“What is it?” Kai asked, his mouth inches from my own. Close enough that I could feel his warm breath on my face.

  “Nothing,” I mumbled and pulled his lips to mine.

  His kiss was warm and tender for about three seconds before we both pressed in closer for more. Then his hands were on me, and mine were on him, and we both let out sounds of desire. Kai’s mouth became demanding on mine, and I arched into him, happy to provide what both of us wanted most.

  The magic sang inside me, pouring up and out so quickly that we both cried out as it zapped us.

  My lips stung.

  I pressed my fingers to them as I sprang away from Kai, eyes wide.

  “Shit,” I hissed. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  His eyes glazed over with a furious sheen, but he shook it off. Still, when he spoke, his voice was clipped.

  “The herbs aren’t working as well, are they?”

  My shoulders slumped. “No.”

  “That magic has to go,” he said.

  I nodded. “Soon,” I said, careful to keep my distance as we both worked to regain our balance.

  At least, no one had been rendered unconscious this time. And no earthquakes either. Maybe it was progress.

  Or maybe we were living on borrowed time.

  *.*.*

  Four days later, we made the announcement about the pack run to be held on the full moon. Vinny handed out flyers to businesses, and Corbin and Adan both spread the word to their people. I didn’t bother attempting another pack meeting. Not yet. Once our wolves all came together, including my own, it would be safer to try again. But until that time came, the word went out through flyers, radio, and social media updates.

  It would have to be enough.

  Behind the scenes, Kai and I worked from morning ‘til night on a framework for how the pack would run under this new leadership. Our touching grew more frequent. Our kissing grew less so. My need for Kai was like a candle with an endless wick. But the magic knew it, and it waited, patient and devious. It had learned my weakness, and it wasn’t going to forget.

  Isaac continued party planning in between the rebuild projects. Idrissa stayed busy with her security duties. She’d been more and more distant, but every time I asked her about it, she just said she was busy with patrols and then found a reason to leave.

  I was too busy to hunt her down and see if there was more to it. But it was only a matter of time before I managed to corner her.

  Several times, I noticed Kai’s mood dip, and I knew he was still thinking about Silas. He and Presley had gone by Silas’ house a few times, but he was always out. Something was up, but Silas never let anyone in close enough for them to speculate what it could be.

  At the end of the second week, Kai and I met with Sheriff Copeland and rewrote so many pack laws I thought my eyes would bleed from all of the official documents and city code jargon I read through. Going forward, we opted to create a tribunal rather than send pack members through human-like court systems. If a member of the pack committed an offense against our laws, the alphas and the tribunal would deal with it.

  I expected Noah to push back on the idea of losing what he might consider some of his authority, but he seemed more than okay with the changes. He was really making it hard to dislike him, dammit.

  “Will the deputies be okay with this?” I asked.

  “They’ll get on board,” Noah said confidently. “To be honest, this system has felt broken to them for a long time. They’ll be excited to have more of a ‘pack’ feel again.”

  “What will we tell the current court staff?” I asked.

  “Judge Reynard has been ready to retire for years,” he said, chuckling. “He’ll be thrilled to be out of a job.”

  “That only leaves Williamson then,” Kai said. “He was just appointed to the bench a couple of years ago, but he’s been notoriously lax on sentences. Guy believes in second chances more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Bring him in,” I said, rubbing my tired eyes. “Both of them, actually. We’ll offer them a spot on the tribunal. Help even out the loss of their current roles.” The guys looked at me.

  “Even Williamson?” Kai asked.

  “We need leniency to balance out what the rest will probably view as hard justice.”

  Kai finally nodded. “All right. Make the call,” he told Noah.

  “Will do.”

  We moved on to city government after that.

  The exhaustion combined with my grossly high dosage of herbs left my stomach in knots, but I ignored it and pressed on.

  In the two decades since my dad had left, Ridley Falls had divvied up responsibility and even elected a mayor, who’d then appointed stewards for the various other roles. Treasurer, Land Use Regulation, Public Safety, Maintenance—basically, Ridley Falls had become like any other human town in America. Minus the elections since, apparently, the same staff had served for all twenty years.

  After interviews with each of them that left a bad taste in my mouth—they were nearly all loyal to Warren and salty that he’d been ousted—Kai and I dissolved their positions and started over.

  “That might have been a bit premature,” Presley said when we’d all gathered for another group meeting. “What are we doing about taxes and spending and shit like that without someone in office to oversee it all? I don’t know shit about running a town, but it can’t be something that just happens on its own.”

  “We need people overseeing it,” Kai agreed. “But everyone we interviewed name-dropped Warren or Clem as their idea of a great leader. We need a new regime. Fresh blood, fresh ideas.”

  Adan stood against the wall near Mick’s toolbox. We’d opted to meet at the Throttle because, well, Oscar had insisted that I get home for dinner tonight. I’d been too exhausted to argue, but I could feel Kai’s patience thinning with all of the curfew demands.

  Oscar was on his usual stool in the corner, lurking. Idrissa stood behind me, as far from Adan as she could get, with arms crossed. Presley and Kai sat on stools in the middle of the group, tossing a squishy stress ball back and forth.

