The Alpha Claims A Mate (10 page)

Ginger’s unease grew, and she wondered how much longer she should put up with this silent treatment before demanding answers. Could she even demand answers? Would this get back to her pack somehow, and get her in even worse trouble?

Frustration curled inside her, and she folded her arms across her chest, scowling.

“What’s the matter?” Portia asked snidely. “Don’t like the country? Then you’re in the wrong place, sweetheart. You should get back to the city where you belong.”

“I agreed to serve as the sheriff’s assistant for two weeks. I intend to keep my word,” Ginger said, in a cool but neutral tone.

“I should think it would be fairly clear by now that the sheriff has already lost interest in you.  You could leave town right now and he wouldn’t even notice.” Icicles dripped from Portia’s words. “In fact, you should. You’re just embarrassing yourself, panting after him like a lovesick pup.”

Was that true? Ginger wondered. She knew that Portia was bitterly jealous of her – but still, after the way the sheriff had vanished, Portia’s words stabbed at her.

“You know, it’s obvious to everyone that you’re incredibly out of place here,” Portia continued. “A red wolf in a gray wolf’s territory. A half-breed running with an Alpha.   Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s dangerous to leave the safety of your pack?”

The car slowed.  Suddenly Portia’s eyes were glowing  amber, and the bones of her face began to shift and lengthen. Thick black claws shot from her
finger tips.

And that was that.

Ginger had had it.

She’d grown up being bullied, taunted for
being different, for being fat, for being weird, for talking to people only she could see. And, back in middle school, she’d finally gotten tired of it.  She was never the type to start anything – but she’d sure as hell finish it.

Her foot shot out and slammed on top of Portia’s foot, jamming on the brake so hard that the car skidded and bounced on the road before screeching to a halt.

“What the hell was that?” Portia shrieked, as Ginger’s fangs sprang out and hair sprouted on her face.

“That was me saying I’ve had enough. You’re obviously counting on the fact that a typical red wolf is half the size of a gray wolf. Well, I’m not a typical red wolf, in case you hadn’t notice.” Her voice came out in a snarl.

Portia stared at her, frozen in shock, her eyes widening.

“
I’ve got a good eighty pounds on you in human form.  You want to find out how big I am when I turn? You want to find out how we deal with bullies in New York? Step outside of the car and let’s settle this.” Ginger opened her door and gestured at the road.

Portia just kept staring, breathing hard, and finally she turned back to the road, started up the car again, and said in a cold, quiet voice “Please close your door.”

Ginger slammed the door shut, hard.

“You and I
are done speaking to each other,” Ginger snapped. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you while we’re in the car.  Drive me to this scene, if there even is a scene, and let’s get this over with.”

Portia’s face darkened with anger, but she didn’t say a word. She made a
u-turn, drove back to town, and soon they were in a high end subdivision, driving past mini mansions surrounded by massive sprawling lawns.

They pulled up in front of a Tudor style home, with a steeply pitched roof, rubblework masonry and decorative half-timbering. There was an ambulance parked out front, a deputy’s car, and a hearse.

They walked up the flagstone path and climbed the steps in silence.  Two life sized statues of stone wolves sat on either side of the doorway, signifying that these were wolf shifters. Wealthy wolf shifters. 

Inside, in a spacious living room, a small crowd had gathered. A woman in a two piece Chanel suit and shiny black pumps sat on the couch, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.  A young man was holding her hand. Several
well dressed couples who were probably her neighbors sat on the overstuffed leather sectional, murmuring words of support.

There was a deputy sitting in
a chair with a laptop on his lap, tapping away as he wrote his report. They all glanced up when Ginger walked in.

“This is Ginger Colby, sheriff’s office liaison. She’s a certified post-death communications expert,” Portia announced loudly. “She’ll be able to communicate with the deceased about his final moments.”

The woman in the Chanel suit blanched.

“Well, I really don’t think that’s necessary…” she protested.

“After everything that she’s just been through!” one of the other women on the couch said indignantly.

“It’s routine.” Portia threw a glance at Ginger.  Everyone was staring at Ginger with open hostility, and Ginger glanced back at Portia, to see that cold little smile playing across Portia’s lips again. The smile vanished as soon as Ginger’s eyes were on Portia, and her face went carefully neutral.

