Half Wolf (Alpha Underground Book 1) (4 page)

“
Freeze.
”

The shifters, the air, and even the beer in nearby bottles responded to Hunter’s command. I could feel my teeth chattering despite my comatose wolf. And when the uber-alpha grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the exit this time around, I paused only long enough to scoop up my sword before obediently stumbling along in his wake.

The outside world embraced us in a cloud of humid warmth and I gasped in a long breath, only then realizing that I’d forgotten to breathe for the last several seconds. Or perhaps my autonomous nervous system had also responded to the uber-alpha’s command. Whatever. It just felt good to be alive.

My relief was short-lived. “Unhand her,” came Ginger’s familiar voice, laden with an equally familiar snarky overtone.

I straightened, taking in the scene before me. My entire pack now stood between us and our idling station wagon, three angry shifters plus Lia and Quill off to one side looking a bit befuddled. My comrades had clearly been ready to storm in and rescue me from the barflies, so it hadn’t taken much effort to transfer their aggressions to the uber-alpha who still clutched my hand in his over-sized mitt.

I considered pulling my fingers free, knowing the gesture would soothe my pack’s ire. But I couldn’t quite talk myself into severing our contact. There was just something about Hunter’s solid warmth that made me feel better after that heart-stopping display inside.

Plus, I wasn’t quite sure I could move yet.
Good excuse.

“I think you have the wrong idea,” the uber-alpha said quietly. He might have squeezed my fingers very subtly at the same time, as if he didn’t want to relinquish our bond quite yet either. But his attention remained riveted on my pack and a low growl underlay his words. Hunter didn’t like to be challenged.

After scanning all five faces, the uber-alpha apparently decided that Ginger was the one in charge. His gaze locked ominously with the trouble twin’s...which is when I noticed that she was still entirely naked. Even clad, the teenager’s perfect curves had been known to turn males of both shifter and human persuasion to stone, so I thoroughly expected my companion’s eyes to wander south rather than maintaining their challenge. But, instead, Hunter’s attention remained resolutely focused above the teenager’s neck.

Maybe he checked out the merchandise while I was gasping for air?
It was the only reasonable explanation.

And, more relevantly, if my brain was up to snarky mental comebacks, chances were pretty good I could talk again. So, with a shiver of regret, I released Hunter’s hand and herded everyone else toward our waiting vehicle.

“I don’t know how long the freeze will last,” I said, “so we need to make tracks. Ginger can drive. Quill, you’ll come with us?”

The cowboy shifter tipped his hat at me in cordial assent. But despite his good manners, this still wasn’t quite the way I’d planned on picking up new pack mates.

We couldn’t really afford to trust the newcomer sight unseen, so I shot a questioning glance at Glen and was relieved when my most solid pack member nodded back. My second then proceeded to subtly rearrange seating order so Cinnamon took the middle back seat, separating Quill from our weakest member—the twins’ younger cousin. At least that thorny issue had been easily taken care of.

I kept one eye on the closed bar door, wishing we could just jump in the car and make tracks. But a speedy escape was impossible when our vehicle was already stuffed to the gills with all of the pack’s worldly possessions. Some decisions would have to be made if we wanted to clear space for extra bodies.

Still, after three weeks of living in each others’ pockets, we worked together like a well-oiled team. So it took mere minutes to clear a space in the far-back for an extra shifter to perch. Out went the cooler containing tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch. Out went the huge tarp we needed to keep our tent dry when camping in a soggy spot.

Out went a tremendous duffel bag full of Ginger’s clothes. You’d think as skimpy as her preferred garments were, they wouldn’t take up much space. But the trouble twin’s tank tops and short shorts made up in quantity what they lacked in bulk.

“Hey!” the clothes horse protested, and I shot her the stink eye in return.

“You and your wardrobe fill a similar square footage,” I answered. “It’s up to you who stays behind—you or your clothes.”

Our banter was normal, but the worried glance I shot toward the bar door was not. Which was probably why Ginger gave in so easily. “Whatever,” she grumbled, averting her gaze. But she still obeyed my veiled command, pulling the bag open and picking through in search of something to put on in case we ran across human cops who would be confused by a naked driver.

Although, actually, that might be a good way to avoid the ticket we invariably ended up with when Ginger was behind the wheel.

Second-to-last problem solved, I turned back around to face Hunter at last. He was still two-legged, but his face was averted from my little pack as if he were preparing to shift back to lupine form and flee the scene as soon as the car left the lot.

