Rogue Alpha: Wolf Shifter Romance (Wild Lake Wolves Book 1) (17 page)

Chapter Two

I don’t know how long I crouched there—a few minutes
maybe. I couldn’t leave her. After the wolf died, I tried to pull her toward the
side of the road. My own sense of self-preservation had finally started to
return. A car could come barreling down on us at any moment. I couldn’t bear to
watch her poor body crushed a second time.

I couldn’t move her even an inch, though. She was
far too heavy. I gave one last effort, pain exploding in my shoulder as I tried
to pull her by her front paws. Two things made me stop short.

First, a plaintive wail seemed to come from all
sides. I jerked my head up and looked into the woods. I couldn’t be sure, but I
thought I saw a flash of yellow eyes. They were gone almost as soon as they
appeared.

Then, headlights flooded the ground in front of me
and I rose to my feet. I waved my stiff arms in the air as the siren drowned
out any noises from the forest. I wanted to warn the driver off from striking
the dead wolf, and to help me. The patrol car crested the hill and came to stop
by the side of the road, just behind my wrecked vehicle.

I hated to leave the wolf lying there in the middle
of the road. She was dead, I knew, but I still didn’t want to leave her side.
The officer stepped out of his vehicle. It was a white sedan with gold
lettering, its red and blue lights nearly blinding me as they flashed, though
he’d turned off the wailing siren.

“You okay, ma’am?” The deputy tipped his brown hat,
as he looked cautiously across the road. The rain had let up, and now it was
nothing more than a slow drizzle.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m afraid she’s dead, though.
I tried to stop, but I couldn’t.”

The deputy nodded. His face was kind and handsome. I
saw a tuft of white-blond hair peeking out under his hat, and even from this
distance noted his clear, blue eyes. He was young, maybe in his mid-twenties,
just a few years older than me. “I’m going to need you to step over here,
though, ma’am. Come back toward the vehicles, if you don’t mind.”

There was something odd about his tone, like he was
handling me. I supposed I probably did look a little crazy, just then, as I
tried to pull the wolf out of the middle of the road.

“Will you help me?” I asked. I still had a grip on
the wolf’s front paws. “We can’t just leave her here.”

“Ma’am.” His voice took a hard edge.  “You do need
to leave her, okay? Just come on over here, and let’s see about getting you
taken care of. We’re gonna have to let the DNR tend to her, all right? I’ll
call them just as soon as possible.”

There was something about his voice and posture. He
kept one hand on the butt of his service weapon, and his eyes scanned the tree
line behind me. Cold fear crept through my spine, and I gently rested the
wolf’s paws back on the road and straightened my back. A low rumble filled the
relative quiet. It reached my skin and my nerve endings before my ears. A
chorus of menacing growls seemed to come from all directions.

My breath seemed to leave my lungs as I stepped away
from the wolf and toward the deputy. He’d dropped into a half crouch and unhooked
his service weapon from its holster. He motioned toward me with the flick of
his hand as he watched the trees. Something had him spooked, and my skin
prickled.

“We need to get you out of here,” he said, his voice
barely above a whisper, but filled with urgency.

“Okay,” I said. I turned back toward the fallen wolf
and wished I hadn’t. Golden eyes seemed to float in the darkness behind the
trees. One pair, two. Half a dozen.

“Just go ahead and get in the back seat.”

It was a good idea. I didn’t want to step around the
patrol car toward the woods for anything. I slipped into the back seat as he
got into the front. He didn’t say a word as he slammed the car into gear and
turned the wheel hard until we were facing east again, and his tires squealed
as he slammed on the accelerator.

“What was that?” I said, afraid to look back.

The deputy straightened in his seat.

“Oh, don’t worry. A storm like that can scare up all
kinds of wildlife.” he deflected. Gone was the alarm he’d shown just a few
moments before. “You sure you’re not hurt?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve just got a little bit of a split
lip where the airbag hit me. And I think I bit my tongue. My shoulder’s sore,
but I got off easy.”

I let the rest of my thought kind of hang there. I
got off easy. The wolf didn’t. I resisted the urge to look back at her one last
time. She was so beautiful. There had been intelligence behind her eyes. Why in
the world hadn’t she moved out of the way?

“Well,” the deputy said cheerfully, “let’s go ahead
and get you checked out, in any case. My station’s just a few miles out. We can
see about calling your insurance company and get you on your way.”

I leaned back in my seat. Now that the excitement
seemed to be passed, I started to feel drowsy, and that raised alarm bells in
my head. Maybe I
had
hit my head harder than I thought. The deputy took
the next exit, and soon we were headed down wooded dirt roads. I was soaked to
the bone and started to shiver.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Oh,” I answered. “I probably should have started
with that. It’s Neve. Neve Dalton. I was on my way to U. of M.”

He nodded, and looked at me through the rearview
mirror. “Nice to meet you, Neve. We’ll get you back on your way soon enough.
Let’s just fill out an accident report and make sure you’re not in need of any medical
attention.”

