Alpha's Last Fight: A Paranormal Shapeshifter BBW Romance (13 page)

“Who would like to hear the tale of how our fierce and proud pack leader got his name?”

I wasn’t sure whether or not it was a rhetorical question, but pouted with disappointment when Gina’s offering was shouted down with a chorus boo’s and one, poorly aimed, empty beer can.

“Well tough shit. The buxom wench who helped make your dinner wants to hear my story and as the traditions of our pack dictate, the vow of guestiness must be upholded.”

I glanced up at Hutch, stifled a sigh at how gorgeous his eyes looked under the fire light and asked, “Is that a real thing?”

I didn’t really care either way. I just felt the need to talk to him now and then to check he was real and not some hot, man-sized boulder.

He shrugged. “She’s just making it up as she goes along at this point. Don’t believe a word she says.”

“Long ago,” Gina began, “somewhere in the wilds of New Mexico, the most powerful, the most handsome, the most mysterious werewolf the world had ever seen, fled his pack. The most beautiful bitch to ever grace this great, green earth, riding shotgun in his fire red El Camino. His mate, ripe with his unborn child, had been promised to another. The son of his pack leader.

“And yeah, those two lovebirds needed to get the shit out of Dodge in a hurry.

“They wandered the wilds of this great nation before they fell in with a pack led by a descendent of one of the great Irish shifter tribes. A pack on hard times, but a pack with a great heart.”

There were murmurs of agreement and an undeniable scent of pride around the fire as she spoke of her kin.

“So, with much howling and hollering, the young couple gave birth to their first child, a son, under the light of the same moon we see tonight. And he was loud, and he was hungry and he always got what he wanted, because everyone worshipped the ground he walked on. And he liked nothing more than turning into an iddy biddy wolf cub and heading out into a wild where you didn’t have to sit in a chair and you didn’t have to go potty and everything smelled so fresh and free. But he never strayed too far from the people who took care of him, because, if I wasn’t clear before, even back then people would line up to kiss his pampered little ass.”

She shot me a dirty look and I had no idea what she meant by it. I half-shrugged and took another sip… or possibly a gulp.

“Then one day that damn pup goes missing. Nowhere to be found. Momma and Poppa Wolf are frantic. Searching everywhere, but can’t find their little one anywhere. Until at last they come to the farm of the big bad ogre who hates wolves. He calls us thieves and whores and accuses us of eating his goats.”

“Poppa Wolf goes into a rage and throws the farmer against a wall. He screams at him, ‘Where is my pup! What have you done with him!”, when the farmer spots something over Poppa’s shoulder. ‘Never mind your damn dog, where the hell are my fucking rabbits?’”

“They go to investigate. The pen is silent, not a rabbit in sight. But from the rabbit hutch comes a soft whimpering. They lift the top of the hutch, and inside lies a naked little boy, sleeping and whimpering and covered in the blood of a dozen slaughtered rabbits.”

Gina took a bow, almost stumbling, before adding, just in case I somehow missed it, “Hutch… like in the rabbit hutch. Where they found him… In the story.”

“Thank you,” I mouthed to her as she stumbled back to a spot in the circle.

I glanced down and noticed my mug was empty. I wanted to ask for more, but I was lightheaded and so very sleepy. I really needed to—

“Hutch, that was a sweet… and somewhat gross story. What happened to your parents? Where are they?”

“They died.”

He looked sad. Which was kind of to be expected. But I think it was the first time I’d seen him with his defenses down. I felt like this was a rare thing - not something I would get to see very often. Then he refocused his gaze on the pack and the familiar confident expression came back to his face. I tried to stand up and wobbled on my feet. I probably shouldn’t have been drinking so much while sitting down. Hutch grabbed my arm as I mumbled dizzily in his ear.

“Hutch, I need to lie down. I feel… very... time for lie down sleep.”

“Sure.”

He picked me up like I was some kind of toy. Cradled in his arms as he carried me to wherever it was he carried helpless women when he wanted to have his wild way with them. I willed myself to stay awake. I didn’t want to miss what came next.

***

My head was throbbing with pain when I woke up. I was... where was I?
Shit
.

