I wanted to speak, but I refused to say what the wolf had heard not too long ago. Some words had power and speaking them brought them to life.

  For I knew the true name of She Who Always Walks the Path.

  And she’d eventually reach South Toms River and harm everyone I held dear.

  Chapter 8

  Just like last time, Karey wanted the house searched before I headed inside. With her younger sisters in tow, they inspected my home. Mevelyn and I waited outside the door. I was tempted to tell them not a single creature peeped within, but the determined look on their faces convinced me otherwise.

  Months ago, back when little Sveta had been born, the nymphs ignored me. I was the sister-in-law from the crazy wolf side of the family. Hopefully, they liked me now.

  I turned to Mevelyn as her hand clenched my arm. Sweat beaded her forehead.

  The mysterious being the nymphs cautioned against was far away. At the rate she was approaching, we’d have plenty of time to form a plan—whether that meant making a final stand or fleeing.

  And yet the nymphs were afraid.

  Which meant I also should be fearful.

  Karey and her sisters returned to us.

  “Anything?” Mevelyn asked.

  “The house is clear.” Karey’s right eyebrow lowered. “There’s a clurichaun in the cellar, but it’s been sleeping for a long, long time.”

  “Excuse me, a what?” I blurted.

  “A fairy from the Old World. You see, the original framing for this house is over two hundred years old.” Karey brushed her fingers against a weathered wall in the foyer. “The house told me a pub owner and his family brought the clurichaun with them.”

  Wow, what a nifty trick. “Is this fairy dangerous?” I asked.

  “Not really. More of a troublemaker and a drunk,” Karey said. “You don’t keep any liquor in the cellar so the clurichaun doesn’t have a reason to wake up.”

  “Got it. No wine cellar in my future. Good to know.” I bid the nymphs goodbye and locked up the house. As I walked through the living room, I shook my head. My senses always helped me, but magic seemed to hide everywhere. Ignorance is bliss, I tell ya.

  I ambled to the kitchen, considering what else I should tell Thorn in the morning. I didn’t want to alarm him, but he should know about She Who Always Walks the Path. And our many other problems. I sighed. I wanted so badly for Thorn to waltz through that front door and admit I’d taken care of everything.

  He always made me feel like I could conquer the world. Why couldn’t I show him through my actions?

  I considered returning to my car to drive around again to hunt for anything suspicious, but what good would that do? Only a fool would hunt alone, and I didn’t know what I was up against. I needed to rally the pack together and find whoever was leaving the trunks as bait before someone really got hurt.

  Once I reached the doorway to the kitchen, I paused. The back door was open and a warm breeze tickled my face.

  Someone sat at the kitchen table. Their scent—one of dirty clothes and sweat—enveloped me. I didn’t think the nymphs would’ve overlooked this, and my guest must’ve come in after the nymphs’ security check. My muscles tensed until I recognized the blond-haired fellow. Thorn’s younger brother Will sat at the kitchen table and looked up with a grin as I walked in. What was he doing here? He’d been gone for months searching for Aggie.

  “Where have you been?” My smile faded as I took in the worry lining his forehead.

  He jerked his head to the other side of the room. “Look who I found.”

  I hurried into the room. On the other side of the kitchen, a redhead beamed at me.

  “Aggie,” I breathed.

  “Good to see you, too,” my best friend said.

  I couldn’t believe Agatha McClure stood before me. While we sat at the table, Will pulled out the teakettle and three cups. It wasn’t until after Will placed the kettle with water on the stove, and chose a seat beside Aggie, that we finally addressed where the hell she had been all this time.

  “How did you find her?” I asked.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed twice. “It’s a really long story.”

  I laughed. “I’ve got time.”

  Aggie got up to rummage through the fridge.

  “Two days after you left town, I had to spend time with my dad out at the cabin,” Will began. “There was a bunch of brush I had to clear.”

  I nodded to offer encouragement.

