I love all the paranormal twists & turns. Ainsley has only come back to Tarker's Hollow to clear out her parent's house & sell it. She just wants to get it done & get the hell out of dodge! She left right after high school never to return after her boyfriend was killed, mauled by a bear or so it was said. She blacked out. But something strange had started to happen when she was with him that day. When she woke up in her room her parents had told her about being a wolf. She had started to shift, they said probably to defend him. She was afraid she had killed him. She went to New York & has never shifted again. It is like torture, every full moon she goes to a crummy little hotel that no one asks questions if they hear noises coming from your room. Now that she is back in town, she is finding out that the wolf community is very large. It seems her dad was the Alpha. She is expected to take a mate & become the leader. Ok, fine, she'll pick someone & dump this on them & get out of here. When she makes the suggestion to Mr. Macgregor, who now owns her parent's old hardware shop, he tells her it doesn't work that way. She is still trying to figure out how to get out of this when she is told her dad had thought Erik Jenson would be a good alpha. But since she hasn't chosen one yet every male around will be looking at her. She meets a human man, Julian, who had worked with her father & likes him. She comes home from his place to find her door open, Erik is inside. It seems that her father's books are all over the place & the library has been tossed. The next day she goes to clean out her Father's office at the college. It is an even bigger mess in there. They are together a few days, until she wakes up in the middle of the night to find him in her father's Library doing some sort of spell. It looks like a compass, it points at her. She decides to shift, he does something that stops her, she manages to reflect it back at him & throws him out through the window. The Sheriff, Clive Warren who is also a wolf had been trying to get in touch with her sees himself as Alpha. She is getting pressured from all sides to stay here & take her place as Alpha. She tells her best friend, Grace about the spell Julian had been doing & what she had done. Grace Has magic, her grandmother as well, they decide to have Ainsley come over for dinner & figure out what was going on. Later they go for a walk down to her house to see if she can just talk to her parents. They try to connect but say it is blocked. They decide to open a portal. They felt something but nothing that was helpful. She also learns her mother was a witch as well. After they leave, she is going to sleep & sees Brian her high school boyfriend. He tells her she had never hurt him. Before she can ask him to be more specific he is gone. The next day she tells Grace she needs to talk to her. Grace comes by. Ainsley tells her about seeing Brian & that she thought she killed him, that is why she left & never wanted to be a wolf. Grace tells her she will check the files & see what she can find out. Ainsley a date with Clive tonight. If she can make him Alpha she is getting out of here! She has people coming in all over to take what they want out of the house before it goes in the trash. When Clive gets there she has no furniture to sit on except the old picnic table out back. After the short dinner they have Clive is ready to get this done & become Alpha. She was sure she could do this, now she's not so sure. When she is about to get into bed with him she sees Brian again. He tells her this is a bad mistake. She tries to point out Clive takes care of the people. He can't see Brian & doesn't know what's going on. Brian then tells her Clive was the one who killed him. She asks him & he admits it. She tells him to get out. He's done waiting, he makes a grab for her. He is going to be Alpha. She throws an old softball trophy at him, he was going to shift but she says a spell that zaps him with blue light shot out of her fingers. It stops him from shifting & she escapes with only a ripped dress. She runs out into the forest to where Erik & Ainsley had built their treehouse when they were younger. He was coming to get her when he found her under their tree. Clive has shifted & is tracking her with 2 other wolves. Erik is going to shift to fight, she tells him they need to hide. They run to their old cave where they fine their old supply kit. Their is a blanket in it that is undamaged in it's package. They open it to wrap around them to warm up. She somehow closes the cave with vines so that the wolves don't find them when they are circling. Erik tells her to shift & she tells him she doesn't know how. He can't believe it, he asks her how she hasn't done it. She tells him it has been awful. He tells her she will have to ride him. She climbs on. They run for his house. It is right next to here. They need to clean up & get some sleep. They wake up & Erik tells her he has wolves on patrol so Clive can't get to her. He has to go to work. He