fate of the alpha - episode 1 (2 page)

The first four years she’d passed primarily in the library at college. After that, she went straight to Manhattan and dedicated her time to selling luxury co-ops in the high-rises of the city, as far from nature as she could get.

Now she was back in her childhood home. Not just a wolf, but the alpha of the whole pack. It had taken the tragic death of her parents to bring her back, and without their loving guidance, she had a lot of catching up to do on her own.

Thank god for Erik.

“It’s tracks, and fresh ones too.”

“Whose are they?” she asked.

“You tell me.” His voice took on the serious tone he got whenever he was teaching her a lesson in How to Be a Wolf 101. “They’re not from an outsider. It’s a Tarker’s Hollow wolf. Can you figure out who?”

“You recognize all the Tarker’s Hollow wolves’ tracks, just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“
All
of them?”

“Sure.”

Ainsley sighed.

“What?”

“Would every wolf in this pack besides me recognize all the other tracks?”

“I’m a pretty good tracker.” Erik smiled modestly.

Ainsley tried not to voice the question that was in her head all the time these days.

Why wasn’t Erik the alpha?

Unlike Ainsley, Erik had been excited to discover that their small college town was home to a small pack of wolves who lived among the human population. He had been an integral part of the pack since puberty. Erik was strong, and smart, and everyone in town loved him. He would have been the perfect alpha.

But for some reason, she was.

When they had finally gotten together, she assumed she was choosing Erik as the new alpha. That was the way it was supposed to work - when she chose a mate, she would draw the alpha. But when the deed was done, no one was more surprised than she was. The alpha she had drawn was herself: Ainsley Connor, prodigal daughter, ersatz witch, and all-around terrible wolf.

As one, they squatted to study a single track that was perfectly preserved in the mud.

Ainsley saw paw pads, claw marks - a bog standard wolf print.

“How big is it?” Erik asked.

“Not as big as ours.”

“How deep?”

“Not very.”

“What does that tell you?”

“The mud is pretty wet, so it must not be a very heavy wolf. Is it a female?”

“Yes, very good. What else do you notice?”

Ainsley looked at her own tracks and Erik’s, then back at the one in question.

“Looks… furry compared to ours.”

“Yes, she’s pretty shaggy. What else?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re ignoring your most powerful sense.”

Ainsley dropped to her knees and lowered her nose down to the track.

It was no use. She could smell about fifty different wolves from here, as well as a town full of humans, and even the sleeping students in the dorms. As usual, she was a slave to her heightened senses, not the master of them.

“I feel like I can smell the whole world. How do you separate it?”

“I’m not sure, Ainsley.” Erik shrugged, and ran a hand through his too-long dark hair. “It’s like asking how you tell one color from another. I just do.”

“
The Inner Game of Tennis
, right?”

He laughed again. And again she felt the tangle of worry in her belly loosen a little.

“Just relax and try again. Try shutting your eyes this time.”

Relax.

Easy for him to say. Standing there, naked, he looked like a statue of a greek god. Ainsley’s own image resembled artwork that was slightly more Rubenesque.

There was a time she would have been terrified to stand completely naked in front of any man, even in the pre-dawn gloom. But she only had to look at the expression of adoration on Erik’s face, more naked than either of their bodies, to forget her inhibition.

Plus, you ruined a lot of good clothes if you were a wolf who didn’t like being naked.

Ainsley exhaled and closed her eyes. She lowered her head to the ground again and inhaled deeply.

In her mind’s eye, a figure appeared. An older woman, in a smart pantsuit, pulling up to the college to her old Volvo.

“Carol?” Ainsley asked, thinking of her father’s longtime colleague. It had to be her. Ainsley’s confidence strengthened. “Definitely Carol Lotus!”

She opened her eyes and looked up. Erik was smiling down at her, his dark eyes crinkling.

“Very good.”

She grinned back at him.

The breeze pushed her hair forward over her face and in an instant she could see his face transform. His gentle smile was gone, in its place an expression of desperate hunger. Her scent must be overpowering.

The moon.

