Shadow Web Read online

  She was telling the truth—my aunt did have the ability to process alcohol better than about anybody I had met. I turned to Ari. “What about you two?”

  Meagan spoke up. “I only had one drink—my second mocha was straight—no booze. I promised to be the designated driver. I’ll tell you what, we’ll drop Teran off at her house to set your mind at ease, and tomorrow she can come get her truck.”

  “I’m going to need that truck first thing tomorrow morning—” Teran started to say.

  “No worries. When Killian gets home, he can drive it over. You only live a few blocks from here, and I’ll come with him and then we can walk home. We can bring your cookies with us.”

  Satisfied, I let them gather their coats. Ari and Meagan took their cookies with them while I stacked the rest in the pantry, and I made sure the door was firmly shut. While the cats didn’t eat cookies, they liked to play with boxes and these boxes opened easily and squashed flat when a fat cat butt sat on them. And Klaus had grown into being quite the chonky cat.

  As they headed out, I turned back to the kitchen. My guests had helped clean up, but there was always some sort of letdown that came at the end of a party. That, along with the adrenaline rush from seeing Ellison standing at my front door, had drained the joy out of my veins. Now I was riding on the tail end of a sugar high and the imminent crash from eating too much sugar along with too much booze was threatening to hit at any time.

  I was about to text Killian to ask what he thought about eating out when I noticed that I had new email. Frowning—I did my best to keep my email down to a manageable number—I glanced to see who it was from.

  “The Witches Guild? What, they want more cookies?” I opened it up.

  Dear January:

  We’re writing to remind you that the annual Winter Solstice Festival is quickly approaching. Since your specialty is research, and your grandmother is Rowan Firesong, we thought we’d ask you to research ancient festivals to find something we can use in our Tableau of Solstice Rituals Through the Ages. We’ll see you with your results on Saturday night! Welcome aboard!

  I stared at the email and groaned. Just one more thing in my busy schedule that I didn’t need.

  Chapter Two

  After Killian and I dropped off Teran’s truck, he took me to Ruby’s, a small Italian restaurant. It was quiet, intimate, and their food was top notch. By then, I realized that I had to tell him about Ellison. The cops had been at my house and somebody would mention it to him at some point. But I decided to wait till we were immersed in the main course. Carbs softened many a blow.

  I ordered an appetizer of scallops wrapped in bacon, and then the fettuccini Alfredo with chicken parmesan. Killian ordered a shrimp cocktail and then, for his entrée, calzone. Neither one of us wanted wine and I decided that I’d give myself a caffeine break, so I ordered spiced cider to drink.

  “How was your day?” Killian asked, stirring sugar into his coffee.

  “Eventful,” I said, trying to hold off talking about Ellison until the food got there. “We baked fifteen dozen cookies. Well, more like twenty-one dozen, so we’d each have a couple dozen left. So I was able to check that task off the list.” I paused, then added, “Aunt Teran is getting nervous. Andrew appears to be taking their relationship more seriously than she is. She’s afraid he’s going to propose.”

  Killian laughed. “I doubt any man will ever be able to get your aunt to the altar.”

  I snorted. “ ‘Teran’ and ‘marriage’ are words that don’t belong in the same sentence.” I paused as the waitress brought our appetizers. Killian dug into his shrimp, dipping one of the breadsticks into the cocktail sauce. “Good?”

  He tried to speak through a full mouth. “Mmm hmm.”

  It was now or never. “Something else happened today. Something not so good.”

  Frowning, he set down his breadstick. “What?”

  I decided to rip the bandage off. “Ellison showed up drunk, on my doorstep.”

  That did it. Killian straightened, his eyes darkening. I could tell his wolf was up.

  “What did you say?”

  “Ellison showed up at my door to yell at me for not taking his phone calls. We called the cops and they carted his ass off to jail for breaking the restraining order.” I hurried to add, “Please, don’t go off half-cocked about this.”

