Lonely Alpha (6 page)

“Sit down,” she said. “You’re going to pass
out.” It was true – his gaze had grown hazy, and he was swaying a
little. She pulled him down onto the bed, where he promptly
collapsed, his eyes half-open. “Now tell me what the hell just
happened.”

“You turned into a wolf. Then you turned
back.”

She clenched a tight fistful of her blanket.
“Yes, but why, and how? It’s impossible, you know.”

An attempt at a laugh shook his chest.
“Clearly, it ain’t impossible.”

“Well it should be.” She crossed her arms,
wincing when she jostled her injured hand. The pain was a deep ache
that didn’t seem likely to subside anytime soon. “And I sure hope
you weren’t joking when you said that your body will heal itself
during the night.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Does that mean mine will too?”

He nodded. “No reason for it not to. You’re a
shifter, just like me.”

She started to say that she wasn’t like him,
but stopped. The memory of being covered in fur and running on all
fours was too fresh for denial. “Nothing like this has ever
happened to me before.”

“I gathered that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “How could this
have happened to me? Did you bite me or something while I was
sleeping?” It was stupid, as the door had still been locked when
she’d risen that morning, but how else did something like this
happen?

This time he really did laugh. “That ain’t
how it works. You’ve been watching too many movies.”

“Then how does it work?”

“You’re born with it – born with shifter
blood in your veins.”

Now she knew he was full of crap. “I
certainly wasn’t born this way. I’ve been perfectly normal up until
today – body temperature of 98.6 and everything.” She barked out a
sarcastic laugh. “No tail, either.”

He nodded stoically, still lying on the
mattress while she sat beside him, huddled inside her blanket.
“I’ve been thinkin’ about that, and I figure you’re a
half-breed.”

“Half-breed?”

“Meanin’ one of your parents was a shifter,
and the other human.”

“I think I would have noticed if my mom was a
werewolf,” she said drily.

“What about your daddy?”

Mandy shifted uncomfortably. “Never really
met him. My mother raised me by herself.” Her spine stiffened as
all the muscles in her body tensed just a little. Bracing herself
for judgment was a habit she’d acquired when she’d been little more
than a child – most people tended to give her one of two certain
looks when she mentioned that she’d never known her father. She
wasn’t sure whether she hated the disdainful looks or the pitying
looks more. She didn’t deserve either of them – her mom had been
everything a good mother should be.

Jack simply cocked a dark brow at her. “Guess
we know who the wolf in the family is.”

She slumped against the headboard, the
rigidness going out of her spine. “That can’t be…”

“Why not?”

She used her good hand to fiddle with the
frayed edge of the quilt. “It just can’t.”

“You’re not doin’ yourself any favors by
bein’ so hardheaded. Might as well just accept it.”

“Easy for you to say – you’ve been living out
here by yourself for God knows how long. I have a life back in
Nashville.”

“My whole life. And I reckon you’re better
off here than in the city anyway.”

“Yeah, right. It’s not like I’m going to
retire to the mountains now just because…” She swallowed a sudden
feeling of tightness in her throat, unable to bring herself to say
‘because I’m a werewolf’.

For the first time, curiosity sparkled in
Jack’s eyes. “You really think you could live in the city as a wolf
shifter?” He chuckled.

She glared down at him. “And just why
couldn’t I?”

He raised an arm in a sweeping gesture,
grimacing as it caused the muscles in his side to stretch. “A wolf
is at home out here. You go back to the city and you’ll feel like a
caged animal.”

“Whatever,” she sighed, eager to change the
subject. It wasn’t like she was about to take a werewolf’s life
advice. “Tell me what’s going on with that psycho who shot
you.”

“There are people out there who hunt shifters
like us,” Jack grunted.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. People
know
about werewolves?”

“Not most, but the majority of the ones who
do know have had the information passed down through their families
for generations. They’re hunters.”

“Why would anyone want to hunt you?” She eyed
the wound in his side apprehensively, shocked that another human
being could hunt down a man as if he were an animal and shoot him
in cold blood.