Its pull was so strong. She wasn’t sure how they’d survived her first full moon. Now the moon was swelling for the second time since she’d come home.

Mating during the full moon thrilled and excited Ainsley. But it was hard to get anything else done. She knew they’d come into the woods with a task to complete, but she couldn’t be bothered to care about that right now.

There was only Erik. Her tall, dark, handsome, warm, naked mate.

Before she could process what was happening he had thrown her to the ground and pinned her down on her back, covering her with his hard body. As the pine needles tickled her shoulder blades, he fed on her mouth. She could feel his swollen cock pressed against her thigh and her whole body tightened with longing.

Her mate did not deny her. With each lovemaking he seemed to refine his study of her pleasure. As wild as he had been for her in the beginning he seemed even more desperate to please her now.

Ainsley gasped as his hot mouth found her breast. He licked and teased at her nipples until she let her nails sink into his arms. Then he latched onto one firmly.

Just as Ainsley felt her hips lift involuntarily into his, he froze.

Always a step behind, she heard it right after he did. College students, jogging on the path past the woods.

“Shit!”

There was just enough time for them to dash into the underbrush before the entire Tarker’s Hollow Men’s Soccer team breezed past. Most of them were shirtless even in the cool fall air.

Ainsley’s inner wolf pricked up its ears. With the moon swelling and her libido in this state, she would have devoured them all.

Ainsley wished she could swat her on the snout with a newspaper.
Pay more attention to tracking and less to boys, you furry slut!
But she was pretty sure it was a lost cause.

There was a snuffle behind her and she whipped her head around to see Erik try to hide a half-smile.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. You want me to jog a little too?” He demonstrated, and managed to look hot and ridiculous at the same time.

Ainsley looked away.

“Aren’t I supposed to be learning wolf skills or something?”

“If that’s what you want, you’d better shift before we get any more ideas.”

Ainsley sighed. It wasn’t what she wanted at all, but she was never one to shirk responsibilities. And right now, it looked as though they were piling up.

It seemed that every moment that wasn’t spent sorting pack business had to be spent catching Ainsley up on some aspect of her unconventional abilities. At least when she’d been this busy in New York, she was earning piles of money.

Regretfully, Ainsley let herself slip into the slender form of her russet wolf. Erik dropped into his enormous black wolf again and trotted into the woods.

The crisp autumn breeze was delicious and Ainsley drank it in deeply. In wolf form, she felt like she was just a pair of giant lungs with legs. She drew in air almost to her hips.

Just as Ainsley found her stride, Erik took off at an incredible speed.

Joyfully, Ainsley opened up. Once again she felt the ecstatic bunching and loosing of her muscles as she soared through the forest. She was enjoying the sensations and really hitting her stride, when Erik stopped in front of her again. She coiled the muscles in her rear legs and leaped, sailing cleanly over his head to avoid smashing into him.

She lifted into human form immediately and turned back to face him.

“You have to stop doing that!”

Erik didn’t change, instead he froze in place, massive muzzle hung low, snuffling and tasting the scent of a single paw print.

“Erik?”

He turned and gazed at her, intelligent eyes glowing in the fading dark. In a heartbeat, he stood tall as a man again.

“Look at the size of it,” he said gesturing to the print.

“That
is
big. Whose is it?” Ainsley sunk to her knees to find out.

“It’s not one of ours.”

“It isn’t?”

“And I don’t get it.” He shook his head. “Why would there only be one?”

“One print?”

“No, one wolf. Wolves don’t travel alone. We need to get back.” He turned, scanning the woods. “We need to get back
now.
”

Erik changed back into his wolf form, amber eyes gazing at her expectantly, black fur shining where the rising sun reached between the trees.

Ainsley shut her eyes and dropped back into her red wolf. They dashed through the woods in the direction of town.

When they reached the edge of the woods, they shifted again. Erik grabbed his leather backpack off the tree where he’d left it and threw a bundle of clothes to Ainsley.

She snatched it easily out of the air. At least her reflexes were getting better. She wondered absently if her metabolism might speed up now that she was a wolf.

