The Loneliest Alpha (The MacKellen Alphas) (17 page)

Alicia
and the MacKellen sisters took a seat at one of the tables toward the back
where it was slightly less loud.

“Great
place, huh?” Kaity’s eyes were bright and wide with excitement.

Alicia
nodded as her own blood started to pump with energy from the music, the smiling
crowd, the joyous laughter. Everything just felt good. That was…until she
glanced over at Hanna who looked like her mother just died.

Damn.

Kaity
flagged a gorgeous-looking waitress with dark black hair pulled back into a
tight ponytail. She wore tight little shorts and a tight top. The woman, Sam,
had an easy smile and a wink for all of them. It was easy to tell that Sam knew
the MacKellen sisters well. Nice or not, Alicia glanced at Sam’s rocking body
with envy.

Kaity
caught her stare and laughed. “I know. Hell, we all know. Sam knows.” She
shrugged. “She gets extra tips dressing like that and I don’t blame her. She’s
got a kid to feed and no dad at home. Plus, the girl is sweet as pie. That is,
unless you piss her off. You don’t want to make her get her shotgun. She has
used it before.”

Hanna
snorted and Kaity’s smiled huge. Shotgun? Damn, that woman was serious.

Their
drinks arrived, each of them having ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, a delicious
drink filled with at least five different kinds of alcohol. They were half-price
tonight. Alicia was never much of a drinker but she didn’t mind going out and
unwinding. ’Course she didn’t do that so often now.

Kaity
peered at Hanna with a determined eye. Time to get serious. “He’s a piece of
shit. You’re making the right decision.”

Hanna
shook her head. “Easy for you to say, you’ve never been mated. God, it’s so
humiliating. What am I gonna do?”

Kaity
may be the youngest MacKellen sister but her eyes were wise and bright with
intelligence. “You’re going to pick yourself back up, grow stronger, and move
forward. It’s all you can do.”

Alicia
lifted her eyes in surprise. Kaity spoke from experience. The girl was so young
though, maybe twenty-four, tops. Who’d hurt her that badly already?

“Kaity,
I don’t even know what to do now. I don’t know what to do when I go home or
tomorrow or the next day…and the next day. What do I do then?”

Bitter
memories surged in Alicia’s mind like an unwanted visitor that wouldn’t leave.
She took a deep breath and pushed the memories of Robert away.

“It
takes time,” Alicia found herself saying. “It’s one day at a time. You may want
the world to stop spinning but it doesn’t. It just keeps on moving whether you’re
ready for it or not. All you can do is deal with the pain. There is no easy
way. You just do it however you do it, but every day you have to make yourself
get out of bed and work. You gotta do
something
. You have to keep
moving. Have to keep your head up. Have to move on.” When she finished speaking
her voice had gone quiet. Blinking, she realized both Kaity and Hanna stared at
her with soft, teary-eyed expressions.

“Hell,
someone hurt you too,” Kaity said softly.

A
frog was stuck in Alicia’s throat. She cleared her throat and coughed until she
could speak over the lump. “It was a long time ago.” Though it didn’t feel that
way, it never did. “I just understand a little of what you’re going through, I
guess.”

Hanna
was nodding. “I think I’m going to quit my job.”

Kaity
did a double take. “What? Why? Just because you work for the same company doesn’t
mean you have to let that bastard

---”

Hanna
held up a hand. “No, it’s not like that. Besides, I work from home, right? It’s
not like I’d ever have to see him if I stayed at Union Lab Corp. No, it’s just
that I want to do something else.”

“Oh
man, like some kind of mid-life crisis? Aren’t you too young for that?” Kaity asked.
“Does thirty count as mid-life?” She glanced at Alicia for confirmation. Alicia
shrugged.
Who knew?

Hanna
rolled her eyes. “It’s not a mid-life crisis. It’s simply a career change. That’s
all,” she said strongly.

Alicia
noted that their drinks were nearing empty and flagged down the gorgeous
waitress and ordered them a pint of strawberry margaritas.

“Margaritas,”
Hanna said with wonder. “Never had them before.”

“For
real?” Alicia said, chuckling.

“Yes,
really,” she said in all seriousness.

