Fate of the Alpha: The Complete Bundle (19 page)

She knew which she wanted to give him.

Carefully, she licked and lapped at the head of his penis, coaxing a single salty droplet onto her waiting tongue. She explored his shaft, and held him in her hand while she nuzzled and suckled his balls.

Julian was so still, she wondered if he was even breathing. Eager to make him lose control as he had done to her, she returned her mouth to his cock and drank him in as deeply as she could. When he hit the back of her throat, she dragged her mouth off him again slowly, then repeated.

He swelled to the point that she couldn’t take him all the way in anymore. She wanted this to be as good for him as it had been for her, so she fought her own instinct and took him in and out of her mouth slowly, too slowly to give him what he wanted, but too sweetly for him to want her to stop.

Finally, he groaned in surrender and bunched his hands in her hair. With suppressed thrusts of his hips he showed her what he wanted.

Exultant, she rewarded him immediately with a faster pace, harder suction, deeper thrusts.

In moments, she felt him stiffen impossibly in her mouth and then he tried to pull her off him.

She moaned indignantly and latched herself onto him harder.

He cried out and convulsed into her mouth, jetting his seed against the back of her throat. Each drop was precious and she shuddered with satisfaction when it was done.

Extricating herself from him, a sudden shyness overcame her. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and ran her other hand through her hair. At last she had the courage to look up.

Julian was studying her with sparkling eyes.

“Come here, beautiful girl,” he whispered.

She smiled, her heart was filled.
This
was what everyone talked about. This was what they meant. She could live a hundred years in this glow and it wouldn’t be enough.

She crawled up to rest on his chest and he stroked her hair.

“Julian?” she said after some consideration.

“What is it, my darling one?”

“Do you still want that cookie?”

A
insley was having
the dream again.

Her high school boyfriend, Brian Swinton, chased her through the college woods as she laughed in delight.

Ainsley knew she was asleep, but that didn’t mean she could wake up, or change the events of the dream as they unfolded, in the way they had over and over, since she was a teenager.

Something about the dream was different tonight.

Ainsley supposed it was because she knew now that she wasn’t the one who killed Brian. That had been Clive Warren, the former sheriff of Tarker’s Hollow. The man who had tried to kill Ainsley as well.

She also knew that Brian wasn’t angry with her. He’d known all along that she’d had nothing to do with his death. And he had come back from beyond the grave to warn her about Clive, saving her life.

Since that night, she hadn’t had the dream again. She’d thought she never would.

But here they were.

The woods took on a quality of sepia-toned nostalgia as she stopped running and turned to Brian for a kiss.

He spun Ainsley into a tree and kissed her while touching her breasts for the very first time.

As she always did in the dream, and as she had in real life too, Ainsley felt her wolf senses fully awaken for the first time.

When she panicked, Brian pulled away.

It was in this moment of the dream that Brian always asked Ainsley what was wrong and told her that they didn’t have to make out.

Instead, tonight, he smiled warmly down at her, his hazel eyes twinkling with mischief, just as they had that day.

“Hi, Ainsley,” he said.

“Brian, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I have to show you something.”

Before she could ask any questions, Brian took her by the hand and began to run through the woods again.

Ainsley ran alongside him. It was a little awkward to run as a human, even in a dream. Her long human legs seemed to jolt and heave, unlike the glorious leaping and bounding of haunches and paws.

They finally emerged from the woods at the construction site for the Inn and bookstore. Of course, the construction had only begun recently. When they were kids, this whole place was an athletic field.

In the dream, she blinked her eyes and the construction equipment disappeared, leaving an open meadow. The smell of the flowers mingled with the diesel of the heavy equipment until she wasn’t sure exactly where she was. She couldn’t even tell if she was in the past or the present.

Brian led her across the meadow (construction site?), toward the field house. Unlike the uncertain surroundings, the stone building stood strong, firmly rooted in both worlds.

Untouched by time, for now.

The field house, a repurposed, ancient, stone barn was due to be demolished in Phase 2 of construction. It would be the site for the new bookstore. Many of the college staff and townspeople were upset at the impending loss of the historic space.

But time marched on.

When they reached the entrance, Brian let go of Ainsley’s hand to swing open the old barn door.

A wave of inexplicable wrongness washed over Ainsley. She wanted no parts of this place.

When she hesitated, Brian took her hand again and tugged.

Ainsley allowed herself to be led into the dark doorway. A musty, wet smell greeted her, wholly unlike the scent of freshly cut grass and the oil and gasoline mixture used to fuel the landscaping equipment that was usually stored there.

Two steps inside, the temperature dropped drastically and Ainsley felt goosebumps rise along her skin. Dripping water filled the cavernous space with hollow plopping sounds.

They were in some sort of tunnel or cavern, she was sure of it. But how could that be?

