Alphas Unleashed 1 (3 page)

"No," Connor said, opening the fridge, "it's a sore subject but believe me there's just about nothing you could say to get on his bad side. He wants you here. We both do."

Connor started taking things out of the fridge and setting them down on the counter. An entire roasted chicken, some sort of rice dish, a whole pizza and a giant wedge of cake.

I couldn't believe it. It was more food than I ate in a week sometimes, just pulled out of the fridge like it was nothing. Connor grinned at me as he closed the fridge door. Then he went to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of some sort. Champagne judging by the way the cork went flying off across the room.

"What are you waiting for?" Connor said, opening a drawer and putting a couple of forks on the counter, "start eating."

I picked up the fork. I was intensely hungry. But I was also intensely aware of Connor's chest. He still hadn't put a shirt on, and I secretly hoped that he never did. If I was going to be spending any amount of time with him and Marcus I was going to have to shed a few pounds. I had caught Connor looking me over plenty, but that was no doubt because I was the first female werewolf he had seen in a long time. If ever. I had no doubt he would get bored of me quick enough. If I stayed. I kept having to remind myself of that if. But the way he looked he could have just about any girl he wanted, so why would he want me?

Plus, I didn't want to feel like I owed them anything. I didn't want to get sucked in and made to feel guilty later for wanting out.

But I was
really
hungry. I opened the packaging on the chicken and picked at it a little with my fork, and watched as Connor filled up two glasses with the champagne, or white wine, or whatever it was.

I took a little sip. "Is this champagne?" I said.

Connor nodded. "Never had it before?"

I shook my head and took a longer drink. When would I have found time to try champagne?

"Well it's a drink for celebrating. And finding you is definitely worth celebrating." He gave me that roguish grin again and took a long drink from his own glass.

I picked a little more at the chicken and took a dainty bite.

"Seriously?" Connor said, picking up a slice of pizza and biting off half of it, "you must be starving. Why aren't you eating?"

I just shrugged and took another drink. Connor took the bottle and filled my glass back up to the top, even though I had only drained half of it.

"You're too skinny," Connor said, "you need to put some weight on."

Was he trying to be cruel? I was no one's idea of skinny. But he looked serious. "Okay," I said, rolling my eyes and playing it off, picking a little more at the chicken while eying the pizza. I loved pizza, but could almost never afford it. It was so tempting to grab a slice and take a giant bite.

"How much time have you spent with other wolves?" Connor said as he started in on a second slice of cold pizza.

"Hardly any, I've avoided them my whole life." I could feel the champagne starting to kick in. I could count the number of times I had drank any sort of alcohol on one hand.

"So that's why you don't know," Connor said.

I looked up at him, grinning at me, chewing away on his pizza and being completely obnoxious on purpose.

"Fine. What don't I know?"

"You've probably spent your whole life around humans. Trying to fit in with the humans, be one of them, think like they do. You don't know what it's like to be a wolf. You don't know how it's supposed to be."

I was getting tired of this game. "How
what
is supposed to be?"

Connor shrugged. "Lots of things. But werewolf guys, we like our women with curves. The humans probably would too, if their heads weren't so screwed up with advertising. But werewolves, we're more in touch with our primal side. We know what a woman is supposed to look like, we don't need anyone to tell us."

I looked at him, trying to figure him out. He was so flirty, it was hard to know what to take seriously. "You're lying," I said, sticking to my dainty little bites.

He grinned, "go ask Marcus if you don't believe me."

"So if you had a choice between me and --"

"I'd choose you," Connor said, not letting me finish.

"You didn't even hear what the other option was!"

"Doesn't matter what the other option was," he said, giving me that sly grin again.

"I still don't believe you," I said. But I put down my fork and grabbed a slice of pizza.

"If only there was some way I could prove to you how attractive I think you are," Connor said in a wistful tone. "Remind me, isn't there something that two people do together when they're attracted to each other? I cant seem to remember what it is."

