Claiming The Alpha (3 page)

“Yeah, I get that part. But you’re supposed to be at Ryan’s, like now.” Lori followed her down the hall

and leaned against the bathroom door. Nikki turned, scowling, pulling her hair back up on top of her head.

No time to wash and dry it now.

“I know. And I’m trying to get ready, so…if you don’t mind.” Lori stepped back into the hallway, her

frown deepening as Nikki closed the door.

Nikki turned on the taps, waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the water to get hot before finally giving up. She danced briefly through the lukewarm stream, trying hard not to get her hair wet and was

back out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, in a matter of minutes.

When she opened the bathroom door, Lori was still standing there, cigarette in hand.

“So, why are you late?” Lori followed Nikki down the hall to the bedroom.

“Why are you so interested in my life all of a sudden?” Nikki rummaged through one of the drawers

she’d stuffed her clothes in, pulling out panties and a bra. Lori perched on the edge of the bed, watching Nikki.

“And do you mind? I’m trying to get dressed.” Nikki held up her clothes. “Can this wait?”

Lori rolled her eyes but stayed where she was, only turning her head. Nikki scowled, blowing out a sigh

of frustration. She didn’t have time for whatever had pissed off Lori. She dropped the towel and pulled on panties and bra, grabbing her jeans and a t-shirt from the floor.

“Fine. I’m dressed. What’s got you so mad at me?”

Lori turned around, blowing out a puff of smoke. “Just that I got you this job, which you really needed,

and you’re blowing it off for some guy.”

“So you’re still upset that I’ve got a serious thing going with Jax and you’ve got a revolving door on

your bedroom? We’re not in high school anymore, Lori. I think we’re past that, don’t you?” Nikki tore the band out of her hair and started brushing it furiously.

“I’m way past caring if you’ve got a fuck buddy. Who you bang is your business.”

Nikki winced. Lori got bitchy sometimes, but this had crossed a line somewhere and Nikki had no idea

how to back this thing up.

“So what is bothering you? Spill it, because I’ve got a job to get to.”

“Yeah, now the job’s a big deal. Like I said, I got you this job, put myself on the line for you…”

Nikki stopped brushing her hair, watching Lori closely. Lori stubbed out her cigarette and sat on the

bed, arms folded across her chest. Nikki recognized the look in her eyes; she was hiding something.

“Put yourself on the line how? You said Ryan was looking for someone. You never said it had anything

to do with you, besides passing along his business card to me.”

“It’s complicated. Let’s say I owed him a favor and you were the pay off.” Lori got off the bed, striding to the door.

“I don’t want to make you late…more than you already are.” She walked out and Nikki heard the

apartment door slam.

Her face felt numb and her hands were shaking. Fighting with Lori was something she avoided at all

costs. It left her feeling raw and unsteady, like the only post holding her up had suddenly been chopped at with an axe.

She was way past late now. The only shoes she could find were a pair of old sneakers and she slid her

feet into them, the laces untied, threatening to trip her as she hurried down the hall. She tucked the laces inside the shoes, found her purse and keys and left.

Nikki pushed open the door to Ryan’s shop, out of breath from practically running all the way from

Lori’s apartment. It was so quiet that she was sure he was gone, but when the damned bell above the door

clanged, he was out from behind the beaded curtain. Nikki slid behind the table that served as her desk,

dropping her purse on the top.

“About time you get your ass in here. Do you know what time it is?” His voice was rough and shrill and

Nikki instantly went cold inside, her hands clutching her purse. He was practically vibrating, hands shaking, whether from anger or something else, Nikki didn’t know.

“I’m sorry, Ryan. I…overslept.” It sounded lame, even to her own ears. But it was the truth.

“I don’t give a shit. Invest in an alarm clock. But don’t be late again.” He was back through the curtain, the beads swinging violently, before she could answer.