Ainsley turned back to the still open door and saw the bright fall day outside.

She shivered and turned to Brian to ask what had happened. But he was already pulling her hand again, insistently. Trusting him, she followed.

Their footsteps tapped the wet stone floor of the corridor as they traveled faster and faster toward an arched doorway in the distance. An unwholesome yellow light bled out of the doorway and faded into the velvet darkness around it.

As she ran, Ainsley began to lose perspective. Were they running straight ahead or was the corridor slanting downward, or up into space?

At last, they reached the doorway. Brian pulled her into a huge room.

The sickly yellow light emanated from a small hole in the center of the floor. Strange marks radiated out from the hole - symbols Ainsley couldn’t read, carved into the stone of the floor. Something about them reminded Ainsley of the magical snake that had attacked her the night Erik lost his wolf.

A warm, coppery smell filled the air.

Blood.

She turned to Brian to ask what the room was and why he had taken her here.

He wore a tattered yellow raincoat she hadn’t noticed before. As she watched, wounds formed all over his face and body, as if he were being sliced by an invisible blade. Blood coursed down, pooling in the grooves in the floor and streaming toward the hole in the center.

The yellow light inside pulsed, growing stronger, and something below the floor began to stir.

A paralyzing wave of pure malevolence flooded over her. The whole room shuddered as the thing beneath banged against the floor.

The pounding on the stone grew louder, more frantic.

Not stone.

Wood.

Ainsley opened her eyes in the safety of her own bedroom.

Someone was banging on her front door.

Disoriented, she stumbled down the stairs in a haze. She reached the bottom of the steps just in time to see the deadbolt turn.

The door creaked open.

Ainsley crouched, ready to shift.

E
rik opened
the door to the Copper Creek Community Library and waited an uncomfortable moment for his too-human eyes to adjust to the low light.

Though the simple building had looked like a clapboard ranch style house from the outside, it was lined with bookshelves inside. In the middle of the pumpkin-colored pine floor, sat an old-fashioned card catalogue. The Dewey Decimal System was alive and well in Copper Creek.

A woman’s face popped up from under a fern-covered desk.

“Can I get you something?” she asked in an eager voice.

“Oh, um, I’m just looking for some psychology books.”

“Wow.” The woman stood and brushed off her plaid skirt. “Psychology, okay.”

Erik couldn’t help but notice that she was built like Ainsley. He tried not to notice her delicious curves too much.

“Haven’t seen you in here before.” She smiled and extended her hand.“I’m Bonnie. Bonnie Summers.”

He stepped over to shake hands. Now that he was closer, he saw the experience around her eyes. She was older than he was. And her hand was very warm.

“Erik Jensen.”

“Nice to meet you, Erik.” Her green eyes sparkled, and she tossed her wavy auburn hair over her shoulder. “What brings you to Copper Creek?”

Was it just him, or was she standing up straighter, making it harder for him not to take in her generous bosom?

“I’m here as part of the rescue effort,” he replied. “I’m staying with the Millers,” he added, hoping she would take it as a sign he was a wolf and not ask him directly. He hated to lie, especially to a librarian.

“I see,” she nodded. “Are you a drill specialist?”

“No, I’m a psychologist.”

“Really?” She looked pretty surprised. “And you’re here looking for psychology books?”

“I just want to brush up on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” he hedged.

She quirked up an eyebrow, then took him by the elbow and led him to the back set of bookshelves in the corner of the room.

Was she flirting with him?

What was he supposed to do?

“Here are the psychology books we have, for what they’re worth.” She indicated a single shelf with several self-help titles and a few copies of what looked like text books.

She had not been flirting. Without his wolf senses he had no way to read her. How did humans ever mate?

“Thanks, Bonnie,” he said, and reached for one of the text books.

She inclined her head politely and walked away. Her light step told him he was alone again.

He grabbed the text books and scanned the library again. In the opposite corner, by the front window, there was a long table with two computers on it. If they could still be called computers. The whole set-up reminded him of his middle school Tech Lab class. A pressed wood table held two old-fashioned iMacs that looked like TVs, with the classic translucent aqua-colored shells.

They both sported
Out of Order
signs that looked like they’d been there awhile.

So no internet access.

He reached into his pocket and checked his phone.

No Service
.

Erik hadn’t been able to get a decent signal since he’d arrived in the valley. Probably better. He had work to do.

He pulled out a chair at the table, and sat down with the books. They were heavy and they looked boring. He couldn’t be sure without his wolf, but he suspected they even smelled boring.

But, if there was something in here he could use to secure his cover story, or maybe even help someone, he’d better get started. He took a deep breath and opened the first volume.

After a few minutes he was lost in it. Some of the basics were familiar, he remembered reading about Pavlov, of course. But there was just so much information, and most of it seemed useless.

How was he supposed to cram an entire college degree in before lunch?

