A Wolf's Obsession: Part One: (BBW/Shapeshifter Paranormal Romance) (Alpha Lands Serial) (2 page)

When Rosa walked into the front office, the receptionist looked up from her typing. "Yes?"

Several other people were in the office, too, but they only looked her up and down and went back to their conversations. Fear rose into her throat, but she wasn't sure why. Yes, everyone in this office was a wolf, but they were human, too. Her parents' myths about the dangers of being too close to wolves tugged at her a little. Could there be any truth to what they said? Would she, as a pure-blood, be targeted? She shook off the ridiculous thought.

"I'm Rosa Mendez," she said to the receptionist. "I think I'm in room B14."

The woman entered her name into the computer. "Yes, second grade hall. When you leave this office, turn left, go down two hallways, and turn left again. The door is unlocked, and the key is in the lap drawer of the desk. Staff meeting in the cafeteria at 9:00 a.m."

Rosa thanked her and checked the time on her phone. She had thirty minutes before the meeting.

As she passed more faculty members in the main hallway, she noticed several double-takes. The manager of the teacher recruiting program had emphasized that Rosa would be the only pure-blood in the school. This hadn't fazed her at the time, but now, she wished she didn't stand out quite so much. Maybe she could stand at the front during the faculty meeting to get all the staring over all at once.

When Rosa opened the door to room B14, she thought there'd been a mistake. The room was virtually empty of anything except one tall cabinet, her desk, and four neat lines of student desks. No books, no maps, no posters. No decorations of any kind. She set her bag on her desk and opened the unlocked cabinet. It, too, was empty.

"Hello, Rosa."

Rosa flinched and turned to find a man standing in her doorway. He looked like he was in his thirties, wearing rectangular wire-frame glasses and a short-sleeved plaid shirt with khaki shorts. His hair was pulled back in a long, black ponytail. He had one small tribal tattoo on his forearm. Rosa had no idea who he was or how he knew her name.

"Hi, I'm sorry, I'm terrible with names," she said. "Please tell me we haven't met already."

His smile put her at ease. "Raub Luna. Sixth grade math and science. I saw your name on the faculty phone list and noticed that you're new to the school. It seems you're also new to the Alpha Lands."

How could they identify her as a non-native pure-blood so easily? There had to be a way for her to blend in better. "Yes, I moved into my new den a few days ago."

He nodded. "Do you need help with anything?"

"To be honest, I don't know." Rosa surveyed the room again. It was still as drab and gray as she thought. "Are all the classrooms like this?"

"It won't take you long to make it yours," he said. "Talk to the librarian about equipment. She manages all of the valuable electronics, like projectors."

"All right. I guess that's a start." Rosa expected him to leave now that he had welcomed her to the school. Instead, he continued to gaze at her without apology. It seemed that his wolf lurked just beneath the surface. This thought sent a spike of adrenaline up her spine.

"You're a beautiful female," he said in a low but firm voice. "You will make a perfect mate."

Rosa had no response for this … what? Compliment? Harassment? Worst pick-up line ever? When he said goodbye to her and disappeared, she wondered if it happened at all.

______

At dusk, Jared left his den for his evening run. He shifted and took off down his street without warming up. He loved that as a wolf, his muscles were ready at a second's notice. Humans had pampered themselves too much, and they were weaker for it. Vulnerable. He hated the thought of willingly giving up strength.

He decided to stick around the neighborhoods instead of veering off into the woods. Surveying the area while he ran helped him keep track of who lived around him. If he was going to be an alpha with his own pack, he had to know what went on in his territory. Outwardly, he was a beta still finding his place in the Alpha Lands, but inside, he was confident he was alpha material. It wasn't only his lineage that made him feel this way, even though his father was chief alpha of the Anya tribe. A son couldn't assume alpha status based on his father's accomplishments. He had to prove himself as a leader to the community.

And this meant putting his all-night parties and one-night stands behind him. This was his time to show everyone he had matured.

