Wolf Tracks - Bianca D'Arc Page 0,59
her leave. She still had some shopping to do, and she wanted to see more of the town in the daylight.
Helen’s shopping trip went well, for the most part. She picked up the nifty wheelie bag she’d been eying and a few other things, but the people in the shops and on the street were cool with her. Their reaction to her only changed when she got close to someone, and crazy as it seemed, she thought she caught some of them sniffing her. It dawned on her that maybe these shifters, with their ultra-strong senses, could somehow smell Jim on her, and that’s what changed their attitudes.
That made her feel weird. It actually felt both good and bad. Good that somehow what she and Jim had done together had left its mark on her. Bad that these people would have continued to treat her somewhat rudely had she not carried that scent mark. It seemed sort of backwards to her. Like, shouldn’t people just assume she was okay if she’d been welcomed to their town by no less than their Alpha and the ladies at the B&B? Why did they seem to look at her as a potential enemy until they got close enough?
She didn’t like how suspicious they were. Maybe that was a shifter thing. Maybe they’d been burned in the past and keeping their secrets was the only thing keeping them safe in this increasingly human-dominated world. She supposed she could understand their caution, but it still rubbed her the wrong way to be treated so coldly, at first.
Helen spent the morning shopping and trying to figure out what she could do to bite Jim—metaphorically speaking—as Miss Felicity had suggested. He needed a reminder that she could contribute to the mission. She just wasn’t sure what it was she could do that would get his attention.
Jim took the conference call in Joe’s office. Better to have the Alpha in on the planning from the start, than to run afoul of something local that they didn’t know about. Shane was also present, putting in his two cents when necessary. Jim was grateful for all the information Ezra and the others had been able to dig up, but he felt like something was missing.
About halfway through the call, when someone asked how Helen was doing, he realized it was her. She was missing. He’d somehow gotten so used to having her around, voicing her opinions, that he now missed her when she wasn’t present. It was a little disconcerting for a guy who’d always been a bit of a lone wolf. How had he become so dependent on her presence in such a short time? It felt like the answer to that question should be right there, in front of him, but then, Ezra asked a question, and Jim was distracted.
“Did you see a dark line on the ground?” Jack Bishop asked. He, of all of them, had the most recent experience with black magic wards.
“Not that I noticed, but it was dark, and I wasn’t particularly looking for anything physical. I was more concerned with the magical effects,” Jim said, cringing a bit. He should’ve looked harder. It just hadn’t occurred to him that there might be a physical sign of what he’d thought was a purely magical construct.
“That’s understandable,” Jack allowed. “But, with the potion witch, there was a dark line made by whatever potion she used to erect the black ward. Once we broke those lines, the wards were broken. The first time, I used a deer herd. I had them trample across a freshly laid potion line a few times, and their little hoofs obliterated it, wrecking the ward. The second time was when Kiki used those herbs from her fey garden to break the line.”
“Exactly what happened there again?” Jim asked. He hadn’t been present when the ward came down. He’d arrived a few minutes later.
“She had the herbs in a cotton pouch. She dropped the pouch on the line of the ward, and it ate through the cotton, releasing the herbs. Once that happened, the ward slammed down,” Jack explained.
“So, it was sort of acidic?” Jim asked, something occurring to him. “One of the old ladies in town has a little dog that roams around on his own during the day. Last week, he came back with burnt paws.”
“I bet he got into the ward line. At least a little. Like the deer, he could cross over the line with impunity because it’s