fate of the alpha - episode 1 (5 page)

Julian was beginning to wonder if it might be prudent to relocate, when shivering in the grass around the corner of the house alerted him to someone else’s arrival.

“Why are you breathing like that, Ainsley?” A clear female voice called as the newcomer approached. “Just relax, let it flow.”

The bell-like voice was somehow irritating. Even more so when Julian looked to see Ainsley’s countenance relax and the plants immediately cease their growth.

“Grace!” Ainsley said happily.

Julian was curious to finally get a look at Ainsley’s best friend. Over the last month, he seemed to be always arriving just after she’d left. He had joked once that he was Superman and she was Clark Kent. No one had laughed. All of Ainsley’s friends hated him. He was beginning to regret his pledge to protect the book.

Grace was not at all what he expected.

Julian had been picturing a curvy policewoman in full uniform - cold and dead serious where Ainsley was fiery.

Grace must have been off-duty. She wore a simple white t-shirt and a pair of worn blue jeans with a crushed velvet jacket the color of the night sky. Her inky black hair was smoothed up in an intricate bun.

Her body was the opposite of Ainsley’s - tiny and trim without a hint of Ainsley’s delicious voluptuousness. She carried herself like a ballerina, or more accurately perhaps, like a tiny woman who hoped to look more imposing.

Her dark almond eyes flashed to Julian. She must have been curious about him too.

The moment their eyes connected, a shock like cold water rushed through Julian’s veins.

Confused, his first thoughts ran to the defensive. Magic shimmered along the surface of Grace’s skin, visible to his inner eye. Ainsley had told him her friend was skilled in cottage magic. Was she actually capable of ensnaring him in a spell?

But she looked as stricken as he did.

Julian felt his heart blast out an unfamiliar cadence as he took in her parted lips, her tiny clenched fists, her unblinking gaze. Suddenly he was overcome with a longing to take that determined little body in his arms and soften it with his embrace. She was beautiful. She was perfect.

Grace shook herself slightly and addressed Ainsley.

“I stopped by the construction site on my rounds. Erik seemed worried. I told him I’d pick you up. How’s it going?”

“Not well,” Ainsley answered honestly.

“You’re trying too hard, that’s all,” said Grace. “Let it do its thing. This is part of you, it should feel natural. Right, Julian?”

How could she speak with such nonchalance when something so intense was obviously happening between them?

He couldn’t bear to look into those eyes again, so he looked to Ainsley as he answered.

“Ainsley is learning formal magic. It requires hard work, study and sacrifice, but it will give Ainsley control and precision. It’s a little different from cottage magic.”

Ainsley sighed in exasperation and tromped toward the cul-de-sac.

Too late he realized that what he’d said might offend Grace.

“Though of course, cottage magic can be very helpful in its own right.”

“It was nice to finally meet you.” Grace gave Julian a tight smile and headed after Ainsley.

A jolt of sweetness that almost made him feel faint followed their brief eye contact.

Mortified, he realized he was sick with love for her.

And now she hated him.

But surely
everyone
knew that formal magic was preferable to cottage magic? It wasn’t snobbery, it was a
fact.
Cottage magic was unpredictable and took its toll on its own terms. Formal magic was powerful and reliable.

He turned back to the pool. It felt like even the frogs were giving him the stink eye. Who could blame them when he had managed to screw up love-at-first-sight?

He tried not to imagine making love to Grace Kwan-Cortez on the abandoned brick patio, or in the tall grass as he trudged away from Happy to set up tomorrow’s lesson.

CHAPTER 4

E
rik hummed as he tapped out the next morning’s agenda on his iPad. He didn’t spend much time in his trailer - he much preferred the fresh air and blue sky, but at least in here he was surrounded by blueprints.

A bad feeling broke his concentration. Something was different.

He put down the iPad to listen for the sounds of trouble.

Silence.

There should never be silence on the site.