Once
they all had their ice cold glasses filled to the rim with deliciously sweet
and tangy strawberry margaritas, there was a definite change in the air. The
girls started to relax. Hanna no longer looked as if she might break down and
cry at any moment. Kaity was bouncing in her seat with barely contained energy
and Alicia found herself smiling like a silly fool.

“What
do you want to do then?” Alicia asked Hanna.

She
shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to be a bartender. Oh! Or maybe a bounty hunter.
That has to be a bad-ass job.”

Kaity
had been mid-sip on her straw when she heard that. She spewed her drink as she
broke down into a fit of laughter. Alicia couldn’t help it, heck she didn’t
even really get it, but her body was warm and happy and someone was laughing.
So something must be funny. She broke down into giggles.

Heads
from across the bar swiveled their way at their hyena, out of control laughter.

“A
bounty hunter? A bounty hunter? Who do you think you are, Lara Croft?” Kaity asked.

Alicia
held up her hand. “Wait, wait, wait. Lara Croft is the tomb raider not the
bounty hunter.”

Hanna
nodded sagely. “She’s right. Dog is the bounty hunter.”

“Who
the hell is Doug the bounty hunter?” Kaity asked loudly, sucking on her straw
again.

“No,
it’s
Dog
the bounty hunter. Big guy, crazy white hair, big black
sunglasses. He’s a sixty-year-old redneck biker who looks like he had plastic
surgery to look younger,” Hanna said.

Alicia
choked on her drink. They all feel into peals of laughter, Hanna slapping the
table as if to say
why aren’t you laughing too, table?

“Why
would you want to be a bounty hunter?” Kaity asked.

“ ’Cause
they’re badasses who go out and get what they want. They take charge. They’re
strong.” The low ring of sincerity in her voice quieted the girls down.

“You
can be that,” Alicia encouraged. “Maybe you’re more of it already than you
know.”

Hanna
gave her big, beautiful smile that completely transformed her face. Alicia
sucked in a breath. It was that beautiful. Damn. She’d never seen her smile,
not once since she’d been here. Of course it was no wonder when she was dealing
with such hard personal issues.

“Okay,
time to change the subject,” Hanna said loudly. Kaity glanced wildly around
them then hushed her older sister. Hanna sent her a peeved glare and continued
just as loudly. “Let’s talk about you, Alicia. Kaity and I know all about each
other. But we don’t know much about you, Alicia Clark.”

“It’s
Clarkson.” Alicia laughed, correcting her last name.

“Huh?”
Hanna asked, blinking.

Alicia
shook her head. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”

Hanna
nodded seriously. “So what’s brought you to our pack?”

Alicia
snorted and Kaity slapped her sister’s arm, sending her a warning glare. “She’s
not here on vacation, dummy, she’s here because of Gavin.”

Alicia’s
ears perked up. Gavin. Just the name she wanted to talk about. She had to go
about this delicately.

Lifting
her elbow, she set it on the table and leaned on it casually. However, the
elbow wobbled and she struggled to keep it steady as she rested her chin on her
fist.

“Sooo,
Gaviiiin,” she started.

Wide-eyed,
Kaity nodded enthusiastically. Hanna bit her lip in a nervous gesture.

Tact,
Alicia. Use tact. These are his sisters, after all.

Nodding
to herself, she asked, “What’s wrong with his face?”

Wince.
Damn. That wasn’t what she was supposed to say.

Hanna’s
eyes widened into saucers. Leaning forward, she spoke in a loud whisper. “We’re
not supposed to talk about it.”

“Why?”
Alicia whispered back just as loudly.

“ ’Cause
he doesn’t want us to. Especially with you.”

Alicia
cautiously looked over her shoulder and scoped out the bar. “But he’s not here
and so he won’t ever know,” she said as if bestowing some grand information on
the sisters.

Kaity
nodded readily. “True enough. I think we should tell her. ’Sides, he probably
won’t, like ever. It’s already been like, what, a week and he still hasn’t even
shown her. So ridiculous. I mean, who does that?”

Hanna
was nodding but not quite as enthusiastically. Alicia eyed her target and knew
she’d have to work her magic there.