Erik grew increasingly concerned about pulling this off. With his wolf, he could have heard heartbeats and smelled shifts in emotion, which might have allowed him to fake it. Without those advantages, he didn’t have a chance.

An unexpected hand grasped the back of Erik’s chair. He managed not to jump ten feet in the air, but his heart sank at another example of how helpless he was as a human.

“I know your secret,” Bonnie whispered in his ear.

Of course she did. You couldn’t
pretend
to be a wolf. Chastened, he turned to her.

“You’re not really a psychologist,” she said, her green eyes twinkling again.

Oh.

“Guilty,” he said.

“So, why are you here?” she asked.

He looked around before replying, realizing immediately he was being ridiculous. There wasn’t another car in the lot or another soul in sight.

“The Federation sent me to help. But not really as a psychologist.”

“You mean to keep the wolf angle out of the public eye?” she asked.

Erik was taken aback at how quickly Bonnie had put it together. She was smart, really smart. And now that he was at least thirty percent sure she wasn’t flirting with him, he realized he would be lucky to have a smart friend in Copper Creek.

“Yes.” Erik nodded. “Exactly.”

Bonnie looked pointedly at the books on the table in front of him.

“How’s that working out for you?”

“It’s not,” he sighed. “I don’t know what I was thinking. How could anyone just trick people into thinking they know what they’re talking about, when they really don’t have a clue?”

Bonnie put a book down on the table in front of him.

A bald, mustached man in a bad suit looked up at him from the cover. Erik recognized the face from the daytime TV talk shows that seemed to grace every waiting room he’d ever been in.

“If you want to connect with the folks around here,” Bonnie said with her half smile, “you’re better off with this.”

Yes, she was very smart.

“Thanks.” He heard the relief in his own voice. “Can I check it out? Do I need a card?”

“It’s fine,” Bonnie said, already heading back to the desk. “Jake Miller had a card. I’ll just use that. Feels so weird to be talking about him in the past tense.”

“We don’t know for sure.” Erik tried to comfort her at the mention of the missing alpha. “They haven’t found anything.”

“I know,” she said simply. “We all do. We felt it the moment it happened.”

Her eyes stared right through him.

Erik found himself transported to the night of the Connor’s accident. Which of course was anything but. A vice had clamped around his heart that night, threatening to squeeze the life from him. Tarker’s Hollow was devastated.

Erik latched on to that feeling, painful as it was. It would be very important to keep that flood of emotion in mind when interacting with the wolves of Copper Creek. They would all be feeling lost.

He knew how bad it was. He also knew it wouldn’t last forever. Maybe he could be some help after all.

Had Ophelia known that when she sent him here? Maybe she did have a heart inside that glass exterior.

“Well,” Bonnie said with a smile. “Jake Miller certainly never checked out anything like this.”

“More of a Stephen King fan?” Erik asked.

“Actually,” Bonnie said, one eyebrow lifted. “he was fond of romance novels.”

“Really?”

Erik tried to picture his own fallen alpha, Michael Connor, in his tweed blazer, holding a book with a shirtless hunk on the cover.

“Oh yeah,” Bonnie nodded. “He always tried to pretend like they were for LeeAnn but he wasn’t fooling anyone. He’d be in here once a week, like clockwork. Until about two weeks ago.”

“What happened two weeks ago? I thought the mine collapse was two days ago?”

Bonnie bit her lip. She set down Erik’s books and leaned forward, conspiratorially.

“He came in and asked for something very different,” she said. “He wanted books on Native American myths and symbology, and on eastern European folklore. Not his cup of tea. At all.”

“Why did he want books like that?” Erik asked.

He found himself leaning forward just as Bonnie was. It popped into his head that the text book had mentioned
body mirroring behaviors
but he already forgot why. Some psychologist he was.

“No idea,” she said, her clear green eyes wide. “I wouldn’t have thought much about it, but he seemed... nervous when he was checking them out. Jake was always confident, as an alpha should be. I’d never seen him nervous about anything.”

“Which books were they?” Erik curiosity was getting the better of him. “Could I see them?”

“He never got a chance to return them,” Bonnie said solemnly.

“If I see them around the house, I’ll bring them back,” Erik said, straightening up.

“Thank you, Erik, I appreciate it,” Bonnie said, standing tall again too. “Or should I be calling you Dr. Jensen?”

“Erik is fine,” he told her with a smile.

“Erik it is.” Bonnie smiled back. “Come back anytime.”

It was a nice smile, a warm smile, and it made him miss Ainsley.

“See ya,” he said as he turned to go.

He opened the door and the sunlight temporarily blinded him. When he could see again, he was struck by the beauty of the changing leaves on the mountains across the street from the tiny library.

But questions burned his mind, so instead of losing himself in the view, he stuffed the book in his jacket and hurried back to his truck.