The Lone Alpha Unleashed: A Big Girl Meets Bad Wolf Romance (2 page)

I joined some of the youngsters
on garbage duty. I didn’t owe these people anything, I was not one of them, but
I didn’t want to just sit back and watch either. Unlike the adult shifters, the
children weren’t so standoffish and pretty soon they were bombarding me with
questions about the world beyond the woods and mountains they called home.

When the light began to fade
James nodded in the direction of the road back down the mountain.
Time to go
.

“So that’s it?” The speaker was
a slender young man barely out of his teens. His face was a mask of righteous
anger, but he was also scared. His hands shook as he spoke.

A woman, slightly older, placed
a restraining hand on his shoulder and spoke softly, “Leave it Dan. Let it be.”
But he shook himself free of her and took a step closer to James.

“Joseph is dead and you think a
couple of bottles of water and a lick of paint will make up for that, traitor?”

James turned with unnatural
speed and bared his teeth, “I didn’t kill Joseph. Joseph died because he was
old and slow. He should have gone into the wild years ago, but he was too proud
and you were too weak. You all were.”

The younger shifter bared his
own teeth and adopted a more aggressive stance as he took a step forward. My
heart started pounding in my chest as I felt a surge of adrenaline, but James
didn’t look the least concerned. He shook his head dismissively as he turned
his back on the youngster and guided me towards the pickup. I held my breath,
sure that we were about to be attacked, but the young man was too afraid to
follow through.

As he opened the door James
paused and addressed the gathered pack as one, not bothering to hide the
contempt from his voice, “I’ll be back later. One more day. Maybe two. And then
I’ll be out of your hair and you can go back to living in squalor like animals
for all I care.”

As I climbed into the passenger
seat a young woman approach James. Despite her boyish appearance and the thick
layer of dirt and sweat that covered her skin, she walked with a predatory,
feminine swagger that immediately set alarm bells ringing in my head.

“I’m sorry about Dan. He was
very close to Joseph. There was a time when we thought he might lead us. But he
has… limitations.”

James shrugged and turned to
leave. But the woman grabbed his hand and I felt a tightness in my chest. A
familiar twinge of jealousy that came from a lifetime of being set aside for
thinner, prettier girls.

“Will you stay? You know he was
right. This helps and although we’re too proud to admit it, we are grateful. It
helps, but it’s not enough. We need you. We need someone to lead or we’ll all
go into the wild.”

“I need to go. I’ll be back
later,” said James. He glanced at me and I saw an intense longing in his eyes.
At the time I didn’t recognize its significance. But, whether by accident or
design, the girl had awoken something in him. A need to protect and provide
that had laid dormant for a long time. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was
the beginning of the end.

- X -

I lay naked and exposed,
luxuriating in my post-orgasmic bliss, for as long as I dared. James was the
first person who had ever made me feel comfortable in my own body, but even
that had limits. As I pulled on my clothes James sat on the tailgate and
watched, his charming grin glistening with the nectar he had found between my
thighs.

“What?”

James shrugged by way of a
reply.

I tried to retain some semblance
of dignity as I pulled on panties, jeans and my last clean top, but whatever I
did it felt like I was exposing myself in the most undignified way possible. By
the time I was done. I no longer found his grin quite so charming. I think
infuriating would have been more accurate.

“You could have at least averted
your eyes. I don’t exactly have much privacy here.”

“I was enjoying the view… and
anyway, we’re not exactly that hung-up on privacy.”

I’d noticed. While most of the
pack, in human form, remained fully dressed, it was obvious that clothing was
optional. Over the last couple of days I’d seen both men and women wander
through the camp in various states of undress. It didn’t seem to bother anyone.

Then again, they were all so
damn beautiful. Despite the run-down state of the camp, their lack of adequate
supplies and some rather dubious personal hygiene, every single one of these
people looked like they were only one good scrub away from being a model.

I can’t imagine what they must
have thought of me. Out in the world I was self-conscious about my weight, but
managed to keep it in check. It wasn’t like I was anything that far outside the
norm. Here, amongst James’ peers, I felt like a freak. Something I don’t think
James understood.

I snapped out of it when a still
naked James hopped off the back of the truck and stretched. It was my turn to
grin and stare as I admired the lean muscles that rippled along the length of
his torso.

“Oh, so it’s OK for you to
stare, but I have to avert my eyes?”

I knew he was joking, but I
don’t think he realized that his words still stung a little. The idea that
there would be any kind of parity between the two of us with regards to how
comfortable we felt showing our bodies was laughable. But rather than ruin the
moment by pursuing it, I decided to change the subject.

“Can I… I want to see you
change.”

I stumbled clumsily over my
words. For some reason I felt ashamed to be asking. I had no idea whether or
not shifting from one form to another was considered an intimate or private act
and if my asking would be crossing some kind of line. I had seen other wolves.
I had even seen them shift. But I had never seen James in that form.

He sniffed the air and stretched
again, “sure.”

I was taken aback at how little
ceremony there was to it. James stood in front of me, naked and manly… and then
he was a wolf. The entire transformation took place in the blink of an eye. His
flesh and features flowing like water in a seamless shift from one form to
another.

I guess there was an extent to
which I had been expecting something more dramatic and physical. Not
necessarily an agonizing ordeal of transforming and contorting limbs
reminiscent of a horror movie, but at least something that made sense of the
inexplicable. Something that I could wrap my rational mind around. Instead,
what I was left with might as well have been magic. I could accept it because I
had seen it with my own eyes, but I could not explain it.

James was gone and in his place
was a wolf. Not just any wolf though. This was still recognizable as the man
who had become my lover. Little visual clues like the color of his eyes, a
patch of bare skin on his flank that matched the shape and position of his
terrible scar and of course that grin had somehow managed to survive the transformation.

