Charmed Wolf by Aimee Easterling (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

For his part, Ash cowered beneath the cascade of heavy and pointy objects. Cowered, then was pinned by the table’s granite top.

He struggled for only a moment, then lay there panting. His eyes were liquid pools of disappointment, disbelief that I’d ignored our history and treated him like the enemy he clearly was.

And that didn’t matter. Regaining my human skin, I picked my way around a spreading pool of syrup. Then I addressed my father’s Beta.

“I want him in a holding cell, under guard.”

“Alpha, don’t do this!” Ash’s voice was so strangled it was barely recognizable, but I didn’t turn to face him. The only reason he’d shift now would be to beg. To call upon our years of shared friendship. Those lost memories dragged at my resolve.

Sure enough, Ash’s frantic words soared up the register until they were almost feminine. “Tara, wait! I have important information. We need to close the borders. Cut off relations with humans. We need to...”

As hard as it was, I scooped my clothes up off the floor and tore myself away from my ex-friend’s verbal vomit. Then, still addressing Willa but raising my voice so the rest of our audience could hear, I added:

“When the Samhain Shifters return, come and get me. Until then, consider Ash a danger to this pack.”

Chapter 26

“Tara, shall I go along and make sure the cell is fae proof?”

Rune’s voice in my head was barely audible. As if I was tuning in to a radio station using an old-timey antenna and hadn’t yet found the sweet spot.

But...I shouldn’t have been able to hear him at all. I flinched, and spun back on my heel to stare at the shifter who wasn’t a member of my pack.

He was staring right back at me, waiting for an answer. I couldn’t give him one, though, because I was stuck on the way words had made it from his head into mine.

My fingertips brushed across the scab on my neck. Rune had promised that wasn’t a mate bite and I certainly couldn’t afford to bond with my Consort. Not when I was the Whelan Alpha, our Bargain mandating that I eschew even the idea of a mate.

Which meant the whys and hows were irrelevant. I was Alpha. I should and could manipulate bonds for the good of my pack.

So I did. I couldn’t see this new tether—it was too ephemeral. But I could feel something coursing between me and Rune when I fumbled around at throat-level. Grabbing that immaterial something between thumb and forefinger, I twisted.

Once. Twice.

On the third twist, it broke.

Persimmon spun away from me. Persimmon and warmth and the promise of a big, strong shadow. I hadn’t realized how much Rune’s proximity had been taking the edge off my muscles’ tension until every fiber contracted. Immediately, my head started to ache.

Whatever it felt like from his side, Rune’s eyes darkened. To wolf and wild tinged with human regret.

If he’d been anyone else, I would have expected him to go lupine, to howl and perhaps even attack someone to release pent-up angst. But this was Rune, who I’d first sighted meditating in a human diner. Rune who was gentle and protective.

Who deserved an explanation.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to explain that I was merely being an Alpha. I couldn’t tell him that, in a different lifetime, I might have reveled in the tenuous connection between us. But in this one, my clan had to come first.

I certainly couldn’t launch into those explanations in the mess hall while half the pack was watching. Instead, I jerked my chin upward in answer to his original question. Then I tugged on a different pack bond, the one connecting me to my father’s Beta.

“Once Ash is in the cell, contact me. I intend to change the code.”

Today appeared to be a two-for-one day, with a sale on upsetting those close to me. Because Willa was so surprised she ignored our audience and answered aloud. “Why, Alpha? You and I are the only ones who know it.”

A rustle of voices behind me promised that, yep, the entire pack was trying to decipher that statement. I’d need to make an announcement about Ash and fae at some point. But not now. Not at this moment.

Because another ping was coming in, this one from the guard currently on duty at the gatehouse. “Alpha, there’s a human here to see you. He says he wants to buy glitter.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I answered silently. Then, aloud to Willa and Rune: “Go.”

I CHANGED THE HOLDING cell’s code on the way, using the security app on my cell phone. Assuming Ash wasn’t able to turn himself into immaterial wind then squeeze through a keyhole, he wasn’t getting out of there without me present. And Rune would handle any fae maneuverings in the worst-case scenario.

Or Rune would handle it unless severing our connection had hurt his feelings so badly that he decided to be done with me. I trailed my fingers across the healing wound on my neck a second time, both glad and disappointed to find that it was now merely a scab. It took all of my concentration to refrain from contacting Willa and asking if Rune was still present while I marched up to the guardhouse.

There, however, I forced myself to focus. Because the waiting human introduced himself as—

“Lenny Harrison. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

His name was instantly familiar even though the realtor I’d barked a single negation at was smoother in person than he’d been over the phone. His clothes were sharp, his haircut fancier than our small-town barbershop could manage, and his response when I ignored his proffered handshake was a self-deprecating chuckle.

“You think I’m here under false pretenses,” he continued when I just glared at him in silence. “I’d be lying, ma’am, if I said I didn’t want to buy your land. But that’s not why I came.”

Well, that was