Still shaking, she sat down on the kitchen chair behind the table. She took a few deep breaths, waiting

for her racing heart to calm down. He was right, she’d been late. He had every right to be upset. But the tone of his voice, his posture, everything about the few sentences he’d barked at her brought back a flood of images of dinner with her parents, the accusations, the shouts and insults.

But this wasn’t dinner with her parents, this was her job and Ryan was her employer. Even if he was a

druggy sleaze bag. He still held her paycheck and she still was supposed to show up on time and do her job.

She grabbed the appointment book on the table, flipping the page over for that day. There was one

name penciled in for about an hour from now. She read the name, tried to remember it so she could at least pretend to greet the guy. But she knew whoever it was probably wouldn’t even give her more than a nod

and a wave, before heading back through the beads to take care of whatever business they had with Ryan.

She thought the tattoo business wasn’t a very good cover, if Ryan wrote down people’s actual names, if

they were coming to buy drugs.

The appointment book was old and tattered, pages going back for almost a year. She idly flipped

through the book, stifling a yawn. She could have slept for hours more, curled against Jax, his warm solid body a safe refuge. It had been a strange night indeed, amazing sex followed by true confessions followed by more amazing sex.

And the biggest truth of all. Jax was a werewolf. In the mad dash out of his apartment and then the mad

dash out of Lori’s, she hadn’t had time to even think about Jax. But now, with nothing ahead of her but

hours sitting here, she could take her time and work through what he’d said, all that it meant for him to tell her and all that it meant to their relationship.

He’d been in the alley, he’d been the wolf she’d touched. If she hadn’t seen that with her own eyes,

touched his silky fur with her own hand, none of this would have been believable. As it was, she still saw it through a slightly drunken haze.

But the wolf was real, and Jax was that wolf. She thought about what it would be like watching him

change. He’d said it hurt, but just for a second. Was he naked when it happened? It was hard to imagine that sexy body turning in to a four-legged wolf. The only things that seemed to be him were the jet-black fur

and the silver eyes. And yeah, now that she thought about it, those were Jax’s eyes, glowing silver in the moonlight.

Nikki jumped as Ryan pushed his way back through the beads, cringing slightly as he came across the

room.

“Hey, sorry for yelling, but you know, like, this is your job.” His voice had his usually mellow distant

tone, the slightly stoned hippy reemerging.

“I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Yeah. Don’t let it. Lori said you were good for this and I trust her. She and me go a long way back and

I wouldn’t want anything messing up the good thing we got going here.”

Nikki nodded, everything Ryan said confusing her completely. Lori had never said she knew Ryan that

well or for that long. Something wasn’t adding up here, but Ryan was the last person she wanted to ask

about it and Lori probably wasn’t ever going to speak to her again.

“Okay, far out. I got a, um…client…in a few minutes. I gotta go get some cigarettes next door. Have

them wait in the back, okay?”

Nikki nodded but Ryan was already out the door. As soon as she could, she was going to start looking

for something else, some other dancer job. As much as she hated it sometimes, dancing was at least

something she was good at. She didn’t need to think about it, just move to the music, which she liked to do anyway. The guys, well, she’d dealt with creeps and sleazy guys longer than she could remember. And at

the club, there was usually someone to look out for her, the bouncer or Mack or someone would come

running if she called for help. Here, she was on her own with Ryan.

She turned back to the book, flipping through the pages, reading the names. There were some names

repeated over and over, pretty much in a pattern. Made sense, if he was selling.

And then she saw Lori’s name penciled in. Lori didn’t have any tattoos. Nikki flipped back further.

Lori’s name was there, every week, for weeks.

That made it pretty clear. Ryan had been Lori’s dealer for a while. Whatever was between them

probably had to do with drugs or a deal gone bad. And Lori owed him something. She’d been clean for a

really long time so the debt must have been pretty old.

The bell above the door jingled and Nikki quickly flipped the appointment book closed and pushed it

away. There was a short guy standing in the room, looking at her through thick glasses smeared with

fingerprints. It was amazing he could even see Nikki to talk to her. But he did.