Taking a deep breath, I touched the uber-alpha’s bare arm to capture his attention. “How about you?”

Truth be told, I was even more torn about inviting this abnormally strong werewolf along for our grand escape than I had been about including the cowboy shifter in our little band. Because Quill was a known entity—an outpack male likely looking for a mate and a bit of power. Trouble, but in a manageable (and cute) package.

Hunter, on the other hand was a conundrum, but one whose motivations were beginning to show through the murk. After all, how could he have shown up right in the nick of time to save our hides after weeks of separation if he hadn’t been following us around in the first place? That suggested a level of dedication to the project that I suspected vastly exceeded the stick-to-it-iveness of the average outpack male.

And then there was the issue of the tremors my handsome stalker regularly sent down my usually shiver-free spine. The intense physical reaction to Hunter’s presence didn’t bode well for my own future sanity.

Still, the uber-alpha would be in as much danger as anyone else once the outpack males woke up, and I had a feeling that even his intense alpha dominance wouldn’t hold the angry werewolves off for long. My stalker had almost certainly arrived on foot, and I doubted he could outrun his opponents indefinitely. So there was really only one ethical decision here.

“Hunter?” I prompted.

“Do you want me to come with you?” he countered.

The uber-alpha was the furthest thing from weak, but something about his words brought to mind the insecurity that had underlain my former pack leader’s first interactions with his mate-to-be. Hunter was a bloodling as well, I now realized, and as a result he probably wasn’t the most adept at human social behavior. Perhaps some of his semi-psychopathic mannerisms stemmed from simple discomfort while wearing a two-legger’s skin.

You’re reaching
, I admonished myself. But, still, I nodded even as I heard the first angry shouts emerging from inside the bar.

“Yes, I want you to come along.”

***

Ginger drove like a mad woman. We screeched around curves, blew through red lights, and once we were on the interstate our intrepid driver did an admirable job of pissing off truckers by cutting in front of them and then slamming on her brakes. Amid all the mayhem, the trouble twin slowly but surely shook every last barfly off our tail.

And, then, once the final outpack male was a distant memory, the real trouble began.

“So, what are your intentions toward Fen?”

Glen’s throaty murmur from the far-back area of the car barely carried to my shotgun position, and Ginger cleared her throat irritably. Her lupine-assisted ears wouldn’t have had any trouble picking up the conversation, but she knew as well as Glen did that my own hearing wasn’t similarly enhanced.

Agreeably, the latter raised his voice when he continued. “Well?”

Widely spaced streetlights above the highway cast alternating bands of light and dark, and I took advantage of one of the latter to swivel in my seat and glance across the car’s inhabitants without being too obvious about it. Lia was sound asleep with her head on Cinnamon’s shoulder, and her pillow looked only vaguely more aware of his surroundings. But Quill nodded a greeting from directly behind my seat. And the two shifters in the far-back were erect and alert, bristling with barely contained antagonism.

“My intentions?” Hunter’s voice was quietly sarcastic, as if Glen was an overzealous waiter who had dared to ask for his movie-star customer’s autograph. “I’m not sure I understand your question.”

“Oh, I believe you do,” Glen countered. “We’ve smelled you around our campsites from the beginning. You never come close enough to invade a traveling territory...not quite. But you’re always there. Watching. Waiting.”

This was news to me, and I shot a glance at Ginger. A well-placed streetlight illuminated the trouble twin’s unsurprised face, proving that she had also known about our stalker’s presence.

The teenager shrugged apologetically as she met my eyes. “Didn’t seem relevant,” she answered my unspoken question.

It didn’t seem relevant that the uber-alpha who had pushed us so abruptly out of Wolfie’s safe clan and into outpack territory had been dogging our heels for the last few weeks? No, what Ginger and Glen really meant was that there was no point in worrying their so-called pack leader since my mild alpha dominance couldn’t do anything about the potential danger. Hunter’s menacing uber-alpha skills were entirely out of my league.

But now wasn’t the time to delve into
that
issue. Not when our car contained two strange werewolves who might or might not have ulterior motives for befriending us. Hunter and Quill didn’t need to know about the rot at the core of our little pack.

Instead, I held my breath and waited to hear how Hunter would respond to Glen’s demand. It didn’t take long, and the uber-alpha’s words carried so admirably that it was clear he was aware of his larger audience. “And why do you care?” the uber-alpha demanded, his words projecting an almost tangible bite. “Are you her father? Her brother? Her
mate
?”

