Fate of the Alpha: The Complete Bundle (28 page)

H
alloween night in Copper Creek
.

Mary pretended she was relieved not to be trick-or-treating with the little ones tonight. After all, she was fifteen and practically grown-up now.

But it was beyond tragic, really. No one loved Halloween as much as Mary. And she’d given it all up to impress Erik, who was going trick-or-treating with her whole family, while she stayed home to give out candy.

It was so unfair.

The twins squealed like crazy as Zeke bounced around, karate kicking in the air. It was only a matter of time before he hit one of the girls in the head.

As if to prove her right, Rachel twirled awkwardly past Zeke in her ballerina costume, and one of his air kicks connected with her in the shin. She collapsed dramatically to the ground, howling.

Ruth swaggered over and shook her finger in Zeke’s shocked face.

“Don’t you hurt my sister!” she said in a deep, Batman voice.

“
Zeke
!” Mom yelled.

“I didn’t — I didn’t mean to!” he stammered, angry already, as he always was.

“I told you twenty times not to do that stuff in the house. Now read Ruth a story while I do Rachel’s hair. Rachel, c’mon, we need to do your ballerina bun!”

Mom always did great hair-dos on Halloween. Mary remembered the Halloween she’d gone as an ice skater and her mom had given her an up-do and sprinkled
glitter
in the hair spray while it was still wet. It had looked so pretty, everyone said so, and Mary had felt so proud.

“I know,” Mom said to Rachel in the other room. “Let’s put some glitter in it when we’re done!”

That was it. Mary couldn’t take it any more. She marched upstairs and flopped onto her bed, ready to cry.

“Mary?” a male voice called from the next room.

Erik. His voice was so deep it practically vibrated in her bones. The sound of it gave her excited little chills.

“Yeah?” she asked hopefully, sitting up on her bed and tucking her hair behind her ears.

“I’ll stay and give out candy with you, on one condition,” Erik said through the door.

Oh my gosh, yes! He could practically say anything as his condition. This night was going to go from the worst night of her whole life, to the best.

“What?” she asked, as casually as she could.

He tapped on the door.

She jumped up and opened it.

Erik stood on the other side. He wore a full-length robe and long, white beard. On his nose perched a pair of round-rimmed glasses.

“Dumbledore!” Mary couldn’t help yelling. The
Harry Potter
books were some of her all-time favorites.

“You have to wear a costume too,” he told her, handing her a Rite Aid bag.

She grinned in spite of herself. Of course she would wear a costume. She had never
really
not wanted to.

“Okay,” she said, and gave him a genuine smile, not an expression she wore often these days.

She could tell he was smiling back at her because his big brown eyes crinkled. The rest of his face was hidden behind the enormous fake beard. She couldn’t help giggling a little.

“Mary, I know you’re getting older.” He spoke with an earnestness that carried through, in spite of the ridiculous getup. “Just try to remember that you won’t always have that many chances to act like a kid. You need to take them whenever you can.”

He was so serious and his voice was so dark.

She was torn between giggling again at how serious he was being in his silly outfit, and tingling with want for him.

Though what she actually wanted from him, she wasn’t sure. It was one thing to fantasize that they were trapped in a blizzard high in a mountain cabin, cuddling together for warmth. And it was another thing to stand six inches away from him, an actual grown-up man.

He was still staring intently at her.

She nodded back at him and snatched the Rite Aid bag out of his hands. Then she dashed down the stairs.

“You’ll need one of your dad’s ties! And get your mom to tease up your hair!” he yelled after her.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she peeked in the bag. Inside a wooden wand sat atop a black robe.

Hermione!

Erik Jensen was so freaking cool. He was also the kindest man Mary had ever met, besides her own daddy.

“Well, look at that, hon!” her mom said, looking over her shoulder. “The little wizard girl! We’ll put some glitter in your hair too, okay?”

A
insley and Julian
sat on the wicker love seat on her front porch, gazing out at the bright fall trees that lined Princeton Avenue. To passersby, Ainsley figured they probably looked like a young couple whispering sweet nothings.

In reality, they were in a heated debate over how to handle the evening’s showdown.

Ainsley hadn’t told Julian about Garrett’s offer. There was no reason. She had sworn to herself she wouldn’t give it a second thought.