He was a magnificent creature.
Big. Far bigger than a wolf should be. But his commanding presence came from
more than just size. It was everything about him from the way he stood, to the
way he held his head.

It was hard to explain, but in
wolf form James was just… more. Whatever it was that drew me to him, the source
of that mysterious bond that made me feel like we belonged together, suddenly
felt as if it had been multiplied tenfold. I felt drawn to him and despite the
fact that the aftermath of my recent orgasm had long since faded, my body
responded to his presence. I could feel my nipples stiffen as the skin across
my chest and face reddened. My heart raced and a wave of intense longing washed
over me.

My head spun and I struggled to
get a handle on what was happening to me. I had no desire to be physically
intimate with an animal. And in this form James was definitely an animal. It
was the man, not the beast, I hungered for. The longing was so intense. I tried
to bury these conflicting emotions lest they overwhelmed me.

James nuzzled against my leg and
then turned to pad towards the main camp. Once there he began to growl and bark
as he waited for others to join him. A few did. Men and women, stripping and
then shifting to congregate at his side.

There was a murmur of dissent
amongst those who stayed in human form, but I sensed that the scorn and
contempt the collective pack had held for James over the previous days was
already fading. In wolf form it was obvious he was a natural leader and that
was exactly what these people needed right now.

As one, the small pack of wolves
turned and headed out of the camp towards the trees, picking up speed as they
went. By the time they were at the trees they were running at full speed, their
heads low and paws pounding in unison. Only James hung back. Before he entered
the dense forest, he turned to give me a questioning look.

I nodded in reply.

Go on. Run. Hunt. Do whatever
it is you do
.

Then he was gone.

And suddenly it hit me like a
blow to my stomach. The longing, that intense desire, it wasn’t sexual. It was
something more intimate than that. I wanted to be there running beside him. I
wanted to see the world as he saw it. I wanted to be part of his world… part of
his pack. I experienced a jarring wave of sadness and struggled to hold back
the tears.

Did James feel this too? Did he
mourn the fact that I couldn’t hunt at his side? That I could never run free
with him? I knew the nature of our bond disturbed him. Was this the reason why?
Whatever it was between us could never be complete and he must have known that
from the start.

I was so lost in my thoughts I
didn’t notice the woman who had sidled up beside me until she spoke.

“You should go.”

I bristled. It was the woman
that had spoken to James on our first day here. Begging him to stay. Daria?
Something like that.
I should go? What, so you can take a shot at him?
It was actually an odd sensation. I realized that I wasn’t jealous. I didn’t
need to be. Daria… no it was Darla, was the jealous one. If she wanted James
for herself it just wasn’t going to happen. I was the one with the lush curves
that the big bad alpha wolf wanted. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

But I was wary. With James gone,
I was a stranger here. And everyone around me was a blink of an eye away from
being a wild animal that could slaughter me before my protector returned.

I turned to face her, my
expression neutral, “excuse me?”

“I don’t speak as an enemy. I
don’t speak as a friend. I don’t know you and I am not your rival... You should
go. You don’t belong here.”

I gritted my teeth and held back
a sarcastic retort, “I’m here with James. I’ll go where he goes. I belong with
him.”

She took a deep breath, closed
her eyes and tilted her head. For a moment it was as if she had gone into a
trance. She pointed out towards the forest, “he is about two miles away, close
enough to the river that the sound masks the footfalls of the clumsy youngsters
who run with him. He is stalking a stag. A big one. Enough to feed us all.”

She paused to let it sink in.

“You
can’t
go where he
goes. You don’t belong with him. I’m sorry.”

“Look Darla, I don’t know you
and you don’t know anything about me. I get that you don’t want me here. But
it’s James’ decision, not yours, and if you think you can intimidate me, you’ve
got another thing coming.”

It was all bluster, but it was
fuelled by annoyance that was quickly turning to anger.

“You don’t understand. I am not
trying to intimidate you, I’m not threatening you and I couldn’t care less
what’s going on with you and James. I’m telling you this as a favor. Woman to
woman. Do you really think you’re the first? That a human hasn’t fallen in love
with a shifter before? You might think you love him with all your heart, but
you can only ever know half of him and you can’t love what you don’t know. Your
union will always be incomplete and between you will be a void. A need that you
cannot fill and…”

She threw up her hands.

“And what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Resentment?
Anger? Inevitable betrayal? That kind of thing. I’m… look I’m sorry if I came
on a bit strong. But I could see it in your face. I thought you’d already
figured it out and just needed that little push. I’m so sorry. I really am. But
you
do
understand don’t you?”

I shook my head, but deep down
inside I think I knew she was right.

- X -

They returned an hour later
dragging, just as Darla had predicted, the corpse of a large stag. There was an
electric sense of excitement between some of the younger wolves as they shifted
back into human form. The thrill of the hunt and all that. There was a spark in
their eyes as they spoke of the hunt and what they had learned to those who had
not joined them. They spoke of James with unbridled admiration.

Those that had left with James
walked with a bit of a swagger, stood a little taller and I got the sense that
the feeling of pride they were experiencing was not a familiar one. I noticed
more than a few appraising looks and meaningful glances between members of the
pack. As if potential mates were seeing each other in a new light for the first
time. It was, despite the conflicting emotions I was feeling, kind of
endearing.

“Enough,” the youth who had
confronted James on our first day here stalked into the center of the camp. He
held his hands, clenched into fists, at his side and his face was a mask of
pure rage, “I said ENOUGH!”

Although he lacked James’
stature and presence, his voice still carried with it a hint of the same
commanding tone. Everyone grew quiet and turned to face him.

“This cur is a traitor and every
minute he spends with our pack disgraces us all. It disgraces the memory of
Joseph and those who led before him.”