Authors: Shawntelle Madison
Compelled
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Shawntelle Madison
eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-9887985-6-4
eBook Version: 1B
Cover illustration: Nathalia Suellen
Edited by Sarah Bromley and Wayne Purdin
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
Prologue
Years of suffering and solitude can change in an instant. For me, everything changed on a wintry New Year’s Eve night. As the new year’s sun rose, I wasn’t Natalya Stravinsky anymore, the ostracized werewolf from the South Toms River Pack.
I was something much more: I was the pack’s alpha female. Such a thing weighed heavily on my shoulders as I drove home with my new husband, Thorn, and struck me again the next morning when I woke up with my beloved at my side. The season would change soon, and with it, the snow would melt, yet I’d still be the same on the inside.
Or was I? Thorn didn’t make me feel that way. Nestled side by side in our new home together, we held each other all night. Every now and then, I reached out to touch his golden hair. He’d snore, not so much as twitching while I took him in my arms. After experiencing the fight of my life last night, I should’ve slept like a hibernating bear. Yet, I was restless, burdened.
I drew my nose to his chest and inhaled. His wonderful scent whispered poetry to my soul, and any pain I had wilted away. Here was my best friend, all mine, until he succumbed to what was bleeding his life away. As to when he would die, I didn’t know. All I knew was that Thorn didn’t have decades, or maybe even years left. With his arms wrapped around me and mine over his shoulders, no one could take him away from me—for now.
I held onto that. I’d waited this long for him.
I will covet the time we have together until the very end.
Chapter 1
Two months later
“You suck at being an alpha female. A trip to the proctologist for a rectal exam is a lot more intimidating than you are.”
My head whipped up to frown at Aggie. My best friend, who had relocated from New York City, had moved into my old place. She had lived here for the past two months, but I still stopped by to check up on things. Agatha McClure didn’t call my visits checking, though.
“Women don’t go to proctologists,” I snapped.
“Some of the chicks I’ve seen in Manhattan probably do.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m doing just fine, Aggie.”
“In which alternate universe?” The loud crunches from eating her bowl of Cap’n Crunch grated my nerves, but I ignored it. “Or do we need to talk about what happened yesterday at Barney’s?”
I offered a half-shrug. Damn her and her sharp memory. Besides her cereal, her morning turkey club sandwich looked good too. I settled for oatmeal instead.
“During your
little
visit to my workplace, you got told off by a preschooler.” She stopped to give me the eye.
“That kid puts one over on everybody.” And me in public, apparently.
“Not grown-ass werewolves.” She finished her bowl and added a second serving. When she snagged some milk from the fridge, I noticed she’d gotten two milk jugs from Costco.
Way to support your eating habit, Aggie.
At least everything was still lined up nicely. She was still catering to my little obsessive-compulsive disorder, even though I no longer lived here. “This has to end now before you’re challenged.”
“Nobody’s gonna challenge me.”
“At the rate you’re going, a whole kindergarten classroom full of werewolves can take you down.”
“I’m better now. Even Thorn said so the other day.”
She stopped mid-chew and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. Her red hair was in the messiest of hairstyles. “You do have a smidgen or two of self-confidence, but not enough for me not to be concerned with your well-being.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Might as well do this now instead of later.” She took her fresh bowl of cereal—still considered crunchy in my view for the next five minutes—and put it in the fridge. Then she sat across from me and stared.
“What?” I blurted.
Aggie leaned a bit forward. “If I hear you contemplate letting people screw around with you, I get to kick your ass and then the folks who put you down get a crack at you. Got it?”
The urge to take the plate with her sandwich away came to mind, but I quashed the idea. She still had a death-grip on the sucker. “Understood.”
“Look me in the eye when you say that.”
Damn, she’d caught me again. I slowly took in her face from her mouth up to her eyes. They were bright blue. Sharp. Unrelenting. Uneasiness settled into me, curling my stomach.
“Don’t you dare hesitate.” Aggie let go of the sandwich, gripping the table with one hand and the other grabbed my chin to hold me steady. “You can do this. Don’t back down.”
“I’m not hesitating.”