  “Aggie was cool about it. She even offered to help clear out brush, but I didn’t want her to have to deal with Dad. I spent a full day working, and when I returned to your cottage, she was gone.” His jaw twitched. “At first, I thought she went to work, but there were four other scents in the house from werewolves I didn’t recognize.”

  Aggie snorted, giving up on the fridge’s contents to search through the pantry. Her overeating habit hadn’t changed a bit. “My kidnappers snuck up on me while I asleep. I managed to bite one of them, but they knocked me out before I could escape.”

  Will continued. “Blood was splattered on the wall, and one of them tried to clean it up, even arranging her bedroom back to the state they’d found it, but you and I have done too much tracking in the woods not to uncover a bit of blood under bleach.”

  I was holding my breath and finally exhaled. “Have far were you able to track them?”

  “Not sure how I did it, but I followed them all the way to Newark. On the way, I checked with every gas station in town. One of them serviced a fancy Cadillac Escalade with twenty-one-inch tires and tinted windows.”

  The tea kettle whistled and I gathered packets of calming chamomile tea. Carefully, I filled the three cups and allowed the tea to steep. Aggie joined us with a bag of barbecue potato chips in hand.

  Will continued. “From there, I searched north and south along the Expressway. The pack north of us had spotted them. As a favor, they tracked them for me until they reached Newark. I’m surprised I didn’t get any speeding tickets, Nat. I missed her by five minutes.” He sighed. “One of the werewolves who works at the hangar revealed the occupants of the Escalade took a private plane to Chicago.”

  “Chicago?” Wow, they wanted her far away from home. I got up and gave everyone their cup of tea.

  “I drove to Chicago and that’s where the trail went cold,” Will said. “Most of the packs there aren’t too friendly to strangers. I searched the city for months and found nothing. I had no choice but to return home.” He gulped his whole cup of tea in one swallow. “I sat in that cottage for a couple of days. I was so angry I couldn’t think straight—until your answering machine went off. It was full of messages.”

  I leaned toward him, sensing where the winds were blowing.

  “I checked the messages and her father had left five of them.” The muscles in Will’s face tightened. “In the oldest messages, he said some bullshit about Aggie running away from her obligations. The bastard sounded calm...and rich. But that wasn’t what worried me. Some piece of shit asshole left nine messages before the machine filled up. You wouldn’t believe what he said. He told her he’d found her and when he got a hold of her, she’d regret leaving him. I didn’t know his name at the time, but I traced his number to Manhattan.”

  “Victor,” Aggie paused in the middle of munching and said the word as if she tasted something foul.

  “So her ex-husband was calling the house?” I asked.

  Will sat up all the way. “I searched Manhattan for him, I never found him until I started watching her dad’s place.”

  My gaze flicked to Aggie, but she didn’t reveal her thoughts as she continued to eat. We never talked about her relationship with the Midtown Pack alpha or what went down as she grew up, but I suspected things weren’t too good if she ran away in the first place.

  “Low and behold, Victor Pershing finally showed up,” Will sneered. “He probably thought nobody cared about her.”

  “Which was good for you,” I added. I forced myself to get up and warm up some leftover soup. Aggie was hungry or agitated, given the way she rummaged my fridge. Had her husband held her all this time?

  He nodded. “I followed his car all the way to Long Island. He has some fancy-shmancy mansion there, but little security.”

  I dumped the soup in a pan and turned on the stove. The outside seemed so tranquil compared to the rising tension in the room. Will’s shoulders tightened and he clenched his fists. What had he faced in that house?

  “I found her tied up in a back room like she was nothing but an animal,” he spat. “So I freed her…” He swallowed deeply and didn’t speak.

  Then I saw their hands. They’d washed off the blood and other ghastly bits, but the scent was faint. All I had to do was suck in a breath and it was there.

  And their eyes. Before I’d turned on the kitchen lights, I’d failed to see the feral glint in them.

  “What happened tonight?” I whispered.

  “Will set me free,” was all Aggie said as if it was a done deal.

  Alarm touched my voice. “If Victor tried to take her once, won’t he return again?”

