Tarker’s Mills.”
“Ainsley, it’s not your fault. You’re free now – from this,” he gestured to his wounds. “And I’m free too.”
He smiled his shy smile at her and once more his injuries were gone. Although he was now completely translucent she swore she could see the hazel of his eyes and the soft brown sprinkling of freckles on his cheeks. He tugged his backpack higher on his shoulder, turned to the window, and disappeared.
Silent tears coursed down Ainsley’s cheeks.
Poor Brian.
And poor Ainsley. How quickly she’d grown up. She had spent so many years in penance over something she hadn’t done.
The freedom was dizzying.
“Ainsley, are you okay?” Grace asked.
Ainsley nodded, but didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Let’s get you out of here, then.”
CHAPTER 8
Erik Jensen was having a long day.
Clive Warren had been all over his case from the moment he’d arrived at the job. Erik had expected as much, but hadn’t realized that Clive would coerce Everett Stopes into trying to shut down the site. It had been hard enough keeping his own wolf at bay, and his workers were ready to revolt.
He’d ended up handing the foreman his credit card for burgers and beers at a pub in nearby Springton for all of them. Then he’d gone to the borough office to walk through the codebook.
By mid-afternoon, he’d ended up calling a lawyer to see what could be done. It sounded like he was going to be shut down for a few days at least. That meant paying his guys to sit around now and then trying to beat the clock later in the process.
Of course, there was a ticket on his car when he arrived at the college lot. And this was in spite of the fact that the campus was private property and that he had a permit. He paid it at the borough office on the way home and got a receipt.
The crazy thing was, in spite of everything, Erik felt like a million bucks.
Ainsley Connor was at his house, right now, waiting for him. He knew she wasn’t there to stay. But he was going to enjoy his time with her while it lasted.
He pulled up by the house. As soon as he stepped out of his truck, he was assaulted with strong smells. At once he could smell chemicals, smoke and something sweet.
He leapt up the stairs and crashed in through the screen door. Cressida was supposed to be on patrol. What had she allowed to happen to Ainsley?
She wasn’t on the porch, which was a bad sign, since the porch was the nicest room in the house. He burst into the living room and stopped in his tracks.
Ainsley stood before him on a ladder. She was wearing a paint splattered t-shirt and a pair of his jeans. She had a paintbrush in one hand and a small bucket in another.
Her long, dark hair was in a high ponytail, exposing her heart-shaped face in a way that he hadn’t seen since middle school. Her cheeks were pink with excitement. She was gazing at him with a mixture of hope and terror. She was so lovely that he could scarcely take his eyes off her.
Ainsley’s eyes darted away from his, to the ceiling.
Erik scanned the room. All the woodwork was gleaming. It looked about three shades lighter. The ceiling was painted the creamy white color he’d purchased for it but never had the time to apply. And Ainsley was doing something to the painted wood beams that ran across the ceiling.
“I only meant to clean up the woodwork. But when I went to the basement to look for Murphy’s Oil I saw the paint that said living room ceiling, so I put on a prime coat. And then I realized that your coffered ceiling is chestnut, not pine. Wood that beautiful shouldn’t be painted white like it was - it should be stripped, so I got it started. I hope you don’t mind…”
“Ainsley, it’s amazing – you’re amazing! What did you do to the woodwork?”
She blushed with pleasure.
“Oh, it just needed a deep cleaning and a little Murphy’s Oil.”
“But why do I smell smoke?”
“Shit!”
She flew off the ladder and ran toward the kitchen.
Erik followed her, appreciating the way her round ass looked in his jeans.
Whatever she was taking out of the oven probably rued the day she had found it.
“It was the chicken that was in your freezer,” she said shaking her head.
Her ponytail bobbed back and forth with each disapproving shake, spilling chestnut hair over her shoulder and back alluringly.
“I’m glad you burned it,” he said firmly.
“Why?”