I sat up quickly and immediately regretted it. White flashes of pain seared through my forehead, and I pressed my hands to my temples. After a few seconds, I opened my eyes and took in my surroundings.

I was in a tent, on a tiny cot that had eggshell padding on top of it to make it more comfortable. The air in here was hot and stuffy. There was a blanket on the floor next to me, and a set of barbells sitting next to that.

Oh,
shit
. This wasn’t Hutch’s trailer. What had happened last night? I swallowed but my mouth was ridiculously dry, and my tongue was gummy and thick. I needed to brush my teeth like anything. Whose tent was this? Fear rose up in my throat. If another guy had taken me to bed...

The tent flap opened, and I jerked back in fright. But the head that poked through belonged to Gina.

“Hey girl,” she said, coming into the tent. “How you feeling?”

“Fine,” I said, coughing into my hand. “I just... fine.”

“Here.” Gina handed me a bottle of water and a few aspirin. I took them gratefully and washed them down, wincing as I swallowed.

“What happened?” I said, looking around. “Why am I here?”

“Hutch thought you might not like waking up next to him without remembering the night before,” Gina said, grinning at me. “So I volunteered.”

“Such a gentleman,” I said, rubbing my head with one hand and taking another sip of water. Gina came and sat on the blanket next to the cot.

“He really is.”

“What? A gentleman?” I almost snorted the water up my nostrils at that.

“Not, you know, a bow tie and caviar gentleman. But he’s a nice guy under the fighting stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve known him a while now. He’s always been a good leader, despite his flaws. People love him. And he’s a good friend.”

“And a good lover?”

I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice when I said it. The way Gina looked up at me, though, made me feel ashamed for being bitter.

“That’s what a pack leader does,” she said, shrugging. “There’s nothing real between us. Nothing like what you seem to have, anyway.”

“What we have? We don’t have anything,” I said quickly.

“I don’t believe that for a second. He’s never in a million years looked at me the way he looks at you.”

“Oh, come on.”

“And last night? He was cuddling up on you like a cub.”

I shook my head, not knowing what to say to her.

“It was sweet,” Gina continued. “It’s good to see that side of him.”

“I don’t know if he really cares about me all that much,” I said cautiously. “He’s never said anything about it. I get the feeling he just wants to take me to bed.”

Gina laughed once, a bark of laughter that stopped as soon as she saw my face.

“Wait, you mean you haven’t slept together yet?”

I shook my head again, my cheeks burning. I took another gulp of water. My headache was a slow pulse of pain now, but it was getting better.

“Holy shit. You must be something else, huh?”

“Stop looking at me like I’m an alien,” I said, chuckling nervously.

“It’s just... if you know Hutch, you know he never waits for anything. He always gets what he wants. And if he’s waiting for you...” Gina trailed off and bit her lower lip. “You must be something special, that’s all.”

“That’s all,” I repeated, and took another swig. The water bottle was empty. Gina reached out and took the empty plastic bottle, tossing it into the corner of the tent.

“Well, if you ask me,” she said, standing up and stretching, “it would be good for Hutch to have someone like you. Bring a little stability to his world, you know?”

“You said... you said he had flaws?”

I looked up at Gina. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to know, or needed to know. But I was getting closer and closer to Hutch, without knowing anything about him. I figured that it would be good to get some outside perspective before losing my heart to someone. Especially if that someone was a shifter like me.

“Every leader does,” she said. “He’s a good fighter, sure, and he keeps the pack in line. But of course there’s the money thing.”

“What money thing?”

“We owe a lot of people a lot,” Gina said, her hands on her hips. “The fights pay for some of that. But Hutch has these crazy loans, and, well...” She waved her hand in the air. “He’s just not all that smart about financial stuff, is all. If you ask me. I asked him once, and he didn’t want to talk about it, said it wasn’t my place. So it’s not my place.”

“Huh,” I said.

“Look, don’t mention it to him, okay? I don’t want him thinking I blabbed all of his shit all over the place.”

“Of course,” I said. My headache had dwindled to a low throb, but I still needed to brush my teeth. I stood up and winced with the pain of the blood rushing to my head. “You guys have a bathroom around here?”

