Fate of the Alpha: The Complete Bundle (27 page)

T
eresa Simkins lived
by the creek. So close to the creek, in fact, that they couldn’t get there by car.

Erik had insisted upon driving, but they could get the pick-up truck only so far into the woods before he had to park it and walk.

Though it was only late afternoon, the swamp was nearly dark, except for the light of the waning moon above. The moonlight made Bonnie’s hair shine and Erik wondered if it was affecting her, and how he might have responded if he were still a wolf.

A fine mist rose out of the muddy ground. After another five minutes their feet began to squelch in the mud.

“Are you sure—” Erik began.

But Bonnie whipped around and put a finger to her lips.

There was nothing to do but continue.

As Erik was beginning to relax and get into the spooky scenery, he spotted movement at his feet.

Snake.

The brown, hourglass markings on its body and the lighter, unmarked head made it instantly recognizable as a venomous copperhead. His dad had taught him to spot them when he used to take Erik fishing.

Erik almost cried out in pain and fear as the scar on his back burned.

The snake slithered past him into the water, unperturbed.

What the hell? Was he afraid of snakes now? Erik had always liked animals. He knew the snake meant him no harm, but his heart pounded like he was in mortal danger.

And why was his scar burning? He wasn’t fucking Harry Potter.

Bonnie continued to walk calmly ahead of him. Erik took a few deep breaths as he followed her, willing himself to get his shit together.

The cold, wet air threatened to sink into his bones. He wondered how Bonnie could stand it in her thin sweater, then remembered that she was a wolf, and it would take more than this to make her cold.

A shadow emerged from the mist, its shape becoming more familiar as they approached.

It was a house, but it was unlike any house Erik had ever seen before.

The entire structure lacked any discernible right angles, and straight lines seemed to be few and far between. Twigs and roots poked from the thatched roof and reached up into the sky like bony fingers. In several places, the ivy that hung from the structure like matted fur had completely overtaken the walls.

Thin tendrils of bluish smoke seeped under the door and joined with the mist outside as Bonnie stepped onto the porch, Erik following uneasily behind.

What little paint was left peeled off the wooden railing in quarter-sized flakes as their footsteps disturbed the thick coat of bright yellow pollen dusting the porch floor.

“
Miss Simkins!
” Bonnie yelled at the top of her lungs, yanking open the dubious looking screen and banging loudly on the inner door.

Erik twitched at the loud sound after their long, silent walk.

“Sorry, she’s mostly deaf,” Bonnie explained. “And more than a little blind.”

Perfect.

An uncomfortable feeling tugged at the back of Erik’s mind, like he had stepped into a storybook, and not the kind where everyone lives happily ever after.

The door swung open and for a moment Erik thought no one was there. Then he realized that the person who had opened it was quite a bit shorter than he’d expected.

Teresa Simkins stood just about four feet tall. A simple white shift enveloped her round form. A roadmap of lines and furrows crisscrossed her wizened face. A blue haze of cataracts clouded her right eye, but the other, a brown so deep it was almost black, danced with mischief.

“Hi, Miss Simkins,” Bonnie said loudly. “I brought a friend, this is Erik.”

“Come on in out of the cold,” Miss Simkins hollered back, winking at Erik with her good eye.

He smiled politely and stepped inside behind Bonnie.

Instantly, he was hit with a sweltering wave of dry heat, and the cloying smell of marijuana. Not an uncommon odor when you live in a college town, but not exactly what he had been expecting from this visit.

“This is Erik Jensen,” Bonnie told Teresa. “A wolf from Tarker’s Hollow pack. He’s here to help with the mine. We have some questions we were hoping you could answer.”

Teresa eyed Erik up and down. He wasn’t sure how much she could really make out with with her vision.

“He may be from Tarker’s Hollow,” the old woman said, wrinkling her nose disdainfully. “but he’s no wolf.”

A cold sweat formed on Erik’s brow. How could she know that?

“Miss Simkins,” Bonnie said defensively. “He was sent by the Federation. I assure you—“

“It’s alright, Bonnie. She’s right,” Erik admitted, surprised by the feeling of relief that accompanied his confession.

“
What?
” Bonnie spluttered.

“I was a wolf,” he explained. “Up until a week ago. Now I’m not.”

“What do you mean you
were
?” Bonnie asked. “How is that even possible?”

“It’s complicated,” he said.

Bonnie shook her head incredulously.

“And that’s not why you two came here in such a rush,” Teresa continued without any regard for the tension building in the room.

“No, it’s not,” Erik said, still searching Bonnie’s face for a sign that they were still friends even though he had allowed her to think he was a wolf.

“Miss Simkins,” Bonnie said, without sparing Erik a glance. “You were close with Jake. We were wondering if he mentioned anything out of the ordinary to you lately.”

Cold sweat trickled down Erik’s back now. It was too hot and Bonnie was definitely mad at him.

Teresa gestured for them to follow her. They walked through a long hallway that Erik would have sworn was longer than the whole house looked from the outside, and into a circular sitting room. Dark wallpaper with a vine pattern covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Three ancient arm chairs with doilies over their arms faced off with a rickety-looking love seat.