  Silas was, as usual, absent.

  In fact, I’d seen even less of him than I had Idrissa over the last two weeks.

  “We still have another week to figure it out,” I said, hearing the exhaustion creeping into my voice despite my attempts at hiding it.

  No one looked pleased with my reminder of the ticking clock.

  They knew the plan. In one week, Vinny would bite me, and we’d see how the magic decided to respond. Hopefully, my wolf would bury it once and for all. But none of us held much certainty.

  “We could add those positions to the election ballot,” Idrissa said. “Let the people decide.”

  I bit my lip at my thoughts leaning toward my crazy ass plan. I’d been working on it for a while now, but none of the details made sense yet.

  “I have a better idea,” I said into the silence.

  I glanced at Oscar then away before he could realize my crazy-ass proposition was very much going to ruin his lurking-only strategy.

  “Well,” prompted Isaac. “Are you going to tease us or put out, woman?”

  Kai shot him a glare. His wolf had remained mostly cool this last week but only because we’d barely interacted with anyone but each other. I answered before Kai could snap at Isaac for his joke.

  “From what I’ve read, our economy and employment rate are kind of terrible,” I began.

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” Idrissa said.

  “Isaac’s doing a great job of making sure the town looks polished and well-kept, but underneath the surface, people are struggling,” I went on.

  “So we need a mayor who can stir up some jobs. What’s your point?” Idrissa demanded.

  I ignored her shortness but made a mental note to finally corner her later and demand she tell me what had crawled up her ass. She was definitely being bitchier than usual. And for Idrissa Close, that was saying a lot.

  “What if, instead of a city management team made up of politicians, we created a company to run the town?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure I follow,” Presley said.

  “The pack fell apart because of the curse, sure, but I think running this town like a human one only added to that feeling of separation. We lost unity when it became every wolf for themselves. What we need is an ecosystem that supports the whole from the ground up. That includes neighbors helping neighbors and an economy that trickles all the way down from the top to the bottom.”

  “You want to employ every single person in Ridley Falls under one company,” Presley said, the skepticism clear. “Uh, and pay them how?”

  “We make our money, not from each other but from the outside.” I looked at Isaac. “Isaac already does it with his art. Why not do that on a bigger scale?”

  “Uh, you want us all to start making socket wrench penis lampstands?” Isaac asked.

  “Or bedazzled dick molds?” Idrissa added, barely maintaining a straight face.

  Kai arched a brow at that. “Bedazzled dick molds?” he repeated. “What am I missing?”

  Idrissa pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  Isaac glared. “Nothing,” he grumbled with a pointed look at his twin.

  I cleared my throat, resisting the urge to let my knowledge of said dick mold show on my face.

  “No, I want us to use what resources and skills we have and put them together to create one badass organization that profits off the humans,” I said. “Make Ridley Falls self-sustaining, but not from one another.”

  “Create a company that sells shit to the outside,” Presley said, eyes glinting with interest now. “I like where your head’s at, Ashes.”

  “It wouldn’t be for everyone, obviously. Storefronts would still exist. The Throttle too, naturally. But for anyone who doesn’t already have a job or wants a change of scenery, they’re guaranteed a position, and we’ll find a way to use them. To pay them. To provide for them. The message is ‘Ridley Falls pack takes care of their own.’”

  I was met with silence.

  My heart sank a little as I waited for them to all tell me how crazy it was.

  “It worked for the hexerei.”

  We all turned to look at where Silas had appeared in the open doorway. He wore a shirt that looked like it needed washing and sported a few days’ worth of stubble on his jaw. Even from here, I could smell the forest on him.

  “Dude, where the hell have you been?” Presley demanded.

  Silas ignored him.

  I met his eyes, half-distracted by the dirt on his clothes, before registering what he’d just said. “What do you mean?”

  “The hexes have a sort of co-op,” he said. “Your grandmother started it before she died, passing the coven and its business to your aunt Arnie.”

  “What sort of co-op?” Idrissa asked, looking skeptical.

  “Everyone pitches in their particular skill set to make the coven an annual income that, from what I understand, more than covers their needs and wants.”

  “What do you know about their needs and wants?” Isaac asked. The haughty tone told me he was more interested in talking shit than he was actually hating on Silas’ idea.

  He was hurt. In his mind, Silas had deserted us.

  But Silas pinned him with a sharp look. “Have you seen the arsenal Cohen is packing? Where the hell do you think he gets his money for that stockpile?”

  No one had an answer for that.

  “What kind of business is it?” I asked.

  “What?” He rounded on me, looking defensive for reasons I couldn’t name.

  “You said they each use their skill set,” I said.

  “Yeah, do you mean like tarot reading and brewing poison in their cauldrons?” Presley put in.

  Silas rolled his eyes. “No, dumbass. I mean farming produce they sell to major distributors. Packaging herbs to sell to health food chains. A complete line of web-based courses where they teach herb classes. It’s a whole thing.”

  “How do you know so much about their business?” Presley asked.

  “Because I’m not a fucking idiot and I know how to use Google.”

