Lonely Alpha (5 page)

“Mandy…” He growled her name, sounding
half-feral but alarmingly lucid. “Look at me.”

She met his bright hazel eyes. Did her
desperation show in her blue ones? “Please.”

“Look at me,” he demanded a second time.

As she watched, his eyes flashed bright gold,
only this time the brilliance remained, not fading as the seconds
ticked by. One moment she was gazing into them, spellbound, and the
next she still was, only…the eyes belonged to the huge canine that
had been sleeping on the pile of blankets that morning. Its muzzle
was a few short inches from her face, and as it panted, releasing a
blast of hot breath against her mouth, something dug into the palm
of her hand. Claw-like toenails. “Jack?” She fell with his name on
her lips, still seeing the strange golden eyes in her mind as
everything faded to black.

****

“Jack?” She came to slowly at first, then
bolted upright with a start. “Jack!” He was crouched beside her,
his hazel eyes locked with her blue ones. He looked…concerned? She
remembered his gunshot wound and moaned. Here she was lying on the
floor like an idiot while he was seriously hurt, and she was no
closer to getting him into the truck. How long had she been out,
and since when did she faint, anyway? She swallowed a knot of
tension as she remembered the ridiculous trick her mind had played
on her. Totally idiotic. Jack’s craziness must have rubbed off on
her.

“Mandy, you all right?” The rough timbre of
his voice was calming, despite the fact that it had no right to
be.

She nodded. “Sorry. I was seeing things for a
second.” She glanced around the room. “The dog, uh, wolf is back.
Where is he?” She could hear it whining somewhere nearby. It was
badly hurt too. She’d have to coax it into the back of the truck
somehow and get it to a veterinary clinic, if possible.

Jack laid a hand on hers, and he didn’t feel
so hot anymore. Had she been out long enough for his fever to
retreat, and if so, should she be glad or worried? “I think you
need to lie down for a little while,” he said.

“What? No!” The wolf yelped from somewhere
nearby, and the sound was a reminder of Jack’s injury. “I’m not
going to lie down. I’m going to take you to the hospital.”

“Follow me,” he said, rising. “You can have
my bed again.”

She sprung up, biting back a curse. “Damn it,
Jack!” The wolf in the house barked, drowning out her words. This
was all going wrong. So wrong. “I’m not going to—” She slipped, her
feet skidding across the floorboards before she was halfway out of
a crouch. She snarled in frustration as she stumbled, and the sound
was surprisingly scary. She’d spent too much time around Jack, and
now she was making weird growling sounds like he did. Maybe she
needed to get back to civilization for reasons besides Jack’s need
for medical attention.

A hint of a smirk curved his lips. “You’re
doing it wrong. You’ve gotta use all four legs, else you won’t have
any balance.”

She laughed humorlessly, and it came out in a
barky sort of wheeze. Four legs. “Of course, why didn’t I think of
that?” she snapped sarcastically. Jack’s crazy wolf-dog obscured
her reply once again. She pushed herself up, grunting as she glared
down at her hands…

Her hands. They were gone, and in their place
were two large…paws. There was no other word for them. They were
furry and ended in black, inch-long nails. A wolf’s feet, not a
woman’s hands. Her heart leapt, and for a moment, she was sure
Jack’s pet wolf had found her.

“They’re all yours, darlin’,” Jack said, a
wide grin splitting his face.

“No…” Mandy moaned, trying to wriggle her
fingers. The beastly claws before her scratched against the
floorboards. “No, no, no.” The wolf she’d assumed was Jack’s pet
barked lowly three times in succession. Only now she knew…it was
her. She was the wolf. A freakin’ wolf! She turned and bolted for
the door, taking long strides with even longer, unfamiliar
legs.

She kept running, her momentum building until
she was going so fast she didn’t know how to make her strange new
legs stop. Jack called out her name as the screen door banged shut,
but she pushed on, heedless. Within seconds she’d penetrated the
forest and was weaving through tree trunks, leaping over the
occasional fallen pine as she ran toward the heart of the endless
Smoky Mountains.