Roughly five miles into his run, Jared turned to cut through a den complex. It had only a few buildings, like his. The manager gave teachers a discount, so many of the residents were young, single females. Some males tried to take advantage of this situation and lingered near the buildings when they had no business being there. Jared enjoyed running these assholes off the property.

Tonight, Jared didn't find any shady wolves in the streets, so he turned to jog along the back of the buildings. Now that the sun had set, lights glowed from the covered windows. All of the shades were pulled down except one. He peeked into the den to see if anyone was home. He didn't have any clothes to use if he shifted, but a little embarrassment in human form was worth reminding the resident that it's much safer to keep the blinds closed, especially after dark.

What he saw inside, though, made him forget why he was there. Yes, there was a young woman in the den, but she was not what he expected to find. She was a pure-blood, but she wasn't like any pure-blood he'd had in his bed. And he'd never seen another female—wolf or human—with such a perfect, fertile shape. Alphas and betas trying to establish their own packs would fight to the death over a woman like this, and he would be one of them.

A woman like this belonged in his pack.

Unable to tear himself away from the window, Jared watched her hang pictures on the wall. She wore a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt, and her long hair was pulled back in a barely tamed ponytail. She sang even though there was no music, and every time she came down from the stepladder, she danced a little before going back up. He was so mesmerized, she startled him when she came to the window. He froze. Chances are, she could see only a reflection of herself, but he wanted to be sure. He watched her fuss with the blinds, which seemed to be broken. Finally, though, she managed to cover the whole window, releasing Jared from her allure.

______

As Rosa looked out over the nineteen little faces in her classroom, she panicked. It wasn't the first time she'd been in front of a group of kids. She'd loved doing her student teaching during college. This was different, though. These were
her
kids. She was responsible for the shaping of their growing brains. And she wanted them to have the best second-grade experience possible.

She couldn't share a drop of her wisdom, though, if she literally couldn't speak to them as a group.
Pull it together,
she told herself.
You can do this. Who's afraid of a bunch of six-year-olds, anyway?

Rosa had worked hard the previous week to turn her prison cell into a real classroom. When she was told that there was little budget for books, much less decorations, she pulled out her credit card and hit the stores.

A boy in the first row—the paper nameplate on his desk said
Tiger
—raised his hand straight up in the air.

"When do we eat lunch?" he said.

Okay, that's an easy question. Can't really mess up that one.

Rosa checked the paper in her hand and said, "Eleven thirty-five."

Tiger's hand shot up again. "What if I'm hungry now?"

Rosa glanced at the clock. Lunch was still three hours away. What was she supposed to do now? Tell the kid to suck it up until then?

Before she could respond, another boy held up his hand. "I want to eat, too."

A chorus of voices echoed him. They all wanted to eat. And Rosa was pretty sure she knew why.

"How many of you didn't eat breakfast?" she said.

Everyone except two girls raised their hands. This school was in a poorer part of the Alpha Lands, which was the reason for the special teacher recruiting. It never dawned on her that so many of these kids would be coming to school without food in their stomachs, though. No one mentioned this possibility to her.

Rosa remembered the two dozen chocolate and vanilla cupcakes she'd brought for the teachers lounge. They were tucked away on the top shelf of her tall cabinet. She reached in and pulled down both packages.

"Today is a very special day," she said as she opened the cupcake containers. "You are my very first class. That means you are special, and I will never have another class like you. Who wants to celebrate with me?"

All nineteen hands went up. As Rosa walked down the aisles and placed a cupcake on each little desk, she knew she had made the right decision. She belonged here.

By the time the last bell rang at 3:15 p.m., Rosa was exhausted, happy, and hungry. She thought about eating the last chocolate cupcake from the impromptu party earlier. During lunch, she'd spent most of the half-hour helping her kids get through the lunch line, and she didn't even touch the sandwich she'd brought. After she released her last student into the hands of his grandmother, she went to the teachers lounge to see if she could find a drink machine.

As Rosa walked into the room, two women standing at the counter turned to look at her. After gazing at photographs of wolves for so many years, it was both unsettling and familiar to face them in the flesh. Whether they were in human or wolf form, their eyes held their souls close to the surface for others to see.

