Reluctant Alpha (3 page)

“
I have you ready to go on the pottery and the moving van will be here sometime after two-thirty. If you want to look at any of the pieces, then I’ll have to uncrate them. I didn’t think about you wanting to see it.” She moved to the big stainless steel sink and began washing up. The clay was everywhere, running down her legs and into her shoes. It was also in her hair. But Airic didn’t seem to notice it or care about that.

“
No, that’s all right, I know your work as well as anyone. Hummm, I hope you don’t mind, but I set up a cleaning crew to come in and try to find the house. It seems to have gotten a little messy. Also, there will be food delivered at six. I told them to bring you lots of meals that required little to no prep time. I’ll have the crew clear out the fridge first thing when they get here. Before I leave, I’ll sort through the mail and pay what needs to be done right now. The rest I’ll take with me. I’m going to have the mail sent to the office from now on, if you don’t care.” She had taken out her PDA and was checking off her list as Airic finished cleaning up.

“
No, that’s fine. I’ve been distracted, as I said earlier. The house sort of got away from me. I’ve…I spend a lot of my time out here, not so much in the house unless I’m starving. I was making due with whatever I could find still in the house, or pizzas. I sleep on the cot over there most nights.” She had finished up and was leaning against the sink, and Diana thought she looked…nervous, maybe even a little scared. That was so out of character for her that she could only stare.

“
Airic, what is it, what’s wrong?” She wanted to reach out and touch her, but knew from the past that she didn’t want to be touched, not in any way.

“
The paintings…there are a lot. I…” She looked over to the wall where an easel was standing and several canvases were stacked against the wall, all of them facing away from the room. “I…they were an outlet, something I had to do. I couldn’t work on the regular stuff, the wheel, without…I had to paint in order to throw. The paintings, they’re alive to me.”

CHAPTER SIX

“
Okay, I mean they feel alive, not are alive. That isn’t any better, is it?” She didn’t know how to explain to her. Diana would surely call the men with the butterfly nets as soon as she left her. Maybe that’s just where she needed to be, she thought, in a padded room.

“
Why don’t you just show them to me?” When she started walking over to them, Airic was actually relieved. Maybe if she saw them then she’d take them away. She turned the music up a little more as she walked by the radio.

It didn’t really help, not unless it was really loud. She could hear every little sound now. The wind blowing through the trees if the windows were open, even the leaves tumbling across the yard the other day. It was driving her insane. The other day she had searched for nearly an hour for a sound in the house she was hearing. It turned out to be the neighbor’s cat purring on her deck. She chased it off, not very nicely, but it hadn’t been back to annoy her since.

The pictures didn’t talk to her. That wasn’t what she meant when she’d told Diana they felt alive, but she could feel what they were trying to tell her. She was supposed to paint them so that others could see, realize. She watched as Diana turned over the first canvas and held her breath.

“
Oh my. Oh my, my, my. Ms. Ben…Airic, they’re…they’re very powerful, aren’t they? I know what you mean. They do look alive. I…it’s beautiful, mesmerizing, tragic…I love it. Are there more? Like this one, are there more?” She began flipping over the others; there were perhaps ten or so in the same genre that was still in this part of the building. When she stood back and looked at them, so did Airic. They really were tragic, she thought.

The first one was done with bold colors of deep reds and even deeper blues. It was of a cave, not her cave, but one with stalagmite and stalactites in it. When one looked closer, deeper into the paint, colors, and the painting itself a person could see the wolf. His coat was dark, so dark it was almost indecipherable against the walls of blue. He was changing, shifting, moving from the form of a man into a wolf. The change had started at his hind legs and moved to the face of a man, blurred by the darkness. The others were the same, moving the wolf through the change in different areas of nature, but always just dark enough, blurred enough that one wasn’t quite sure if that’s what he or she was seeing.

“
Your signature, you signed these differently. Why?” Diana had knelt down in front of the fourth painting to look closer at it.