He shook his head and frowned. “They like to
talk bullshit about us bein’ dangerous – instead of seeing us as
rational people who can take on animal forms, they think of us as
wild animals who can disguise themselves as humans – but the truth
is they’re in it for the sport. A shifter is the ultimate big game
trophy, and every shifter-hunter out there wants a wolf shifter’s
head mounted on their wall.”

Mandy gaped in horror. “That’s
disgusting!”

“I know it.” Jack squeezed his eyes shut and
touched the wound in his side. “Anyway, I reckon one of ‘em has
come for me.” He opened his eyes again and shot her an apologetic
glance. “And you, too.”

“Great. I’m only a few hours into this thing
and someone already wants me dead.”

“Sorry about that,” he said, his voice softer
than she’d heard it yet.

The tenderness in his tone prompted her to
lay a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not like it’s your fault.”

He shrugged beneath her touch. “I reckon it
was bein’ around me and out here in your natural environment that
cued your body to shift for the first time. If not for that, you
might have gone for years without transforming, maybe even your
whole life. Half-breeds don’t all turn out to be shifters.”

“Oh.” She let her hand rest on his shoulder.
It felt strange to admit to herself, but when she touched him,
things seemed less crazy. Less scary. Her thoughts slowed and
wandered, interspersed by tidbits of werewolf lure she’d gleaned
from pop-culture media. “I thought werewolves only transformed
during the full moon.”

Jack waved his hand dismissively. “That’s
just the crap you see on TV.”

His breathing evened and mellowed as minutes
passed by. Was he asleep? There was no question that he needed
rest, but there was the pressing matter of a roaming murderer. They
needed to discuss their course of action, and yet, she hated the
idea of disrupting the first moment of peace between them. From the
moment they’d first met he’d been surly and sarcastic, and she’d
responded in kind. But there was none of that now. Just a quiet
stillness that made her feel strangely at home. She took advantage
of it, peeling off her destroyed socks before making herself more
comfortable on the bed. Then she pulled the blanket tighter around
her body, unable to keep from relaxing as Jack’s rich scent
enveloped her.

“I reckon we’ll bunker down here for the rest
of the day.” He spoke suddenly, startling Mandy.

“I thought you were asleep,” she
admitted.

He shook his head, and though he was awake,
his eyelids looked heavy. That was no surprise, considering his
injury, not to mention the fact that he’d apparently spent the
night tracking the hunter.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to stay here?
That guy could come bursting in here at any second.” She glanced
toward the curtained window, fear tying her stomach in knots when
she realized that she’d dropped her gun in the living room when
she’d shifted into wolf form.

“No, he won’t do that.” A wry grin tilted
Jack’s full mouth. “Bargin’ in and shootin’ a man dead in his own
home – what kind of sport is that? No, he’ll want to kill us in the
wild. We’ll be safe here – for a while, anyway.”

Mandy nodded stiffly. “If you say so.” The
truth was that she’d finally accepted the horrible practicality of
Jack’s anti-hospital sentiments. How could she possibly admit
herself or him to an emergency room when she could turn into a wolf
at any moment? She wasn’t in control of her transformations yet,
and then there was the matter of her body temperature. Jack no
longer felt abnormally hot to her, which meant that her temperature
had elevated to match his – to match a wolf’s. Who knew what other
changes this strange new nature had wrought in her body? “But
what’s our long-term plan?”

“To kill the bastard before he kills us.”

“You don’t think we should involve law
enforcement?”

Jack scoffed, hinting at the rough, sarcastic
nature he’d displayed up until recently. “Tryin’ to make it down
the mountain and into town would end in a fight for our lives
anyway, and takin’ the road would be a suicide mission. We’ll have
to heal up tonight and then start hunting our hunter.”

“Right.” Mandy managed to keep the shakiness
she felt brewing inside out of her voice. “Do you have a pack that
can help us?” It felt a little silly to ask, but she’d seen
something like that in a movie once, and her current circumstances
were far stranger than anything she’d ever seen at the theater or
on TV.

“No.” He turned over onto his uninjured side,
facing the door. “It’s just us.”