also tells her after what Clive did last night, he is beginning to think that her parents car accident might not have been an accident. She calls Grace to talk to her. She comes by to tell her what she found in the file on Brian & that Clive is making all kinds of trouble for Erik with permits in town. Ainsley tells her about what happened last night. They had walked to her house to find it egged & the inside spray painted with graffiti on the walls. He dad's books & her things have all been stolen. It is a mess. Grace tells her that the report had been filed by Clive's dad, there is almost nothing there. Grace calls to Brian to ask him to show Ainsley what really happened. He takes her back to see Clive sneaking up on them. They are kissing next to a tree. Clive changes, knocking her against the tree, that knocks her out. Then he kills Brian. Erik comes home after such a hard day trying to keep his business going with Clive all over everything. He finds the woodwork polished & the ceiling painted. He can smell something good cooking. When she gets worried she finds cleaning the best way to work it out. She tells him about what she found out about Brian & why she left. She told him, she thought that Clive wanted to be Alpha even then. Now that she knows she didn't Kill him Erik is going to show her how to be a wolf. After they eat, they go out into the meadow to change. He tells her how to fell for the wolf & bring her forward. They shift & she learns about how to flow with all her sense getting overbearing. He shows her how to adjust into herself. When they shift back she chooses him as her Alpha. He asks if she is sure, it is for life. There is a light around her to let him know she is sure. when they are done rolling around in the pine needles, it seems he didn't get to be Alpha, she is. They get back to the house to figure it out. They know Clive is probably going to challenge her as Alpha. She will have to learn how to fight. Clive is a little upset he was expecting more than 2 kids & this guy with his 2 yr old to support him when he challenged Ainsley for Alpha. Erik & Cressida are in the meadow trying to help Ainsley hone up on her fighting skills, explaining that she needs to use Clive's size & temper against him. She is feeling pretty low after they both have beaten her many times. The challenge is sent to her, & she accepts. Grace is sent on a wild goose chase by Clive to keep her out of the way. When she finds out about the false alarm she heads to where she had seen many people heading earlier, following a hunch. Clive & Ainsley shift & they play a stealthy cat & mouse game wearing each other down, until Clive manages to get the upper hand & pins her. He has broken a few of her ribs & torn a piece of her shoulder. The pain weakens her into her human form. He leaves her to turn to the crowd. She sees Brian & her parents, sorry she failed them. She sees what Clive did to cause the accident & finish it with gas. It gives her the strength to get up & zap him with the blue light. He says she is not fighting fair. She asks if killing Brian was fighting fair, or running her parents off the road, then burning their car with gas was fighting fair? She zaps his several more times. She tells him he is banished & if he returns, will be torn apart. He gets in his truck & decides to shoot her mate. He loads the gun with a silver bullet. When he cocks it she hears it. She sees him pointing it at Erik, & shoves him out of the way. She sees Clive get shot 3 times in the chest by Grace. Grace runs over to them, she sees Ainsley is still bleeding & says it must be a silver bullet. She asks for Erik's knife to get it out. She has him get his needle nose pliers & to hold her down in case she wakes up. It takes a little bit but she gets it out. When Ainsley wakes up she is sleeping in Erik's arms. Cressida stops in to fix them breakfast. Grace calls her to tell her she needs to come see her house. She is almost scared but what more could be done to it? She tells her she'll be right there. They meet Grace at her house & it is cleaned, the window is fixed. They go inside, the graffiti has been cleaned off, all her furniture is back. Everything is back the way it was. Erik tells her she has been accepted & is supported. Grace tells her that the whole community had been working on it all night. Julian shows up & explains what he had been doing when she threw him through the window. There was a book of dark magic her father had found that could be used against wolves. They had been trying to figure it out to be ready for things like this. He had been looking for it, that night. She showed him where she had been standing. it was in front of a trunk she had brought down from the attic. It was in there, wrapped in wolf skin. Cressida asked if they should just burn it & Julian tells her they were trying to learn defenses against them, so they needed to study them a little more. He thinks whoever Clive had been working with wanted it too. I am sure ready for the next one!