“
I don’t know. I…it seemed important that they were apart. I don’t care if they’re together in the show, that people are aware that they’re mine, if they’ll take them that is, but they needed to be different. I’m different when I paint them.” She was sure she wasn’t explaining it correctly, but Diana just nodded again.

“
Oh, they’ll take them. I’ve no doubt about that. In fact, I’m betting they sell faster than the pottery pieces, unless they are the same style. But you’d already said that the pottery was the same as before, didn’t you? Oh Airic, these are wonderful. Is this all of them?” She didn’t turn, so she didn’t see Airic flinch.

She almost said yes, yes that’s all, but in the end, she showed her the others. There were fifty-six of them as well. For each pottery piece there was a corresponding painting, though not the same style. She’d had to complete a painting or at least start it before she could throw a piece. If she didn’t, then the wheel would just turn and she wouldn’t be able to center the clay. It was as if there was some force holding her back somehow.

All the paintings were dry enough to cart up but the last six, the oil still damp to the touch. But Diana insisted on taking them all with her too, loading the last ones into her Hummer all in different areas of the car.

The moving van arrived on time and was loaded and ready to roll by the time the cleaning crew had gotten the biggest part of the house finished and was now finishing up in the kitchen. They said that they might not be able to get the laundry finished, but there were clean sheets on the beds and clean towels in all the linen closets.

Airic had been ordering extra things over the Internet, she was ashamed to admit. In fact, if she remembered correctly, she had just ordered another two dozen towels a few days ago. The trouble with doing the laundry, she thought, was it wasn’t just a matter of throwing stuff in the washer. You had to gather it and sort the stuff because if you didn’t everything was linty the next time you wore it. She’d learned that the hard way; the little fuzzies made her sneeze for a week. Then and only then could it be put in the washer, not too much though. Another hard lesson learned; measure out the liquid stuff and hope nothing the wrong color was now making everything you owned bright pink. Of course, then there was the dryer!
Sheesh,
she thought, that thing was a terror. If you didn’t remember to turn the stupid thing on, the clothes soured. Too gross to think about. And it could shrink a shirt to the size a doll could wear in thirty minutes.

Diana put away the food that had arrived promptly at six and stayed long enough to go through the mail and make a hot dinner for them both. Airic had lost a great deal of weight, Diana had pointed out, and fussed at her during dinner because she was picking at her food. She really hadn’t thought about actually eating for a while now and rarely had much of an appetite.

Airic had always been plump, overweight actually, but she didn’t care. There were curves where there had only been excess fat, muscle where there had been flab. She had had to get out the treadmill a few months ago. The energy burning through her made her jumpy and sore, achy really. Running had helped with that and the extra weight loss as well, she supposed.

“
Airic, are you seeing anyone? I mean about the changes. I’ve sent you the information on the lady who said she’d help you that’s local.” She had hoped they could get through this without her bringing it up, but it wasn’t to be. Airic knew she meant well, she knew that Diana had her best interests at heart, but the she just wanted to be left alone about it.

“
No. And I don’t need any help. I’m doing just fine on my own. Just fine if you consider that once a month I’ll get as hairy as the lady next door’s dog. But of course you know that, don’t you? All your packets and information you send me, I want you to stop, please. I don’t want to go to someone else. I want to die. To be dead, forgotten.” Airic hated that she was taking it out on her; all of it had been her fault, not Diana’s. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“
You’ve lost weight, a lot of it too, or haven’t you noticed that either? What is it, about fifty pounds more? And if the dark circles under your eyes are any indication, you’re not sleeping worth shit either. I’ve been in your house Ms. Bennett, and I can see what you’ve been doing out here too. It won’t go away, ever. You were bitten, not killed. You’ve lost your family, I know that. I can see them as clearly as…I got bit too, you know.” Diana stood up and walked to the door to leave, Airic just knew it.