In response, Ginger’s hands twitched on the steering wheel and suddenly our tires were vibrating across the rumble strip and out of the right-hand lane of the highway. I lunged for the plastic-coated wheel across the trouble twin’s suddenly frozen form and righted our progress.

“Hunter!” I demanded through clenched teeth.

“Oops.” The word was so quiet I almost thought I’d imagined it, but then Ginger’s hands abruptly tightened beneath mine, proving that the uber-alpha had relinquished his control over the car’s inhabitants. Meanwhile, a gasp from the far-back suggested that Glen had regained the ability to breathe as well.

Any sane shifter would have backed down in the face of Hunter’s extreme alpha dominance and obvious lack of human control. But Glen instead answered firmly, if a bit breathlessly. “I’m Fen’s
pack mate
. I deserve to know.”

“Pack mate.” Hunter rolled the word around in his mouth, tasting it as if he’d never considered the notion before. “Is that why you followed a weak halfie woman into outpack territory? Not because you’re looking forward to wresting away her position and becoming an alpha in your own right? Not because you want to claim three beautiful women as your own?”

Glen’s strangled growl was the uber-alpha’s only reply, and I thought for a moment that we were going to have to stop the car so I could place my body between the two males in an effort to prevent bloodshed.

But, instead, I saw Hunter pat the other shifter on the shoulder in an almost-apologetic expression of cordiality. “No, I guess not,” my stalker continued. “Well, then I’ll answer your question since you’re Fen’s
pack
mate.” The subtle emphasis on the word “pack” wasn’t lost on any of us.

Then Hunter’s warm, deep voice embraced me out of the darkness. “I never have seen the point of a pack,” he mused, his voice becoming quieter but not so much so that I couldn’t catch every word. “But,” he finished, “Fen
is
my mate.”

Ginger growled loudly enough for Hunter to hear her at the other end of the car, and then my inner wolf awoke with a vengeance. Usually, I had no trouble squashing my lax lupine half, but I was so exhausted from the preceding drama—and from the fact that it was close to three in the morning—that my control over the animal must have slipped.

She, on the other hand, seemed to be rejuvenated after swimming through the murky sea of my subconscious mind for the past few hours. Plus, the wolf was apparently a big fan of the uber-alpha in the car’s far-back. I barely prevented her from pushing fur out of our skin then leaping over the intervening seats to reach him. And when I pushed my animal half back down inside me, I was pretty sure she didn’t entirely fall back asleep this time around.
Time to get off the road.

“Take this exit,” I ground out between clenched teeth just as the skies erupted into a sudden downpour. I’d been planning to push on for at least another hour, but traffic signs were barely visible now between frantic windshield-wiper strokes, so it looked like now was the time to stop after all.

I flipped on the dome light for a split second to peer at a shifter-specific paper map—you won’t find information like that on google. I was pretty sure we were just barely encroaching on the territory of the mild-mannered Franklin clan, which meant we’d likely be safe for one evening at least. The werewolves in question probably wouldn’t even notice our trespass, or if they did would forgive us once Ginger batted her long dark eyelashes and jutted out her well-endowed chest.

We’d cross that bridge when we came to it, though. Because my eyeballs were so scratchy I thought they might start to bleed and I couldn’t afford to let my wolf take over while there were two strangers in the car.

Speaking of my lupine half, she’d drifted back up to join me behind our human eyes, and I did my best to nudge her into sedation. But she sidled away from each of my advances, and I honestly didn’t have the willpower to chase her down while simultaneously trying to ensure the car didn’t end up in the ditch.

So I closed my eyes for a split second to gather my composure then shouted into Ginger’s ear to guide her toward the campground I’d circled as a potential stopover point. It was cheap, run-down, and had a terrible rating on trip advisor—just the kind of place for a bedraggled, broke band of werewolves to hole up for the night.

The rain was still pounding down just as hard ten minutes later when the car pulled up to the accommodation’s pay station. We rolled to a stop beneath the small canopy and the abrupt cessation of staccato raindrops on the roof woke Lia from her nap. “Are we there yet?” our youngest member asked sleepily, rubbing one brilliantly blue eye with a slender fist.

Instantly, Hunter and Quill’s attention latched onto the girl’s face as if she’d offered them a five-course dinner. The trouble was that, even though Lia was a halfie, her golden tresses and gentle nature tended to attract male werewolves like flies to honey. This wasn’t the first time the rest of us had been forced to step up and defend the girl, but it
was
the first time danger had been pointed in her direction from within our own ranks.