"Who said I'm even attracted to you?" I said, ignoring where he was trying to steer the conversation.

"Come on, you've been looking at me all night. You think I haven't noticed?"

I blushed. "So what's your story?" I said, trying to change the subject again.

He sighed and the grin vanished, "well like Marcus said, the place he found me wasn't so great."

Damn, I had just been trying to talk about something other than sex, I had forgotten all about that. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," I said.

"No," he shrugged, "you might as well hear it now. As good a time as any. The vampires caught up to me when I was young, not long after I started turning. I was down south, close to the Mexican border. Down there pelts aren't as much of a thing. They like to fight werewolves against each other instead. To the death. When they caught me I was too young to fight though, just twelve, so they trained me up. I started fighting when I was sixteen. Twenty-two wins before Marcus found me. I was a natural." He said it all in a deadpan voice and a flat face, a complete 180 from the sexy eyes and the swagger he seemed to constantly have.

So the rumors I had heard were true, the fights were real. Just one more horrible fate for werewolves. "I'm so sorry Connor," I mumbled. I gently put my fingers on his and just left them there. I barely knew him, I had no idea if he wanted any comfort from me, but he didn't move his hand away.

"No it's okay," he said, draining the rest of his glass and refilling it from the bottle, topping mine up too in the process. "We've all done things we're not proud of right? None of us would have lived this long if we hadn't."

"I suppose that's true."

"And truthfully I don't feel bad about any of it, because I'm going to make it all right."

I looked at him, confused, "what do you mean?"

"I'm going to kill all of them," he said, in such a calm and reasonable voice that it gave me the chills. "I'm going to kill every last vampire. Once they're all dead I'll be happy."

How many vampires were there? I didn't have the slightest idea. There couldn't be a lot of them, but surely enough that killing them all was impossible. And attempting it would be a good way to get killed yourself. I started to say something along those lines but the look on Connor's face made me close my mouth. Like a seething, roiling mass below a thin veneer of calm, that's what it was like to look in to Connor's eyes in that moment.

"What about you?" Connor said. "What's your story?"

I took a long drink from my champagne. I could really feel it going to my head now. "I was living in a foster home the first time I changed. I was so freaked out I completely destroyed the room."

Connor laughed.

"Yea," I smiled at him, "foster parents were
extremely
upset. And more than a little freaked out about all the sounds I had been making. They kicked me back in to the system not long after that. I ended up in a group home, scared out of my mind, not knowing what was happening to me. I got out of there quick. I was more worried about hurting the other kids than anything. Ended up on the streets. The vampires started coming after me not long after that, and I managed to avoid them by dumb luck more than anything, until I got a handle on what was happening to me."

"But you didn't have anyone to explain to you what you were?"

I shook my head, "and you have no idea how amazing that would have been. I considered suicide, turning myself in to the police. Even an insane asylum. At least they had those padded rooms there where I could have changed and been safe. When I saw my first vampire I was actually relieved! Finally, there was this other thing that wasn't human either. I wasn't alone. Then he tried to kill me. So there was that." I looked at Connor, "was there anyone to explain to you?"

"Not right away, but once the vampires caught me they put a werewolf in charge of training me, and he explained to me what I was. I never really got to experience human culture as a wolf though, not until Marcus rescued me. The human world was so strange after being locked away with wolves for all those years. The opposite of your experience I guess."

"All I ever wanted to do was fit in," I said, thinking back on it. It was amazing how little I had actually reflected on my own life. "I would be going through one city or another and I would see girls my age hanging out with their friends, or shopping with their mother at the mall, or going to school. You have no idea what I would have given just to be able to go to school. Sounds crazy right?"

Connor grinned, "it does. Marcus made me get my GED. I hated every minute of it. He'll probably make you do it too."

