The Alpha's Reluctant Mate (3 page)

I reminded myself very firmly that I'd just polished off enough food to satisfy a linebacker and narrowed my shoulders with resolve to get what I needed and get out of the way of temptation as quickly as possible.

Thirty minutes later, my basket was filled with everything imaginable from steaks and hamburger to most of the lunchmeat in the deli case with a smidge of cheese thrown in, three dozen eggs, three loaves of bread, and an Italian crème cake. I was on my way to the checkout line feeling a little smug over my extreme self-control when the sample lady stepped in front of me.

Crap!

I'd been doing so well; she just had to shove a tray of pizza rolls in front of me!

Unfortunately I knocked her down in my haste to grab the tray. I came back to myself when all of the little pizza rolls were gone.

The blue-haired little lady sat on the floor staring up at me in shock and horror; I blushed, embarrassed by my behavior.

I gently set the clear plastic tray back on the sample table and leaned down to give her a hand up. “I'm so sorry, I've been dieting and I just…”

The lady pulled her arm from my grasp and looked at my overflowing basket and me with stern disapproval. “Maybe you should try an appetite suppressant or have a friend do your shopping for you.”

“Maybe,” I smiled lamely, relieved when she sniffed and turned her back on me to get another box of pizza rolls.

I must have made a little noise when the scent of the freshly opened box reached me because she suddenly turned and eyed me suspiciously.

Blushing, I made my way quickly away from her, got to the checkout line, and happily made it out to my car without any further issues. So far, it had been a red-letter day.

 

* * *

 

The doorman of my building graciously helped me to my apartment with all of my groceries.

He smiled warmly. “You must be having a party.”

“A party?” I asked blankly.

“All of these provisions and I'm sure a lady such as yourself never lacks for company,” he said with a smarmy smile and a definite leer.

What was going on? I looked the same to me but all of a sudden, you would have thought I was the playmate of the year.

“I do have a few friends coming by later in the week and I thought it would be better to be prepared.”

The doorman smiled again. “I'd be happy to carry these all the way in for you. Maybe I could stay for a while.”

“Thanks, I've got it,” I sang out, grabbing everything together in one hand that I could and helping everything else through the door with my foot. No way was this guy getting in. Maybe the doorman, Mort, and John all used the same dealer and had gotten a bad batch of drugs. Oooh, maybe it was Ecstasy, I'd heard that could make you very sexually inappropriate.

He stood there trying to think of a way to prolong the conversation, seemingly oblivious to the way Dizzy stood suspiciously growling at his ankles. She looked like she was seriously considering taking a bite when I sharply called her back and closed the door on him. Sheesh, truth was definitely stranger than fiction!

The quiet of the apartment was welcome after a morning filled with chaos. After putting away the food, I made myself a plate of deli meat and plopped down on the couch with Dizzy.

Dizzy cocked her head and appeared to listen earnestly as I told her about my disaster-filled day. When I finished my tale of woe, she jumped up, resting her front paws on my left shoulder and licked my face. Smiling, I kissed her nose and gave her a few pieces of the roast beef I'd set aside for her.

Lunch complete, we snuggled down on the couch with a blanket and watched an old movie on the Hallmark channel; it wasn't long until we were both fast asleep.

 

* * *

 

Waking and stretching luxuriously, it occurred to me that maybe I should make it a habit to nap in the afternoon. It certainly refreshed me and brightened my outlook on things.

Of course my mood slanted a little downhill when I stood up and my pants immediately fell down around my ankles.

Frowning, I pulled them back up, expecting to find that they'd come undone, but to my amazement they now appeared to be at least three sizes too big.

Gathering the excess waistband in my hand, I tromped to my bedroom. No doubt about it, the time had come to retrieve the smaller sized clothing from the top of my closet.