In unison, Ginger, Glen, Cinnamon, and I all growled. In response, Quill looked away with shame on his face. “Sorry,” he murmured. The uber-alpha, in contrast, made no move to release Lia from his hungry stare.

“Hunter, Quill, let me introduce you to Lia,” I said, just in case our point hadn’t yet been suitably elaborated upon. “She’s a half-blood like me. And she’s
sixteen
. Hands off.”

Quill seemed suitably chastened, going so far as to flinch away from the enticing teenager as if he’d been burned. But Hunter only smirked as I challenged him with my gaze. “Perhaps you didn’t hear the part about
you
being my mate,” the uber-alpha murmured almost too quietly for my human ears to pick up on.

“You may be on a diet but that doesn’t mean you can’t read the menu, eh?” I countered, rolling my eyes. “Whatever. But, take it from me, Hunter, you have
no reason
to be on a diet.” Then, realizing that my words made it sound like I was giving the uber-alpha permission to court Lia after all, I hurried to add: “And Lia’s still off limits.”

Ginger saved me from sticking the rest of my leg into my mouth when she pulled the lever at her feet to pop the hatchback, releasing Glen from his cramped prison. It couldn’t have been pleasant to ride in such a small space shoulder to shoulder with a scary uber-alpha, but my comrade gave no sign of tension as he jogged over to the pay box. “Ten bucks,” he called back toward us, “for five humans.”

“And two dogs,” Ginger agreed, already stripping out of her clothes in preparation for a shift. “Got it.”

It was handy to be able to lower our numbers by dint of a quick transformation. But the ten dollars, it turned out, were harder to come by. My wallet was entirely bare since I hadn’t budgeted for spending money on two different campsites in one night. Ginger had, predictably, used up every last penny she owned to get her little group into the shifter club. And Glen’s pockets were equally empty since he’d been the one to pay for gas most recently. There was no point on cadging off Hunter since the uber-alpha had shown up in lupine form and couldn’t even claim the clothes on his back, and I didn’t really feel comfortable asking non-pack members for funds anyway.

“Leave a note that we’ll pay with a credit card in the morning,” I said at last, defeated by the knowledge that I’d once again been forced to utilize Wolfie’s get-out-of-jail free card. It wasn’t that my previous alpha couldn’t afford to fund our subsistence-level existence, nor would he gripe over the expenditures of cash. But it just wasn’t done to have one clan’s essentials paid for by another clan’s alpha. Instead, the credit-card usage was one more sign of my total ineptitude as a pack leader. It chaffed like a wet pair of skinny jeans.

“I’ve got it,” Quill said quietly before Glen could obey my command. The cowboy shifter’s large hand briefly touched my shoulder before he pulled out a leather wallet that appeared to be bulging with cash. For a split second, I thought my lupine-assisted nostrils caught a hint of rotten bananas, but then I realized it was just my over-tired brain playing tricks on me.

“Thanks.” I hadn’t meant my gratitude to sound so grudging, but it was hard to put myself into yet another outpack male’s debt. Still, we needed to set up camp and bed down if we planned to hit the road again bright and early the next morning. It wouldn’t do to trespass on the Franklins’ good nature any longer than was absolutely necessary.

So I forced the monetary issue out of my mind and let my gaze scan the rest of the crew. “Who else wants to be a pet dog tonight?”

“We’ve already got that covered,” Lia answered quickly. Her words were muffled since she’d turned away from me to pet the huge gray wolf that nearly filled the far-back area of the car and I almost leapt across the seats to still her hand. Knowing I couldn’t get there in time, though, I instead opened my mouth to warn the kid off. You
don’t
pet werewolves, and nothing about the uber-alpha’s body language suggested he was willing to take the dog pretense beyond the bare minimum.

But Lia tended to get away with murder in a very different fashion than Ginger did. The latter batted her eyelashes and froze the male brain quite effectively. In contrast, nobody wanted to bark the trouble twins’ timid teenage cousin down, least of all me. It was too much like kicking an already whimpering puppy.

And, apparently, Hunter felt the same way. Because he accepted Lia’s caress and didn’t even glance up when Ginger’s furry body jumped up onto the carpeted floor beside him.

“Where to now?” Glen asked as he slid into the driver’s seat to replace the trouble twin.

“There’s a site around back that’s almost hidden in the woods,” I answered, checking my cell phone one more time to make sure I’d chosen the optimal location. “The bathroom is a long way off, so I doubt any humans would have parked there. Take the first right-hand turn, then drive to the very end.”