  Aggie’s calm demeanor darkened. “Not after what Will and I did to him. I dare him to show his face near me.”

  Chapter 9

  On Monday morning, I woke up in a cold sweat. My dreams were still vivid in my mind: Aggie and I faced an invading pack—the Long Island werewolves. They hunted down everyone who opposed them, most especially me. I’d never forget the night they’d attacked Aggie and me. We were cornered until Thorn came to the rescue.

  Now my pack faced another foe and I didn’t have my husband with me this time. At least Aggie was here now.

  A familiar ache formed in my chest. Instead of allowing a panic attack to creep in, I got up and checked my phone.

  Thorn sent me a text: Got the midday flight to Newark. I’ll be home by three.

  While I prepared breakfast for Aggie, he sent one more message: Stay out of trouble, Nat.

  I snorted.

  Eh, what do I do if trouble keeps finding me? I thought.

  I made some bowls of oatmeal with blueberries and brown sugar on top. With gusto, I ate a serving and focused on what I had to do next. Pushing my concerns into a lockbox wouldn’t work forever, but for now, the trick worked.

  For me, following routines resembled a warm glass of milk with a couple of fresh-from-the-oven peanut butter cookies. Monday mornings especially. A new week meant a new opportunity to do everything—just like last week.

  Growing up with a loud and rambunctious Russian family meant living in the moment. We experienced joy and sorrow together. Now that I didn’t live with my parents, I forged my own path, but those golden moments still made me smile: Nothing beats receiving a hug from your babushka. And Grandma Lasovskaya wouldn’t have it any other way.

  After working the weekend shift, I had the next two days off. Most folks would sleep in after what I faced, but I refused to waste the day. I had a whole day to hunt down the culprit behind the trunks, but I was far too twitchy to start quite yet. Normally, I’d wait until tomorrow to attend group therapy, but the tension stretching across my scalp warned me I needed to tackle this problem before my anxiety worsened.

  Time to see Dr. Frank.

  The past year had been hard on me. I had no shame in admitting I was in therapy for not only my OCD, but my tumultuous past with my pack as well.

  Once I finished a quick shower, I donned my usual wardrobe and headed into New York City. Showing up on Dr. Frank’s doorstep without an appointment wasn’t advised, but if I had to wait all day in Manhattan for an opening, I didn’t mind accidentally browsing a shop or two.

  Naturally, I arrived at Dr. Frank’s office on the Upper West Side and his secretary gave me the bad news.

  “Sorry, but he’s out of the office until your group therapy meets tomorrow,” she said.

  Disappointment flicked at me, but I was the one who showed up to the party too early. With no way to see to my therapist, my compulsions tugged me deeper into Manhattan. The shop windows, with their beautiful, carefree wares, enchanted me. Two department stores already had Christmas in July pre-sale signs. Anything to grab a buck from compulsive shoppers like me.

  Thirty minutes later, armed with two bags, the Great Northern Fairy Path was an afterthought. All I had to do to lessen my pain was browse, fall in love with a find, and then pull out my bank card. In the back of my mind, I knew this binge would end, and with it, I’d feel a tsunami of guilt every time I spotted the bags—but for now, I gave in and searched for my next fix.

  I took the subway from Washington Square Park to Brooklyn. Once there I stopped briefly at a bookstore. The sign in front caught my interest: “Need leadership skills for your start-up?”

  Why yes, I do.

  The display included titles such as Grow Your Business From the Ground Up to gems like Leader You. Build You. Not sure what that one offered, but I liked what I read on the back of the book and I found the text to be well-edited. If I had to lead, I might as well learn a thing or two from something that wouldn’t talk back: a damn book.

  With a few self-help purchases in another bag, I left the bookstore and came to a stop in front a familiar pawn shop I hadn’t seen for a long time.

  Earl’s Fine Antiques.

  Visiting every corner of New York would take me a few lifetimes, but somehow today I ended up here. Memories flooded through me.