“Follow me, please,” Portia said, and lead Ginger down a hallway and into the couple’s master bedroom. It was a large room decorated in dark gray and black tones, with black lacquer furniture.

A corpse lay on the bed with a sheet pulled over him. 

“The rigor mortis and livor mortis in the body shows us that he didn’t die in the position that we found him.  He’d been dead for several hours, and then somebody moved him. But the wife is insisting she came home from her garden club meeting this morning and found him in exactly that position,” Portia said.

Ginger sighed, taking a deep breath.

She closed her eyes, letting the world disintegrate around her, and when she opened her eyes she could see a man with curly silver hair on the bed – and he wasn’t alone. 

The silver haired man was mostly naked, on his hands and knees
, facing the edge of the bed. He wore a leather harness held together with metal rings.

Standing by the bed was another man – a muscular young man who had pulled his pants down around his ankles.  The silver haired man had the younger man’s cock in his mouth, and was enthusiastically fellating him – when suddenly, he collapsed, face down and buttocks in the air, still in the kneeling position.

The younger man jumped back in shock. Then, grimacing, he reached out tentatively and shook the older man by the shoulder, and shouted his name several times. When he couldn’t rouse him, he quickly pulled his clothes on and fled without a backward glance.

The silver haired man abruptly sat up and looked straight at Ginger. Sometimes the dead did that. Sometimes they just played out the scenes of their death, again and again.

“My wife can’t know,” he said. His eyes were huge and hollow.

Ginger shook her head, clearing her thoughts, and the room returned to normal. No ghosts, no final death scene.

Her hands were shaking. She turned and walked quickly out of the room, with Portia following at her footsteps.

“Well?” Portia said loudly, glancing around the room.  Everyone stared at Ginger with a mixture of anger and fear.

It was likely they all knew about this man’s double life, or at least suspected.  And Ginger would lay odds that the body on the sheet had been stripped of the leather harness and repositioned before the police were called.

Ginger took a deep breath. Portia knew exactly what had happened, and she’d set Ginger up to be the bad guy.

If it were necessary, Ginger would have announced the truth, but there was no need to humiliate this man’s family. The man hadn’t been murdered; he’d died in the middle of sex.

“Death by natural causes,” Ginger said coolly. “He appears to have collapsed and died from a heart attack.” She turned to the widow. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

There were audible sighs of relief from the widow and several of the people sitting with her.

“What?” Portia’s voice cracked angrily through the room. “Remember…you’re certified! You are sworn to tell the truth!”

“I am telling the truth,” Ginger said coldly. And she was. It appeared that the man had died of a heart attack.  She didn’t need to mention what activity he was indulging in when he had that heart attack.

“If you lie during an investigation, you will lose your certification!”

“You think that the coroner’s office is going to find some other cause of death besides a heart attack? He wasn’t shot, stabbed, strangled, or poisoned…he collapsed,” Ginger said firmly. “I’m not a doctor, but I know what I saw. He collapsed. And never regained consciousness.”

Suddenly Portia
looked around the room and realized that all eyes were now on her. All the people in the room who’d been glaring at Ginger were now glaring at her. 

Her gaze dropped to the floor, and she shot Ginger a dirty look.

“We’ll just see about that,” she mumbled angrily.

“Portia Sinclair, what the heck is going on here?”
Loch Armstrong’s voice rang through the air.

Loch had come into the house un-noticed, and was standing in the arched entryway to the living room, his face dark with anger.  

Portia’s face went pale. “Outside. Now,”
he snapped.

Portia swallowed hard, then turned and stalked out of the house without a word.

The sheriff nodded at the widow. “I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Timmons,” he said, and turned and walked out, and Ginger followed him, her heart frozen in her chest. What the hell was happening here?

Portia was quickly climbing into her patrol car when the sheriff barked at her “Get back here, now!” She froze and sat there for a second as if contemplating the idea of ignoring him, then she slowly climbed out and wa
lked over to where he stood, her face sullen.

He glanced at Ginger. “What are you doing here?”

“Portia said that you wanted me to investigate…” she saw Portia frantically gesturing at her as if begging her to be quiet. Obviously Portia had lied when she’d said the sheriff wanted Ginger at the scene.

The sheriff turned to Portia. “Are you crazy? You thought you’d get away with going behind my back like that?”

