Page 5 of Teeth To Rip & Tear

“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 againstmy 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 fromher, 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’tyouscare 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 apumpkin 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.

---