I laughed, "well the actual tests and studying and all that I could do without, but the rest... yea I cant lie, being a regular human has been my dream for a long time. Even before I became a werewolf, when I was living in foster homes and group homes, all I ever wanted was a place to belong."

"And then the mating heat hit you," Connor smirked, "that must have been fun."

I laughed a little and blushed, remembering it. "Were there any female wolves where you were?"

Connor nodded, "they were trying to breed us around when Marcus found me. Females were hard to find though."

"The mating heat you called it?" I had never known what to call it, just to be somewhere safe and remote when it hit me every spring.

Connor nodded, "that's what Marcus calls it. I've never seen it myself, but if half of what Marcus tells me is true..." he grinned and took another drink.

"I didn't know what the hell to call it the first time. I didn't even know it was a werewolf thing then, I just figured it was something all women went through." I smiled, thinking back, "which made for a couple strange conversations."

"Did you ever have sex with any humans?"

I nodded, biting my lip at the thought of it, "there were a couple times. It never... scratched the itch though." I couldn't believe how much I was telling him. More than I had ever told anyone. I would have liked to believe it was the alcohol, and that was definitely part of it, but I found myself so drawn to Connor, I couldn't help myself.

"And you never had sex with another werewolf? You're a wolf virgin?"

A wolf virgin. He really did only have one thing on his mind. I shook my head and took another drink from my champagne, "I guess that's what you could call it."

"But you must have come across other werewolves right?"

I nodded, "you said before that we've all done things we're not proud of. Well, I always ran. I ran from fights, from other werewolves that needed my help, or wanted me to join them. I ran from all of it." I could feel the tears starting to build. It was the champagne, and the close call with the vampires, and being rescued. It was all of it. I never did this, reflecting and looking back. It was too painful, easier to just focus on surviving the present.

"And you survived."

I nodded, "yea I did, right up until you saved me. But... what about the other werewolves that I could have saved, or helped at least? There was this one girl, really young, thirteen maybe. She barely knew what she was doing and she wanted my help, she wanted me to protect her, basically. But you could tell just by looking at her that she was never going to survive. She was too helpless. Maybe growing up in group homes and foster homes toughened me up a little, enough to survive, I don't know, but this girl... you could tell she was never going to make it. Never. And I knew that if I let her stay with me she would only end up getting me killed too. So I left her. It was years ago and I still think about her sometimes. I don't want to but I cant help it. Mostly I wonder what happened to her." There was a long moment of silence. "I never even learned her name. I didn't want to know."

"You did what you had to do to survive," Connor said. "There's no shame in that."

"That's what I always told myself," I said, and I could feel the tears starting to come, "but the two of you saved me. You risked your lives for me. But I didn't deserve to be saved, because I never even helped anyone else. Don't you see?" I broke down, sobs wracking me.

Connor was there in an instant, his arms wrapped tight around me, pressing me to his chest, just holding me as I cried myself out.

"Maybe feeding you liquor wasn't such a great idea," Connor said when my tears had stopped a few minutes later.

"No," I laughed, "it probably wasn't." I let him go, "thanks though."

There was that awkward moment, where we were both standing so close, neither of us backing up, neither of us wanting to lose that moment. I knew I should get myself away from Connor before I did something foolish, or before he got any ideas, but being around him was intoxicating. His smell was intoxicating. I had discovered a long time ago that even in my human form, I had a much better sense of smell than normal humans. And everyone had a smell. Connor, he smelled like the forest, raw and wild. He smelled like power, strong and dominant. And I couldn't step away from him, as much as I wanted to, as much as I knew that it was the smart thing to do.

He ran a hand through my hair and trailed it down the back of my neck, "you smell..." he gave me that roguish grin again. I knew exactly what he meant, he didn't have to say the rest. Then he bent down, slowly, and pulled just a little on my hair to tilt my head back, and kissed me, playing his tongue over my lips to get me to kiss him back, and for half a second I did, until I got my senses back.