Portia didn’t answer, staring sullenly at the ground.

“We all know what happened with Mr. Timmons.  There was absolutely no need to humiliate that woman and her family like that. You brought Ginger here to stir up trouble and make her look like the bad guy – at that family’s expense.”

“I didn’t say anything to the family,” Ginger said hastily. “I just said that it appears that he collapsed and died of a heart attack. Which is true. Mostly. I mean, there was a young man in the room with him when he collapsed, and they were, uh…”

“I can imagine,” the sheriff said darkly.

He turned back to Portia. “I should be out dealing with a missing professor, and preventing Jax from starting a war with the Panther Nation. Instead I’m here dealing with your childish and completely unacceptable behavior.”

“Unacceptable!” Portia hissed. “I’ll tell you what’s unacceptable! She’s a red wolf, you’re grey! You can’t-“

The sheriff let out a low, warning growl, and his eyes glowed amber with rage.

Portia wilted, shrinking back. “You can’t treat me like this. You know who my aunt is,” she muttered weakly. “I’ll quit, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Resignation accepted. Ginger, come with me.” He turned on his heel and walked away, with Ginger quickly following him.

Portia’s wails of protest filled the air. “You can’t do this! You’ll hear from my aunt! You’ll hear from the council!” she shouted.

Ginger and the sheriff climbed into the patrol car. Ginger had to hug herself to keep her hands from shaking.

The sheriff pulled out of the parking lot. “I apologize for that. And for this morning. I owe you an explanation,” he said. “Portia…her family has been trying to arrange a marriage between us for ages
, for political reasons. Their family is very wealthy, mine has a lot of connections and influence in this area of the state. I made it very clear to them that she wasn’t my fated mate, but they kept pushing . A year ago I took her out on a couple of dates, and then I broke it off. She didn’t take it well. She managed to get herself hired at the sheriff’s department by having her aunt pressure the mayor, and she’s constantly trying to meddle in my personal life.”

“Who’s her aunt?”

“A member of the Shifter Council.”

“Oh. Good lord.” The seven member council oversaw all matters concerning the various werewolf packs in Florida.  Each area of the state had a representative.   Every state had
a council, and their word superseded that of the Alpha, if they felt that an Alpha was acting against the interests of his pack.

“Don’t worry about it. The real issue is…what happened between us last night.” He was breathing hard, and Ginger stared at him. He looked disheveled, his hair rumpled and a twig caught in his hair. She reached out and plucked it from his hair without thinking, and he let out a low groan at the feel of her fingers.

“Did you shift and run in the woods before you came here?” she asked him.

He rubbed at his face with one hand, the other hand clenching the wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white.

“I had to,” he groaned. “I ran for hours. I felt like I was burning up. Like I was going to explode.”

She stared at him. “What, exactly, is going on with you?”

“Last night, at the club…I scared myself.”

“You scared me too. And that wolf who made a pass at me outside the club.”

His eyes blazed angrily at the mention of it, and he took a deep breath, and then pulled over to the side of the road. “I’ve never reacted like that before with anyone. I’ve taken plenty of women to that club before, and I didn’t care who else played with them. Who they fooled around with. But you…the thought of any other wolf laying his paws on you, any man touching you…it literally made me crazy.”

Ginger’s heart leaped to her throat, choking her
.  Loch wanted her. And he didn’t want any other man to even come near her.

“I wasn’t going to fool around with anyone else,” Ginger said. “I only want you.” As soon as she said it, she bit her lip.  She hadn’t even realized she was going to say it, hadn’t even realized that she meant it, until she heard herself saying those words.

“I mean…”

He took another deep breath, clearly struggling for control. “We need to go out to the dig site right now and deal with the missing professor. Can we talk about it after that? Please?” The normally dominant Alpha was begging her, in a low, sexy growl.

Ginger’s panties suddenly were soaked with the juices of her desire. She squirmed in her seat and bit her lip.   She could feel desire pulsing between her legs and jolting through her body.

“Yes,” she said huskily. “We can talk about it whenever you want.”

“Good God, woman. You have no idea the effect you have on me. Can you try not to talk in that sexy voice?”

“Umm…” she lowered her voice to a comical bass pitch. “Is that better?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Much better.”