I gave up trying to hold my pants up and let them fall at my feet while I pulled down the trunk. Funny, it seemed a lot heavier when I put it up there; I'd almost called the doorman to do it for me. Now it didn't seem to weigh much at all, which was a good thing because I wouldn't call that doorman back for anything.

Setting the trunk on the foot of my bed, I opened it and begin digging through various sizes of pants and tops.

First I tried the size twenty-two jeans and found them still too big to be worn publicly. I ended up with a loose-fitting pair of size twenty capri pants and a matching top. Hard as it was to believe, I'd lost almost three sizes overnight!

My momentary elation was quickly doused with thoughts of bacteria and disease. Did I have a tapeworm? Hyperthyroid to the hundredth degree? A pituitary problem? Or could it be some horribly aggressive form of cancer that wasted your body tissue completely in the span of a few days? I'd end up dead with saggy skin!

But as I studied my form in the mirror I realized that things on my body were lifting and tightening as never before; in fact some of the things that were lifting hadn't been this high up since I was twelve. I've always been a little chubby.

Then I studied the muscles of my calves where the pants ended and my leg took over. The muscles were well-defined and rock solid. Nothing on me has ever been rock solid; I'd always possessed quite a bit of jiggle with my wiggle.

This was all so strange and to top it off I had to pluck another wiry black hair from the top of my cleavage. This was way too much for me to be able to effectively process it all.

So I called Epenie.

She listened quietly as I explained the events of the last twenty-four hours since being dropped at my door.

“Hmmm…” was her only response.

“Well?” I asked impatiently.

“Well, what?”

“What do you think is happening? I'm really starting to freak out.”

“Don't freak out. Stay calm. I'm going to do some research and I'll get back to you. Umm, Xandie?”

“Yes?”

“Stay home; don't go out until we figure out what's going on, okay? Especially don't go back to the grocery store,” she cautioned me seriously.

“I think I have enough food to last me a few hours,” was my sarcastic response.

Epenie was already wrapped up in her research; she was a research assistant for a college professor so a new topic was always enthralling for her and often made her oblivious to all else. “Okay, talk to you later.”

I sighed as I looked over at Dizabell. “I guess we just have to wait and see, girl.”

With a shrug I headed for the kitchen; might as well have a snack while we waited.

Chapter Four

 

 

Lifetime must have been having a Dying-from-a-Dreaded-Disease-Movie marathon, because I spent the next several hours watching one brave heroine after another bite it from some kind of awful disease, all of which I was sure I might have.

When my phone rang, I grabbed it like a lifeline. “Epenie?”

“No. Is this Alexandria Pace?” a soft female voice queried.

“Speaking. Who is this?”

“Hello, Alexandria. I've been trying to reach you since early this morning. My name is Tera Beker and it really is quite urgent that I meet with you so we can have a chat.”

“What are you selling?”

“I'm not…”

“Whatever it is, I'm not buying. I joined the ranks of the unemployed this morning so I am not buying anything from anyone at the moment.”

“Well…”

“I have no desire to get involved in one of those ridiculous pyramid schemes either; been there, done that a couple of times.”

“Alexandria…”

“If you are collecting money, I can assure you whoever you represent has already been paid. Unless of course this is for that gym membership I was conned into buying in the late eighties. In that case I wouldn't pay up if I had a million dollars. It's the principle of the thing, you understand.”

“Ms. Pace, really, if you would let me get a word in edgewise. I have some information for you that you might find life-altering.”

“Trust me, I've had all the life-altering information I can deal with today. Bye.” I hung the phone up. Honestly, how many ways do you have to tell a person no? Telemarketers were getting more and more aggressive. Surely I'd covered the gamut of anyone she could possibly represent.

The doorbell sounded and to my profound relief, this time it was Epenie.

“What did you find out?” I asked anxiously.

She held up one hand indicating that I should wait a minute. I followed her to the sofa and sat down next to her.

Looking very seriously into my eyes, she took my hand and said, “Girl, you're a werewolf.”