***

It was pitch black as we set up camp, and the rain still hadn’t let up. Regardless, the original members of my pack weren’t slowed down by excess water. Lia and I unpacked the contents of the top carrier, spreading bundles and bags out across the empty seats of the car so our belongings didn’t become saturated with rainwater as we handed off each item in the proper order to Glen and Ginger. They in turn fed items to Cinnamon, our tent-savant, who soon had a canvas abode erected in a spot that was as dry as our current storm allowed. At that point, everyone began lugging mats and sleeping bags into our temporary den, relieved that another long day was nearly at a close.

As for the outpack males, Quill tried to help but mostly got in the way while Hunter disappeared into the damp darkness as soon as the car rolled to a stop. I wasn’t entirely surprised in either case. It would take a while for Quill to learn the ways of our group and Hunter probably didn’t even see the point of trying to blend in.

The question was—did either male
want
to join us permanently? In most cases, it would go without saying that a male drifter would be thrilled to hook up with a pack that was sixty percent female. But a halfie alpha and the lack of a defined territory made our clan less than enticing. Plus, I wasn’t entirely sure whether we wanted to expand our numbers in the first place, so the question might have been moot.

“I appreciated the ride.”

The words came out of nowhere, and I jumped, hitting my head on the roof of the car and making my inner wolf whimper. Lia had joined the hauling crew, leaving me entirely alone in the dark confines of the pack vehicle. And when I whirled around, I found myself mere inches away from a dark shape that blocked off the open door and my path to freedom.

For a split second, I was terrified. Then I noticed the broad hat shielding the cowboy shifter from the weather. It was only Quill.

I sighed in what should have been relief but what was actually disappointment. I’d seen neither hide nor hair of Hunter in twenty long minutes, and it would have been nice if I could have believed that the uber-alpha was the male currently seeking me out for a one-on-one conversation.

In your dreams.

My wolf wanted to pursue that line of thinking, suggesting that she really
had
been dreaming about the scarily strong shifter. But I shushed her at the same time I reassured the man who was standing in front of us in the flesh.

“No problem,” I told Quill. “We appreciated your help in the bar.” I paused, then decided to get the issue over with. “Were you wanting to travel along with us for a while?”

“If you’ll have me.” The cowboy shifter’s words were a soft drawl that charmed me as much as his willingness to pay for our campsite had hit the spot half an hour earlier. Still, adding a new pack member wasn’t a choice I planned to make on my own.

I opened my mouth to tell him so when a flashlight flickered to life a hundred yards away through the trees. Someone was walking around the bend our car had taken not long ago, and my weak wolf offered no clues as to whether that someone was human or shifter.

It could easily be the first wave of barflies come to tear us apart, or a Franklin outguard demanding our immediate decampment. Or perhaps the light represented a new danger I was too exhausted to dream up at the present moment.

Speaking of new dangers, a growl emerged from the darkness directly behind me. I tensed, then realized this third intruder was only Hunter lurking in the shadows in lupine form. He padded over to stand beside the car door even as Quill clued me in about the other newcomer’s identity.

“Human,” he offered. “Smells like an older female, smoker, overweight.”

Probably the campsite host. “Go tell the others,” I ordered, wanting at least one unknown out of my hair while I dealt with another. I eyed Hunter, considering sending him away as well. But the inevitable power struggle seemed like too much effort, so I instead unfolded myself from the back seat and stood with the uber-alpha by my side as the older woman paced toward us through the rain.

“Terrible weather,” she called as she came within human hearing range. The umbrella over her head sported cartoon suns and storm clouds barely visible through the real rain, making a mockery of her words. Then, as she stepped a little closer and her flashlight played over Hunter’s and my wet forms, the human emitted a little “Oh!” of surprise.

I’d like to think the older woman was turned off by my companion’s massive lupine form, but I had a feeling she was instead responding to the tattoos lining my forearms, to the gashes in the thighs of my jeans, and to my unruly hair. Looking tough was helpful for a weak halfie trying to hold her own amid werewolves, but the persona wasn’t so handy when dealing with the general public.

So I emulated Quill and layered on the charm in order to mitigate my unfortunate first impression. “I’m so sorry we woke you up, ma’am. We’ll be unpacked in a couple more minutes and then you won’t hear another peep out of us.” As if she possibly could have noticed our quiet voices above the pounding rain, but apologies often set humans at ease.

Predictably, the campsite host’s tense shoulders visibly melted. “Now that’s okay, dear,” she said, and for a moment I thought she might pat my hand. But then she caught another glimpse of my ink and thought better of the gesture.