Funny thing was, she didn’t care anymore. Ainsley had spent her adult life fighting off the curves that now drove her mate mad with lust. All those calories counted and rationed just to lose a few pounds he would have missed if she’d succeeded. Classic.

They dressed quickly. Erik held his gaze away from her. She knew he was fighting against the draw of her body.

“Let’s move. I’ll explain on the way.”

He held his hand out to her. She took it and they half-jogged into the village. As the tangerine sun began to light the sky over the quiet town, Ainsley wondered what the lone wolf might want that had her mate so concerned.

As usual, Ainsley was the one off-balance. And she was supposed to be the alpha. She gave Erik’s hand a squeeze.

Trouble was headed for Tarker’s Hollow.

At least one of them was wolf enough to lead this pack through the coming storm.

CHAPTER 2

G
race Kwan-Cortez looked on as Landon Shepard surveyed his lunch with the kind of unspoiled delight reserved for men under thirty.

Good old-fashioned Pennsylvania fare covered the entire plate. Buttermilk pancakes, swimming in golden syrup, rose to a four inch tower. A slab of greasy scrapple sidled up to the stack, and a Spanish omelet oozed gooey cheese to compete for Landon’s satisfied gaze.

Grace glanced down at her own plate. Fluffy yellow scrambled eggs looked back at her placidly.

“How can you eat plain scrambled eggs?” Landon asked, mischief sparkling in his pale blue eyes.

“Believe me, I get enough food adventures with my abuela.”

She grabbed a half-empty bottle of Sriracha and squeezed the hot sauce liberally onto her eggs.

“Everything okay with your meal?” Their waitress, Cressida, managed to sound bored and rushed at the same time.

“Um, fine, thanks,” Grace said.

It was odd to have Cressida wait on them. Grace knew that Cressida was one of Ainsley’s Lieutenants, and a trusted companion. Few wolves held a higher place in the Tarker’s Hollow pack.

Grace had spent most of her life around wolves, and had never paid much attention to pack politics. It was easier that way. But then her best friend had swept back into town and become the alpha, which put Grace in an awkward position. As a human, she had no real say in pack business, but everyone knew she had the ear of the alpha.

And of course Landon was blissfully ignorant of the whole thing. Sometimes Grace wondered how so many people could live in this town and never notice anything strange. Maybe there was something to the theory that people only see what they want to see.

“Cressida,” Landon said, carefully reading the name on her tag. Grace tensed up, unsure what Landon was about to get them into. “I really couldn’t be happier.” His voice dripped more syrupy sweetness than the pancakes on his plate. “I love the food, I adore the presentation. How do you do it?”

Cressida’s expression wavered between confusion and hostility. True to form, she chose the latter, spun around and flounced away. The effect was only heightened by the flourish of the 1950s-style skirt and apron she wore.

The Barry White Diner had a small staff and a strict uniform policy - all waitresses wore white blouses, red skirts (the shorter the better) and white aprons. A few years back, some guy had threatened a lawsuit over their sexist hiring policies. The management had agreed to bring him on as a waiter, with the stipulation that he wore a white button down shirt, red pants, and white apron. He’d lasted about a day.

A town as small as Tarker’s Hollow was lucky to have a diner and Grace had drowned many a sorrow in their bottomless coffee - first as a teenager during late night study sessions, and especially now, as a Tarker’s Hollow cop, patrolling at all hours.

“Do you think I pissed her off?” Landon asked in a stage whisper.

He cocked his head, and the gesture was echoed in the movement of his mop of chestnut curls. Grace was tempted to tousle them, but this was only their third date.

“It wouldn’t take much.”

The diner stayed open twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year. And any waitress who stuck it out more than a year or two had to be tough as nails for dealing with the drunk kids on weekends.

“Sorry,” Landon said. “Is she a friend of yours?”

Grace sighed. This was the problem with dating. How much of your life did you have to share with someone before you decided whether or not they were important enough to keep around?

“She’s sort of friends with Ainsley.”

“Ah,” Landon said, in a way that made it sound like he didn’t understand.