Chapter Two

Which Craft was my store on Palmer Street. My baby, though it had cost almost my entire inheritance from my grandmother Eva.

Before she died, my grandmother taught me everything about yarn, thread, and fabric. Knitting, crochet, macramé, if you could name it, she could do it. She had sewn all my clothes until I was a teenager, and I'd taken over the responsibility.

I'd been on edge since I'd woken up. A police cruiser had driven past my driveway that morning, and though I couldn't have said if it was Joel, I knew his habits.

He'd made a point of parking down my street and watching the house almost every night.

An unfamiliar Ford had followed me down the mountain that morning and parked a few cars down from the store, but no one had gotten out.

I'd hoped the wooden coin and the Wolfkin would solve my problems, but it would probably take more than a night to see any results.

Instead of worrying about the mysterious car parked outside the door, I focused on unboxing the new cashmere yarn I'd gotten that morning. A beautiful selection of autumnal oranges and reds for fall.

I was elbow-deep in yarn when the bell over my shop door rang. I froze, which was an unfortunate reaction to a potential customer. Luckily, my shop neighbor, Melly Parish, was just popping in to say hello.

Melly owned Fortune Favors , an eclectic store that sold witch paraphernalia. Candles, tarot cards, and gemstones. Melly often griped that she made most of her money on handmade jewelry and the novelty birthday cards by the register—which said things like " Don't talk to me before my coffee " Or " But first, wine !"

Melly had been with me the previous evening when I'd found the dead rat on top of my wiper blades, but I hadn't answered her questions the day before.

As Melly held up two takeout coffee cups, I realized there was no escaping her interrogation. "Special order." She grinned. "I came to deliver the herbs for your smoothies. You were meant to come to mine straight after work."

"Something came up." It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either.

"You missed the Real Housewives of Red City watch party last night." She handed me a paper cup. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Did Lacey finally tell her incubus husband that she wanted to close their marriage?" I sipped my latte.

"Did she!" Melly hooted, finally breaking a smile. She waved away her mirth. "I know what you're trying to do. Is this about that rat you found last night?"

"I went to the Chug," I explained.

Melly studied me, closing one of her eyes as if that could help her see me better. Melly was almost sixty, but she often played up her age. "For fun?"

"For help." I sighed. "Joel left that rat. I know it."

"He's still parking on your street?"

I nodded. "I don't know why. He cheated on me. He left me. He—" I closed my eyes and pressed my shaking fists against my thighs. "I just want him to leave me alone. Instead, he's got the whole Locket PD on a mission to make my life impossible. Parking tickets. Traffic stops. He canceled my bank card, and he's never even been on that account. It's in my name."

"Those things are annoying..." Melly winced. "But you think getting the werewolves involved will help?"

I was half-Fae. I healed faster than a human. Just because I didn't have scars on my skin didn't mean I didn't have scars much deeper.

The night I'd found the life insurance documents and the text messages from her , he'd put his hands around my throat and hadn't let go until I stopped moving and held my breath for the longest time.

He'd tried to kill me.

"I think that the only way to stop Joel McGowen is for someone much stronger than him to scare him away," I told her with a resolute nod. "He's not scared of me, but he's scared of anything ‘ other.' If the werewolves didn't help, I would have summoned a demon."

"A demon?" Melly squeaked. She was a witch; she knew how serious such a thing was. "You have magic; why don't you scare him off?"

I shrugged, but the truth was, I'd hidden so much of myself away that I wasn't even sure I could do magic like that anymore. Certainly, nothing flashier than a protection charm or a ward. I'd loved Joel so much. I'd tried to be the perfect wife for years, blinded by the desire to fit into a tiny little box. Joel had pushed me down and made me small for so long that I struggled to believe I was anything but.

My whole life had been secrets upon secrets. I just hadn't realized that while I'd never told my husband about my Fae lineage, he'd also kept his own secrets.

"It's almost Samhain," Melly said ominously. "You'll need to close the shop earlier if you're going to make it home before curfew. No one should be out on the streets until Halloween passes."

"Is this because of the Tanner boy?" I frowned, trying to recall where I'd seen the curfew announcement. Several posters had sprung up in town after Harrison Tanner's body was found. "I heard it was a party in the woods. Some kind of animal carried him away."

"Anyone that goes into the woods surrounding Locket is an idiot." Melly sniffed, tilting her nose pompously. "But the curfew idea should curb a few deaths this Samhain. Our coven has been doing their best to get the message out that the wall between worlds is at it's thinnest this time of year, but you know as well as I do that the humans of this town don't listen to us."

I nodded in agreement.

"Tensions are high," Melly noted when I didn't take the bait to moan about humans.

"That they are."

"I heard that Faith Hilltop is planning a summer wedding." She noted. "After the baby is born."

I busied myself with the price stickers at the register, using it as an excuse to remain silent, just as the bell over the door rang again, signaling another customer's arrival.

I'd had a few customers, but primarily people coming to browse. I didn't mind when it was busy; it kept my mind off my wallowing. When I finally had a break between customers, I got my crochet hooks and added a few lines to my latest project. An orange, white, and maroon granny square cardigan with a pumpkin at the center of each square. Id made one in spring with a flower design instead of pumpkins. Whenever I finished a particularly challenging item, I would dress the mannequin in the shop window. She had been looking bare the past few weeks, mainly because I'd been too stressed to crochet. It was a good sign that I'd picked up the project again.