They drove to the dig site, where
several patrol cars were parked.  Jax was standing with a group of deputies, glaring at Montgomery. Montgomery was pacing back and forth like an angry cat.  A dozen other panther shifters were milling about, and they were clearly angry.

“Sheriff,”
Jax said. “There are ATV tracks leading from the site into the woods. We were waiting for you before we follow the tracks.”

The sheriff nodded. He glanced at Montgomery. “We’d appreciate if you’d accompany us, Montgomery. To ensure that we don’t accidentally encroach on your territory.”

Jax glowered, looking as if he were about to argue, but then his shoulders sank in defeat and he shrugged angrily. “Fine,” he muttered.

“I’ll be back,” the sheriff said to Ginger. “Wait here for me.”  She nodded her assent.

The men all strode to the edge of the wood, and then shed their clothes, leaving them in piles.  She watched as they shifted, sinking down on all fours, snouts lengthening, fur sprouting, tails lashing, and then dashed into the woods.

The students were milling around uncertainly, not sure what to do.  Some of them sat inside a tent they’d set up, drinking bottles of water and muttering among themselves.

About half an hour later, the shifters returned, shifting quickly and changing back into their clothes. The panther shifters left immediately, headed into the woods, and the sheriff and his deputies trotted over to where Ginger sat inside the tent with the students.

“The ATV tracks lead into panther nation territory,”
Loch said. “Unfortunately we have no authority there.”

The students let out a chorus of protest. “We need to find the professor!” “They murdered him!” “That’s not fair!”

“I’m going to go back to speak to Montgomery tomorrow to see if I can convince him to let us come onto their territory, after he’s had a chance to calm down,” Loch said, shooting Jax a dark look. Jax scowled at the ground. Clearly, Jax had exchanged words with the leader of the Panther Nation, and clearly, it had not been well received.

“Does he admit they murdered him?” Brenda’s eyes were glittering with tears.

“No. He denies any knowledge of the professor’s whereabouts.  He says he was unaware that the professor came onto their territory until just now, when we saw that the ATV tracks led there.”

“So you’re going to just give up?” Tallulah wailed.

“No, we’re not going to just give up.  My men are going to need to take statements from all of you.  I’m also going to have to go through the professor’s room to see if there’s any indication as to why he’d go into Panther territory when he knew the consequences,” Loch continued. “And if I need to, I can contact the Panther’s shifter council to see if they’ll intervene. But we’re not there yet.  Montgomery can be reasoned with as long as he’s approached respectfully.” He fixed Jax with a hard look before turning away to head back to his patrol car.

It was hours before Loch had finished taking statements and searching the
professor’s room. 

Ginger went back to the sheriff’s office and
finished up the filing, while the sheriff sat in his office and fielded phone calls from North Florida University where the professor taught, family members, the mayor, the town’s newspaper reporter, and others.

Loch
confided in Ginger that the last time the professor had used his phone had been about half an hour after he left the boarding house…and it had been right outside the Panther Nation’s territory. According to cell phone tower signals, the person who answered the phone had been inside the Panther Nation.

Unfortunately, the person he’d called had used a disposable cell phone that was untraceable. Neither the professor’s cell phone, nor the person he’d called, were returning any signals now.

In the professor’s room, in a hidden compartment in his suitcase, they’d found a research paper about a feared shaman who’d ruled the panther nation several centuries ago, and who had practiced magic so dark that his own people had risen up against him and assassinated him.

“The Shaman, who was called River Runs Red, had turned to virgin sacrifice and black magic.   He used that magic to create what were believed to be icons of great power and great evil,” Loch told Ginger.
“There were some sketches included in the research paper, showing what the icons are believed to look like.”

“Those kind of icons would be very valuable, wouldn’t they? And terribly dangerous if they got in the wrong hands?” Ginger said.

The sheriff’s expression turned somber.

“What?” she asked.

“There have always been rumors that those icons can’t be destroyed, that they still exist deep within panther territory,  and that’s why they’re so territorial, why they never let outsiders on their lands.  They believe that if anyone were to get their hands on those icons, it would unleash unspeakable evil.”

Something about the way he said it sent a cold shiver rolling down her spine.

“But there’s no way the professor could get to them. He’d have to know that. It would be absolute suicide for him to even attempt it.” He shook his head.