Twin Alphas: Desired (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (9 page)

              Of course, his mission was to save Mackenzie. That was the most important thing in the world, more important than breathing.   Still, this was his family. His honor.   The thought of his late fathers having committed some terrible wrong hurt him to the core.

              “I could use some coffee and a restroom break while we figure out what to do next,” Karlie said.

              “There’s a diner up ahead.” Barron pulled in to the parking lot of the Morning Glory Diner, and as he did, he realized that a patrol car was right behind them.

              He and Karlie climbed out as the deputy parked and strolled right up to them.

              “What the hell is it with this town?” Karlie muttered. “Have you ever seen the movie Deliverance?”

              Barron fixed the deputy with a steely gaze. “Can I help you?” he said.

              The deputy stopped, his hand hovering in the area of the gun that sat in his holster.  “I understand you two were just on out on the Thorberts’ property, threatening them.”

              “All that we did was knock on his door. He threatened us with a shotgun, and I told him if he harmed my friend, he’d regret it,” Barron said coolly. “We left his property immediately.”

              “That’s not what he said.  I could take you in based on what he told me,” the deputy said, but he looked Barron up and down and didn’t make a move towards him.  The deputy was human, Barron was a werewolf who was far bigger than him.

              “You could try,” Barron said coldly. There was a long pause. The deputy swallowed hard and dropped his gaze.

              “I believe your local pack is the Black Forest Pack. If you would like to call in their Alphas, I will be happy to answer any challenge that they might issue,” Barron said.

              Then he turned and walked into the diner, with Karlie following him. They ordered coffee, and Barron couldn’t help but notice the hostile gazes of the people sitting at the booths and tables around them.

              Karlie imitated the sound of banjo music, and Barron laughed, despite the seriousness of their circumstances.

              “So, that shyster Fabian had a point,” he said. “You’re single. You’re a pretty girl. You’re funny, you’re smart.  What’s up with that? Haven’t met the right man yet?”

              She shrugged, and took a big sip of her coffee. “I met him. He proposed. Then he dumped me after the Breach hit and my family business was shut down. Then he proposed to the town mean girl who’d hated me all through high school. Then he dumped her and tried to propose again when my family’s fortunes turned around.”

              “So, you haven’t met the right man yet, in other words. I know plenty of guys who -”

              “No!” Karlie interrupted him, just as his phone rang.

              He glanced around. He didn’t want anyone to overhear him; these people were far from friendly, and they all seemed to be straining to hear what he had to say.

              “Be right back,” he said, and walked outside.

              It was Ajax, calling to tell him that the bartender had officially been reported missing, and Mackenzie was still fine, and also annoyed with him for hovering over her like an overprotective parent. 

              Barron told him about what the visit to their pack’s property. As he talked to Ajax, he watched Karlie through the window and saw that a waitress was talking to her. Karlie was frowning. She got up and walked out, just as Barron hung up.

              “What was that all about?” he asked.

              “Do you know somebody named Elizabeth?”

              “No, why?”

              “She said that Elizabeth was her aunt, and she deserved better than what she got, and if I didn’t get out soon, I’d be your next victim.  I didn’t bother telling her I wasn’t with you in that way, I just left.” 

              “Maybe we’ll find some answers when we look through back issues of the newspaper,” Barron said. They headed over to the newspaper office and he filled her in on Ajax’s phone call.

              “What relation do you think the bartender has to all this?” Karlie asked.

              Barron shrugged. “I wish I knew. I know what pack he’s from, and I am not aware of them having any quarrel with our pack. I mean, we don’t even live close to them.”

              Minutes later, they pulled up in front of the Mountaintop Morning News.

              As soon as they walked in the front door, Barron knew they weren’t going to get anywhere.  A big sign on the wall behind the receptions read “Mountaintop Morning News: Thorberg and Family Publishing, Inc.”

              The receptionist bore a sullen expression as they walked in the door, and she shook her head as they approached the desk. “Nope,” she said, before Barron even uttered a word.

              Barron just flashed her a fierce grin. “Thanks. That tells me a lot,” he said. The reception shot him a dirty look, and then pretended to be very interested in the magazine she was reading.

              They turned and walked out, and Barron closed the door gently behind him.

              “Okay, I see why you’re happy.They don’t want you to do any nosing around. Which means that there’s something that you’d find out, if you were to do any investigating,” Karlie said. “You know, in my world, they also kept copies of old newspapers at the town library.  The library is open to the general public, they can’t turn you away.”

              “Now you’re talking.” Barron’s step was jaunty as he walked to the car. They were getting closer to the truth; he could sense it.

              When they pulled up in front of the library, as they walked up the steps, an older woman rushed out and attempted to lock the door. “We’re closing early today!” she said, looking panicked.

              Barron grabbed the door and yanked it roughly out of her grasp. Not exactly a gentlemanly thing to do, but Mackenzie’s life was at stake, and he had just about had it with the residents of Mountaintop.

              “Call up your local Alphas. Tell them I issue a death challenge,” he snapped. “I’ve had two so far. In both cases, I separated the other Alpha’s heads from their body. Look it up online if you don’t believe me. I’ll be here at the library waiting for them, but I doubt they’ll show.”

              Her eyes were round as pennies. “The Thorbergs are a very powerful family in town. I don’t want to get on their bad side,” she whined.

              “You don’t want to get on my bad side either,” he growled, and he and Karlie stomped inside.

