Alphy's Challenge (2 page)

Gale was able to pull herself together enough
to entertain the twins while her parents filled out paperwork and talked to the
medical staff. Other patients sat in the waiting room they were sitting in,
phones chirped on their bases, and the smell of antiseptic surrounded her. She
tried hard to concentrate on her siblings as her parents answered questions
about her brother’s medical history and his attack.

Gale looked up at her mother’s approach.

“Gale, we’re going back to see him, will you
please stay out here with the twins?”

Gale couldn’t trust her voice, so she just
nodded her answer and wiped away the fresh tears that escaped once again down
her face. Turning back to the tots, she saw Abby tilt her head slightly,
looking at her. She ventured closer and placed her hands on the side of each of
Gale’s cheek.

“Okay, sis?
Okay?” Abby’s small voice was clear but
concerned. The look of concern that her two-year-old sister had drew a smile to
Gale’s face. But really, what could she tell the child? Everything wasn’t okay.
Instead of answering right away, Gale wrapped her arms around the tot and
hugged her. The action brought her spirits up enough to calm her.

It felt like forever before Tom returned to
fetch her and the twins, and by then it was dark outside. Abby was the first
one to see Tom and ran to cheerfully greet her daddy. He picked her up and
carried her as Gale picked up Danny and followed Tom.

“They’re moving him into a private room for
the night for observation,” he explained as he led them through the hospital
corridors. “He’s stable for now, but he’s permanently lost his left eye.”

Gale squeezed Danny closer for comfort.
Unable to say anything, she continued to follow in silence. Once they reached
the room, Tom put Abby down, and Gale did the same with Danny. Tom addressed
the two tots. “Ok, you two, your big brother got hurt so he’s trying to rest. I
want you two to help him. Can you help him?”

Both heads bobbed up and down. Abby’s longer
bright brown curls lightly bounced with the action. “Thank you.” Tom hugged
them. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he looked at them one more time before
showing them in. “We need to be very quiet. Now go find Mommy.”

After the tots disappeared through the
doorway, Tom strode up and took Gale in a hug. She didn’t resist the act of
comfort. “Thank you, Gale, for helping with them.” Tom pulled back to look into
her watery eyes. He continued to talk as he wiped away her new flow of tears.
“How are you doing?”

Gale sniffed. “I’m okay, I think.”

“Yeah?”
Tom took her in his arms again as he spoke
low to her. “Once they release Paul, we’ll leave town. The alpha shouldn’t
bother us if we go far enough. We aren’t that important to him. I hate to have
to ask you this, but your mom and I
will need
help
caring for Paul.”

“Of course I’ll help. I’ll do everything I
can. We’re family.”

Tom kissed the side of her head as he pulled
back and keeping an arm wrapped around her shoulder, led her into the room.

As she entered the room, she took the time to
take in everything she saw. Her brother was unconscious, his right eye swollen
almost shut, and a heavy amount of gauze over the other eye. His face was
bruised, swollen, and made his looks unrecognizable. I.V. dripped through a
clear tube next to a pain pump, and both wrists were in splints. Her mother
held Abby up and helped her lean over the bed to place a kiss on his head. Gale
heard Abby’s loud whisper, “Better now.” Danny just stood quietly by the bed
and observed everything.

Walking further into the room, Gale pulled a
chair closer to her brother, sat down, and delicately placed one hand under and
one hand over Paul’s hand and silently hoped they could get far enough away
that the alpha would leave them in peace to restart their lives.

Chapter Two

Ralph “Alphy”
Kaska
felt uncomfortable sitting in a chair in the hallway outside his old alpha’s
office. He hadn’t seen the alpha, or this town, in several years. Since he’d
first moved away when he turned old enough, he had only returned for major
family events. Ever since he’d graduated from high school he, and the alpha, had
known he was too dominant to be anything other than an alpha himself. It had
been wearisome during his last couple years here, trying not to let his bear
challenge the current alpha. Alphy liked the older shifter. He ran the sleuth well,
and in no way had Alphy wanted to lead when he was so young. He had wanted to
get out and travel, to see the world and experience things. It was the best way
to earn experience to be a leader.

At the time, he hadn’t had much money. He had
been too young to be an alpha, but he did want to utilize his alpha skills, so
he’d joined the military. He had been so good at it that he had been given his
own unit in the Special Forces. Over the years, and in different identities, he
had served in each branch, and he had been able to qualify in the Special
Forces in each branch. He had been in the U.S. Navy Seals these past ten years,
at least, until a missile strike that landed on them about a week ago. That had
been painful, not the physical wounds, but the emotional ones. Those men had
been his friends and family. They’d had his back in battle, and he’d had theirs.
You couldn’t get a closer bond than that.

The rescuing unit, first on the scene, was
all shifter. They had recognized this as an opportunity for Alphy to start a
new identity. If he stayed too much longer, his lack of aging would start to
get noticed. He had been healing in a secret shifter shelter and was trying to
figure out where to go when he’d gotten the news that his parents had been killed
by a texting driver, and he had to come home to Oregon to take custody of his
younger siblings, who were still under age.

He had been an early child for the newly
mated couple. His two younger siblings, Havana, who would be eighteen in a few
weeks, and Reese, who had just turned fourteen, were many years younger than
his fifty-four. Shifters could live for about five hundred years, so fifty-four
was really young.

Just as Alphy leaned his head back against
the wall and gave a heavy sigh, a door
opened.Alphy
looked up to see the current beta step into the room. Alphy stood at attention,
a habit that was so ingrained he didn’t even think about doing it.

The beta closed the door and walked to him. The
man knew he was much too
alpha
to show his neck so
offered his hand, and Alphy took it. “I know you won’t be able to stay long,
but it is good to see you again, Ralph. I’m very sorry about your loss.”