“Thank you,” I said. “How much longer exactly?” We
seemed to be headed further and further away from civilization, and my hackles
started to raise. Maybe I should have asked for I.D., but he was in a marked
patrol car and in uniform.

“I’m not a county deputy,” he answered as if he
could sense my growing unease. “I mean, I’m deputized. But I’m a park ranger,
technically. You can call me Jake. Jake Glanville.”

“Huh,” I said. “Park Ranger Jake. Why did the 911
dispatcher send you out?”

He smiled. “I was just the closest to you. That’s
all. The storms knocked out a few power lines closer, so the county boys have
their hands full taking calls.”

He made another turn. It was just about full dark
now. The patrol car’s headlights shone on a large, wooden sign. “Hidden Forest
Nature Reserve.” Ranger Jake made a last slow turn and took us down a dirt road
going deeper into the woods.

His tires crunched on the gravel as he took a long,
winding driveway up to a cabin at the top of the hill. Two other patrol cars
were parked in front of it as he came to a stop and stepped out of the car.

It was pitch black, and when Ranger Jake opened the
passenger door to let me out, I found myself scanning the woods for more golden
eyes in the darkness.

Jake looked down at me with kind eyes and a warm
smile, and held his hand out. I shook off my skittishness and took it. Then I
followed him into the log cabin outpost at the top of the hill.

I almost felt normal again as he opened the creaking
screen door and jangled his keys until he found the right one. I was still
freezing, and my wet clothes were plastered to my skin, but that wasn’t what
raised the hairs on the back of my neck and made me shiver. Somewhere, out in
the darkness, I heard a single keening wail and knew in an instant what it was.

A wolf’s howl. It was some distance away, but the
sound of it curdled my blood. Maybe I really had hit my head harder than I
thought, but the sound I heard was filled with grief and pain, but something
else as well. It sounded like a warning.

Chapter Three

I stepped inside the cabin behind Ranger Jake, eager
to get behind four walls and a lockable door. The cabin was large and
mercifully warm. Jake flicked a light switch on the wall and the harsh
fluorescents flared to life. The building was a long rectangle with state maps
covering the pine-paneled walls, and several desks arranged around the room.

“Have a seat,” Jake said. He lobbed his hat on one
of the desks and ran a hand through his unruly blond hair. He really was young.
Maybe closer to my twenty years than I first thought. He had the long, lanky
build of a distance runner. Something about the way he carried himself set me
on even more of an edge than my circumstances. Jake shot me an automatic smile
whenever he caught my eye. The rest of the time, he looked back at the door,
and chewed his bottom lip.

I took a seat at one of the desks and worked on
getting circulation back to my hands and feet.

“Coffee sound good?” Jake called out as he stepped
through another door at the back of the room. “Might be a little stale, but
it’ll be hot.”

“Sounds perfect,” I called out as Jake disappeared
behind the door. As soon as he’d gone, I took the opportunity to scope out my
surroundings a little more. The maps and posters on the wall detailed the
wildlife native to the area. One poster showcased the frogs and turtles of
Michigan in brilliant color. Another featured waterfowl. A third showed fish.
Another poster highlighted the hundreds of large and small lakes dotted
throughout Michigan.

I heard some kind of commotion behind the door where
Jake disappeared. Another door slammed deeper in the building. A loud bang as
something crashed to the floor. Jake finally reemerged bearing a steaming cup
of coffee in a white Styrofoam cup. He smiled wide as he handed it to me. I
didn’t get much of a chance to enjoy it before the cabin door flew open. Jake’s
face lost all color.

Three of the largest men I’d ever seen charged in
together.  The biggest of the three slammed the door behind him loud enough to
make the whole cabin shake beneath my feet. The two who came in before him had
to be well over six feet, broad and thick like linebackers.

“Uh,” Jake said. “Miss Dalton. Let’s see about
getting you started on that paperwork.”

At least, I think that’s what he said. I couldn’t
take my eyes off the last man towering in the doorway. He was so tall, he had
to duck to come in through the door. His flinty gray eyes penetrated me,
glowering with menace, raw power, and sex. His broad shoulders filled the door
frame as the other two men flanked him. But I couldn’t look at them. The big
one held my gaze, daring me to look away. He worked the muscles of his
anvil-sharp jaw, dusted with coarse black stubble. His beard couldn’t hide his
full, sensual mouth that seemed set in a permanent pout. He wore a white
t-shirt that stretched across his rippled chest, his biceps straining against
the sleeves. His waist tapered down into faded blue jeans that hugged his
massive thighs.

“What the hell is this, Jake?” he said in a rich
baritone that vibrated across my skin.

Jake stepped forward, his hands shaking as he handed
me a pad of paper. “Just write down what happened,” he said. “It’ll make it
easier when you deal with your adjuster.” I took the paper, eager to focus on something
other than that cruel, beautiful gaze from the mountain of a man still standing
in the doorway.

“Let’s talk outside,” Jake said. A quick jerk of the
larger man’s chin was all it took to make Jake and the other two men fall into step
behind him, and they walked outside. Alone now in the cabin, I shivered again,
but this time it wasn’t from the cold.

