fate of the alpha - episode 1 (14 page)

The sheen of his fur in her mouth went salty with blood and still Ainsley bore down on him.

In a single breath, he relaxed under her and rolled onto his back, showing her the creamy fur of his belly and the tip of his brown tail between his hind legs.

Then he shifted.

Ainsley shifted too.

She quickly wrapped a hand around his throat in place of her teeth, and looked down at her assailant.

He was short, but bursting with muscles. A tribal tattoo encircled each of his biceps, which were immense and chiseled. He peered up at her with large hazel eyes through too-long soft brown hair the exact color of his wolf’s fur.

Strong as he was, she held him easily.

He glared up at her and bared his teeth.

Ainsley simply stared back until he broke eye contact and looked away.

Her wolf was delighted with this show of submission. The approval was followed by an immediate instinct to mount and claim him.

Before she could consider it fully, she felt him stir under her. His nostrils were flared slightly and his eyes were locked on her breasts.

She felt a jolt of heat between her legs that was echoed in his feverish shiver beneath her.

The moonlight drenched her skin and left her feeling half-drunk with power and desire. Her nipples hardened painfully.

His whole body tightened in response and his cock throbbed helplessly where it was pinned to his washboard abs by her posterior.

Ainsley nearly succumbed to her wolf’s command to slide herself against him.

Oh god, Erik was right there.

Was this what wolves did?

The alpha inside her commanded her to claim the omega beneath her.

The human part of Ainsley Connor reached blindly for control.

In a heartbeat, she slid her hand down the muscular planes of his chest, and then further, to grip his stiff and quivering organ.

She tightened her fists to squeeze his penis and his throat at once until he whimpered.

“Your life is mine now,” she said in her coldest alpha voice, tightening her grasp on his throat as he began to sputter.

“This is mine now,” she said, squeezing her other hand tightly. “And if you ever fuck with anyone in my pack again, I will rip this off and serve it to you before I tear your throat out with my teeth.”

From somewhere in the darkness of the trees, Erik let out a low whistle of admiration.

Ainsley sprang to her feet.

The male prostrated himself and backed away.

A sharp tangy scent told Ainsley he had peed a little. Again, her wolf pranced in her chest.

She turned her back on him, posturing a complete lack of concern, and padded over to Erik for her dress.

Erik’s eyes were wide.

Ainsley raised her arms and he slipped the dress over her head, allowing his hands to caress the flare of her hips as he pulled it down.

“I’m sorry,” a deep, soft voice came from behind her, “I heard there was no alpha in Tarker’s Hollow.”

“You heard wrong,” she said, and began to walk toward Erik’s house. Erik scrambled along in her wake.

“Wh-what do I do now? Do I have to go?” the stranger implored.

Ainsley stopped walking.

“I’m sure I could find a use for you,” she said, with her back still to him. “You’ll have to think of a way to prove your loyalty first.”

Ainsley strode away again and Erik followed her.

There was silence in the woods behind them, but she could still smell the fear and excitement of the strange wolf.

CHAPTER 17

G
race squared her shoulders and let her feet beat a tattoo across the courtyard of the college campus.

The gray cobblestone circle she followed linked the Performing Arts building and the back of nearby Scott Hall. It was one of the few wide open spaces between the wooded paths. Students lounged in small groups, leaning against the campus map carousels and trying to look cool. They had only been on campus a few weeks.

They were all so young, just kids, really. It was hard to believe that Grace herself had been a college student a few years ago.

Now, instead of trying to maintain a 4.0 GPA and still get boys to notice her, she patrolled the campus, investigating an assault and a possible abduction, with about the same amount of success.

Today had been absolutely frustrating, with nothing but dead ends to support her suspicion that Garrett Sanderson had attacked Sadie, and a preponderance of hearsay that made it sound like Garrett’s version of things might just be the truth.

