Bridenapped: The Alpha Chronicles (3 page)

              “Yeah, but that’s years from now.” Hailey shook her head.

“What if somebody hacked into their databases and planted something incriminating that really embarrassed the Alpha, and he had to flee the country in shame?” Troy asked. “I mean, if there was some kind of virus that did that, say. Like if it happened accidentally.”

Priscilla, who was alarmingly computer savvy, nodded approvingly. She and Troy could usually be found at all hours in her room – with the door open, per her parents orders – hunched over their laptops, probably figuring out how to hack the NSA.

“Huh. That would be a strangely specific virus,” Caitlin said, looking at him suspiciously. “You haven’t by any chance been adding hacking to your repertoire?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I dabble.” Priscilla snickered behind her hand. Caitlin decided that she did not want to know.

She shook her head regretfully. “I appreciate the thought, but I want to get out of this honestly, not by cheating. Also I suspect that the werewolves would have excellent computer security systems.”

Troy coughed into his hand, and Caitlin thought she heard him say “They got nothing on me”, but she ignored it.

“So, does anyone have any suggestions that are not likely to result in a federal prison sentence?” she asked, not expecting much. “Hey, mom, where you going?”

“Aunt Louise! Come back!” Priscilla called out after her.

              But Caitlin’s mother had already walked off the porch and was heading for the woods behind their house with a fast, determined stride.

              “I’ll go for a walk for her,” Caitlin called out to them. “It might help clear my head.”

Walking in the woods also seemed to calm her mother down, although it did nothing  to lessen her confusion.  They had about ten acres of land around their house – all of that would be gone soon, too. The thought of losing their land, the forests she’d roamed in as a child, the trees she’d climbed and the grass she and her parents had lain in looking up at the clouds, made her feel ill.

They passed by the flower garden that her mother used to tend, behind the house. Her mother hadn’t touched it in years, and the formerly pristine, lovingly tended quarter-acre was a weed-choked jungle now. Caitlin saw it from the corner of her eye only, before looking away. It spoke too much of her mother’s psyche, once flourishing and beautiful, now dark and tangled.

              Caitlin followed her mother through the pine grove, until they reached their favorite clearing, a grove of oak trees.  A couple of the oak trees were sick with blight, and Caitlin steered her mother away from them, because they seemed to agitate her.  If she saw them, she’d stand in front of them and flap her hands in dismay, and sometimes she made low keening noises.

Instead, they wandered over to the far end of the grove, and her mother knelt down and picked daisies, which she braided into a crown.   They weren’t far from the house, but the forest was so thick here that they might as well have been a thousand miles away. There was no sight or sound of civilization in the grove.  Coming here always gave Caitlin a sense of great peace and calm.

              Or at least, usually it did. Today, tension was coiling tightly inside her gut. She couldn’t relax. She needed to go back home and keep researching the bridenapping issue. 

              Her mother held up the crown of daisies and set it on Caitlin’s head.

              “That’s beautiful, mom!” she said with forced cheer.  “Good job. Okay, let’s go back now. It’ll be dark soon.”

              “It’ll be dark soon,” her mother echoed, letting Caitlin lead her back to the house.

              They emerged from the forest and walked into the field behind their house – and Caitlin let out a gasp of horror.

There were dozens of news vans lining the street in front of her house.  There were dozens of photographers pressed up against the white picket fence at their property line.

              As Caitlin led her mother to the front of her house, they went into a frenzy.

              Flashbulbs popped.  Cameras were trained on her as if she were a movie star walking the red carpet on Oscar night.

“Caitlin! Caitlin!” they cried out.

              Holding tightly to her mother’s hand, she ran up the steps with her. They dashed inside and slammed the door behind them.  Maggie was gone; she’d probably headed out to work already.  Rich, Priscilla, and Hailey were peeking out the lacy curtains.

              “I can’t believe this! How did they hear about this, and why do they even care?” Caitlin wailed.
Damn it, I hate being photographed,
she thought. Ironic for a girl who worked as a retoucher for a photographer, but being photographed made her self-conscious.

              “Slow news week,” Hailey guessed.

              “Your wedding invitation is all over town. It’s all over Facefriend,” Priscilla said to her. “And every other social media site.  You’re an internet sensation.” She perked up. “Hey, can I interview you? I’d get like a million hits on my blog, and I could put advertising on there. I’d make a fortune.”

              “I’ll set up the blog to optimize it for you,” Troy said eagerly. “We need to get some SEO going. Let’s see, keywords should be bridenapping, werewolves, Alpha Queen…”

              “Priscilla! Troy!  Don’t you dare!” Hailey scolded them. “Don’t try to make money off our cousin’s misfortune.”

              “We can’t let that monster get away with this,” Rich said angrily, yanking the curtain shut. He ran his hands through his thinning brown hair. “What if we write to our congressman?”

              Caitlin shook her head wearily. “Wouldn’t help.”