He flew out the door of the trailer, praying that there hadn’t been an injury, and ready to tear into whoever was holding things up if there wasn’t.

His eyes took in the familiar acre of overturned ground, auburn as his mate’s fur. His men stood around looking nervous, but there was no sign that their medical emergency plan had gone into effect.

An unfamiliar man approached. He was short, with round wire-rimmed glasses. His white button down shirt and khakis looked like they came from a cheap department store. A clipboard jutted from beneath one arm.

Government.

Shit. What could be wrong?

“Erik Jensen?”

“That’s me. What can I do for you?”

“This site has been closed down indefinitely.” He tapped the clipboard with a cheap Bic pen. “I’ll need you to sign here, here and here to acknowledge that you received this cease and desist and that you understand your obligations.”

“May I see some ID?” Erik asked.

That got the little guy’s attention.

“Excuse me?” The man blinked behind his thick glasses.

“If you work for the government, I have the right to request your identification and even your pay grade. Just identification will suffice, for now at least.”

The man shook his head as he pulled a lanyard with an ID out of his pocket and handed it to Erik.

Leopold Pruitt
-
Environmental Protection Agency.

“EPA, wow.” Erik returned the ID card. “May I ask why the EPA is interested in this site? We’re on private college property. I think you’ll find all our papers are in order.”

“It’s all right here,” Leopold pointed at the clipboard again.

“I intend to fully review that document with an attorney. Can you explain it in layman’s terms?”

“We’ve had reports that this site is a habitat for the endangered short-eared owl.”

They looked together over the already treeless lot.

“This was an athletic field, Leopold. We dug up the grass and removed 6 trees that had been planted to screen the field from the road. I don’t really see how it could qualify as an owl habitat. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

Leopold looked down at his clipboard.

“Is this
‘The Proposed Site of the Tarker’s Hollow College Inn and Bookstore’
?”

Erik nodded.

Leopold shrugged.

“Then please sign, here, here and here.” Tapping the clipboard again.

“Do you have a supervisor I can speak with?”

Leopold blinked up at him again. Fleetingly, it occurred to Erik that the man himself actually looked sort of owlish. No wonder he wanted to protect them.

“Sir, maybe you don’t understand. These are endangered birds. We need to take all reports seriously. You can go over my head, but you can’t keep building here.”

Erik fought his wolf, and even his human temper. The man was just doing his job. If only they hadn’t lost two days of progress to Clive’s hissy fit just last month.

“How quickly will you be able to wrap this up?” Erik tried his best to sound civil.

“This seems like an easy case to …evaluate.” Leopold smiled at him politely. “I expect we could have you back to work within six months to a year.”

Erik ran a hand through his too-long hair.

His men were watching him closely. It was important to lead by example.

“I will take your card and a copy of this document. As soon as my attorney has reviewed it I will be glad to sign off and get it back to you.”

Leopold took the sheet off the board.

“It doesn’t really matter if you sign it or not. If you start work again you will be in violation of the law. The clock on our evaluation process won’t start ticking until after you sign.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. You have a good day now, okay?”

The setting sun silhouetted Leopold Pruitt as he ambled back to his little gray car.

Erik fought to keep his head from exploding as he figured in his losses and the losses of the men who waited in silence on the red dirt. He had to find a way to keep them working.

He’d already lost a few good men this year. His crew were all young, male wolves from the Tarker’s Hollow pack. It was no secret that there was a shortage of available female wolves in town.

He and Ainsley had wondered together what that meant for the future of the pack, and what, if anything, they could do about it. If the remaining young males left to find mates in other packs, the Tarker’s Hollow wolves would be in trouble.

The Inn job they were on now, and the upcoming highway project, were all that kept his remaining crew from seeking greener pastures.

“Let’s call it a day, guys. Everyone back on time and ready to work in the morning.”

There was a collective sigh, and the men scrambled, glad to have an early night and hopeful that it meant they weren’t out of a job.

Erik knew his night would be a late one. Why would someone think short eared owls had been living on an athletic field?