  Killian paused, his gaze locking mine. After a moment he said, “Ellison is a lucky man right now. He’s got iron bars and cops between him and me. If he didn’t, I’d mop the floor with his ass and then chuck him in the bay.” His voice was so low that it almost scared me.

  “I know, I know—please, though, don’t get yourself in any trouble. He’s not worth it. You won’t do anybody any good if you get yourself locked up over his sorry ass!”

  The look in his eyes alarmed me. Killian was protective. He was an alpha wolf shifter, and while he wasn’t the leader of his Pack, he had the potential to be. One thing I’d found out about dating shifters—especially wolf shifters—was that they protected their friends and family, and since I was his girlfriend, I was family at this point.

  Killian leaned back in his chair, trying to restrain himself. He was gorgeous at all times, but when he was angry, he was positively magnetic. His hair, a wheat-brown mane of curly strands that fell to his shoulder blades, was pulled back in a ponytail. At six feet, he was about three inches taller than me, and he was sturdy and muscled, but not totally ripped. All in all, he was a striking man with brilliant green eyes and I was madly in love with him.

  After a moment, he relaxed. “You say he’s locked up?”

  I nodded. “I’m going down there to press charges tomorrow morning.”

  “You’ll go down there after dinner, and I’m going with you. Ellison’s going to learn that trying to mess with you will only buy him trouble, not only with you, and not only with the law, but with me.” He let out a long breath. “All right, let’s eat. We’ll set this aside until later.”

  Relieved that he hadn’t gone charging out of the restaurant, I went back to my scallops. I told him about the email from the Witches Guild. “I have no idea what they want me to do for them, but apparently I’m part of the Solstice Festival as well as the November Gale.”

  Killian let out a laugh. “Once you join any organization, they’ll rope you in for everything they can.” He paused as the waitress cleared our dishes. When she was gone, he continued. “So, I got a letter today.”

  “From whom?” I asked, so relieved to be off the subject of Ellison that Killian could tell me he signed up for a trip to the moon and I’d be okay with it.

  “My application to join the Rainier Wolf Pack is official. I’m no longer Packless. It’s been awhile since I moved from California, and it’s time to get settled. I figured I might as well join the Pack my parents belong to. They’re progressive, and I like that.” He smiled, and by his tone of voice, I realized how long this had been weighing on his mind.

  Wolf shifters didn’t do well when they were out of a Pack. Lone wolves were the exception, not the rule. Wolves—and their shifter kin—were Pack-oriented. They worked better when they were part of a larger group. And the Rainier Pack was progressive compared to a number of Wolf Packs. Wolf shifters tended to be more patriarchal, but every so often, a Pack broke with tradition. From what Tally—Killian’s sister—had to say about the Rainier Pack, they were much more supportive of women in leadership roles.

  “Will you have some sort of swearing-in ceremony?” I was facing my own initiation into the Crystal Cauldron coven, which protected Moonshadow Bay, in a few months. Until then, I was beginning to get a feel for being part of the elite magical group. The Witches Guild, on the other hand, had more of a country club–type atmosphere for those of us who were witchblood. Not everyone was accepted, but it was far more social than the coven.

  “Yes, I will, and I’m hoping you’ll be there to see me inducted?” The hope in his voice was evident.

  I reached across the table
for his hand. “You know I’ll do everything in my power to be there.” Pausing, I added, “They aren’t going to haze you or anything like that, are they?”

  He shook his head. “Some Packs actually make you fight the omega. If you win, you move into the general Pack populace. If you don’t, you have the option of becoming the runt—as the omega is often called—or you can choose not to join.”

  I wasn’t clear on all the terminology, but Killian’s explanation was pretty self-explanatory. “I’m glad you won’t be doing that. I don’t think I’d want to see you in a fight.”

  “They can be bad,” he said. “Both combatants usually come out pretty roughed up.”

  I swirled the noodles around my fork. “Do women fight when they join, too?”

