Fated To The Alpha: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (12 page)

“So if we’re going to keep Elena safe, we have to show them that our fury is stronger! We have to make them all see, that the Morgandorf pack does not back down to threats! We do not roll over, or tuck tail and run! If the Caldours wish to threaten us, we will meet them head on! We will fight for what is ours! We will stand our ground, and we will beat them back! And any lost souls who are lucky enough to find their way to us, we will make sure that their home here is safe, secure, and one that they can be proud to call theirs!”

The pack around me erupted in howls, as clothes began dropping to the ground. I wanted to be able to join them, but I couldn’t quite get into the spirit of things when he had just spent half of that speech bashing my old pack. But with a little bit of nudging from Jeremy, I finally let myself go. Dropping my jacket, I threw my head back and howled to the sky with everyone else.

All around me, various members of the pack finally got naked and started shifting to their four-legged forms, changing their howls to a more eerie, lupine sound that echoed throughout the night. More and more started to shift, one after another, before Jeremy and I, too, finally shifted, getting down on all four paws and joining in the song, as Ricardo led us from up on that rock.

A scent I had become familiar with earlier in the day suddenly came up beside me. I looked to see a young wolf had joined me by my side, whom I was able to identify by scent as Andrea. We’d had quite the bonding experience today; we hadn’t actually found many spiders to sneak into Lauren’s drawer, but we found plenty of worms, and even a centipede. Getting into her bedroom undetected had been a bit of a challenge, since her mother had been in the house, and if she’d caught our scent the game would’ve been over. But we managed to pull it off, and a few hours later, we were rewarded with the sound of distant screaming while we relaxed by the rock quarry.

Oh, how long it had been since I’d partaken in teenage revenge hijinks. It was honestly kind of refreshing, in a guilty pleasure kind of way. But the important thing was that I had succeeded in making a friend out of the alpha’s daughter. If nothing else, that could potentially go a long way toward making the kind of peace that Jeremy and I were hoping for.

As she trotted up beside me now, we resumed the howl together, right before several wolves around us started scattering off in all directions. Some of them started fighting and wrestling with each other for fun, while others disappeared into the woods. I looked to Jeremy, who got up on all fours to start towards the tree line, but looked back to me, seeing if I was coming along. I was about to, but looked back toward Andrea first. I wanted her to run with us tonight.

Apparently she got the message, and was more than amenable to it. She got up and started after the both of us.

With that, we dashed off into the woods. I’d almost forgotten how great it was to do this surrounded by a pack. After becoming isolated from my own pack, and after it becoming just Jeremy and me in the woods by ourselves, the feeling of running like this while packmates and friends were all around was… uplifting.

Except that these weren’t my packmates. It was getting harder to remember that.

Andrea mostly kept pace with Jeremy and me, staying just a step behind us the whole way. We didn’t catch the scent of anything we wanted to hunt tonight; we weren’t looking for it anyway. We just wanted to run. We just wanted to be wolves together.

I don’t know how long we ran for, dashing through the trees, leaping over banks and rocks and gullies. But eventually we tired ourselves out, and collapsed in the middle of a clearing to catch our breath.

We slowly shifted back to our two-legged forms as we lay there panting, and I heard Andrea say, “I think that was the best run I’ve ever had!”

“Wasn’t so bad for me either,” I chuckled. “Jeremy?”

“Well, I can think of worse experiences than running with two she-wolves beside me.”

I lifted my head, giving him a mock-chiding look. “Don’t you be getting any weird ideas, mister!”

He just laughed back.

As we lay there, another wolf came trotting up to us. I lifted my head as he neared, and then he shifted to his two-legged form to look down at us. I found myself looking up at the bald head and hard-chiseled face of Lucius, the one who seemed interested in interrogating me earlier in the day.

“Oh, hey Lucius,” Jeremy casually said.

“Getting settled in?” Lucius asked me.

“That’s okay, isn’t it?” I cautiously asked, getting the suspicion he wasn’t as keen as everyone else on me staying here.

“Of course,” he said, not sounding like he completely meant it. As he looked me over, his eyes seemed to zero on my shoulder. “How’d you get that scar?”

I looked to my shoulder again. “Bad fight,” I said, trying not to remember the fight that happened that night when my pack attacked theirs. “I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” he said.

He seemed to study me for a moment more, while I met his gaze. I started to grow very nervous, convinced that at any moment he was going to say or do something more that I wouldn’t like.

“Watch your back,” he finally said, before returning to his four-legged form again and trotting away.

We stared after him as he left, before Andrea finally said, “Did you do something to him or something?”

Did I? I didn’t think so, but could I be sure? I knew I’d smelled him somewhere before, but where?

And why was he curious about my—

All of a sudden the answer hit me.

And a cold shiver ran down my spine as it did.

Jeremy seemed to sense it, sitting up and reaching out to rub my unscarred shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

I couldn’t say what I’d realized in front of Andrea. So for now, I just said, “It’s nothing. But I think I’m kind of tired. Do you think we could turn in early tonight?”

“What?” Andrea said. “I thought we were having fun?”

“A bit too much, maybe,” I said. “Nothing we can’t have more of tomorrow, right?”

“But I’m not tired!” Andrea insisted.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You can do what you want, Andrea. I just want to go back to the room with Jeremy for now.”

Andrea looked at me with a furrowed brow. And when I looked at Jeremy, I saw him giving me the same look. “Please?” I asked him.

He finally sighed and shrugged, and said, “Sure, that’s fine.”

Jeremy and I got to our feet, before I briefly looked back to Andrea and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She continued looking perplexed, even as she waved to us. Jeremy and I shifted to our four-legged forms and headed off into the woods, making our way back to the village.

