Purr For The Alpha (A Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack) (7 page)

Burning with need and frustration, she hurried back to her room and slammed the door shut.

Saturday
morning

It was mid-
morning, the sun was a blazing white orb in the sky, and the air was hot and heavy.  A group of campers sat at a picnic table in the shade, drinking lemonade. They’d just finished making leather bracelets in the Craft Shack.

Nearby,
Virginia’s brothers sat on Adirondack chairs, drinking bottles of water and talking to each other, but always watching.

             
Leah, Riley and Virginia sat on the grass about thirty feet from the picnic table. Riley had found a piece of wood and he was carving it; Leah was braiding daisies into a crown. They hadn’t mingled with the other campers yet; the campers were sitting and whispering amongst themselves and shooting them suspicious looks.

             
“So, my reputation must be pretty bad,” Riley said, as he carved.

             
“What makes you say that?” Virginia asked, puzzled.

             
“Those two big goons who are always following me around.”

             
“Oh, them.  My brothers. They are goons, but they’re here for me, not you.” Virginia waved her hand dismissively.

             
Riley didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. “Right,” he snorted.

             
“Excuse me?” Virginia said, annoyed.

             
“They’re here because you’re such an out of control badass. I bet they can hardly keep you under control.”

             
Virginia raised an eyebrow and shot him a disapproving look. “What does your sister think of you using that kind of language?”

             
“She’d be disappointed in me, as usual. She’d say we’re better than that, but we’re really not. I’m not, anyway. I’m a freak.” He was looking at his wood carving as he spoke. Leah stared into the distance, braiding without even looking.

“
My brothers, or some other bodyguards, are there because somebody tried to kidnap me a few months back, when I shifted and was running into town, by myself. They shot at me with a tranquilizer gun and missed. I barely got away from them, and we never found out who they were or if they were targeting me specifically. Then a couple of months ago, someone succeeded in kidnapping a teenaged female shifter from Wisconsin. It wasn’t an Alpha looking for a bride, she just disappeared.”

             
He looked up at her, searching her face to see if she was telling the truth.

             
“For real?” he asked.

             
“Yes. So my parents have said that someone has to watch over me until the people are caught, but they haven’t been caught, and it’s been months, so they’ll probably be following me around until the day I die.” Virginia shrugged with resignation.

             
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I shouldn’t have used bad language.”

             
“It happens. No big deal.” She looked over at Leah. “Leah, that’s beautiful. I know, why don’t you go see if the girls want to learn how to braid a crown of flowers like that?”

             
Leah shrugged. “They won’t,” she said, but she got up and walked over to the table.

             
“So why do you think that you’re a freak?” Virginia asked.

             
Riley never looked up from his carving.  “Well, I’m probably gay,” he said.

             
Virginia had thought she’d seen him checking out a female bobcat shifter named Jen earlier.  He must have just been checking out her outfit, she thought. The girl’s frayed denim jean shorts had been pretty sweet.

             
“I know that the shifter community is kind of behind the times when it comes to accepting gay shifters, but you shouldn’t let that discourage you,” she said.  “It’s not the big deal that it used to be. In the human world, it’s illegal to discriminate against people for their sexual preferences in most places.  We shifters seem to follow behind trends in the human world by about twenty years, but we’ll get there eventually.”

             
Wolf Shifters were ruled over by an ancient book called The Covenant, and its rules were enforced by a group of thirteen Elders. Recently the Elders had been voted out, and newer, younger Elders had been voted in. As in, men and women in their fifties rather than 100 years old or more. They were revising areas of the Covenant, including the ancient law that said a gay shifter was an abomination who must be put to death.

             
Feline shifters had their own ruling body called The Council, made up of cats from different species. Like wolves, they were a conservative bunch.  Gay shifters weren’t specifically banned, but they weren’t welcomed, either. 

             
He managed a smile. “Thanks.”

             
“Nice carving,” she said, looking down at it. “You know, you could always get a job working for my father in his furniture workshop.”

             
“Really?” He looked startled. “Nah. He’d never trust me in there after my father stole from your father. Allegedly,” he added hastily.

             
“Somebody’s been learning from his big sister the lawyer,” Virginia laughed. “And my father would judge you on your own merits. He wouldn’t hold what your father allegedly might have done against you.”

             
“Thanks.” She thought Riley looked pleased.

             
Leah walked back to them and sat down.  She put the daisy crown on Virginia’s head, and started plucking more flowers from the grass around them.

             
“What did they say?” Virginia asked her, glancing over at them. One of the girls, Evangeline’s younger cousin Anthea, saw Virginia look her way and quickly turned away, pretending to be very interested in her lemonade. Great. It obviously hadn’t gone well.

             
“Anthea said that I shouldn’t sit with them because I might steal something from them,” Leah said calmly. Riley didn’t even blink.  They were far too accustomed to being treated like this; it had become normal for them.

             
Virginia felt a swell of anger flare up inside her.

             
Leah suddenly looked up from where she was sitting, a startled expression on her face. Then she looked at Riley. An unspoken message seemed to flash between the two siblings.