  He nodded. “Most female wolf shifters aren’t ever rogue—or lone, though sometimes if the alpha male of the Pack dies, then the alpha female must fight the beta’s mate in order to stay. Usually the beta moves up, becoming the alpha. He’ll have the option, if he’s single, of marrying the alpha bitch so she can stay alpha. If he’s married, she’ll have to fight the new alpha bitch to be allowed to stay in the Pack.”

  I stared at him. “I had no idea Pack dynamics were so complicated.”

  Killian finished off his calzone. “There are so many things you learn as a shifter. If you can make it to my swearing-in ceremony, remember, never stare at the alpha or his mate. You can look at them if they’re talking to you, but if you stare when they aren’t, it’s considered a challenge.”

  “Oh good gods, I hope I don’t mess up things,” I said.

  “You won’t, I have faith in you,” Killian said. “Now finish your entrée. Do you want dessert?” He pushed aside his plate.

  Even though Ruby’s had excellent desserts, I was comfortably full. I finished my last bite of the chicken and then leaned back, satisfied. “No, I ate more cookies than was good for me today. I saved some for you, by the way.”

  “Good. I love cookies.” He motioned for the check. “Then we’ll get out of here and drop down to the station to press charges. Maybe I can get in a swipe at Ellison while we’re there.” At my look of horror, he laughed and added, “I’m joking, I’m joking.”

  But I knew he wasn’t.

  So, my name is January Jaxson. I’m forty-two, curvy, five-nine with long hair that’s currently a red-violet. I’m what’s euphemistically called plus-size, though honestly, most American women are size 14/16, so why we’re considered “plus” is ridiculous. We are the norm, not the outliers. So yeah, my measurements are bountiful, but I no longer cringe when I see myself in the mirror.

  Last December, I moved back to Moonshadow Bay and took over the family home to make a whole new life for myself.

  My parents had died in a car crash five months before that. I still miss them horribly, but I am learning to live in a world where I was suddenly orphaned and divorced. But I have a wonderful boyfriend, good friends to hang out with, a job I enjoy and am good at, and two cats who might as well be my kids. All in all, I feel I’m navigating change better than I ever expected.

  A small town about ten miles south of Bellingham, Washington, Moonshadow Bay was founded in 1905 by my great-grandfather Brian Fletcher and his wife, Colleen. They, along with a small group of witchblood, birthed the town into being. Brian and Colleen had come over from Ireland a few years before. Both were witchblood, but Colleen was a powerful witch, and her legacy passed down through all of her daughters. My grandmother Naomi was the only one of the daughters left alive, and she passed the family legacy through my mother, to me.

  Oddly, given they were witchblood, most of them had died way too young. That fact puzzled me, and I still didn’t know what had gone on. But when Colleen’s daughters died, they had returned as spiritual guardians to those of us who were their descendants.

  Known collectively as “the Ladies,” they were a force unto themselves, and they didn’t hesitate to whop us upside of the head if we didn’t listen. My great-aunt Esmara had just come to me when I moved back home. She was my guardian, though she made it abundantly clear there were limitations on the help she could offer.

  Killian turned onto the main drag and then to the left, easing into the parking lot behind the City Central complex. A massive structure in downtown Moonshadow Bay that took up an entire city block, the complex housed everything from the Garrison Library to the police station to the fire station to all the city offices. A clocktower in front stood three stories tall, guarding the entire downtown area. Inside, City Central was basically laid out like a mall. Even the courthouse was located in the building.

  The parking lot was large, but even with as many people who worked there, at this time of night it was mostly empty except for several police cars, a fire engine or two, and a smattering of other cars. We parked near the back entrance and headed up the ramp toward the double doors.

  “Promise me—” I started to say, but Killian interrupted me.

  “Will you quit worrying? If I wanted to kill Ellison, I would have done so before now. While I’d like to see him out of the gene pool, I’m not going to self-destruct. But if he touches you again—if he lays one hand on you—he’s going on a long journey to the bottom of the bay.”

  We walked around the building to the main entrance. The back doors were locked after six p.m. Although Moonshadow Bay was one of the small shadow towns, we still felt the impact of what was going on around the country.