He didn’t need to be wolf to notice something about this whole business smelled funny.

CHAPTER 5

G
race could not believe her luck as she stepped into the interrogation room.

“Dale,” she shouted through the open door. “Not today!”

“Sorry, Gracie,” came the muffled reply from the front desk. “You know it rained on Tuesday.”

Tarker’s Hollow police station was not large. Once a month, when the parking meters were emptied, the change had to be spread out somewhere to dry before they could deposit it.

The most likely place was the interrogation room, since it was seldom in used for its intended purpose. So now the table in the middle of the room sparkled like the Potters’ vault at Gringotts. And there was barely time to get it out of here before Sanderson got here.

“Hello?” came a soft voice from the station door.

He was early. Perfect.

She’d hardly been able to concentrate on normal day-to-day life since meeting Julian Magie last night. The electric feeling when they had locked eyes set her pulse racing just thinking about it. And she couldn’t stop wondering if he’d felt the same.

Of course, his attitude toward her “cottage magic” gave her a pretty clear idea of his feelings toward her. But still…

No time to dwell on it now. Now, she had to conduct an official interview in a place that looked more like the back room of a Chuck E Cheese’s than a police interrogation room.

“Come on in.” Grace pushed away the distractions and turned her mind to the business at hand. She had a crime to solve.

A man turned the corner from the hallway. He was probably in his late fifties and walked slowly with a cane. But his posture was faultless and there was a youthful sparkle in his cornflower blue eyes.

Dale Evans followed a few steps behind.

“Hello, Mr. Sanderson, thank you for coming in,” Grace said.

“I see you got lucky at the slot machines,” he said, nodding at the change.

“No, this is from the parking meters.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“They aren’t water tight,” Dale explained. “We have to dry the change, or the girls at the bank won’t take it anymore.”

“Ah, the responsibilities of our small town police force. I wonder if any of us are really aware of all you do for the village.”

Grace wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not, but she was very sure he had no idea about some of the things Tarker’s Hollow officers had to do. She gave him the benefit of the doubt and gestured for him to sit.

“Can I bring you a cup of coffee?” Dale asked.

Grace was sure he was only stalling because he was curious about the ‘younger man’ Sadie had been seeing.

“No, thank you.”

Garrett Sanderson sat down carefully, elegantly crossing one long leg over the other and holding his cane to the ground like a king with a scepter. The cane was polished black wood with a wrought metal handle.

Grace thought it might make a good makeshift weapon.

“I’ll let you get to it then, Gracie,” Dale said, backing out and shutting the door.

Grace tried to turn her wince into a smile.

Garrett Sanderson smiled back at her expectantly.

“How may I help you today?” he asked, gazing earnestly at her with his penetrating blue eyes.

She tried and failed not to let them remind her of Julian’s sparkling eyes.

Grace wasn’t sure how to begin. The whole town had been aflutter for weeks because of Garrett’s presence in Sadie Epstein-Walker’s life. Though he was no spring chicken himself, he was much younger than she. And there was not much to talk about in a small town - especially for the non-wolf majority. They had the weather, the Inn, the highway, and Sadie Epstein-Walker’s new beau.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about Sadie’s injury?”

“Yes, of course, I’ve been worried sick ever since I heard. I just came from the hospital. Nasty business, taking a fall like that.”

“Because she isn’t awake to tell us what happened, we need to do a routine investigation.”

“Ah, I see.”

Grace looked through the pages on her clipboard.

“Excuse me for a moment, Mr. Sanderson?”

“Please, it’s Garrett, and of course.”

She stepped out of the door and closed it behind her. One of the best tactics she had learned at the academy was that a suspect who was given time to get nervous usually did just that.

She grabbed a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge in the kitchenette and drank a little. She checked her iPhone and read the headlines and weather.

When she entered the room, she found Sanderson just as she had left him.

“Was that a test to make sure I wouldn’t steal any change?”