Humankind was indebted to and dependent on werewolves, and that was why there were so many laws favoring them.  Where would humankind be without regular donations of werewolf blood, collected from every pack? There would be no cure for cancer and diabetes and numerous other illnesses. It was impossible to manufacture a synthetic version; God knows all of the Big Pharma companies had tried.

That was why werewolves were granted massive tracts of land, and why they were permitted to make their own laws for their pack members, and operate like their own country within a country.

“Hey, I’m not saying you should marry that monster, but if you did, theoretically, would that mean that you would own half of everything that he does?” Hailey asked. “Like, our family’s land? Could we have it back?”

Caitlin shook her head. “No, I had Paige check in to that. The woman who marries the Alpha doesn’t have any rights to anything that’s pack property. She’s treated like a queen, lives a life of luxury, but she doesn’t get any of their land or homes.”

“Like a queen, huh.” Priscilla looked interested. “So, technically, as your relative, I’d be a princess?”

“Priscilla! We’re trying to rescue our cousin from a fate worse than death!” Hailey fixed her with a fierce glare.

“Oh, please.” Priscilla smirked at her. “Melodramatic, much? He’s actually totes hot, you can’t deny it.”

At Troy’s wounded look, she patted his arm reassuringly and added “Totes hot if you like old guys, which I don’t. He must be at least 25. Maybe even 30.”  Priscilla’s cell phone chirped and buzzed. She checked the screen. “Your wedding invitation has 50,000 hits on Pixxagram. Also I’ve got 1700 new friend requests. Sweet!  Seriously, I’m going to make bank off of this.”

“You’re an ass.” Hailey glared at her.

“That’s ‘Your Royal Ass’ to you, peasant,” Priscilla said loftily.

“Technically, I’d be royalty too, so off with your head.”

Caitlin’s phone tinkled with Paige’s ringtone, so she pulled it out of her purse and answered.

“Hello, Paige. Watch my mom for me, guys!” she said, hurrying up the stairs.

“Please tell me you have good news,” she said to Paige. “I’ve got every newscaster in California camped outside of our house.”

“I know, I’m watching the news right now. You need to trim those hedges, they’re way overgrown,” Paige said. “Also the lawn’s looking a little ragged. You’re going to get a citation from your Homeowners Association.”

“Paige. Don’t make me hurt you. What have you found out?”

“My darling William found the loophole.” William was her legal eagle husband, who had a fearsome reputation in the courtroom. “There is one weird loophole, which apparently has never been used before. You are legally permitted to leave the day AFTER your wedding day, and on that day only.  I guess the idea is that if the Alpha can’t satisfy his wife on their wedding night, then the union won’t be a fruitful one and blah blah. But you can’t get out of the bridenapping. If he grabs you and takes you back to the pack lands, you’re stuck there until the next full moon, when the wedding will take place. So almost a month.”

“Wow. Leaving the day after the wedding. That’s pretty harsh.” Caitlin should have been overjoyed at what Paige had discovered, but for some reason the thought of publicly humiliating Kristofer in that fashion made her feel queasy.

But what choice did she have?  Even if he wasn’t her family’s enemy, she couldn’t stay with him and serve as Alpha queen. It just couldn’t happen. Her family needed her income, and they needed her help babysitting her mother. And her mother tended to get more agitated when Caitlin wasn’t around. God only knew what would happen with her not being home for weeks.

“You said you hated him,” Paige pointed out. “This is your get out of werewolf-ville free  card.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Thank you, Paige, you are definitely my lawyer for life.” She paused. “I’d better go make sure Mom’s okay. I’ll call you later.”

She hung up the phone and headed back downstairs for dinner, wondering why she felt even more anxious now than she had before Paige called.             

* * *

              Early the next morning, Caitlin sat up with a start and looked around frantically, before letting out a sigh of relief.  She was in her own bed. She was in her own bedroom. OK, that was a good sign, she hadn’t been bridenapped yet.

              She yawned and stretched, and rubbed at her eyes.  She’d been up till the wee hours frantically searching on the internet, trying to find a solution that was better than dumping Kristofer the day after his wedding. 

Why was she trying to spare his feelings, when he’d sent her family hurtling towards financial ruin? She couldn’t really come up with a reason, other than that she hated the idea of subjecting anyone to ridicule and humiliation – even him.  She’d been targeted plenty when she was in high school – mostly by the gang of girls led by Melodee Klinghoffer, the mayor’s daughter. They’d stolen her size 20 underwear from her locker while she was at gym class and run it up the flagpole.  They’d taped pictures of hogs on her locker door.  They’d made livestock noises when she walked by them in the cafeteria.  If it hadn’t been for Paige and Lottie, she didn’t know how she would have made it through high school.  Melodee tended to shut up when Paige gave her the death stare.  Paige’s death stare was enough to curdle milk and wither plants. 

Still, despite all her research, she hadn’t been able to come up with a single damn thing that would let her legally wriggle out of this bridenapping.