  “So, that’s where you’ve been all week?” Presley snorted. “Googling the hexerei?”

  Silas wasn’t amused. He glared at Presley with narrowed eyes that sharpened the longer he looked at his friend. “How do you think I found Drake’s old pack? I do my research on my enemies.” His gaze flicked over the rest of us. “Unlike some.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  “Why should we adopt an idea that we’d essentially be copying from our mortal enemies?” Idrissa asked.

  “Because it’s smart,” Adan answered before I could, and it earned him a dirty look from Idrissa. To his credit, he withstood the venom she aimed his way and looked from Kai to me. “We are surrounded by hundreds of acres of forest and hills. There’s timber, stone, and probably a ton of other natural resources at our disposal.”

  Excitement bloomed in my chest, momentarily blotting out the tightness the magic left in me. They were already on the right track, and I hadn’t even laid out my plan yet.

  “Exactly,” I said. “The framework for what we’d need to get off the ground is already here. We should start with looking over the annual earnings for the existing mill and the quarry.”

  “We have a quarry?” Isaac asked.

  “The shipping routes it used were blocked by hexerei territory when the treaty was drawn which sent business into the shithole,” Oscar said. “It’s been struggling ever since.”

  Everyone turned to him.

  “How do you know?” Kai asked.

  Oscar shrugged. “Because I own a third of the company.”

  Bingo.

  Idrissa pushed off the wall, dropping her arms as broody turned to surprise. “Wait, seriously?”

  I had to hold back my excitement at that. I’d planned to ambush him in front of the others, insisting we needed his help putting together this organization I’d proposed. Mostly, to give him some kind of purpose that would make it harder for him to hover and worry over me. And now he’d just walked right into it.

  Oscar shrugged. “Josiah came to Warren a few years back. Hit some financial trouble as shipping routes were closed off by Cohen’s people. I had some savings lying around, so I invested. Then Crater started his trucking company, and we buried the records in shell companies so those hexerei assholes wouldn’t know the trucks belonged to us. Since then, they’ve left us alone, but business hasn’t quite bounced back yet.”

  “Fucking brilliant,” Presley said.

  “It got us up and running again, anyway,” Oscar said with a shrug that made the whole thing seem like no big deal to him.

  But it was a damn big deal to me.

  “Oscar,” I said sweetly, “How would you like to sell some of your shares to the town of Ridley Falls?”

  Chapter Eleven

  My wacky plan had gone better than good. Oscar set us up with Josiah at the mill, who provided us with five years’ worth of earnings and current projections for the next two. And Crater joined us to add his trucking company to the mix. Tiffany’s dad turned out to be an experienced business lawyer more than happy to help us get set up. Ten days in and we had the beginnings of a business plan that would provide income and sustainability to the entire town through a variety of resources this town had to offer the world.

  By the beginning of the third week, all of our meetings and the constant on-the-go schedule had left me drained. Worse, the herbs had begun to seriously weaken in their effects even with my increased dosages.

  Now, even with the herbs in me, I could feel the magic sliding beneath my skin, a constant reminder of what it could do to me if I let down my guard. Twice, I accidentally turned pack members green. The second, one of Noah’s deputies made a full transition to a frog. I somehow managed to change them both back, but the pain that followed put me down for nearly an entire day.

  On Wednesday, Cherise cornered me coming out of Tori’s shop—an unscheduled drop-in to make sure Vinny’s brother, Anthony, was actually showing up to work as he’d promised. Vinny trailed behind me by a few steps. He hadn’t exactly warmed to me, but he also hadn’t sabotaged me, and I took that as a good sign. He still wasn’t allowed inside pack meetings, but I was hopeful the trust could be rebuilt. If only to prove I could win them all.

  “Ash, you look exhausted.” Cherise took one look at me and blocked my escape with hands on her hips.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said.

  “When was the last time you slept a full night?”

  I sighed. “Probably when I accidentally slept for two weeks straight.”

  She opened her mouth, and I knew the lecture that was about to spill out.

  “I’m doing my best,” I told her before she could get started. “And I’m taking the meds you gave me. Speaking of which, I’ll need a refill again soon.”

  “Already?” Her concern grew. She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Ash, this is the highest dosage I can safely recommend. I can’t, in good conscience, refill anything for at least another five days.”

  “What about unsafely?” I asked. “What would that look like?”

  She glanced behind me at Vinny.

  “He’s with me,” I said. “You can talk in front of him.”

  Vinny stepped closer; nosy little shit.

  “Ash, you’re going to have to make a choice,” Cherise said. “The magic is fighting you for dominance. If you let it win, there might not be enough of you left when you do find a way to get rid of it.”

  I tried not to think too hard about what that would look like.

  “What about her wolf?” Vinny asked.

  Cherise looked just as startled as I was that he’d spoken at all. He pressed in closer, intent on his question. “If she triggers her wolf, will that help fight off the magic?” he asked.

  “It can’t hurt.” Cherise frowned again. “Wait. You still haven’t shifted?”

  “There hasn’t been time,” I said, which wasn’t a lie but obviously wasn’t the whole truth either.