I pulled my hand back in disgust. “E, this is very serious and certainly not the time to be making a joke at my expense.”

“I'm serious. I Googled the symptoms: stray hairs, increased strength, rapid weight loss, increased appetite, growling, howling, and biting people inexplicably. You're a werewolf.”

She was serious! I was flabbergasted. “Uhh…”

A hand swept to her mouth. “You didn't eat anybody, did you?”

“Epenie… ewwww… of course not! Besides, I
am not
a werewolf, that's the most preposterous thing I've ever heard.”

She then detailed every search engine she'd used during her research, all giving her the same results for my symptoms.

This was unbelievable. I trust my dearest friend with knowledge of the strange happenings of the day and she turns me into a canine!

“Whatever!” I got up and walked to the kitchen. Frustration apparently made me hungry—as did every other emotion I'd experienced today.

I pulled out the sirloin steak I'd stuck in the fridge earlier and turned the fire on under the skillet.

Epenie followed me into the room. “Mmmm… steak sounds great.”

I turned with a glare and growled.

Her eyes popped wide and she backed up a step.

A wave of heat rapidly rose as my face flushed with embarrassment. “I'm sorry, E, but I don't think I can share my steak with you.”

Epenie quirked a brow at me. “But you're not a werewolf.” A startled expression came over her face as she caught sight of the blackened ceiling and the hole where the smoke detector used to be.

“Don't ask,” I advised, as I was sure these things would somehow support her conclusion that I was a wild beast.

I had to admit that growling felt awfully natural and I'd never been confrontational at all before last night.

With a shrug I tossed the meat into the hot pan. My mouth watered as the delicious smell wafted through the air. I just left it in long enough to sear on one side and then flipped it, knowing that I wanted it to be really rare.

Epenie eyed the bloody piece of meat that I'd just flipped onto my plate with distaste. “Good lord, I'm going to have to go to the feed store and buy you some wormer.”

“Don't mess with me, E,” I muttered gruffly as I made myself slowly use my knife and fork to cut the steak into bite-sized pieces when all I really wanted to do was fall on it face first and tear into it with my teeth. Not that I was giving any credence to the idea that I was a werewolf.

I brightened and smiled at E. “Hey, maybe I just have rabies.”

She shook her head and walked out of the kitchen. “I can't watch you eat that, you have blood between your teeth.”

Her parting comment almost ruined the rest of my meal; almost but not quite. I finished the last bite of lukewarm meat with relish, then wiped my mouth on a napkin.

Just as I was coming out of the kitchen, the doorbell rang again.

“I don't think you should see anyone else in your present condition,” Epenie warned.

Rolling my eyes, I turned and swung open the door to face the newcomer. A small pretty woman with long brown hair and light brown eyes looked up at me.

“Alexandria?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I'm Tera Beker and we need to talk,” the woman said firmly.

“I told you I wasn't interested,” I almost growled. This lady was getting on my nerves!

She came into the apartment anyway and raised a hand to stop me when I would have told her to get out. “There's no easy way to say this so I'll be blunt; you're a werewolf.”

My jaw dropped as Epenie jumped up and shouted with glee. “See, I told you so!”

“I am not a werewolf! There is no such thing!” I shouted loudly.

“People once thought the earth was flat, did that make it any less round?”

“What does that have to do with the price of eggs?”

The woman smiled patiently. “It means that just because you don't want it to be true won't make you any less furry when the moon is full.”

There was very little time to react before Dizabell came charging into the room from where she'd been napping in the middle of my bed. She was on full alert, jumping between me and the intruder, snarling and baring her teeth.

Tera's face began to change shape before my disbelieving eyes; her small pert nose and jaw morphed into a long muzzle filled with razor-sharp teeth, and she leaned down and growled back at my poor little puppy.

No thought process involved, I found myself crouching protectively over my dog and snarling up at Tera, every hair on the back of my neck standing straight up.

Okay, so maybe I'm a werewolf.