His answer sparked something inside Mandy –
curiosity, as well as tentative sympathy. His initial reply had
hinted at bitterness, but there hadn’t been a trace of it in his
voice when he’d said ‘it’s just us’. It seemed that she’d become an
ally to the crazy mountain man, and maybe he wasn’t so crazy after
all. “Do you think it would be safe to get some sleep?”

His back was still to her. “Should be.”

With his offhand blessing, she closed her
eyes. The past hour’s events had exhausted her, but that was no
surprise. It wasn’t every day that one transformed into an animal
for the first time and became caught in a murderer’s trap, only to
be rescued by a naked, golden-eyed werewolf.

****

Mandy awoke in a sweat. She’d been having one
of those dreams again, and the smell of crushed pine needles still
swirled about her. Something warm was pressed against her cheek,
and when she shifted against it, the scent grew stronger. Slowly,
she opened her eyes, finding herself face to face with plenty of
bare muscle.

Jack. He lay sprawled beside her on the bed,
his bicep against her cheek. She cast a hasty glance at his face
and was relieved to see that he was fast asleep. How had she gotten
here, in the middle of the bed? She’d fallen asleep slumped against
the headboard at the far end, while Jack had lain at the foot of
the mattress. Somehow, they’d found each other.

Her blanket! She remembered it with a start
and realized it was no longer wrapped around her body. Instead, it
lay crumpled at the base of the headboard. She snatched it with her
good hand and covered herself with it again.

Jack had kept ahold of his blanket, though
that was all he’d managed. He held it in his fist, and it streamed
across the mattress beside him, covering nothing. Mandy allowed her
gaze to travel over his resting body. It was perfect, save for the
wound in his side. It had dried over and was no longer bleeding,
but too much activity could probably change that. She looked away
from the injury, turning her eyes instead to his hips and the
gloriously dark, thick hair between them. His cock was semi-hard,
and the burning guilt that assaulted her as she stared at it was a
price she was willing to pay.

Heat crept through her entire being as
memories from her recent dreams flooded her mind. They’d been hot
and intimate. She’d privately accused Jack of being shameless more
than once that day, but apparently her sleeping mind was even more
so. In her dreams, she and Jack had bounded through the woods as
wolves and then – in their human forms – had tumbled to the ground
together, their limbs entwining as he entered her, driving her down
deep into the cushiony floor of pine needles as he made love to
her. What exactly had caused the dreams, she wasn’t sure, but
they’d been startlingly vivid, almost real. And then she’d awoken
in a sweat, lying beside a naked, half-aroused Jack. It was too
much to bear. She touched the tip of her tongue to her lips and
reached out with her unhurt hand, longing to feel his skin against
her fingertips. At the last moment, she drew back.

It was crazy. She knew that, and yet, she
wanted nothing more than to touch him. No, she wanted to do more
than that. She wanted to climb onto him, stroke his cock to its
full length and feel it slide inside her. She wanted to ride him
until a fresh layer of sweat shone on her skin. She wanted him,
bad.

Curling her wayward hand into a fist and
shoving it into her lap, she eyed the wound in his side again.
Fresh guilt surged through her. How could she be thinking such
things when he was hurt so badly? Regardless of how shameless her
desires were or how conspicuously absent her inhibitions seemed to
be, he was in no condition for sex. The only thing he needed to be
doing in bed was resting. But thanks to her unnaturally vivid
dreams, she was crazy with lust – a state she rarely found herself
in. She’d just have to work off the steam and let him rest.
Allowing her gaze to wander to his groin again, she slipped a hand
beneath her blanket, pressing her fingertips into the apex of her
thighs. Her core tightened when she saw that his cock was fully
erect now, and she pressed her fingers against her slick skin.
She’d just found her clit when a distinct feeling gave her pause,
causing her to freeze with her hand between her legs. Slowly, she
raised her gaze from Jack’s hips to his face.

He was awake.

She stared, knowing her eyes were wide and
that her jaw had gone slack. Caught beneath his golden gaze, she
was powerless to move. What blood she still had left in the upper
half of her body flooded into her cheeks, creating what had to be a
fantastic blush.