              Karlie and Barron quickly found the microfiche files that contained back issues of the Morning News.  One of the librarians who was working in the back section of the library, a silver-haired woman with cat eye glasses, frowned at them but silently pointed to the years they were looking for. Not knowing where to start, they began with the year before Ajax and Barron were born.

              “This is going to take forever,” Barron groaned. “We’ll literally be here past closing time.”

              The librarian walked over to them and said in a loud voice. “I need you keep your voice down. This is a library, you know.” Then, in a lower voice, she whispered “Start with the Claiming Festival thirty years ago. Look for the paper the week after the festival was over. Then look at the paper the following day.”

              And she turned and walked away. As she did, she dropped a piece of paper in front of Karlie.

              Barron glanced at Karlie, then quickly turned his attention to the microfiche in front of him.  His heart was pounding. Would he finally have answers?

“Holy…I don’t believe it,” he said a minute later. Karlie scooted her chair over to him.

“There’s an announcement in the newspaper saying that the town was going to have a new Alphas’ Mate, and it was Elizabeth Thorberg,” he said.  “And then the next day, there’s a retraction.”

“Whoa,” Karlie said. “The librarian gave me a date for four years after that, and I looked it up, and we’ve got the announcement that Jake and Joseph Magnussen were announcing the birth of their baby daughter, born to Elizabeth Magnussen. But the next day, the newspaper published a disclaimer saying that the announcement had been in error, and that the baby had been born to Elizabeth Thorberg. And no father was named. And by the way, the newspaper wasn’t owned by the Thorbergs back then.”

A crumpled up ball of paper rolled along the floor and stopped at Barron’s feet. He picked it up and uncrumpled it. It said “Meet me by the bathrooms in two minutes.”

The bathrooms were located down a small dingy corridor.   Barron and Karlie found the librarian there, waiting for them.  She glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, and then spoke in a lowered voice.

“Your pack was very well liked around here, once upon a time,” she said. “I knew your fathers. Lovely men, both of them. A shame what happened to them.”

“What did happen?” Barron demanded.

              She looked around and spoke in a lowered voice. “Elizabeth Thorberg happened. She was obsessed with those boys all through high school and college.  She was dying to bethe Alphas’ mate, always chasing after them, telling them they didn’t need to bother to go to the Festival when she was obviously the one for them. She was shameless, that’s what she was.” She let out a self righteous sniff.. “They weren’t interested,” she contineued“They liked a girl from the next town over – your mother. She was only twenty, not old enough to go to the festival, so they went off without her,, but they were planning on claiming her as soon as they came back. They told everyone.”

              “Why didn’t they?” Barron asked.

              “They came back from the festival and they were bonded with Elizabeth. They were so mad. They said they’d been tricked in to it. She went ahead and called in that announcement to the paper, saying she was the Alpha’ Mate – you know how usually the pack does that? She did it herself. Then she was mortified when they called the paper and demanded a retraction.  Her family was furious;  they were all completely humiliated.  Your fathers told everyone in town that they had never planned to claim her, and they were sure that they’d been drugged.”

              Barron drew in a sharp breath and he and Karlie exchanged startled glances.

              At least this time, they’d bonded with the right woman. But still…who kept drugging the Magnussen men? 

              “But she was bonded with them, so they were stuck with her, right?” Karlie said.

“Well,  she thought they would have to give in eventually and announce that she was the Alphas’ Mate, but they never did.   They told her she could live on pack property, because of course otherwise she’d die – but that was it.  She had to live in a separate house.  Then, your fathers started openly dating your mother, and Elizabeth was furious. Your mother moved on to pack property. She got pregnant with you two, and died in childbirth.”

“But Elizabeth had a baby.”

“Yep. She was running around town having sex with anyone who’d even look her way, trying to make your fathers jealous, but they didn’t care. She got pregnant with Caroline, and tried to pretend she was theirs – even though they’d never been with her that way, from what the word around town was, anyway. It was a horrible situation all around.  Your fathers finally decided to choose another mate, because they wanted you to have a mother figure – and they brought in yet another woman who wasn’t Elizabeth. That was the last straw for her.”

She hesitated, looking around to make sure that nobody was listening.

.

“Please,” Barron said urgently. “I need to know.”

              She let out a heavy sigh.“She left her little girl with her parents, drove off, and died.  Your fathers said that they didn’t even know that she was missing, they thought she was still in the house on their property, but she left behind a note that said they’d ordered her to leave and threatened to kill her and her infant daughter if she didn’t.  She said she was leaving her baby with her parents, and would sacrifice her life for her child.  There was a legal inquiry, and your fathers were found liable and lost their land to Elizabeth’s family.”

              She glanced around again. “I need to get back to work. I’m sorry about what happened to your family. It wasn’t right.” And she hurried off without a backward glance.

              Barron clenched his fists, glowering.  His wolf reared up within him, and he forced it back down.  Shifting wouldn’t help him now.  His fathers had been unfairly cursed by that vindictive woman – he knew that.   His fathers, his mother – they’d all died because of jealousy and greed.  He wanted to shift, to tear out of there, run over to the Thorbergs house – the house that should have belonged to his pack—and rip them to shreds – but he had no legal right to do so. Not yet, anyway.

              “I don’t understand why your fathers’ former pack wouldn’t just tell you all that,”  Karlie said.

              “My fathers were accused of the worst crime that one can commit,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “The pack was dishonored just by being associated with them.”

              They left the library in somber silence.  They still needed to be able to prove that his parents had been tricked in to bonding with Elizabeth Thorberg, and that they hadn’t ordered her to leave their property, but she was long dead and gone.