“So you’re Ryan’s new girl. He said he had a hot piece behind the desk and he sure wasn’t lying. So,

you’re a stripper? Yeah, and you’re, like in the business now, with Ryan, right?” The guy moved closer to the table, leaning forward, peering at her closely.

“Yeah, real hot. I think we should have a talk soon…”

His sentence was mercifully cut short by the sound of the bell again. Nikki looked past the guy, almost

relieved to see Ryan in the doorway.

“Hey, dude. Sorry, I was getting cigs from next door. Come on back.” Ryan was in the doorway to the

back room, holding the beads aside.

The short man gave Nikki one more lascivious look, licking his lips, resembling nothing more than a

near-sighted lizard.

“You and me.” He pointed his index finger at his chest and then waved it between them. “Later, okay,

beautiful?” And then he winked.

Nikki’s throat convulsed as she swallowed, and she made a retching sound. She wanted another shower

to wash away the lingering effects of the guy’s eyes crawling over her body, leaving behind almost a

palpable coating of pervert slime.

As far as Nikki was concerned, quitting time could not come soon enough.

Chapter Three

Jax was dressed, downstairs in the living room, the members of his pack assembled. He had the journal

in his hands and the weapons he’d found upstairs on the coffee table. The guys were milling around and he patiently waited a moment for them to settle. But they were restless and then all pretense of patience went out the window.

“Sit down.” His voice was louder than he’d anticipated, but it was strong and deep. The pack members

were instantly quiet, slipping into chairs and onto the large couches.

“I’ve made a discovery about what’s been killing people in the city. I found my father’s…Luca’s

journal…” He held up the book. “And I’m pretty sure I know who…and
what
is doing the killing.”

Finn started to speak but Jax held up his hand. “Not until I’m finished.” Finn sat back, a faint scowl in his face, but he remained quiet.

“There’s an entry here from my father, and his brother, Arden. In that entry, my father describes a fight Arden had with a lycanthrope. A fight in which he was injured. The fight…and the injury happened just at

sunrise, as Arden was changing, so he ended up with a mortal injury in human form, more or less.

According to the journal, his throat was almost completely torn out, leaving a huge gapping wound and

massive blood loss.”

Jax noted briefly that the group was completely silent, all eyes fixed on him.
Good. About time they

paid attention to what he had to say.

“My father tried to take care of his brother’s wound, but Arden was caught mid-change, between

werewolf and mortal, and apparently the lycanthrope bite kept Arden from returning to mortal form, or

returning to a werewolf. It also kept my father from healing him in any way.

“They’d brought Arden back here to the house and sometime during the next few hours, he disappeared

without a trace. They suspected he’d crawled off to die, but there was no proof. They never found a body.

The only thing they did find was matted gray hair on a broken window ledge and a…” Jax opened the

journal. “A ‘rotting foul stench that permeated the room and the bedding.’ Apparently they packed Arden’s belongings in a box and stuck it in the attic, where I found this.” He held the book up by the spine.

“The attic smells like the stench in the alley, like the wolf-thing we encountered. Arden’s belongings are dumped all over the floor up there.” Jax paused, meeting every eye in the room.

“I think it’s Arden. I think he’s come back from wherever he’s been for all these years, and for some

reason, he’s on the attack. And I think he was here, in this house, looking for something of his.”

There was a stunned silence in the room followed by a nervous murmur. Finn cautiously raised his

hand. Jax nodded at him.

“And do you think Arden is a lycanthrope? That’s what he became?”

“I don’t know if he became a lycanthrope, or some aberrant cross between that and a werewolf. It’s

clear from the journal that he never fully changed back to human form, which may account for the

deformed appearance. But it’s not clear what form he was in when he disappeared. The last anyone saw of

him, he was dying in an upstairs bedroom, half werewolf, half human.”

Jax noticed grimaces on the face of many in the pack. To be caught mid-change was a horrible thought.

To endure that kind of pain, to not be able to shift back to either human or wolf, was almost unimaginable.