             
He stood up. “Leah wants to go to the bathroom, and she doesn’t like going out into the woods by herself,” he said. “We’ll be right back.”

             
Virginia watched them go. She had the oddest feeling that they were lying, but she couldn’t think what they could be lying about. What were they up to? She was especially surprised about Leah. She hadn’t picked up a sneaky vibe.

             
Odd, yes. Leah was always having conversations with people who weren’t there. Certainly not sneaky, however.

             
Well, she had other things to deal with. Virginia climbed to her feet and stalked over to the table. As she approached, Anthea shot to her feet and quickly started to walk away.

             
“Anthea, get back here! Now!” Virginia yelled.

             
“I have to go to the bathroom!” she whined, walking faster.

             
“I saw you go ten minutes ago! I said NOW!”

             
Anthea slunk back over to Virginia, and promptly buried her face in her hands and started sobbing loudly.

             
“You’re the worst fake crier ever, so knock it off.” Virginia barked at her.  All the girls at the table startled laughing and whispering to each other, and Anthrea dropped her hands and glared at them.

             
“How dare you speak to Leah that way?” Virginia demanded.

             
Anthea stared down at her glittery pink sneakers. “It’s the truth,” she muttered. “My uncle told me to watch my stuff since the Padfoots were coming here. He said it’s not right that you’re sending these criminals here with decent people.”

             
“Neither one of them have stolen anything, or done anything wrong since they got here.”

             
“My uncle says it’s only a matter of time.” Anthea put her hands on her skinny hips and scowled up at Virginia defiantly.

             
“They are not thieves, and if I ever hear of you speaking to them again like that, you will be in detention for the day.”

             
Virginia walked away without waiting for an answer.  Evangeline’s father Warren did security work for her father, but Virginia had never much cared for him. He seemed like a big, blustering idiot to her; he wasn’t half the wolf her father was, but her father felt sorry for him so he protected Warren’s pack and kept him employed.

Now she out and out hated Warren’s
guts. How dare he pick on young kids like that? How did anyone expect them to grow up to be good people if everyone treated them like a criminal and never gave them a chance to prove themselves?

Riley and Leah were coming back from their journey into the woods.  She thought Riley looked kind of pale now.  What was going on? Since when did a shifter need someone to keep her company while she pooped in the woods? That was second nature to all of them.
You shift, you poop, you paw dirt over it…

Why were they lying to her?

* * *

             
Saturday afternoon

“
So you don’t need an emergency extraction yet?” Isadora asked. She and Karen were sitting outside of Vince Battle’s house, with a crowd of shifters, mostly from the Battle pack, eating hamburgers and drinking lemonade. The scent of sizzling meat tickled Karen’s nostrils.  It was a glorious day, with thick puffs of white cloud floating like lazy sheep in the vast spread of blue sky.  The bluish-gray Timber Mountain range loomed in the distance.  Ty had gone to The Zoo for a little while to meet up with some suppliers.

             
“The day is young,” Karen muttered darkly. “I might just find a cliff and push him off it. He’s driving me crazy.”

             
Isadora flashed her a smug look. “You’re buttoned up too tight. You could use a little crazy.”

             
“Pshaw. I like how I’m buttoned, thank you very much. By the way, did you ever hear from your parents?”

             
“Yes, they are in Europe on vacation with The Chosen One.” The Chosen One was her debutante sister Diana, a straight A student who had never been thrown out of school or arrested for streaking through a graduation ceremony, and who was dating a very wealthy lynx shifter, and who never dyed her hair colors that could not be found in nature.

             
“Well, lucky her,” Karen said.

             
“Feh. I’d rather vacation with a pack of rabid wolverines.” Isadora made a face. Karen suspected that her parent’s disdain for her stung on some level, but Isadora never showed it.

             
Dash ambled by, with a plateful of burgers.

             
“Here to make sure I don’t cause any trouble?” Isadora asked.

             
“That would be a fruitless endeavor.” He raised an eyebrow at her and gave her a disapproving look.

             
“Fruitless. My, you have quite the vocabulary.”

             
“I carry my handcuffs all the time,” he said, with an unfriendly look. “As well as my powers of arrest.”

             
Isadora looked at Karen. “Why is it that people always assume the worst about me? Here I am, sitting peacefully and innocently enjoying a burger…”

             
“I say this with love, Isadora. I know you well enough to know that nothing you do is innocent.” Karen smiled pleasantly.

             
“By the way, I hear from a friend of mine on the Crystal Falls Police Department that somebody defaced the portrait of the mayor inside town hall. Do you happen to know anything about that?” Dash asked irritably.

             
Isadora stared at him, her eyes round and innocent. “Well, I did hear that somebody drew a rather large penis on his portrait. You could either take that as somebody implying that he’s a huge dick, or somebody complementing him and saying that he has a big dick. Either way, you got nothing on me, so quit trying to bust me, copper.”

“
Heads up,” Karen said.  “Your new boyfriend is on his way.”

             
Pierce had just pulled up and was hurrying towards them.

             
“Oh, hey, Karen,” he said casually, as he strolled past them. “Isadora, what brings you here? Can I get you a burger while I’m at the grill?”