I wanted my car. I wanted to get the hell out of
here. The only thing clear to me was that I had unwittingly walked into the
middle of something between these men that seemed to have nothing and
everything to do with me. They spoke in hushed voices that were still loud
enough to carry through the thin walls, so I could pick out a few words and
phrases.

“It was Magda,” I heard Jake say. “She’s dead, Tuck.
I got there too late to do anything about it. I didn’t see Ash, but you could
be sure he was close.”

Rumbling. I heard something smash against the side
of the cabin. It might have been a fist or a boot.

“Why the
hell
did you bring her here?” This
came from the leader of the group. Tuck? For the rest of my life I’d remember
the deep tone of his voice. It made me scared for Jake. Whatever the hell was
going on between them, Jake hard earned this man’s ire, and I hoped I never
would. The sooner I could get a hold of my insurance company and a rental car,
the sooner I could get the hell out of here.

I didn’t wait for Ranger Jake or any of the rest of
them to come back. I pulled out my insurance card and called from the landline.
I gave the representative the particulars of my situation. After a few minutes
of repetitive questions, I got the answer I dreaded. Yes, I had rental car
coverage. No, they wouldn’t be able to send something out until tomorrow
morning.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said to the rep. It
wasn’t her fault. Not really. She was probably reading most of what she told me
from a script.  “What do you expect me to do in the meantime?”

“Well,” she said. “If you spend the night in a
hotel, we can reimburse you up to one hundred dollars. And we’ll send someone
out tomorrow with the rental car. You’re going to have to make arrangements to
have the car towed to a body shop anyway. I’ll give you a list of places in the
area where you can take it.”

“Great,” I said, just as Jake and the others came
back into the cabin. The insurance rep said more things, but my focus wasn’t on
her anymore. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Pissed Off charged back in and skewered me
with eyes that flashed like fire. My heart tripped in my chest, and my mouth
went dry. I didn’t know who he was. I couldn’t fathom why he looked so angry
with me. But something happened when he came close. My skin prickled with gooseflesh
and his presence seemed to warm me from the inside out.

I finished up with the insurance lady and hung up
the phone.

“All set?” Jake said. He slapped his hands together
and gave me that nervous smile.

“Not quite. They can’t send a rental car out until
the morning. It looks like I’m stuck here. Can you recommend a clean, cheap
motel or something?”

The big guy let out a sound low in his throat just
like a growl.

“May I help you?” I said. “I didn’t ask for any of
this. I don’t want to be here anymore than it looks like you want me to be
here.”

He cocked his head to the side and a smirk came over
his face. God. He was gorgeous, if not scary as hell. He jerked his chin again at
the two burly men next to him. They looked similar enough to be brothers. Both
had wavy, chestnut hair, broad noses, and wide set eyes. They stood at
attention on either side of the room, and their eyes darted from me to this
Tuck. They wore plain clothes, not uniforms—worn jeans and work boots. Faded
t-shirts that showed off their hard muscles just like Tuck’s did. They moved
around their leader and headed toward the back of the cabin and the door Jake
went through when he got my coffee.

“Jake,” the leader said. “Why don’t you drive Miss
Dalton to the Woodland Inn off of 94?”

It unsettled me that he knew my name but hadn’t
bothered to introduce himself. Jake cleared his throat and plastered on that
unhelpful smile.

“Sure thing,” he said. “It’s clean. It’s cheap. And
they have better cell reception than we do.”

“Perfect,” I said. More than anything, I just wanted
to get the hell out of this cabin, and away from the watchful eye of Jake’s
boss, or whoever he was. Though he wasn’t in uniform, Jake clearly took orders
from him.

“We’d better get a move on, then,” Jake said.
“There’s another storm moving in, and the whole area’s under a flood and
tornado watch.”

I pulled my purse and backpack off the desk and
slung them over my shoulder. Jake grabbed his hat and held it in front of him
as he waited for me by the door.

“I’m ready,” I said. Jake held the door open. As I
passed in front of the boss, Tuck, my skin prickled again. He stood just a few
inches away from me. I swear I felt heat coming off of him. My fingers twitched
and I had to resist the urge to put a hand on his rock hard chest as I came
around him. I pursed my lips before I smiled up at him as I stepped through the
front door after Jake.

Jake held the passenger door of his patrol car open
for me. He straightened his hat on his head and closed the door after I stepped
inside.

As Jake got in and backed the car away from the
cabin, I couldn’t help but look back. Jake’s boss hadn’t acknowledged me when we
left. He didn’t say goodbye, good luck, or anything. My first thought was to
hope I’d never have to see him again. As soon as the words formed in my head
though, something else stirred me to my core. The thought of
never
seeing him again left an ache in me that was completely unexpected.

I saw two smoldering silver-gray eyes stare back at
me through the slats in the blinds. Who the hell was that man? Why did he seem
to hate me on sight? What strange power did he have over me that made me want
desperately to see what he looked like under that thin shirt?