“Mandy!” Halfway through, the cry became a
bark. The sound brought back her dreams from the night before in
full clarity. It was as if they’d become her reality, but that
wasn’t possible… This had to be some sort of fluke – a life-sized
joke played by a cruel creator. Or perhaps she was dreaming again.
She tumbled to a breathless stop, pausing just long enough to bite
down on one of her own paws.

Damn! Wolves had strong jaws. She whimpered
as she pulled her hand – no, foot – from her mouth and began
running again. So she was awake. But how—

Underbrush crackled behind her, and her ears
twitched backward automatically, seeking out the sound. She could
hear the steady rush of another animal’s breathing, and the musky,
piney smell told her it was Jack. Jack running on four legs, Jack
the wolf…

Aaaah!
That was the sound she heard
inside her head, but a sharp yelp escaped her mouth instead as
something caught her foot and she went flying through the air, head
over haunches. Dirt filled her open mouth as she landed, her face
sliding across the forest floor. All the pressure in the world
seemed to have clamped down on one of her front paws, as if she was
being bitten by a bear or…a steel trap. Panic seized her as she saw
her furry foot caught between its jagged teeth. It was grinding her
toe bones together, and lightning bolts of pain were shooting up
her leg.

The dark-coated wolf Mandy had seen sleeping
in the cabin that morning skidded to a halt, surveying her with
wide, golden eyes. Jack. A low whine escaped her as a sense of
bewildered horror warred with her physical pain. What the hell was
going on? She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, Jack was a man
again. A naked man.

She yelped in surprise as he leaned toward
her, kneeling on the forest floor. She tried not to notice the way
his muscles tensed and shifted, nothing hidden as he laid his hands
on the trap. As he took a deep breath and pried the steel jaws
open, freeing her, she forced herself to keep her eyes on his
face.

She jerked her foot free, wincing as she
stood and a million red-hot needles shot through it. It had to be
broken, but she didn’t have time to worry about that, because blood
was streaking down Jack’s side, flowing freely from his wound. His
face was pale, and a tremor wracked his body, causing each and
every exposed muscle to quiver. She tried to speak, to warn him to
move carefully, but all that came out was a low sound that was half
groan and half whimper. Feeling helpless, she snarled in
irritation. Was she stuck in this wolf’s body forever? Jack seemed
able to change back and forth, and he did so again before her very
eyes.

The shocking sight of his bare human body was
gone, replaced by the form of a dark, burly wolf. He turned in a
flash, bounding back toward the cabin. His stride was unsteady and
his breathing labored, but Mandy was slowed too by her foot. It
felt as if bone had been cracked, and the pain worsened with every
step, but she didn’t dare stop running. She could smell Jack’s
urgency, sharp and clear. They had to get back to the cabin. If
they didn’t, consequences would be grave. She knew that, somehow.
So she pressed on, loping at Jack’s heaving flank until the modest
building came into view. When they reached the screen door he nosed
it open easily.

Inside, he collapsed onto the pile of
blankets Mandy had assumed were for a pet. She stood uneasily on
three legs and barked to gain his attention. Not being able to talk
sucked.

His golden eyes flickered toward her, and
before she knew it, he was human again. He still looked pale, but
at least he wasn’t shaking anymore. He seemed to be bleeding less
now that he was no longer running.

She kept her gaze trained on his face, not
daring to let it stray below. Well, not for more than a second,
anyway. It was hard not to look at his blood-stained side. She
barked again, hoping that he’d translate the sound of her
desperation to ‘tell me how to become human again, damn it!’

He sighed. “You can shift back now.”

She whined, feeling like an idiot.

He cocked a dark brow, drawing Mandy’s
attention to the light sheen of sweat on his forehead. Was he
really fevered now? “Having trouble?”

She nodded. Thank God he’d understood.

“Now that’s a problem I’ve never had.”

She growled lowly. Great. Not only was she a
wolf…she might be stuck this way permanently. It was too much to
bear. She put a little weight on her injured paw just to distract
herself, afraid she’d go crazy if she thought too much about being
trapped in a canine body for the rest of her natural life.

“It’s a mind game,” he said. “All you have to
do is want to be human, and you will be. Same way you shifted into
your wolf form.”