Teresa pointed them to the chairs. Bonnie chose the one closest to the door — probably a prudent decision in this crazy house. Erik chose the chair in the middle, next to her.

Teresa sat on the love seat across from them. It gave a terrific creak and a snake darted out from beneath it and disappeared into the shadows along the edge of the room.

Erik had jumped up and swallowed a scream before he could gather himself.

“Sorry,” he explained, sitting back down and staring at his knuckles. “I had a bad experience with a snake recently.”

“What bit you was no snake, Erik Jensen. It was no part of nature at all,” Teresa declared.

“How do you know about that?” he asked, forgetting his embarrassment and looking up to take in the expression on her small face.

Instead of answering, Teresa fished a pipe out of the ashtray on the little table next to the loveseat. She struck a match and lit it in one practiced motion.

The sweet, heavy odor intensified. Erik began to wonder how a wolf could handle such an intense smell.

Ruefully, he remembered the time he’d taken a few draws of a joint being passed around by older kids he wanted to impress. It never did anything for him, his wolf metabolism probably processed it too fast. And of course his dad had smelled it a mile away and punished him as sternly as you’d expect a military man to do. It hadn’t been worth the trouble.

He glanced at Bonnie. She didn’t look back, but she looked like she was feeling okay. Impressive.

Teresa stared out the window. She puffed and her face seemed to disappear in the smoke.

The whole room was getting warmer by the minute. It was nearly unbearable.

Just as Erik began to think that Teresa had forgotten them, she turned back to gaze at them frankly.

“Looks like the time has finally come,” she said with a bitter smile. “It’s been so long. So very long. Those of us who know the true calling started to wonder if it might stay quiet forever. To hope that it would. Some wolves have even moved out of pack lands, to mingle with the regular folk. But I knew.”

What could she be talking about?

As Erik wondered, he caught a slithering movement out of the corner of his eye.

He whipped around, but there was nothing there.

“That’s exactly what they’ve been waiting for,” Teresa continued. “Waiting for us to grow forgetful of our duty. We offered the world our protection, but no one even knows what we’re up against anymore. But I remember. And I knew, when that man came through, the one with the wolf-head cane. I knew trouble was coming. And when Jake told me about the symbols...”

She trailed off, and her chin wrinkled as her dark brown eye filled with tears. She blinked them back and breathed in deeply through her wrinkled nose.

“I told him to leave that mess alone. Bring down those tunnels. Bring down the whole goddamn mine, if need be. But he was headstrong, just like his dad. Thought he was invincible. Now he’s gone. They’re all gone. And where does that leave us?”

Her gaze moved to the window again. The ramrod straightness of her posture only accentuated her despair, and reminded Erik of someone, but he couldn’t think who. Teresa was suddenly beautiful in her sorrow, the curve of her antediluvian belly under the white shift was reminiscent of a tear drop.

Erik yearned to comfort her, but didn’t know how.

“Miss Simkins, we are going to do our best to get to the bottom of this,” he said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, though it put him into the cloud of smoke that surrounded her like a halo. “But we need you to help us understand what’s going on.”

The heat was unbearable. Sweat poured down his chest and underarms. The smoke grew so thick the wallpaper was hardly visible anymore.

Another wriggling movement in the shadows caught his eye. This time the mere act of trying to track it made his vision blur around the edges.

Was he getting high?

Without his heightened wolf immunities and metabolism, he had no tolerance.

His heart raced madly.

Everywhere he looked, he caught slithering movements. How many snakes were in this house?

He looked closer, and the vines in the wallpaper began to squirm.

Not vines. Snakes.

Before his eyes they came to life and slid off the walls and onto the floor by the dozens. They were hiding beneath the love seat, waiting.

Get your shit together, Jensen,
he told himself.

“Ha!” Teresa’s laugh was old and dry, like crumpled paper. “We need an alpha, and you’re not even a wolf!”

She was right. What was he supposed to do?

He closed his eyes and tried to go to a mental place far from the smoke and the snakes. There was more at work here than a little pot. He needed to clear his head.

“There is something loose in those mines, Erik Jensen.” Teresa’s voice sounded far away. “Something evil and hungry.”

He remembered the desiccated corpses and fought back the urge to retch.

“And if it gets out,” she continued, “it will kill every last person in Copper Creek.”

Erik’s first thoughts were of the Miller kids — the little twins with their pigtails, and Zeke, and Mary.

“And that will be just the beginning,” she said with quiet authority. “If you’re lucky, you’ll die first, or else you’ll watch as it kills everyone you love.”

Ainsley.

Erik stood suddenly, nearly knocking over the coffee table.

“We’ve got to go,” he said to Bonnie.

“To do what?” she asked.

“Whatever we have to, to make sure that thing never leaves the mine,” he said.

He turned and strode out of the room without waiting to see if she was following. If he had to do this on his own, so be it.

Somehow, he made it through the main room and out into the bracing night. The cold, fresh air began to clear his head immediately.

“Are you okay?” Bonnie asked uncertainly.

So, she had followed him after all.

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to plan, not just to act.