*

Not many of the pack were still in the village when we got back, so no one paid much attention to us as we made our way to Jeremy’s house. That was how I wanted it. We returned to our two-legged forms on our way in the door.

Once we were safely inside, I preceded Jeremy into the bedroom, hugging my arms to myself as he came up behind me, rubbing my shoulders. “Hey, Evelyn, talk to me,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

I turned around and looked him straight in the eye. “I finally figured out why I know Lucius’s scent. I know where I’ve smelled him before.”

“Where?”

I hesitated before answering, setting my jaw. And then I pointed to the scar on my shoulder. “He’s the one who gave me this.”

Jeremy blinked as comprehension dawned on him. “So then…”

“The night of the attack, he was the one who attacked me. And he knows it. He remembers giving this scar to me. He knows I’m a fake!”

“Well… we don’t know that for certain,” he said. “He just knows you were there that night. Everyone knows that. We told them right to their faces. If he tries to say anything, can’t we just say he mistook you for a Caldour and wrongfully attacked you?”

I gritted my teeth, wanting to believe it would be that simple. “But it’s not just me,” I pointed out. “You were there too that night. You fought him off of me, didn’t you?  …Come to think of it, why are you only realizing now that was him?  Shouldn’t you have recognized your own packmate from the beginning?”

“Well, I wasn’t really thinking about faces or scents at the time,” he said. “The only thing I knew at that particular moment was that someone was attacking you. I didn’t have much of a chance to think about who it was.”

“You thought about faces and scents enough to recognize mine,” I pointed out.

He shrugged. “Yeah. I guess I did. You’re just special that way.”

Yeah, I won’t deny it was real tempting to kiss him after that. I blinked a couple times and started leaning up to his lips. But then I made myself pull away, turning my back to him. “No!  Don’t try to distract me with sweet talk!  This is serious!”

“So am I,” he said. “Is that still sweet talk?”

I slowly turned back around to him, and this time I let him take me into his arms. “What if he rats me out?” I whimpered against his chest.

“Even if he suspects you, he can’t prove anything,” Jeremy said. “Our cover story will still hold. We have to go on believing that.”

I let out a heavy breath. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so paranoid in my life!”

“Evelyn, look at me,” he said. I lifted my eyes, which I only realized then were shedding tears. “I am not going to let anyone hurt you. I defended you against Lucius once before. If he tries anything, you better believe I’ll do it again. The same goes for anyone else.”

I smiled weakly, and pressed my face against his chest again, holding him tightly.

We eventually made our way to the bed, where I crawled atop him and made out with him hard, rubbing my crotch up and down against his hardening dick, while his hands roved all over my back and felt up my butt. My stiff nipples scraped along his pectorals, sending tingles of excitement up through my boobs.

He rolled me onto my side and cradled me in his arms, holding me to him by my neck and hip as he devoured my mouth, while my hand stroked back and forth from his hair to the side of his neck. My legs fidgeted about, my upper leg stroking along the length of his. And all the while his cock kept poking into my lower belly.

I arched my back when he slid down lower, bringing his mouth down to my tit. My arm fell back away from him and my fingers curled up, digging into the sheets, as my head rolled back and I moaned. He started moving his body down, keeping his suckling mouth fastened to my nipple until the point when his body had simply moved too low to maintain contact there.

He slowly worked his way down, kissing his way along my belly, while I squirmed and panted beneath him. Finally he reached the point he was searching for, giving me the best kind of comfort he could with his mouth between my legs. I gasped sharply, my head snapping back and my fingers digging into his scalp. My body made waves under him like a rug being shaken out.

I ultimately came twice with him going down on me like that, before he lifted his head and rolled me onto my side. With that he came up on my back, spooning up behind me, gripping his cock to aim it at my entrance. I lifted my upper leg as he enveloped me from behind, and with little resistance he slipped inside me.

We made love slowly and tenderly at first. He thrust into me gently from behind, wrapped about my back, his hand seemingly never coming away from my breast and his lips seemingly never coming away from my neck. It was exactly what I needed at that moment; in his arms, with him buried inside me, I felt safe, no matter what was happening outside.

I don’t know how long we went on like that for. It may well have been more than an hour. As far as I was concerned, it could have gone on forever. The longer it went on, the longer I wanted it to. I wished we would never have to leave that room.

It was made even better by the sweet nothings that Jeremy kept whispering in my ear. “You’re safe with me,” he would say. “I’ll hold onto you forever.” My favorite was “I’ll never let you go.” And then there was even an occasional “You’re so beautiful.” That made me feel pretty good, too.

After he finally came, we relaxed and caught our breath, not bothering to take him out. We just stayed like that with his softening dick still inside me, luxuriating in each other.

We eventually fell asleep like that, with him still buried in me. I remember waking up the next morning, blinking at the sunlight streaming through the window, and finding him still spooned up behind me. He had finally slipped out of me during the night, but I was still enveloped in his arms, and we were still together in his bed. That was all I needed for the moment.

I turned in his arms just enough to reach a hand behind his head and play with his hair until he grunted and blinked awake. He smiled at me, and without a word to each other, we kissed.

As I rotated around to put my front to him instead of my back, I started voicing the thoughts I’d had last night. “Can’t we just stay here?” I said. “I don’t want to leave this room. I like it right here, where there’s no packs, no feud… no guy named Lucius watching me.”

Jeremy chuckled a little. “I know how you feel,” he said. “We kind of had that in the woods, didn’t we?”

“Don’t remind me,” I muttered.

“We can stay here for a little longer at least,” he whispered.