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Contents ( 114)
  1. THE HOLLOW SERIES BOOKS 1–4
  2. Contents
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Thirty-Four
  39. Acknowledgements
  40. THE GOOD, THE BAD,
  41. AND THE UNDEAD
  42. Dedication
  43. Contents
  44. One
  45. Two
  46. Three
  47. Four
  48. Five
  49. Six
  50. Seven
  51. Eight
  52. Nine
  53. Ten
  54. Eleven
  55. Twelve
  56. Thirteen
  57. Fourteen
  58. Fifteen
  59. Sixteen
  60. Seventeen
  61. Eighteen
  62. Nineteen
  63. Twenty
  64. Twenty-One
  65. Twenty-Two
  66. Twenty-Three
  67. Twenty-Four
  68. Twenty-Five
  69. Twenty-Six
  70. Twenty-Seven
  71. Twenty-Eight
  72. Twenty-Nine
  73. Acknowledgements
  74. Dedication
  75. Contents
  76. One
  77. Two
  78. Three
  79. Four
  80. Five
  81. Six
  82. Seven
  83. Eight
  84. Nine
  85. Ten
  86. Eleven
  87. Twelve
  88. Thirteen
  89. Fourteen
  90. Fifteen
  91. Sixteen
  92. Seventeen
  93. Eighteen
  94. Nineteen
  95. Twenty
  96. Twenty-One
  97. Twenty-Two
  98. Twenty-Three
  99. Twenty-Four
  100. Twenty-Five
  101. Twenty-Six
  102. Twenty-Seven
  103. Twenty-Eight
  104. Twenty-Nine
  105. Thirty
  106. Thirty-One
  107. Thirty-Two
  108. Thirty-Three
  109. Acknowledgements
  110. A FISTFUL OF CHARMS
  111. Also by the Author
  112. About the Author
  113. Copyright
  114. About the Publisher

“I mean it, Rachel,” he said, his low voice filling the small car after our doors shut. “It’s not fair to ask you to put up with this crap.”

Smiling, I looked across the car at him. “Don’t worry about it, David. I like being your alpha. All I have to do is find the right charm to Were with.”

He sighed, his small frame moving in his exhalation, then he snorted.

“What?” I asked, buckling myself in as he started the car.

“The right charm to Were?” he said, putting the car into gear and pulling from the curb. “Get it? You want to be my alpha, but have nothing to Were?”

Putting a hand to my head, I leaned my elbow into the door for support. “That’s not funny,” I said, but he just laughed, even though it hurt him.

Two

Dappled patterns of afternoon light sifted over my gloved hands as I knelt on a green foam pad and strained to reach the back of the flower bed where grass had taken root despite the shade of the mature oak above it. From the street came the soft sound of cars. A blue jay called and was answered. Saturday in the Hollows was the pinnacle of casual.

Straightening, I stretched to crack my back, then slumped, wincing when my amulet lost contact with my skin and I felt a jolt of pain. I knew I shouldn’t be working out there under the influence of a pain amulet, lest I hurt myself without realizing it, but after yesterday I needed some “dirt time” to reassure my subconscious that I was alive. And the garden needed attention. It was a mess without Jenks and his family keeping it up.

The smell of brewing coffee slipped out the kitchen window and into the peace of the cool spring afternoon, and I knew that Ivy was up. Standing, I gazed from the yellow clapboard add-on behind the rented church to the walled graveyard past the witch’s garden. The entire grounds took up four city lots and stretched from one street to the other behind it. Though no one had been buried here for almost thirty years, the grass was mown by yours truly. I felt a tidy graveyard made a happy graveyard.

Wondering if Ivy would bring me coffee if I shouted, I nudged my knee pad into the sun near a patch of soft-stemmed black violets. Jenks had seeded the plot last fall, and I wanted to thin them before they got spindly from competition. I knelt before the small plants, moving my way around the bed, circling the rosebush and pulling a third of them.

I had been out there long enough to get warm from exertion, worry waking me before noon. Sleep hadn’t come easily either. I’d sat up past sunrise in the kitchen with my spell books in search of a charm to Were into a wolf. It was a task whose success was slim at best; there were no spells to change into sentient beings—at least no legal ones. And it would have to be an earth charm since ley line magic was mostly illusion or physical bursts of energy. I had a small but unique library, yet for all my spells and charms, I had nothing that told me how to Were.