It was almost closing time when the bell rang over the door once more. I forced a smile on my face, and put down my crochet hooks.

I didn't recognize the man in the doorway, staring at the yarn displays like a puzzle he couldn't solve. He was lithe, with a regal bearing that didn't belong in Locket. His hair was long, down to his waist, in a shimmering silver sheet that would have taken a lot of bleach and toner to maintain if it wasn't his natural color. His face was too angular to be attractive in the traditional sense, his gaze distant and distracted as he brushed his fingers over the shelves, drifting as if he was half asleep.

I greeted him again. "Can I help you?"

He didn't reply, closing his eyes and taking a measured breath.

I shook my head, returning to the register as the man continued shopping as if in a dream. When he brushed past the register to the other side of the store, the distinct scent of wolf filled my nose.

Before I could say anything, the shop door opened again, revealing Mitchell, the scarred wolf from the night before. His shaggy hair stood up in all directions, and he wheezed as if he had just run a mile. He relaxed when he spotted the silver wolf perusing the craft supplies in the corner.

"We meet again," Mitchell smirked, brushing his hands down the front of his t-shirt before he closed the door behind him. "You know, this store is exactly what I expected."

I lifted a brow. "What did you expect?"

"Chaos."

I raised my eyes to the ceiling, begging god to rescue me. When a moment passed without divine intervention, I turned back to Mitchell.

"What are you doing here?" I sighed.

"Dean would have come himself, I'm sure." Mitchell winked, though he could have just been blinking with his good eye. "I've come to deliver your new bodyguard."

"You?"

His smile twitched. "No. Him."

The silver-haired man in the corner had found one of the books about knitting stuffed animals and had made himself comfortable in the bean bag in the corner.

"Him?" I echoed.

Mitchell pinched the bridge of his nose. " Kaleb ." He called out. "Get your ass over here."

Kaleb didn't move.

"I don't think he heard you." I joked.

"He heard me, Doll." Mitchell griped. "He's your new bodyguard. He's just not used to being in human form. I thought you would prefer not to have a wolf in your store—"

I waved my hand. "Kaleb can be a wolf if he wants to." A pang of guilt hit me as I realized I was talking about the silver-haired man as if he wasn't there. I cleared my throat. "Why was Kaleb chosen?" I lowered my voice. "He knows he can't kill anyone, right?"

Mitchell gave me a strange look. "Kaleb is the only member left of the Beast-King's court. Your token was a gift from the Beast-King, so Dean thought it was appropriate that one of the king's inner circle be the one to fulfill the boon."

I inhaled sharply. "The Beast-King died a hundred years ago."

Mitchell eyed me shrewdly. "Which makes it all the more suspicious that you have one of his tokens lying around. We thought we got them all."

I knitted my fingers together. "It was my grandmother's," I explained. "She passed a few years ago. Told me to use the coin when I was desperate, and I'm pretty desperate right now." I laughed, the sound weak and watery.

Mitchell walked closer to the register, pushing his dark hair away from his eyes. "Anything I can help with?"

I waved a hand toward Kaleb, who'd moved on to a book about origami. "He'll make sure my husband can't hurt me, right?"

Mitchell's eyes flashed. "You have reason to think he'll hurt you?"

I reached up, cupping my neck before realizing what I had done.

Mitchell's expression darkened; he opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of bones creaking and breaking jolted us apart.

Kaleb had decided he wanted to wear four legs after all. I watched with morbid fascination as the silver-haired man became a silver wolf before curling up to nap in the book corner.

Mitchell made himself scarce, and the silver wolf fell asleep behind the register until it was time to close the store.

I wasn't sure about the bodyguard protocol, but when the wolf followed me around the store as I locked up, I realized he planned on coming home with me.

It was sunset by the time I got to my car. The quaint shops on Palmer Street were bathed in an orange glow. The air was thick with humidity.

The silver wolf stayed by my side, impassive as ever, his claws clicking against the sidewalk as we approached my car.

I inhaled deeply, trying to clear my mind, when I saw the latest addition to my windscreen.

A possum.

Significantly larger than a rat. The scent of blood clung to the air, leaving every breath faintly metallic.

Blood stained the glass, pooling at the bottom of the windscreen where the wiper blades sat.

The wolf stepped forward, using his bulky behind to push me away from the car before he sniffed the wheels and hopped onto the hood with one deft movement.

He grabbed the possum as delicately as possible with his teeth and jumped from the car, tossing it onto the sidewalk. Kaleb licked his lips before he crouched down, performing a big stretch. He looked from the dead animal and then back to me.

"Broken neck," I whispered.

The wolf yipped his agreement.

Suddenly, Palmer Street felt too exposed. If I squinted, I could see the police station at the corner leading to Main Street, the building squat and boxy amongst the Americana of Locket. My hands shook as I marched to my car. I opened the passenger door, and the silver wolf hopped in without complaint.

As soon as I sat in the driver's seat and started the engine, my wiper blades smeared blood all over the glass that didn't clear away until I'd used every last bit of my wiper fluid.