When she’d finally fallen asleep a few hours before dawn, her treacherous subconscious had sent her tumbling into Kristofer’s bedroom.  In her dreams, she’d been clad in white lacey lingerie, with his hands running over her body, his mouth tracing hot kisses down her body, over the rounded swell of her body…

              In her dreams he thought she was perfect.  He loved her body, every roll, every bulge, every ripple. 

              But now it was morning and the sun was edging up over the horizon and she was still teetering at the edge of that bizarre rabbit hole, on the verge of falling down deep into a strange new world.  She wished she could figure out what Kristofer’s angle was, what he really wanted from this marriage. If she could figure it out, she could figure a way around it. 

              A sharp knocking on the door made her jump.

              “Who is it?” she called out. She’d locked the door and window the night before, something she never had done before.

              “It’s not Kristofer!” Hailey yelled. “Breakfast is ready”

              “Be down in five!” she called. She dressed hastily, and then ran downstairs. It was 6 a.m. 

              “Everyone’s ready,” Maggie said.

              The plan was that her aunt would drive Caitlin’s car to work, in case Kristofer made his move this morning.  She would be wearing big dark sunglasses and pile her hair up under a hat, looking as if she were Caitlin trying to disguise herself.  Hailey and Priscilla would stay home and babysit Caitlin’s mother.

              Uncle Rich would drive Caitlin to work in his pickup truck, with her lying on the floor in the back seat under a blanket, before he headed to his own job at the auto shop.

              She picked at her breakfast, then dumped it in the trash. “I’m too distracted to eat,” she groaned.

              “Damned werewolves,” Rich muttered. “We’ll find a way to get you out of this, I swear.”

              Caitlin hadn’t told them about the loophole that Paige had uncovered for her. If she told them, she’d be obligated to go through with it, and she was desperately hoping that she could come up with a better way.

              “I’m sure we’ll find something.  For now, we should get this over with,” she said to Maggie, grabbing her purse from the kitchen counter.

              “Is that what you’re wearing?” Priscilla asked, eyeing Caitlin critically.

              She glanced down at herself. She was wearing a pantsuit, with a generously sized jacket to hide her body as much as possible.

              “What’s wrong with it?” she asked. “Did I spill something on myself?”

              Priscilla circled her, looking her up and down. “I mean, you’re going to get bridenapped any minute, and the press will be there. I’m going to need good pictures to put on my blog. You should put on something fancier. Can I do your makeup? And I’m thinking your pink halter-dress, the one with the-”

              Caitlin let out a hiss of frustration. “Zip it, Greedzilla!  He’ll have to find me before he can bridenapped me. I’m planning on busting out all my best stealth moves until after the full moon comes. I’ll eat lunch in the office every day, no, actually, I’m going to see if I can start working from home.”

Would Alberto let her do that? She could retouch photographs from home just as easily as she could at the office, but he was the type of helicopter boss who constantly popped in to their office, afraid they were spending their time surfing on the internet.  In Lottie’s case, that was often true. She was addicted to gossip sites, and when she wasn’t working on their website, she was reading about celebrity hookups and breakups.

Maggie left first.   Caitlin and her uncle waited a few minutes, then went into the garage. She climbed into the back of the pickup truck and lay down there on the floor.   Then they pulled out, as she lay sweating under the wool blanket and cursing every werewolf who’d ever lived.

“Is the press still there?” she called out to him.

“In full force!” he yelled back. “There’s even more of them!”

              Great. The neighbors must be loving this. 

Uncle Rich drove for about ten minutes, and then she felt him slowing down to a stop. He was dropping her off in an alleyway a couple of blocks from work. She could thread her way through the buildings and sneak in the back entrance at work.

              “The coast is clear,” Uncle Rich called to her. “Better hurry!”

              She climbed out of the truck, slammed the door, and ran down the alley.

              She quickly ducked between garbage cans, zipped down a tiny side street…almost there…she rounded a corner…

              The explosion of a dozen flash bulbs blinded her.

              She staggered back, blinking, and tripped. She fell into someone – a very tall, muscular someone. She blinked again, frantically trying to clear her vision, but she didn’t need her eyes to know who she’d run into. She recognized that cologne, that earthy masculine smell…Kristofer. She remembered it from their very first meeting.

              A mob of photographers gathered around, wildly snapping away.

              She looked up at him in astonishment, struggling to find words.  She hadn’t actually seen him in person for quite some time; she’d forgotten exactly how breathtakingly handsome he was.  Spiky brown hair, chiseled cheekbones so sharp you could cut yourself just looking at them, broad, muscular chest…and unlike her, he’d dressed up today. He wore a white silk shirt and black pants; like most werewolves, his choice of clothing tended towards the elegant and old-fashioned.

              Kristofer bowed gallantly. “Welcome to your bridenapping, milady,” he said. Then he swept her up and threw her over his shoulder as if she weighed no more than a feather, and he strode off to the limousine that was idling on the street at the end of the alleyway.