“Yes, you are. On the outside, I see the confidence. But in here,” she tapped my chest, “I see a wall you’ve built. You believe the wall is high enough for you to trick the world into believing you’re an alpha female, but I see right through it.”
My lips formed a straight line. Cussing her out right now would feel so good. She probably sensed my rising anger, but she didn’t act on it.
“As of right now. This minute. This second.” She let go of me and sat back. “If you doubt yourself in front of me again, I will rearrange your bedroom.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Her eyebrows lowered. “Try me.”
Aggie’s warning stuck in my head for the rest of the morning. Even more so during my quick “inspection.” My little breakfast visits had an ulterior motive: I wanted to make sure the place was as clean as I had kept it. After I had some oatmeal, I washed off my plate—while checking around the sink and cupboards.
Naturally, after such a large meal, I needed to wash my hands in the bathroom. That room was pleasantly well kept, minus a sweater on the floor, but I wouldn’t dock points for that. Aggie had even scrubbed behind the toilet, too.
“You’re going to be late for work.” Aggie leaned against the bathroom doorframe. “Or should I give you some gloves and a bottle of tub cleaner?”
“Just washing up.” I wiped my hands on the towel again. A fresh one my nose told me.
“Bullshit. Get your ass to work, Nat. I got things covered here.”
As I made my way out the door, I asked her if she wanted to meet for lunch at Archie’s.
“I got the evening shift tonight at work. How about tomorrow?” She didn’t mention how we’d missed out on a lot of nights together. Besides Thorn coming back into my life, things had changed for Aggie, too. She had a relationship. A pretty good one, since his scent was all over the place.
“I have dinner with my parents. We’ll get caught up eventually, then,” I said softly.
I left the house and kept my chin up. This was for the best. I needed to stand on my own and reluctantly slide into the expected role I’d earned. I’d told Thorn I wasn’t ready to be the alpha female, yet others didn’t see things that way.
On a snowy night two months ago, I’d fought another pack member, Erica Holden, for the position of alpha female over the South Toms River Pack and I’d won. Barely. Everyone who was present had seen another side of me.
As I pulled up to work outside of the Bend of the River Flea Market, or The Bends as the locals called it, I resolved to at least attempt to take Aggie’s words to heart.
I closed my eyes. The minute I stepped outside the car door, I’d try for a new start: No more doubts. No more self-effacing behavior. No more whining. I’d wear my big girl’s panties with pride. I was the alpha female now.
Running the pack as the alpha female didn’t stop me from working at The Bends. The store offered the best deals among the flea markets along the Garden State Parkway. Bill, my boss, was a pretty good businessman in the antiques game, but, like any goblin, he created more problems than profit.
Instead of entering through the back, my usual route, I chose to go through the dock. See? I could divert from habit if I wanted to do it. I preferred the back door during warmer weather especially. The outdoor area was covered with a long, steel awning to protect shoppers who browsed our wares on the rows of tables out here. Even the hardcore shoppers didn’t like to come out here in March. The weather tended to fluctuate between freezing cold and damn-I-still-needed-a-jacket cold.
Once inside, I dropped off my purse in the business office, my home away from home. Even though I’d briefly quit a few months ago, Bill welcomed me back. It didn’t take me long to straighten out the messes the staff had created while I was gone.
The customer service bell rang from the service floor, so I sprang into action, leaving the office through the double wooden doors. Just the feeling of working lightened any anxiety I had. Some might scoff at the kind of work that I did, especially since I used to work in NYC for a publishing company as a copy editor, but I found my job rewarding and relaxing. To be honest, before Thorn had returned many months ago, this place had been a crutch, a calming habit I maintained on even my darkest days. Every morning, The Bends would be here, waiting for me, and I’d go through the motions like a junkie enjoying her fix.
Not all customers gave me that oh-so-warm-and-gooey feeling though. This morning, I had a shape-shifter leaning against the service desk with a frown that practically filled his face.
The confidence in my step was artificial, but I approached the desk with a smile. This was a customer, after all. Differentiating a human from a shifter came by smell—when they wanted to be detected. Shifters usually took the scent of the form they assumed.
Which meant this fellow didn’t give a damn who saw him. Usually shape-shifters didn’t like to hang around places where spellcasters shopped, and for a good reason.
