Alphy's Challenge (6 page)

The scent of another shifter invaded his nose,
and he stiffened and looked around. He wasn’t aware other shifters were in the
area. Betty would have told him of any, so that meant these shifters were here
without permission.
 

A sleek, athletic man with short light brown
hair hurried for them. Alphy growled low, stopping the other shifter.

The shifter turned to Gale and held out his
hand. “Gale, honey, we need to go.” Gale looked for one moment at each of them,
then ducked her head and scurried to the man. He pulled her behind him.

“Who the hell are you?” Alphy bit out. He
tried to keep the edge out of his tone, but he was an alpha, and there was
another male standing between him and his yet to be claimed mate.

The man backed up further but pulled Gale
closer to his back with one arm. Before the man could answer, Gale’s shaky
voice quietly carried to his sensitive ears. “Dad, what’s going on?”

 
Alphy heard
the rising alarm in her voice, and the look of fear was apparent on her face. He
growled again. He’d had her happy, but now she was scared. The scent of her
anxiety filled his nose, causing his bear to rise to the surface to protect
what was theirs. His eyes started to change as he looked at the man before him.
Alphy inhaled, taking in more of his and Gale’s scents. There was no mistaking that
she was full human and he was full shifter.

“Explain yourself,” Alphy ordered the man.

“We’ll be out of your territory by morning. Please
let us go.”

He heard Gale intake her breath. “You’re a …
a…”

Alphy looked at her with concern. “You know
about us?”

“I taught her. Her mother is my mate.” The
man answered for her.

Alphy’s
gaze returned to the man, but he heard Gale
speak. “Dad, this is Ralph … uh—”

“
Kaska
.”
He finished for her.

 
“Ralph
Kaska
, but everyone calls him Alphy. Alphy, this is
my stepdad, Tom Elkins.”

“Tom, I’d like to say it’s a pleasure, but
you’re standing between me and my fated mate.”

The man’s eyes grew big then narrowed. He
drew closer. “Say it again, so I can smell you.”

All shifters could scent a lie, usually.
Alphy didn’t hesitate. He wanted the man to move. The sooner he moved, the
sooner he could hold his mate. Her scent of fear was drawing out his bear in a
powerful way. He narrowed his eyes. “Gale is my mate, my destined mate, and if
you don’t move, I may maul you.”

Gale was shaking, and he saw tears streaming
down her face.
Damn!
It turned his
stomach knowing he was the one who’d put those there.

Alphy nearly fist-pumped the air when he saw
the man’s shoulders relax. Tom nodded and turned to Gale. “It’s all right. Calm
down, honey. He’s telling the truth.” The man wiped some of the tears away. “He
will move heaven and earth for you. Remember what I taught you about fated mates?”

Gale gave an edgy nod.
Alphy’s
had to suppress a growl as Tom kissed the top of her head, but then he encouraged
her to go closer to him. Alphy stepped forward, bringing his hands up and
ringing his fingers behind her neck like he had done before. After using his
thumbs to wipe away more of her tears, he pulled her to his chest and held her.
He scented many emotions from her, so many that it was starting to give him a
headache. “Calm down, Gale. I would never hurt you.” He kept his voice soothing.
“I’ve never known a true mate to ever harm their other
half,
and that is what you are to me, my true mate and other half.”

A throat cleared behind them, and he turned
to see the middle aged man that had been working on her car, covered in black
dust, no doubt from all the tires he dealt with, standing there. “Uh, forgive
the interruption. I just wanted to let you know your car is ready.”

“Thank you. Give me just a second and I’ll be
in to settle the bill,” Alphy said. The man nodded and disappeared into the
office part of the building. Alphy kissed the top of Gale’s head. “I’ll be
right back.” He hated letting her go. It went against everything in him. His bear
growled at him when he did, but he had to pay the bill. He promised his
impatient bear they’d get more time, but he felt just as impatient as he
trotted into the building.

Alphy let out a relieved sigh, and the coil
of worry that knotted in his stomach when he left his mate eased when he stepped
back outside and saw Gale was still waiting for him. He eagerly trotted halfway
then slowed to a fast walk. Reaching her, he pulled her close again and took in
a deep breath of her wild berries and honey scent, reassuring his bear. But his
bear paced impatiently. He didn’t like that she could disappear on him, and the
urge to mate and claim her pushed through his body.

Alphy felt it was fortunate his human mate
already knew about shifters because he knew that was a big step for humans to
overcome. He hoped it would shorten the time it took to convince her to
complete the bond. He was still in a state of shock that he had found her so
early on in life. “So, Tom, want to tell me why you think you’re leaving by
morning? You know I can’t accept my mate going anywhere without me, and
something tells me she needs you right now, too.”

Tom was reticent. He looked reluctant, and
his eyes darted around before he looked back to him. "It’s best we don’t
talk about it out here. We’re staying just down the road. It’s an Inn you can
see from the curb there.” Tom pointed in the direction, so Alphy agreed to
follow them to the Inn and get the scoop on
whom
he
needed to kill, and he was sure he needed to kill someone because no one caused
that much stress and sadness on his mate and lived to tell about it. Alphy
could tell it was something big. He’d been in battles enough to get a sense
about these things.

The trip to the Inn didn’t even take them a
full sixty seconds once he pulled out onto the road. It really was close by.

He got out of his truck and followed them to
a room on the bottom floor on the far end. Tom stopped him. “Prepare yourself
for what you are about to see. An alpha had my stepson attacked. He’s lucky to
even be alive.”

Alphy’s
stomach went sick. If he was Tom’s stepson,
then he was probably full human as well. This also meant if he took these
people in, he was going to start a war with this alpha. Well, war was what he
knew, and like Tom had said earlier, he would move heaven and earth for his
mate.

