Free curse of the alpha - episode 03 & 04 by Tasha Black

what he would want?” Carol snapped.
    Ainsley’s heart began to break.
    “Your father loved this pack. He loved his town. He sacrificed of himself for the
    greater good again and again. Even I know what he would want. And it’s not… this. The college won’t even be here anymore if you don’t stay.”
    Ainsley hung her head. She couldn’t tell Carol her plan. She would have to bear it,
    even though the spiteful words hurt most of all coming from someone who had known her all her life.
    “I’ll help you outside,” she muttered and hoisted up a box of books.
    Carol grabbed the other box roughly and marched down the stairs with it.
    C H A P T E R
    5
    A fter what seemed like a lifetime, the two hours were over.
    There had been so many snubs, so many lewd offers, and so many genuine
    expressions of condolence that Ainsley couldn’t begin to recall them all.
    The scent of too many people and wolves choked the house. She turned off the air
    and opened the windows. They had even taken the fans, except the small one from her
    room. She brought it downstairs and balanced it in the window.
    The house was nearly empty. The wood floor was faded a bit leaving darker
    rectangles where the oriental rugs had been. In retrospect she should have kept them for showing purposes. But it was easier for her this way.
    The house already felt less like home without all that stuff. And she’d never, ever
    have to come back after this. The stuff in her room ought to fit in her dad’s old Volvo, which she could drive back to New York and donate to Purple Heart.
    The dust and cobwebs revealed by the furniture removal were driving her crazy. She
    held her breath and prayed that no one had thought to grab the cleaning products out of the broom closet. A good cleaning would set her straight and make her feel better.
    By some miracle, the broom closet was still full. She grabbed rags, Endust, Windex,
    the mop and bucket and a bottle of Pine-Sol. By the time she was finished with the first floor it would look at lot less spooky.
    As she cleaned, Carol’s words kept echoing in her head. It wasn’t fair – Carol didn’t have a life somewhere else. Ainsley was important in New York too. More to the point, she didn’t belong here – everything she touched here was ruined immediately.
    There had to be another way. They were all so in love with this stupid little town but they weren’t willing to take it upon themselves to do anything. Couldn’t Carol see
    Ainsley’s perspective at all?
    And it wasn’t like she was going to leave the town high and dry. She planned to
    choose Clive as alpha before she left. It would ensure the future of the pack. That had to count for something.
    Ainsley suddenly wondered why she cared so much about the opinion of someone she
    would never see again. No matter how she told herself none of this mattered, it did
    matter to her – at least a little.
    And crazy as that old woman had been in offering up her grandson, she had made a
    good point. Would New York seem interesting to Ainsley after a week in Tarker’s Mills?
    This town was small, but it would be hard for Ainsley to describe it as sleepy after all she had experienced in the last few days.
    Success in New York was glamorous. But what did it mean?
    Ainsley was alone there. Her only company was her competition. Who was she
    succeeding for?
    Her parents were gone, and if she was honest about her future she couldn’t see much
    hope for a family there. It was hard enough to stop from being a wolf once a month. Now that she’d opened the door to the magic thing she had no idea if it could be shut again.
    It wasn’t likely that she would meet a man who wouldn’t notice if she disappeared for a few nights every month and flashed blue lightning every time something pissed her off.
    But thinking that way mainly begged the question – why had she sacrificed everything
    all these years if it didn’t mean anything?
    It was this stupid little town getting in her