She had talked to Lilliana’s landlady, who had never heard anything about a relationship with a professor. Of course she might never have heard anything about
anything
- Grace had had to practically shout at Mrs. Hay to get her questions across. It was quite possible that Lilliana had entertained guests in the rented room on her third floor, or even bared her soul in a heart-to-heart confession that Mrs. Hay wouldn’t have even noticed because her hearing was so poor.

Then Grace had talked to professors, who were no help at all. Grace had to wonder if they had some sort of fraternal code requiring them to protect each other when it came to their personal lives. She supposed police weren’t so different.

Grace was determined not to let the whole day be a waste. It was a long shot, but she’d decided to canvass the area outside Scott Hall.

Grace scanned the courtyard. She spotted a group of kids smoking near the back entrance to Scott. They looked pretty comfortable. Maybe they had hung out there before, maybe it was a regular gathering place. If so, they may have seen something.

She headed over. As soon as they saw her coming, they threw away whatever they had been smoking. She realized belatedly that she shouldn’t have been in uniform for this. Oh well, too late now.

“Good evening, kids.”

They nodded and grinned nervously. The leader of the group was a tall young man wearing a flannel over a Green Lantern t-shirt.

“Good evening, Officer,” he said brightly.

One of the girls looked like she was about to cry. Grace hoped she had learned her lesson.

“I’ll tell you what, if you can help me with what I’m looking for tonight, I won’t try to figure out what you were smoking just now.”

There was a perceptible change in the atmosphere and even one audible sigh.

“What can we help with?” Green Lantern asked.

Grace pulled a photo of Lilliana out of her pocket. It was just an enlargement of her Louisiana driver’s license from a few years ago. She worried that without the garish color of her hair and lipstick, Lilliana didn’t look much like herself. But her FaceBook page and Twitter feed were set to “private” so Grace couldn’t get more recent pictures that way without an injunction. And there was no time for that.

“Have you seen this woman?”

The kids leaned in.

“Her hair is red now, and she wears bright lipstick,” Grace suggested.

The girl who had been ready to cry a moment before said, “Oh!”

“When did you see her?” Grace asked.

She tried to keep all emotion from her voice in order not to scare the girl. She hoped the girl wasn’t lying just to save her skin about the pot.

“It was last night. She had on a yellow raincoat. I noticed her because her hair was almost as bright as the raincoat. And it wasn’t even raining.”

Grace nodded evenly. She was telling the truth about seeing Lilliana at least.

“Do you remember where you saw her?”

“She was going into Scott Hall, right here.”

“Was anyone with her?”

“No. But… Well, that was later.”

“Did you see someone else enter the building?”

“Yes, a guy with a cane. He was old but sorta… hot.”

Garrett.

“Did you notice anything else?” Grace asked. “Did she seem upset?”

“I wasn’t really paying attention.” The girl’s eyes darted in the direction of the joint they had tossed, then back to Grace. “I guess she was walking kind of fast,” she said uncertainly. “But the man, he was walking fast too - I noticed because he had a cane and all. You wouldn’t think he’d be going so fast, would you?”

“That’s an excellent observation,” Grace said. “I’m going to give you my card in case you remember anything else, okay? Please write down your info here in case we need you.”

The girl hesitated to take the pad of paper.

“I’m not worried about anything you were doing with your friends tonight. You seem like a nice kid though, and if I ever see it again, I will
hunt you down
. Okay?”

The girl nodded quickly and wrote down her info. Grace asked for her student ID and snapped a quick picture of it with her phone, then handed her a business card.

“Thanks for your help!”

“You’re quite welcome, officer!” Green Lantern said bravely, as soon as it was clear she was really leaving.

She smiled and headed for the back door of Scott Hall, where the girl had indicated.

The hallway was slightly warmer than outside. Grace’s footsteps rung on the marble floor as she counted three doors off the main hall.

The first was the administrative office where Garrett worked. She could see the cubicles through a large window.

The second bore a metal plate that said
Storage Closet
.

Lilliana’s words came back to her -
He didn’t know I was listening, because I was in the storage closet.