  Dr. Frank had said, “You guys need to head over to a pawn shop in Brooklyn this week or the next. Nick needs to face the prospect of returning an item, and, Nat, you need to resist your urge to acquire new things. I think this will be a low-stress exercise since you wouldn’t be asked to remove anything from your home.”

  Dr. Frank had sent another therapy group participant, a white wizard named Nick and I out on “missions” to confront our compulsions. We were supposed to browse and not buy. As one could see from my current jaunt, I was still working on that problem.

  The store hadn’t changed in the last couple of months. I passed two large, junk-filled bins in front of the window. Just like The Bends, Earl’s used attractive baubles to draw in the curious. The protective barrier around the bins, heavy with the scent of cinnamon and magic to ward off thieves, hummed as I entered the store.

  The exhilaration I’d experienced last time I entered the store increased ten-fold. Earl’s wasn’t The Bends—not with the superb merchandise on these shelves. The clerks here meticulously lined up glass goblets with clear potions along the far wall. Signs on each row indicated the contents. Each section of the store catered toward a particular clientele, and their stock had rotated since I’d last visited.

  One section beckoned me closer. Antique Victorian Christmas collectibles sat in the center of a display. An unnatural light from above practically made me purr with delight.

  “You look familiar,” a voice behind me said softly.

  I startled but forced myself to smile. Spellcasters like the wizard behind me had an uncanny ability to mask their scent and sounds.

  I turned around. “I haven’t been here for a very long time.”

  He nodded. “Oh yeah, you were here with Nick a couple of months ago. Good to see you back. See anything you like?”

  Don’t look at the super shiny wares, I reminded myself. I knew the tricks of the trade. The clerk knew damn well I caught the scent of prey.

  I glanced around the store and took a step away from the display. “Just browsing. Seems quiet around here.”

  “We had a quiet period this spring, but sales are picking up again.”

  I nodded. The Bends experienced a similar slow down, too.

  The clerk wiped off an imaginary piece of dust off a figurine. I didn’t take the bait to look. “Have you seen, Nick?” he asked.

  “Not for a long time. Last I heard, he’s in medical school overseas.”

  “That’s a shame. He always came by every Tuesday to see my new stock. Maybe he’ll come by tomorrow.”

  A beautiful vintage Christmas cake mold murmured sweet nothings to me so I edged toward the door. A half hour ago, I would’ve snatched up the dish, but now that the old exercise from Dr. Frank—and more importantly, Nick—crossed my mind, I knew it was time for me to return home.

  “Maybe,” I said wistfully.

  At the doorway, I thanked the clerk and waved goodbye. As I made my way back to the subway exit, I’d hope Nick would be proud of the Herculean feat I’d accomplished.

  Thorn Grantham beat me back to the cottage. Little did I know, his flight took off earlier than expected and the traffic from Newark defied the laws of physics and whisked him away to our tiny town in a blink.

  I pulled up to see Thorn leaning against one of the old oak trees lining the property. My throat dried and I lost all my thoughts of how to uncover the culprit behind the trunks. Figures.

  By the time I turned off the car and grabbed the door handle, Thorn had crossed the yard and opened the door for me.

  “A trip to the city?” He chuckled.

  All my shopping bags were stowed away in the trunk, but I couldn’t mask Manhattan’s telltale scents: the pollution, a hint of the wizard’s aftershave from the pawn shop, as well as the bookstore’s scones. I knew from experience his nose was that damn good.

  “I had a lot on my mind, so I tried to see Dr. Frank. He wasn’t in,” I explained. “Aggie’s back too.”

  He drew me into his arms and my troubles blew away with a gust of humid heat. The sun warmed the top of my head and Thorn warmed my heart.

  “You’re not mad at me?” I whispered.

  “Being mad at you is futile.”

  I edged to shut the door, but he quirked a grin and stopped me. “Pop the trunk, Nat.”

  I married the perfect partner, didn’t I?

  Bags in hand, we headed inside while I updated Thorn on everything that went down from the first trunk’s appearance through how Will showed up with Aggie.

  “Where are they?” he asked.

 

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