She rolled her eyes, hoping the gesture was
as obvious in her lupine form as it would have been in her human
body. She wanted to be human again, and she certainly hadn’t wanted
to become a wolf in the first place.

“Right, well…” he said after watching her
intently for a few moments, “if you’re holdin’ out because you
don’t want me to see you naked, you can go into the next room.”

Alarm lanced through Mandy’s consciousness.
Naked. She hadn’t even thought of that. She glanced down at her
body and saw nothing but fur. If she did manage to shift, she’d be
left in nothing but her skin. Where had her clothes gone? She gazed
over her shoulder, through the screen door and out at the yard.
Scraps of khaki fabric and blue cotton littered the lawn – the
remains of her shorts and t-shirt. There was even a bra with a
snapped band and a scrap of violet that she recognized as her
shredded panties. She’d been so frantic when she’d bolted off that
she hadn’t even noticed her clothing tearing and falling from her
body. There was only one thing missing – her socks. When she peered
down at her feet, they were still there, pierced by her long
toenails, which protruded absurdly from the tips.

Jack released a snort of laughter. “Well,
your wolf feet are smaller than your human feet – no reason for
your socks to come off. Now you see why I prefer to go
barefoot.”

She glared at him austerely, trying not to
imagine herself squatting on the floorboards in front of him in
just her ruined socks. If she wasn’t so afraid she’d be stuck this
way forever, she would have been glad that she hadn’t succeeded in
shifting back.

“Come on.” Jack rose unsteadily and started
toward his bedroom, leaving Mandy to follow in his wake, her vision
filled with the sight of his tight, toned and completely bare ass.
He had no shame, but she did. Her cheeks heated underneath the
thick tufts of fur that covered them. When he opened his bedroom
door for her, she darted inside, broken foot or no.

Okay. Now all she had to do was turn back
into her human self, scrounge up some clothing and get Jack into
the truck before he bled to death. If she’d been human, she
probably would have burst into hysterical laughter at the thought
of those three impossible tasks. Instead she hunkered down on the
floor and squeezed her eyes shut, doing her best to think human
thoughts.

Five minutes later, she moaned, a whine
rising from deep within her throat. She’d thought long and hard
about her job back in Nashville, and had even run through a few
financial calculations in her head. It didn’t get much more human
than that, and yet, she was still a wolf. Continuing to try felt
hopeless.

“You all right in there?” Jack called from
beyond the door.

She responded with an irritated bark. Why
couldn’t he be more helpful? Instead of helping her get her human
body back, he was standing out there stark naked, just waiting for
her to walk through the door the same way, or maybe wrapped in a
blanket from the bed. The thought of facing Jack that way jolted
her, putting a little fire in her blood. Which was ridiculous, of
course, but… There was just something about him. Something raw,
manly and undeniably— “Oh my God!”

Mandy scrambled upright, staring at her hands
–
human
hands! Sure, one of them was purpled with bruises,
but they had fingers, not toes with ridiculously long nails. She
was human again!

“I take it you finally succeeded,” Jack
drawled from the other side of the door, and to her horror, it
swung open.

Chapter 4

“Jack!” She grabbed the comforter off the bed
and wrapped it hastily around her naked body. Her cheeks were
burning when she met his eyes. “The whole point of me coming in
here was privacy!” His gaze was glued somewhere below her face,
even as she snapped at him. Too late, she looked down and saw that
she’d failed to cover one breast. Her nipple peeked pink and pert
from above a fold in the blue blanket. She hurried to hide it.
“What do you think you’re doing?” It came out half-growl, almost as
if she were still a wolf.

He shrugged, the muscles in his torso and
stomach rippling. The motion drew Mandy’s gaze lower and lower,
until it landed on the dark nest of curls between his hips. However
much blood he’d lost, he apparently had enough left to support a
growing erection. “I figured you’d be covered up already. Sorry.”
His voice was low and husky, even more so than usual.

“Well…” She struggled to keep her voice calm,
remembering that he was still badly hurt, regardless of how
shameless he was. “Cover yourself up, for God’s sake!” She tossed
him a blanket.

He caught it in the nick of time and held it
half-heartedly over his swollen groin.