  Killian opened the door for me and I glanced up at the security camera as we entered and waved. The complex was lit by ambient lights, and the walls were painted a pale cream—a soft color that was soothing.

  The Garrison Library made up the left corner of the building, and to the right, a long hall led through the various city offices. Straight ahead, across the hall, was the police station, and next to it, the courthouse.

  As we pushed through the bulletproof doors to the police station, the receptionist stopped us. Behind her was another door—made of steel—and it led to the officers’ desks and to Millie’s office.

  “Hi, we’re here to see Millie, if she’s still around. I’m January Jaxson, and I’m pressing charges against Ellison Reilly for violating a restraining order.” I had met the receptionist before, but I doubted she remembered me.

  She glanced through the reports. “Oh yes, Mr. Reilly is still incarcerated. He’s scheduled to appear before the judge tomorrow. I believe Chief Tuptin has gone home for the day, but let me call the acting sergeant.” She motioned for us to take a seat over in the waiting area while she picked up the phone.

  “I hope you’re not feeling sorry for the idiot,” Killian said.

  “Not in the least. But I do resent that he put me in this position. I wish he’d write me out of his life. That’s what I’m trying to do to him.”

  “Ms. Jaxson? Officer Marsh will see you now.” The receptionist buzzed open the heavy steel door and we entered. An officer waited on the other side for us, near the dispatcher’s desk. The dispatcher had four monitors facing her—two high and two wide—and she was wearing a headset.

  Officer Marsh was easily six-six and well over two hundred pounds. He looked like a linebacker, and I immediately latched on to the fact that he was a shifter of some sort. What kind, I didn’t know, but he and Killian appraised one another and then, with a grunt, the officer led us back to his desk.

  “Have a seat, please. I understand you want to press charges against Ellison Reilly for violating the restraining order you have against him?”

  I sat down, nervous. “Yes. I gave a full report this afternoon.”

  “Let’s go over it one more time to make sure everything’s accurate.” Officer Marsh began to ask me questions—most of which I’d already answered. I gave him the same answers I had given Tanner Smith, and after a few minutes, he seemed satisfied. “All right, I think I have everything we need. Tomorrow’s the arraignment. Can you be there? The judge may want to ask you a few questions.”

  “Sho
uld I bring a lawyer?” I asked.

  “It might be a good idea, if you can find someone by then. The court will appoint a lawyer for Reilly. He’s listed himself as low-income.”

  I snorted. “Think again. His parents are rich. And he was well off until he burned down the building we had our magazine in. I think he’s hidden as much money as he can to avoid the lawsuits headed his way.”

  “Well, I suggest you engage a lawyer and tell them all this. Meanwhile, given we found Mr. Reilly at your house when he wasn’t supposed to have any contact with you, he was automatically arrested on a class one misdemeanor and he will face both a fine and jail time, if the judge warrants it. If you attend the court session, the judge will take the matter seriously.”

  “Will I be jeopardizing the restraining order by showing up in court?” I asked.

  “No, but again, you should contact an attorney,” Marsh said.

  “All right, I’m sure I can dig somebody up by tomorrow.” I stood, thanking him.

  Officer Marsh gave me the time that Ellison would be paraded in front of the judge.

  As we left, I glanced at my watch. It was eight-ten. Ellison was due in court at one-thirty tomorrow. I’d have to work fast. After a quick trip for a few groceries to tide me over until I could stock up for the holidays, on the way home, I called Rowan.

  “Hey, I need a lawyer by tomorrow. Ellison showed up on my doorstep today and I’m pressing charges. Do you know somebody I could contact tonight?” My first go-to was my grandmother. She seemed to have scads of people owing her favors.

  She paused, then said, “Yes, I know one of the lawyers who works both in the mundane court system as well as the Court Magika. I’ll have him call you tonight. It may be after ten, so either stay up or keep your phone with you. His name is Almanzo Meier.” She hung up before I could reply.

  “Well, that takes care of that,” I said. “My grandmother’s contacting a lawyer. I’m to wait for his call. I hope he’s not terribly expensive.”