She opened the door to find two rows of metal bookcases with old fashioned paper filing boxes on their shelves.

The third door was unmarked. The lights were off, but there was movement inside. Remembering the chase through the college woods, Grace popped the snap on her taser’s holster and rested her hand on the cool plastic. With her other hand, she reached for the brass knob.

Without warning, the door burst open.

Grace stepped back just quickly enough to avoid being smacked in the face with it.

Carol Lotus, from the World Literature department, popped out with an armload of papers. When she caught Grace in her periphery she startled and dropped everything. Pieces of snow white paper filled the air and fluttered across the hallway.

“Oh! Officer Kwan-Cortez,” Carol said in her usual quavery voice. “You gave me quite a fright. I was just closing up shop. What brings you to our hallowed halls?”

“Sorry to scare you, Carol.” Grace bent to help her retrieve the papers. “Let’s get you picked up and maybe you can help me.”

When the last of the papers was stacked neatly on Carol’s desk in the admin office, Carol turned to Grace.

“What can I help you with?” she asked.

Grace pulled the wrinkled picture of Lilliana out of her pocket and smoothed it on the table between them, facing Carol.

Carol’s face froze and began to turn pale.

“This young woman is missing,” Grace said.

“I-I need to sit down,” Carol whispered. She lowered herself slowly into the wooden student chair, leaving Grace to sit on the office chair behind the desk.

“Do you know who she is?”

Carol nodded.

“Lilliana Atwater.”

“A source told me that she was seeing a professor. Do you know who she was seeing?” Grace thought she already knew the answer.

“Oh dear. This isn’t easy to say. But in the circumstances of course, well,
There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth
as Count Tolstoy would say,” she laughed nervously and fiddled with one of two tea cups that sat on her desk.

Grace waited.

Carol sighed, put the cup down, and folded her hands in her lap.

“I’m seeing Lilliana,” she said in a voice free of its usual quavers. “I’m not proud. Although she’s a teaching assistant here she is still a student at Penn. And younger than I.”

Grace waited again. But Carol seemed to have unburdened herself as much as she would without prodding.

“Did you see Lilliana last night?”

“We meet in the office after hours sometimes.” Carol smiled sadly. “She was supposed to come last night, but I had a meeting that ran late. I thought she got tired of waiting.”

Grace had a flash of Lilliana waiting in the hall for Carol, and ducking into the storage closet when she heard Garrett approach.

“Thank you for your help,” Grace said. “She hasn’t been missing long enough for it to be official. No one has filed a report. But if she doesn’t turn up soon I may need a statement from you.”

Carol pressed her thin lips together miserably, but nodded.

CHAPTER 18

E
rik’s heart was still pounding from the confrontation with the strange wolf in the woods. He knew that his wolf would have been able to run off the tension, but there was no instinct to shift.

And something was wrong with Ainsley. Her nature would normally have had her crowing about the victory. But her mind seemed to be a million miles away.

She had refrained, with difficulty, from mounting the stranger. It was natural that she wanted to - he wouldn’t have held it against her if she had. Though it would have been painful to watch and he was deeply grateful that she hadn’t. Maybe she was feeling guilty about wanting to. Ainsley didn’t know nearly enough about being a wolf.

She didn’t seem to be in the mood to dissect it though. And a small part of Erik worried that he might not want to talk about it with her. Was she even attracted to him without his wolf? He was pretty sure he didn’t want to know the answer.

At any rate, he hoped that the fight had mellowed Ainsley out a bit. Being on good behavior with Ophelia was crucial.

He glanced over at Ainsley. They were both a mess. Ainsley’s dress was wrinkled and there was dirt on her cheek. He was still sweating from his mad dash through the woods to find her.

He’d been stunned to find himself winded. The pain in his ribcage must be the “stitch in the side” characters in books were always getting after they ran too far, too fast.

Amazing.

Too soon, they reached his house. Ainsley bounded up the steps.

“Ainsley,” he heard himself say.

She turned, and her look of determination was indescribable.