Alphy found it hard to speak over the
developing lump that was forming in his throat, so he nodded his thanks. He was
toughened for sure, but to lose so many friends and family in just a matter of
one week, well, there were limits to any man. He nodded his head again,
fighting back the tears and tremors. “Thank you, sir.”

The beta slightly inclined his head and
released his hand. “Alpha Berry will be out in a moment. He’s finishing up an
important call with a neighboring alpha, and then he’ll be right with you.”
With one last shake of his hand, the beta turned and headed down the hall. Alphy
stood there listening to the fading footsteps of the beta. Being a shifter
granted him enhanced senses, senses that had saved him and his teammates more times
than he could count. However, his ears were still not quite one hundred percent
after the hit. He was still healing from many wounds. He would have been dead
if he was human, and as it was, he still had more healing to do. He was
constantly focusing on trying to regain his strengths and senses.

The door opened, and a low baritone voice
called him from his thoughts. “Captain
Kaska
.”

Looking towards the sound of the summons, Alphy
could see the alpha standing in the doorway. He was a tall man, not as tall as
Alphy’s
own six foot six inch frame, but his presence
wasn’t any less. He was an older shifter of near four hundred years, but was
still built like a bodybuilder.

Alphy walked over to the man and greeted him
with a smile. “Alpha Berry,” he said,
then
walked through
the offered doorway. He sat down in a not uncomfortable, dark brown leather chair
in front of a dark mahogany desk. The room wasn’t too large, but comfortable. His
eyes followed the alpha as he made his way around the desk and sat in the brown
suede chair behind it.

“Your brother and sister are at home. I
thought it would be best to get the official paperwork over with without
subjecting them to it. My mate is with them. She thinks it would make them feel
like property. After her longwinded lecture, I assured her I didn’t need
convincing.” He chuckled, and Alphy gave an amused grunt and smiled. He
remembered the alpha’s mate. She wasn’t a quiet one, and she had kept the alpha
busy keeping her out of trouble, but she always did what she did with a good
heart.

“Thank you, I would have to agree with her. Just
don’t tell her that.” They both shared a good chuckle.

Alpha Berry leaned forward on his chair. “When
was the last time you saw or spoke to your brother and sister? You parents said
you frequently kept in touch via satellite feed and emails.”

“Yes. I am very close to my family even though
I couldn’t be here for them. I last saw them in person for my brother’s
fourteenth birthday a few months back. Our parents loved to travel, so they
always traveled to visit me. It worked best since I couldn’t spend as much time
with them if I had been the one to visit them, and I was always working on one
mission or the other so traveling elsewhere in between times was illogical.”

Alpha Berry took on a slightly more serious
look. “I’m sorry for your losses, Ralph, all of them.” The alpha gave him a
knowing look. He was the one who’d tracked Alphy down to inform him of what
happened, so he knew about the loss of his team.

“Thank you, sir.
I want to thank you for taking care of the
funeral expenses. I was informed that the burial is set for tomorrow.”

“You’re welcome. You have enough to worry
about. Yes, tomorrow is correct. I believe it’s at one.” The alpha’s sigh
sounded regretful. “I hope you understand I can’t have you in my territory
longer than necessary. I hate to have to push you during this time, but my bear
doesn’t settle while you are here.”

“I understand and completely agree. My bear
doesn’t like it either.”

Looking slightly relieved, the alpha pick up
a folder and pen, stood up and walked around the desk to him. He placed the
folder on the part of the desk in front of him and opened it up to a small pile
of papers. The click of the pen seemed to fill the entire space right before
the alpha handed it to him. “Do you have a place to go?” The shifter leader’s concern
was genuine, offering Alphy a slight bit of comfort.

His hand didn’t shake with the turbulent
emotions battling inside him when he reached up and took the offered pen. “Yeah,
a great-aunt lives in Canada. She was my grandfather’s sister. She’s the only
family we have left and is willing to put us up until I can figure out what do
next. She owns enough acreage to get lost in. I think it would be good for us.”

“Canada? That’s a bit of a move. Have you
talked to the teens about it? They are typical modern teens with their cell
phones practically surgically attached to their hands.”

Tension eased just a bit from
Alphy’s
gut when the two shared another moment of amusement
before he answered.

“She isn’t too far from a city of Toronto in
Ontario, so it should be enough to appease the tech gods and still allow their
bears to stretch.”

Alphy scribbled his signature on the line
that was highlighted for him. When he was finished, he handed back the pen. The
alpha stood, and handed him a check for the house his parents had owned. It was
a fair amount. Alphy had already finished the papers for taking his parents’
bank accounts earlier that morning at the bank.

“I’ve arranged for help to pack things up, and
they should be there now. I’ve also arranged for you to be able to use a
storage unit if you want put most of it away until you’re more certain of where
you’re going to settle before hauling it around. I’ll have it sent to you when
you are ready for it.”

Alphy nodded. “That will be appreciated,
thank you.”

Alpha Berry put a hand on his shoulder and
lightly squeezed. Alphy knew it was meant as a gesture of comfort, but his bear
growled at the touch. The alpha didn’t hold it for long, and he withdrew his
hand, “If you have any need, you are always welcome to call. You have an ally
with us.”

Alphy felt the lump form in his throat again
and the pinpricks at his eyes. He quickly took back control over himself before
he responded. “Thank you, Alpha Berry. That means a lot to me.”

The alpha led him out and to the front door.
After the door was closed behind him, Alphy took in a few breaths, bringing the
sweet smell of summer flowers into his lungs, before descending from the porch.
The noontime sun bathed over his large muscled form, warming his skin as he returned
to his silver-grey truck. It actually had been his father’s truck. Both parents
had had their own vehicles.