Fated To The Alpha: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (6 page)

My eyes fluttered shut as he thrust forward, filling up my depths.  I groaned aloud, my fingers clawing at his shoulder blades.  My hips moved up to meet his thrusts, my legs hugging his flanks.

Before long, I rolled us over, putting myself on top.  I moved my hips back and forth on his lap, feeling him move inside me as I stared down at his face, illuminated by soft moonlight.  When everything in my life seemed to be conspiring against me, determined to take my choices away, Jeremy had become the one thing that I could call truly mine.  He was my lover, my secret, my safe place.  Leon could call me his all he wanted; he would never truly have me. Not the way Jeremy did.

I was so focused on his face, the pleasures running through me, and the soft sounds we were making, that I am not quite sure how I noticed the sound of something rustling in the bushes when I did.  I suddenly stopped moving, looking off in that direction.  “Did you hear that?”

“Probably just an animal,” Jeremy said.

“Maybe,” I conceded.  I started sniffing the air anyway.

Yes,  after a minute, I did smell an animal. 

The kind of animal I smelled was enough to alarm me seriously.

“You smell that?” I said.

This time he nodded.  “We’re not alone.”

Somewhat reluctantly, I slipped off Jeremy’s lap and crawled forward on all fours, slowly shifting into my four-legged shape as I moved, sniffing at the bushes.  Whatever or whoever was there apparently realized I noticed them, and was trying to retreat.  I leaped forward, catching the sight of a furry shape dashing out of the brush and charged after it.

My quarry was fast, sprinting around the trees ahead of us.  I knew I couldn’t let our observer get away to report what they’d seen, so every time the creature ahead of me turned a corner I cut across, quickly gaining ground.  Before long, I was close enough to leap forward and pounce on my quarry, pinning it to the ground.

When I had the intruding wolf pinned to the ground beneath me,  that was when I finally got the chance to recognize her scent.

All at once, I shifted back to my two-legged form, recoiling back.  “Charlene?” I gasped.

Prone on the ground, she retook her own human shape, staring up at me.  “Something you want to tell me?” she said.

“What… what are you doing here?”

“That’s what I want to ask you,” she said.  “I was curious when you wouldn’t tell me about your mystery lover.  So when I caught you sneaking out, I decided to snoop.  So…”  She looked past my shoulder as Jeremy stepped up behind me.  “You want to tell me who that is?”

“Uh… well…he, uh…”

“I’m Jeremy,” he said.  “And you are?”

“Really, really interested now,” was her reply as she started getting to her feet.  “Where’d you dig this guy up?”

“Well… I just sort of ran into him the other night, when I went off on my own, and… well…”

Charlene continued eyeing him suspiciously.  She took a couple steps toward him.  “I can see the attraction,” she said, her voice still carrying a tone of wariness.  “But… there’s something about him…”

She leaned forward, giving him a couple whiffs.  “Wait a minute,” she said, sniffing him a few more times.  “That scent…  I’ve smelled him somewhere before…”

A moment later, her eyes went wild.

“He’s a
MORGANDORF!
” she shouted, her teeth extending into wolf fangs, and her eyes turning yellow.  She suddenly lunged forward, her eyes feral and full of rage, her teeth bared as she roared out her bloodlust.

I dashed forward and grabbed her, pulling her back.  “Charlene, no!”

“Let me at ‘im!  I’ll bite his junk off!”

“Charlene, please!  I need you to calm down!”

She stopped struggling against me and turned her attention to me, her eyes regaining their human shade.  “Tell me you’re not serious!  I know you are not crazy about marrying Leon, but
this?
  You are fucking a
Morgandorf?
  Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“So what if he’s a Morgandorf?” I said.  “It’s just a name.”

Charlene whirled on me.  “‘Just a name?’  Do you know where I know his scent from?” she snarled.  “It was two years ago.  I was out in the woods with Corey and Jana; we were watching some of the pups.  One of them decided to go chasing a rabbit, and next thing you know all the pups are following him, so we have to chase after them.  And then we ran into a Morgandorf gathering party.”  She pointed a stiff, aggressive finger at Jeremy.  “Including that dirt wad. 

“They took the rabbit the pups were chasing, and told us to piss off and leave them to it.  When one of the pups tried to protest, they threatened to kill the pups if we didn’t leave!  That’s who you’re fucking, Evie!  The Morgandorfs are pup killers!”

“Excuse me,” Jeremy spoke up, “that’s not quite how I remember it happening.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re gonna go on about how you were the victims in all this, and our pups were the ones threatening you!” Charlene snarled.

“Now, hold on,” he said, holding his hands up.  “I remember there being a lot of hostility, but I don’t remember anyone threatening the pups.  I do recall one of your pack stepping in front of the pups and warning us against harming them, claiming that she’d, and I quote, ‘have our livers over a spit with some peppers and collard greens’ if we hurt one fur on their backs.  Which, I might add, I thought was very unwarranted.”

“You can say whatever you want, you maggot-eater!  I know exactly what you are!  All of your damn pack!”

“I’m not denying some of my packmates that were there that day may have said some unpleasant things,” Jeremy said.  “And plenty of them will readily accuse the Caldours of a lot of the same things of which you are accusing me.  In my experience, high tempers and rationality are like oil and water.   And tempers certainly run high whenever our packs happen to meet.”