“Never better,” he replied.

“What’s your plan?” she asked.

He gestured for her to come with him on the journey by foot back to the truck.

“I’ll tell you on the way. I’ll tell you everything, but you need to do me a favor,” he told her.

A
insley was off her game
.

Though her whole world was falling apart at the seams, what had her truly shaken was Grace.

It was one thing for Ainsley to know her best friend was getting it on with a guy she’d had a fling with herself. It might be kind of odd if she over-thought it, but at the end of the day, it was no big deal.

But the way both Julian and Grace had been behaving was beyond mysterious. First the kiss, then the denial, then the unspoken anger yesterday.

And now...

Ainsley had gone to the police station to find out what they’d gotten out of Garrett. The whole place was silent as a tomb.

When she’d slipped past the reception area, the door to the interrogation room had swung open just long enough for her to see Grace sleeping naked on the conference table, before Julian pulled it shut behind him.

Grace was a consummate professional.

And Julian was over one hundred years old.

Neither one had an excuse to be acting like a couple of hormonal teenagers.

What the hell was happening with these two?

Now she and Julian stood in front of the interrogation room door, staring at each other awkwardly.

Julian looked down, and cleared his throat.

“Where’s Garrett?” Ainsley asked, saving him from trying to explain what he and Grace had just been doing.

He smiled at her and the relief was plain on his face. He looked quite relaxed, actually, and there was something else different about him too. Ainsley was having a hard time putting a finger on it, but his eyes looked brighter.

“He’s in a cell in the back,” he told her. “I put wards on it so that no magic can be done inside — ours or his.”

“I’m going to talk to him,” she said.

“I’ll wake Grace,” Julian replied.

They nodded at each other, then Julian opened the door again.

Ainsley got one last glimpse of her best friend. Grace curled on her side like a kitten. Her face was soft in sleep, but a half smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She must be having a good dream. Julian leaned over her tenderly, and spoke in a low voice as the door swung shut.

Suddenly, Ainsley had a lump in her throat. She turned on her heel and headed for the holding cells.

The room at the end of the hall felt dark compared to the rest of the station. It stood empty, except for a desk and chair with a framed print of one of Escher’s labyrinths over it, and the man in one of the two holding cells.

Garrett sat on the floor of his cell, cradling the stump of his right hand in the arm of his left.

He should have looked pathetic, but he was strangely calm. And though he was dirty and horribly injured, Ainsley couldn’t help but notice the confidence in the set of his shoulders.

Frankly, she didn’t give a shit how he felt right now. He was going to answer all her questions or the wolves of Tarker’s Hollow would be permitted to tear him apart.

“So you want to release the moroi,” she said without preamble. “Why now?”

Garrett studied her calmly for a moment. Ainsley imagined ripping the cell door off its hinges and tearing his throat out, but her face remained impassive. She knew he would try to use her emotions against her if she gave him the chance.

“Most of the magic has gone out of the world,” he began, his speech surprisingly clear through his damaged jaw. “It’s not ready to put up a fight anymore. The wolves are weakening. It’s time.”

She hadn’t expected Garret to be so talkative, but she wasn’t about to argue. She kept her guard up, waiting for him to try to provoke her as he continued.

“We’ve been looking for a site to wake the first master. With your parents gone, Tarker’s Hollow looked like an ideal candidate. Then, when construction threatened the site, we had to speed things up.”

“That’s why you were so desperate for the key,” Ainsley said, ignoring the jab about her parents.

“Yes,” he replied. “We had one of yours on the inside. Watching. Guarding the key.”

“Sadie?” Ainsley asked, trying not to let the wave of nausea she felt at the betrayal show on her face.

“She and her late husband,” Garrett nodded. “Their job was to keep an eye on your parents and report back to us. Mr. Epstein was loyal to our cause. Apparently, Sadie was quite taken with you. She refused to give up the key. We were forced to improvise.”

So Sadie Epstein-Walker was practically a double agent. How brave she had been to stand up to Garrett. Ainsley tried to keep the smile off her face. Garrett would see none of her emotions.

“But now we have the key. It’s over,” she said calmly.

“It’s too late to stop it,” Garrett told her with a smile that didn’t touch the ruined side of his face. “The wheels are already in motion. The master will rise, one way or another.”

“Then why did you even need the key?” Ainsley asked.

“We want to release him on our terms. It’s too unpredictable to release him without it.”

He had to be bluffing. But Ainsley’s wolf senses told her that his heart was beating steadily, his pulse throbbing along at the same pace it had been in the beginning.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

A mocking, almost flirtatious expression flickered in his pale blue eyes.

“So sorry, Miss Connor. I know how much you must have been looking forward to
extracting
the information from me.”

He glanced at her hands, which she’d balled into tight fists without realizing. She relaxed, and waited, silently.

“Because it doesn’t matter,” he continued. “You’re going to give me the key anyway.”

Although she knew there were wards on the cell, preventing him from doing magic, Ainsley looked away from him. His silky confidence was too much.

“Why would I do that?” she asked, studying the picture of Escher’s labyrinth.

“Because, I am the only one who can give your mate his wolf back.”