“Sure,” Gina said. “It’s in the warehouse. Lemme show you. But hey, Nat?”

“Yeah?”

“I meant what I said. I think you would be good for him. I don’t know if he’d be good for you, but I’m sure you’d be good for him.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Uh, I think.”

Gina grinned and held the tent flap open for me.

“You’re welcome.”

Chapter Twelve

Natalie

On the average morning, back in the real world, I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of people. From the stairs in my apartment, to the lobby and out on the street, a ten minute ride on a crowded subway that reeked of sweat and piss, to the lift that took me to my cubicle on the eighth floor. On the average morning I could probably count the number of them who smiled at me or acknowledged my existence in any way on the fingers of one hand… and one of them would be Todd the doorman, who smiled only when he was staring at my breasts.

By the time I had walked from Gina’s tent back to the communal area where half the pack had gathered for breakfast, I’d already received a dozen good mornings. It wasn’t just that, several people I barely recognized greeted me by name. There were at least three jokes about the intensity of my hangover (getting better, thanks for asking), a couple of very familiar looking cubs begging me to come and watch a new trick they were working on later and one crude but good natured question about what Gina and I had got up to the previous night. At one point a friendly wolf ran up to me and just gave my legs a friendly nuzzle before bounding off between two tents.

I felt a sense of belonging I’d never felt before. All it had taken was one night for these people to accept me as one of their own, no questions asked. I’m sure the fact that I was the guest of their leader played a part in that, but that didn’t stop me feeling like I’d just been adopted by the world’s biggest, most unruly family.

“Hi Nat, you want some breakfast?” It was one of the women who’d been working in the kitchen the previous day. Starlight or Sunflower or something incredibly alternative and hippy. It suited her though; she just looked so wholesome and healthy.

She had an incredible figure. Soft curves that put mine to shame. That had surprised me at first. I’d assumed all the shifters living out here on the edge of civilization would share the whole physical perfection thing that Hutch and Gina had going on. But instead there were a fair few women who tended more towards the cuddly.

The men, on the other hand, were almost uniformly buff and a lot of them seemed like they were allergic to shirts or any kind of garment obscuring the view of their lean muscled torsos. I could definitely get used to that.

“Thanks,” I told her, “But I’ll pass for now. My hangover isn’t too bad, but eating anything right now could have… uh, unpleasant consequences.”

“Ha, gotcha,” she said.

“I was actually wondering if you knew where Hutch is. He’s kind of my ride home.”

“Aw, leaving so soon? I understand, but feel free to come back any time. Even if it doesn’t work out with you and the big guy, you’ll always be welcome here. Anyway, I don’t know where he is. Some of the guys are training over in the main building, you could try there.”

“Thank you.” It came out as a croaky whisper. If people kept being nice to me, I was going to start crying. I almost felt as if I wanted to quit my job and move in. I pondered that for a minute. Was it such a crazy idea?

Over at the main building, a brute of a man on crutches was hopping back and forth along a line of younger men, barking commands as they ran through a series of drills. I waited until they took a break before approaching him.

“I’m looking for Hutch; do you know where he is?”

“Probably prancing around in a field like an idiot. That guy… he hops from one half understood philosophy to another, never pausing to let any of it sink in. I dread the days he decides to train with us. It usually takes me a week to make these idiots unlearn the bad habits that idiot taught them.”

He looked me up and down.

“I’m Morgan by the way. I’m in charge of making sure this motley pack of mutts don’t get their asses kicked too hard.”

“I… oh,” I reached out and shook the hand he offered me. “I thought Hutch was good at fighting. Everyone seems to talk him up a lot.”

“Oh he is. Best I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. He could be one of the greats if he decided to pull his head out of his ass and actually learn how to fight. He’s all about instinct, and controlling his natural gifts. Thinks he’s some kind of Zen ninja warrior poet or something. We drill for hours to get better. He stands on one leg in the field and tries to channel his inner calm.”

“Oh.” That didn’t sound like the Hutch I knew. Then again, I barely knew him, something I was beginning to find out.