The smell of pain hit
Alphy’s
face as Tom opened the door. Alphy closed his eyes to get control over his bear.
The scent was so thick that it nearly made him gag. He had been around this scent
all the time when he was in the military, but it never got easier.

The small room was a nice place, bright and
well taken care of. Gale entered and walked over to the embrace of a slightly
older woman who looked just like his mate and who also had the look of fear in
her eyes. Two cubs, a boy and a girl, trotted around the living space playing
with some toys.

Tom gently closed the door behind them.
“Honey, this is Ralph
Kaska
. Ralph, this is my mate,
Connie.” Alphy murmured a greeting. Tom continued, “It turns out Gale is his
destined mate.” Tom sounded a bit relieved, but he was still tense.

Connie’s eyes grew big, and the scent of relief
made its way to him. “Oh thank goodness.”

Alphy carefully stepped around the tots as he
was led to another room. The smell of pain was strongest in this room. Tom walked
over to the bedside and leaned over to check the human sleeping there.

Gale came up behind Alphy. “He sleeps a lot
because of the pain meds.”

He stepped aside so she could get through.
She walked over to the other side and crawled up on the bed and cuddled with the
unconscious male. He growled. He figured this was her brother, but he still hated
seeing his mate with anyone else. He knew that would probably ebb a bit once he
finally mated with her, but that knowledge didn’t do anything to help calm his
bear.

Alphy scrubbed his face with his hands; he
needed to focus. He walked closer to get a better look at the family member.
The young man in the bed couldn’t even be legal age yet, and Alphy could tell
he was close to the same age as his own brother. The young man’s skin was
pallid. His arms were in splints, and gauze was wrapped around part of his head.

“What happened?”
Alphy’s
tone had gone cold. Someone was definitely going to die for this.

“We were part of a herd in British Columbia.
The alpha found out…” Tom paused.
Alphy’s
eyes
knitted. Tom moved between him and the boy. Alphy suppressed his amusement at
seeing the shifter step between him and yet another one of his
stepkids
. Tom tentatively continued. “He found out that
Paul is gay.” He paused, no doubt waiting for
Alphy’s
reaction.

Alphy sighed. He had gay friends, and he had
a pretty good idea where this was going. First he needed to assure the
protective stepfather. He had to hand it to the guy, though, as any man who
gave his stepchildren this kind of devotion had to be given a good deal of
respect. “You can relax, Tom. I have friends who are gay. I don’t have any
problems with it. So what happened next?”

Tom didn’t seem to ease as much as Alphy
would have expected. “What about your alpha? We’ve had trouble with other
alphas. The lack of shifters here was what drew us to come here. I didn’t know
there were any shifters in the area or we would have avoided coming here.”

Even though the thought of just how close he had
come to missing out on meeting his mate nearly had his bear clawing his way out
to stake claim to her right then and there, the fact the courageous yet fearful
shifter were avoiding shifters, raised his hackles. “You can rest easy. I
am
the alpha.”

Tom seemed to relax a bit, so he nodded and continued.
“He ordered us to get rid of him, to send him away. So we secretly packed up
our van and tried to make it look like he was being sent away, but the alpha’s
enforcers grabbed him just before we were going to leave. They dragged him into
the forest and beat him. I took a shotgun after them and fired one shot into
the leg of one of them. They got the hint and ran.”

Alphy paid close attention to what he said.
If Tom had actually shot one of the enforcers, in spite of it being justified,
it could cause further complications.

Gale spoke up but kept her eyes on her
brother. “The hospital did what they could, but after a few days, we couldn’t
stay there any longer. Every time we move him, it slows his healing, but every
time we find a place to stop and hide, they find us.”

No doubt the stress was slowing his healing, Alphy
thought. As Alphy thought about what he was learning, his bear was pacing and
growling at her closeness to the boy.
Damn,
I’m already strongly possessive of her.
He was having a difficult time
trying not to growl, but then he saw more tears escape from her watery eyes as
he stood there looking over the boy and the family who rallied behind him.
Well damn
. He felt like a heel now. He
internally shook himself back to the current crisis. “You said you were packing
everyone up and
then
they took him?”

Tom nodded.

 
Alphy rubbed
his face in thought. “You were willing to go rogue and make your entire family
rogue, for your human stepson?” The more Alphy thought about it, the more respect
he had for this shifter.

Tom bristled, and Alphy saw him starting to
get his defenses up, so he held up his hands in a manner to convey to him to
calm down. “Relax, Tom, I didn’t say it with malice. I’m merely trying to get
it to sink in just how courageous you are. It goes without question that I’ll
help. What you have endured is sick, but you’ve remained strong and I believe
fate is smiling upon you for it. This alpha is a dead man.”

Tom looked confused and a little bit disbelieving.
“Thank you.” His shoulders slumped as if a huge burden just lifted from them as
he was finally able to relax.

In the military, Alphy had learned teamwork
from the start. It was what made him stronger. Tom had been caring for his
family by himself under a great deal of stress. The more Alphy thought about
it, the more he respected the man.

Alphy decided to move them to the house, but
he needed to call Betty. He might be the alpha, but he wasn’t sure just yet if
she was willing to back him on this and he could use her help. “Let me make a
call.” He left the room and stepped outside and called his sister’s cell. As
the ring tone buzzed in his ear, he made a mental note to get another cell
phone later, to keep at the house and be used like a landline would have been.

“Hey, big brother, I’ve got fish bones to
pick with you. Why didn’t you wait for me or wake me? I wanted to scout around
town.”

“Don’t like the chores Betty has you doing?”
he mused.

“Well, no, but I’m trying not to complain or
she’ll have me doing what Reese’s mouth got him stuck with.”