During her freshman year of college, Rosa had discovered a book of art photographs by an Alpha Lands photographer named Jared Clearlight. His photos amazed her from the very first page. Almost all of them featured the steady, intense gaze of a wolf, whether the subject was in human or wolf form. Her parents may have kept her away from the Wolf Nation until now, but those photos made her feel like she had a special connection with these people, like she did with her students. Rosa wasn't sure she could convince the wolves of that, though.

"I'm Rosa Mendez, second grade," she said to the woman standing closest to her. "Crazy day, huh?"

The woman, who looked like she was not much older than Rosa, leveled her eyes at her. "May Hightower."

The other woman was more receptive than her friend. "Laren Stark. Welcome to Solano Elementary."

"Thank you," Rosa said. She turned to leave but then stopped to ask a question. "Hey, I seem to have a lot of kids that didn't eat breakfast. Is that common?"

"It's always been that way," Laren said with a pained expression on her face.

"I brought cupcakes for the faculty, but I ended up giving them to my class so that they wouldn't be hungry the entire morning."

May shook her head. "You can't do that. It's against the rules."

Her sharp words felt like a slap to Rosa's face. One day on the job, and she'd already broken a rule.
 

"Allergies," Laren explained. "They could be allergic to certain foods. You can help the families sign up for free breakfast and lunch, though."

Rosa was grateful for the advice. May still looked at her like she didn't belong, but she was beginning to accept that she would stand out as a pure-blood human. She didn't have any right to be surprised if she received less-than-enthusiastic reactions from those who'd lived in the Alpha Lands their whole lives.

That evening, when she'd finally finished all of the prep work for the next day, Rosa pulled down several boxes in her new den, looking for the Clearlight photography book. She opened fifteen of them, but the book was nowhere to be found.

Too tired to keep looking, Rosa removed her makeup, changed into night clothes, and collapsed into a dreamless sleep.

After school the next afternoon, she decided it was time to visit Jared Clearlight's photography studio. She grabbed her phone and looked up the directions. When they'd given Rosa her choice of three elementary schools, she'd picked the one closest to the studio. She wasn't trying to stalk him, but he was one of main reasons she had resolved to come to the Alpha Lands. And she couldn't go another day without a replacement copy of the book.

Rosa hopped into her Land Rover after dinner and took off, heading southwest on the highway, counting down the thirty-two point four miles until she would meet the wolf she knew only from his art.

______

A little after six in the evening, Jared looked at the clock on his computer and realized he should have closed the studio fifteen minutes ago. His creativity had really spiked today, and he found himself working heads-down for hours at a time between the few customers who visited.

To Jared, being a photographer required two different skill sets. The first one was the vision and intuition to know where to find the best subjects, from people to landscapes. For this type of scouting, he often shifted to wolf form to use his heightened senses. He memorized the scenes he wanted and returned later with his human hands and cameras. The second was the creativity and technical skill to bring those raw photographs to life. Many older photographers in his tribe scoffed at his digital prowess, preferring to stick with darkrooms and chemicals with foul odors. Either way, it was impossible to work with paws. This is where it paid to be part human.

As he reached for the lock on the front door, a woman appeared on the other side of the glass. He took in a sharp breath when he saw her face.
It couldn't be,
he told himself.

He caught her gaze, and they simply stood there for a heavy moment. When she didn't move, he was sure she was a figment of his imagination. He'd worked on his photographs for too many hours in a row, and he was hallucinating. But when she smiled, he couldn't deny she was flesh and blood in front of him.

In the natural light, he could see that she was taller than he remembered, only a few inches from his own human height. Her sun-lightened brown hair hung in waves in front of her shoulders, accentuating her generous breasts. The seam of her jeans followed each curve of her hips and legs with perfect precision. Her shirt was loose and airy, like a peasant blouse, and it showed bits of a lacy, baby-blue bra underneath. He knew
this
woman would be able to match him in bed.