I Am The Alpha

I Am The Alpha

The Moon Forged Trilogy: Book I

AJ Downey, Ryan Kells

The pack has ruled over its territory, the wilds of Washington, for a generation, but that has all crumbled with the murder of the Alpha. William Reese is determined he will heal the pack by taking leadership, but in doing so he pits himself against enemies he may not be able to beat.

Chloe has been pulled from her home and thrust into a world she never knew existed, a world her father was careful to keep hidden from her. She is now threatened with a gruesome death by terrifying creatures from legend.

Somehow William and Chloe must find a way to work together to stay alive against the forces determined to see them dead.

See the trailer on YouTube here.

Second Circle Press

Dedication

To RTN, you did it, I’m proud of you. This one is for you in so many ways.
– AJ

Dedicated to Lia for encouraging me from the beginning to actually write this story and to AJ for giving me the kick in the ass I needed to actually do it and for giving voice to Chloe
– Ryan

The Moon Forged Trilogy:

1. I Am The Alpha

2. Omega’s Run

3. Hunter’s End

Prologue

Chloe

“Good-
bye
Girl, I’ll catch you later,” I rolled my eyes at my best friend Tabitha and we parted ways in front of Twist, a swanky club in lower Manhattan. It was pushing on toward three in the morning and I was worn out. It’d been a night of dancing, drinking, and just too much fun. I breathed deep the crisp, fall night air and heels clipping sharply against the cracked sidewalk, jostled my way past the corner and to a clear spot of curb.

“
Taxi!
” I shouted cleanly, hand upraised and one of the yellow cabs slid up in front of me. Wow, that had been way easier than I’d thought it would be. I tried to slip across the vinyl seat, the backs of my thighs sticking where my short skirt didn’t cover.
Ew, gross
. I rattled off my address which was only forty or so blocks away. I could have walked it, but not in these heels after dancing all night!

The cab I’d hailed pulled smoothly into traffic and I sighed. The cabbie didn’t care to make small talk and I didn’t either. I was already planning on a nice long shower and my nice soft bed. I couldn’t wait for them, in fact. My makeup felt like it was sitting on my face like a painted mask and I was ready to be clean and to sleep. I’d had a blast though, and I was all smiles when we pulled up in front of my brownstone, well,
my dad’s
brownstone.

He was a CPA for the city’s elite and had been thrilled when his little girl had chosen law; he hadn’t been so thrilled when it’d turned out to be criminal law with an emphasis on prosecution, but we’d come to an agreement of sorts. It wasn’t perfect but it was getting me what I wanted, which was a degree in criminal justice. He didn’t need to know the particulars.

He’d wanted me to be a defense attorney, where the money was at, but a degree in criminal law was a degree in criminal law. He didn’t need to know I’d crossed my fingers behind my back when I’d made the promise to go defense versus prosecution. Once I was graduated, I could do what I wanted. It wasn’t the first thing my father and I disagreed on and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

I paid the cabbie and took the stairs at a sharp clip, letting myself into the brownstone and powering down the alarm. I sighed out and dropped my keys on the table by the door, ditching my fashionable, small clutch alongside them.

“God, I just want out of these
shoes
,”
I groaned to no one in particular. I relished slipping the heels off my feet and digging my toes into the plush carpet as I took the stairs two at a time. I was being exceedingly lazy, stripping as I headed towards the bath, letting my clothes fall as I made my way across my bedroom to the private bathroom. I wouldn’t leave them, I would just pick them up
after
my shower. It was a tiny, illicit little thrill since Dad would have blown his top to see the mess I’d left strewn across the floor on my way across. I was in my twenties and he still treated me like I was eight, the curse of being an only child, I guess.

The water sluiced hot and delicious down my skin as I stepped into the spray and worked the pins out of my French twist, my red hair foaming around my face until I got it wet, the vibrant, fiery locks turning deep auburn as they soaked to the ends. I shampooed, conditioned, scrubbed myself free of makeup, and rinsed in record time.

Thank God for being clean! I wanted nothing more than to pick up and crawl into bed. I shut off the water, grabbed the first towel and wrapped my hair. I dried off quickly using another and shrugged into my nightgown, satin and lace and a cream that complimented my coloring. I liked sexy night things. Even if I were too damned busy with school for anyone to see them, they weren’t really for a prospective boyfriend, they were for me.

I slipped the matching satin robe over my shoulders and let it hang open. Some hand cream that smelled like peaches and a brisk rub of the towel on my hair and I could get rid of it with the rest of the dirty laundry down the chute in the hall.

I sang to myself softly, one of the songs from the club and snapped out the bathroom light. I walked out into the bedroom and stopped short, a short, startled scream escaping my mouth. I pressed my hands to my chest, over my heart as if to contain it and blinked, willing it to be a shadow, and it was, or it appeared to be.

It’d looked like the shadow of a man, standing just outside the French doors to my balcony. The shadow of a man, standing just outside
my
bedroom
…

Chapter 1

William

I hated New York. I hated cities period, always have and I always will. The stinking, noisy, clinging press of humanity rushing about their meaningless, insignificant lives as if whatever they had to do was the most important thing in the world. They were missing the point.