“
But do you change every full moon, Diana? Does every single bone in your body break and pop with the pain so intense, so horrible that you pass out from it? Does your skin suddenly grow hair that covers your entire body? Your jaw elongate and fangs tear through your mouth, making you bleed? Do you have to run on four legs, on paws, being careful not to be seen so some fucking farmer doesn’t mistake you for an animal and shoot you? No. No, you don’t. So don’t tell me what you’ve lost. I lost my life, all I was; all I’ll ever be was ripped from me. Because I wanted to show off and take my family on the vacation of a lifetime!” She swiped angrily at the hot tears and turned away from her.

“
Airic, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

When Diana reached to touch her, she moved away from her. She could see the pain in her eyes, the hurt, but she was hurting too. “I’d like for you to go, please. I’ll contact you tomorrow. I’ve had a really bad day and I…I think I’ll go take a nap.” She walked out of the room and to the stairs. She heard Diana follow her into the hall.

“
Don’t. Please don’t make me leave. I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve been…I’ve been a martyr, and a bitch. Please. I’m sorry.” Diana laid her hand on the banister and cried.

Airic walked over to her and tentatively pulled her into her arms while she wept. “I’m sorry too. Let’s not…I need you to be my friend, not my counselor. I don’t have any friends; they’re all afraid I’ll eat them. I’m sorry, that wasn’t funny. I’m kidding.” It was the first time anyone had touched her in eighteen months, two weeks, and four days. She wished it had been longer.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“
I swear to…if you do not stop with the stupid shit I’m going to have David put both your asses in jail. Forever! We’ll see how that makes you feel. Every day for the past two weeks I’ve had to smooth someone’s fur because of you two idiots. I’ve had it! You will clean out the stalls, every fucking one of them, for the next month, every stall, every day for an entire month. Do. Not. Say. A. Word.” Bradley was breathing hard and barely keeping his wolf inside. His “get out, now” had the two boys nearly falling over their chairs trying to get out of his office.

When someone knocked on his door several minutes later, he was no closer to calming down than before. “Come in!” He snarled out. He knew it was unreasonably loud, but he was pissed, damn it.

“
Is the coast clear? I saw those two young pups running outta here like the hounds of hell were after their butts. Hope you didn’t cut them any slack. I certainly didn’t cut you any when you did the same thing twenty years ago.” His grandfather sank down in the big chair across from Bradley’s desk and sat his feet up on it. Bradley couldn’t say anything because that’s where his feet were currently at. He just hoped Martha, the housekeeper and cook, or heaven forbid, his grandmother, didn’t catch them. The punishment he’d just given those two boys would seem like a walk in the park.

“
I did not paint anyone’s house bright orange and toilet paper every tree on their property.” At least no one had caught them doing it, he thought. He smiled at the memory.

He and David had been about the same age as the two he had just ordered stall duty. David had scoped out the house for over a week, watching to see when they’d be gone and how long they’d have to do their job. Funny how that had been useful in his later career as a cop. Anyway, Bradley had gotten the paint, not orange, but robin’s egg blue, because David had said it would draw less attention to them when they bought it, and waited. It had taken them most of the long day to get it done, painting the windows and doors over too. The job had turned out better than they thought. Then they had bathed in the river, washing all of their evidence down the stream. They had been smart, though, unlike these two. David and he had painted the house buck naked, bare-assed, without any clothes to find. Which was how Phil and Daniel had been caught. Their own mother had ratted them out to him, their alpha. The sun burn on Bradley and David’s butts had been so worth it. To this day, no one knew for sure who had done it. Grandda had only thought they were guilty, but had never been able to prove it.
Never will, old man,
he thought with a sneer.

“
Sure you didn’t. What do they have to do, paint the house again? Mow the pack lawn with scissors? Tell me!” Grandda moved forward in his chair and reached for the whiskey bottle sitting on the corner and a short glass.

“
Cleaning stalls, all of them, for a month. If Grams catches you with that, she’s gonna have a kitten or two. And if she asks me, you might as well know I won’t lie to her.” He just stared at him, watching as he poured two fingers of the smooth liquor in the glass, glanced around, and tossed it back in his throat with a small salute and smile. He put the glass on the bottom of the small stack of others.