“Oh, you’re about to find out, shithead!” Charlene growled, before lunging at him again. 

I promptly jumped in her path to hold her back.  “Charlene, please!” I cried.  “You have to promise me you’re not going to say anything about this!”

“You gotta be kidding me!” she gasped.  “I’m gonna bring the whole pack down on this clown’s ass!”

“Charlene!” I shouted.  “Please!  For me!  You can disapprove all you want, but I need to know you can keep this quiet!  If Leon finds out, or my dad… I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do!”

Charlene’s face seethed with rage as she looked back and forth between Jeremy and me but at least she didn’t try to attack him again.  She clenched her teeth and her nostrils flared, but she finally said, “Fine.  For you, Evie.  I will keep quiet.  I’ll let you have your forbidden flight of fancy.  But as soon as this cretin steps over the line, and he will, his ass is mine!”

With that, she turned around, shifted into her four-legged form, and dashed off into the darkness.

I turned to Jeremy, who looked every bit as unsettled as I felt.  “You trust her?” he asked me.

“There’s no one I trust more,” I said.  “It’s not the first time I’ve told her something I’d rather die than let my father find out about.  But this… I’ve never seen her react to something I did like that.”

Jeremy looked past me, into the forest.  “Maybe… maybe you’d better go after her.”

I frowned, but I nodded.  I stepped up to him, placing my hands on his chest and leaning up to kiss him.  “I’ll see you again,” I said.  “I promise.  Whatever she does, I’ll see you again.”  Then I reluctantly pulled away, continuing to touch his hand for as long as I could before I shifted to my four-legged form and ran off to return to the village.

As I dashed through the foliage, I couldn’t shake a terrible feeling that something was going to make me break my promise to him.

*

I hurried home as quickly as my paws could carry me.  When I returned to the village, I caught Charlene’s scent trail, and found it led back to her own house.  I took that to be a good sign; she had not immediately run to Leon, or my dad.  With that worry assuaged, I returned home and showered, washing off Jeremy’s scent like I did before.  I went to bed, trying to sleep a bit less fitfully this time.  I’d gotten away with not smelling like my forbidden lover so far, so I was less worried about that.  Now that somebody knew, I was in a lot more danger of being found out.

It wasn’t that I did not trust Charlene.  To an extent, at least.  I knew she would never do anything to hurt me.

However, if she thought Jeremy was a threat, which she very well might, she’d rat him out in a heartbeat.

I woke up the next morning and went through my day as normally as any other; at least as far as anyone who saw me was concerned.  I greeted my parents, ate my breakfast, mingled with the pack, and generally did everything anyone expected me to do. 

Whenever I saw Charlene somewhere, I kept a watchful, wary eye on her, the hairs on my neck standing on end as I waited to see if she was about to do or say anything that might get me in trouble. 

But she acted as normally as any other day, just like I did.  Occasionally, she would notice me looking, and I kept expecting her to scowl at me, or something like that.   She would just smile and wave, and at one point she even spoke to me.  Barely.  She walked by me while saying, “Morning, Evie,” without stopping.

At least it didn’t appear that I was in immediate danger of being ratted on.  By around midday, I began to make myself believe that I was in the clear, and that nothing was going to go wrong.

And if I said it aloud I would have jinxed the ever-living hell out of it.

Some time in the early afternoon, we all heard a howl come from the forest, which I recognized as coming from Marla.  At once, everyone started buzzing around; that particular howl was one any wolf would recognize as a call for help.  Several members of the pack, including Leon, stripped off their clothes and shifted into their four-legged forms, dashing off into the woods to respond.

Less than an hour later, we saw our rescue party returning with the injured Marla, Rudy, Corey and Jana, who came limping along with their helpers supporting them, if not being outright carried.  Leon came bringing up the rear, looking all manner of righteously furious as he retrieved his pants.

In spite of myself, I was among those who came crowding around him, trying to find out what had happened.  “They were ambushed,” he spat.  “The Morgandorfs were lying in wait when our hunting party came on them.  An unprovoked attack.”  He ground his teeth together and said, “Well, they’re going to learn the penalty for fucking with us!”

He stepped forward once he got his shirt on, and called out to the whole pack.  “Everyone!” he shouted.  “We’ve just been violated!  The Morgandorfs are pushing us, so it is time we pushed back!  Tonight we are going to repay them for this attack!  We will get a raiding party together; and slip into their territory under the cover of night and hit them hard where they live!  We’re going to teach them what it means to draw blood from the Caldours!”

Most of the pack raised their fists and howled along with his bloodlust.   I had enough of standing by and doing nothing.  I stepped up to him.  “Leon, wait a minute!”  I said.  “What will this accomplish?  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?  Is that really going to make things better?”

“We are not going to back down in the face of this kind of hostility!” Leon declared.  “We’re going to meet it like wolves!”

“But just charging into their territory and attacking them?  Do you think they are going to just roll over after that?  All that will do is make them even madder!  They’ll hit us back, and then there will be even more blood!  On both sides!”

“What would you have us do?” Terry demanded of me.  “Just ignore them?  Let them get away with this?  Didn’t you see Rudy’s leg just now?  He might actually lose it!”