She
leaned in close to Hanna, batting her lashes like she was trying to get out of
a speeding ticket. “I like him, I do, but he won’t tell me anything about it.
He won’t even show me.”

“You
like him?” Hanna asked sharply.

Gulp.
A blush colored her cheeks; she just hoped it wasn’t as bright as the
strawberry margaritas in front of her. “I do. I mean, we mostly talk through
doors.” Or blindfolded. “But he wants to continue this whole thing,” she waved
her hand about, “for the rest of the month. I mean, really, it’s crazy!”

Kaity
was nodding. “I know. I’ve tried to talk to him but he’s set in his ways about
this.”

Seeing
that Kaity was on her side, Alicia jumped on her. “See, I’ve tried to talk to
him about it too but he’s so damned stubborn. Just tell me something, please.
What happened? When did it happen? How? Why won’t he just show me his stupid
face? I’ll tell you, sometimes it makes me so mad thinking about it I just want
to rip out my hair!”

The
girls blinked at her with parted, surprised mouths. Slowly wincing, Alicia
looked around to see that those around them had all turned at her little
outburst.

“Sorry,”
she mumbled.

The
sisters glanced at each other. Kaity drummed her fingers on the table, then took
a long gulp of her drink. Hanna slowly started nodding. They appeared to come
to some sort of conclusion without saying a word. As if they’d planned it, they
both leaned in close at the same time, their eyes devious and lips quirked up
in a way that must be a family trademark.

“About
four months ago---” Kaity began.

“More
like three and a half,” corrected Hanna.

Kaity
rolled her eyes. “Whatever. So our old alpha, Joseph Harrington, had a major freak-out.
See, he wasn’t the nicest guy and we all kind of hated him. But no one
challenged him for alpha position.”

“Why
not?” Alicia asked. “Not even Gavin?”

Kaity
bit her lip, shaking her head. “No, I guess not. So, he’s got this really young
mate, like younger than me and it was weird. She didn’t like him at all. Their
whole mating was a pre-arranged deal by her father. Real fishy, but we were
friends with her ’cause she rocked. Her name was Vanessa Kategan. She’s related
to the Kategans from the Midwest pack.”

Hanna
elbowed her sisters. “Get on with it. We’ll be here all night at this rate.”

Kaity
glared at her sister. “Do you want to do this?”

“As a
matter of fact, I do. So, she runs away to Chicago.”

“Who
does?” Alicia asked, getting confused. Her mind was fuzzy from a mixture of The
Proclaimers blaring “I’m Gonna Be” over the speakers, and the—she counted the
number of refills she’d had in her glass—one…two…three margaritas. Oh, and that
Long Island Iced Tea. Yeah, she was definitely in happy, smacky town.

“Vanessa
did. She finally left the jerk after two years of putting up with him. She tries
to get a divorce from him at the Justicars headquarters in Chicago. Long story
short, she meets an old vampire friend and they fall in love. He helps her,
Joseph goes after her, ends up getting killed. So on and so forth.”

Alicia
nodded, wiggling in her seat, eyes wide and straw slurping away between her
pursed her lips. This story was
good
.

“After
we got word that Joseph died, we did a challenge at the full moon. Typical
alpha challenge, right? All the biggest, baddest dudes who had the guts stepped
up to fight for the alpha position,” Hanna said.

“So,
Gavin stood up to the challenge,” Alicia concluded.

Hanna
paused, bit on her lip nervously. “Not exactly. He, well…” She glanced at Kaity
for help.

“He
didn’t want to do it, but he was forced into it in a way. He only did it
because Will was going to—the idiot.”

“Will,
he’s only…how old?” Alicia asked.

Kaity
nodded. “Exactly. He’s only nineteen, the youngest in our family, but he hated
Joseph so much and he kept saying he thought it was his calling to become alpha.
I felt really bad for him, we all did, but he hasn’t even finished growing into
his body yet. He’s so young and the other competitor, the one everyone had
their eye on was Marcus Graham. He’s a mean son of a bitch. Gavin knew there
was no way Will could survive the match. Marcus wouldn’t take it easy on him if
they fought, no way, so Gav stepped up in his place.”