It was here, in New York, that I nearly died so many years ago. And of course, it would just have to be here, that I would have to come to bring sanity back to my family. And it would all end with
her
…

I watched her through the windshield as she called for her cab, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that an audible creaking sound filled my car. She was shorter than I’d expected, adorable really, but it
was
her. She definitely matched the picture. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the fact that my initial assessment from that photo of her had been dead on. She was just as hot in person as she was in the pictures.

Seeing her now, I realized I would tower over her by more than half a foot. She had vibrant red hair that glimmered copper fire under the street lights and eyes that looked like they were a light color, but from the distance I was at, I couldn’t really tell. I knew from the photos that they were blue, though. A vibrant blue like a summer’s midday sky.

When the cab pulled away from the curb I started my car and pulled into traffic behind them. I held back a few car lengths. I didn’t expect the cabby to be looking for people following him but with who her father was? She might be. I couldn’t be certain, so I used every trick I knew to stay out of sight, to blend in. I’d had plenty of practice with
that
over the years.

In the end, the cab pulled over outside of a two story brownstone to let her out. She paid the man as I cruised by and I drove around the block until I could park just around the corner from her place.

At just after three in the morning there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic in such a quiet residential neighborhood, not a whole lot of parking either. Still, I was in luck and everything worked out for me as I walked around to the back garden wall of her building and looked up. The room,
her room
, lit up in a blaze of light from the inside. The room
with the balcony
that butted up
right against
a large old tree. This was almost going to be too easy!

I grinned and glanced around, unable to believe my luck so far. Everything was falling into place
just so
and I was incredibly nervous that luck wasn’t going to hold. It was amazing to me that the household would be so unguarded despite the identity of the people living in it. There wasn’t a soul in sight either way down the street and I couldn’t see any cameras. I leapt the low garden wall easily and crouched down beneath the balcony, at the base of the tree.

A moment later, when I was sure it was clear, I jumped, the tense muscles of my legs propelling me up, through the air, until my hands just cleared the bottom of the balcony ledge and I was able to grab on. I didn’t even need the tree but it provided great cover from the street or any night owl neighbors across the way.

I pulled myself up and over, the sound of a shower running inside easily drowning out the whisper of my coat sliding over the railing as I dropped onto the balcony. The French doors were locked but that was easily dealt with, all I needed was a credit card for the old latch. I jimmied the lock and slipped into the room, my bare feet making no sound on the plush carpet.

The scent of her filled the elegant bedroom. Sweat, makeup, alcohol and the tantalizing odor of summer peaches. Queen sized canopied bed to my right, desk to my left just next to the French doors that’d let me into the room. The bathroom lay directly ahead of me and through the half open door I could just make out her silhouette through the frosted glass of her shower door. My body moved of its own accord for a moment, taking a half step toward the bathroom before I stopped and forced my focus back onto more important and immediate concerns.

I moved as fast as I could, firmly keeping my attention away from the bathroom. Her closet was easy enough, drawers as well. I pulled out a few different things, not paying significant attention to what but I made sure there were full outfits, at least. These were thrown roughly and hastily into an overnight bag that I found hanging off the back of a chair and the whole lot was tossed over the railing on the balcony and into a flowerbed down below. The sound of the shower shut off and I shut the balcony doors with barely a whisper, leaving me on the outside.

She was singing when she came out of her bathroom, and I distinctly heard her short scream as she obviously caught sight of me, or at least my shadow. I leaped into the branches of the tree that grew next to the building, silently cursing myself.

Dumbass, dumbass, dumbass
,
I swore mentally.
How could you be so careless?
Father taught you better than that.

I held still, waiting for her to scream again or to go for the phone to call the police, either action would require I move extremely fast. Instead, she did the opposite of what I expected, she cautiously opened the doors and stepped out onto the balcony. I was hidden well and I knew it, so I held still and waited for her to go back inside.

I was tempted just to take her right there, but the area was too well lit between the streetlights and the lights in the bedroom blazing away like they were. If she made enough noise before I got to her, someone could and would easily spot us. It was too dangerous, too half assed, and it was better to wait… to wait until she was in bed and I had the cover of darkness to aid me. Another thing my Father taught me? That I should spend more time considering all the angles if I wanted to stand a chance. That I needed to be more patient.

She spent several more minutes outside with me. She looked around the balcony, even going so far as to lean over the railing to look down and out over the garden wall. She was trying to check out the street below, there was no one there, of course; the culprit was above her. As with most people, she never thought to look up. I had to smile to myself, then she really gave me something to smile about. When she straightened up hands flat to the stone railing, I had an exceptional view straight down the front of her slinky sleepwear, her arms bracketing her lush tits and squeezing them together for me.
Oh, that was nice!
A wave of heat ran through me and I forced it down with a ruthless determination. Now was not the time, nor was she the person. Jesus. I settled in, disgruntled with myself and forced myself to be patient. I waited for her to return to her room. My luck held out, she went inside and she hadn’t spotted her bag down there. I let out a slow breath, relieved I was still on track and finally, after what felt like hours, the woman turned out the lights and got her ass to bed.