But she was thinking about it all the same, worrying at it like a smooth stone with a sharp nick in it.

The pack is my duty. But Erik is my world. The pack is my duty...

“...only way to handle this is—” Julian stopped speaking suddenly. Which was a good thing, because Ainsley had missed most of what he’d just said.

She looked up to see the kindergarten bus dropping the children off at the corner — all dressed up for Halloween.

Could it be Halloween already?

The twins from next door bounded off, dressed up as Wendy and Captain Hook. The long-suffering nanny shuffled them into the house, scolding them gently for not wearing coats. Ainsley wondered idly if their big brother would be Peter Pan.

As soon as the door shut behind them, Julian grabbed her hand.

“Ainsley, what’s wrong?” he asked.

She stared at him in stunned silence for a moment, then remembered herself.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “The whole world is at stake here. Everything is wrong.”

“No. There’s something else. Are you getting a feeling about something?”

“A feeling?”

“An instinct,” he said, a note of hope in his voice. “A premonition. Don’t make light of your gift, Ainsley. Any clues we have, whether they’re from your wolf senses or your magic, might be important.”

She shook her head sadly. If only she did have an intuition. Instead she had the teetering scales of Erik and the pack tipping back and forth in her head, threatening her very sanity.

“Well, if you do get a feeling, don’t sit on it,” he told her.

“I won’t. Where’s Grace?” she asked, hoping the mention of her best friend would distract him.

“She’ll be here soon,” Julian replied, but he looked anxious. “She said she had something to do after work.”

Ainsley figured it was because of what Grace needed to do at work. By now, Grace would have had to convince Dale that Garrett was actually a wolf, since there was no time to explain about the magic. Then she’d have to convince him not to transport him to a hospital, in spite of his hacked off hand. Grace had figured that since she could demonstrate that Garrett had murdered Lilliana, Dale would be easy to convince.

Ainsley thought the whole thing sounded sloppy, but couldn’t come up with a better idea that allowed Grace to handle as much of the problem through legal channels as possible.

If Dale didn’t relent, and if he let Garrett out of the cell...

Her next thought should have been that something could happen to Grace. Instead she caught herself thinking that she might not have a choice about Erik anymore.

Erik, the pack, Erik...

“Are you sure the key is safe?” she asked Julian, not quite wanting to ask
where
the key was, as that might be the first step down a dark path.

“It’s in the chest, covered in protective wards,” he said with a half smile. “If anyone besides you opens it, they are in for a nasty surprise.”

And that was that.

“So do we tackle the thing in the tomb head on?” she asked.

“If it is released using the key, it will be strong,” Julian replied. “It’s already been strengthened by the ritual sacrifice of the girl.”

Lilliana. Ainsley knew Julian had avoided using her name on purpose. As long as he had been fighting this fight, the casualties still pained him. He might be an ageless warrior, but he was still human.

Ainsley’s broken heart throbbed. If her own human side were stronger, would she bring Erik back?

“Garrett said the tomb can be opened without the key. Is that true?” she asked.

“Not easily. They could blast or dig their way through the stone, but the barrier is magical, too,” Julian replied thoughtfully. “The moroi would be bound to the location until it had fed on enough prana.”

“Prada?” Ainsley asked.

“Prana is the sanskrit term. It is also called Chi, or life-force.” Julian studied his hands. “Sometime even the soul.”

“This thing eats
souls
?” Ainsley asked, willing herself to remain calm.

“Something like that,” he replied softly.

“So, if we break the stone, we will have a weakened version to deal with, is that right?” Ainsley asked.

“Well, yes, but it will be nearly impossible to destroy. Until it feeds, it won’t even take a corporeal form,” Julian explained.

“But once it’s solid, then we can kill it?” Ainsley asked.

“It’s not that simple. moroi are able to shift into the form of any creature they’ve fed on, right down to the last detail — memories and abilities included. That is why they were imprisoned in the first place.”

“So what do we do here?” Ainsley asked. “What’s our best chance?”

“To bury the whole thing under a few tons of rubble,” Julian said, staring out into the trees. “And hope no one ever digs it up.”

Ainsley followed his gaze. The way the wind stirred the golden leaves on the oak out front, it was impossible to believe that the town was riddled with dangers. That the very souls of Tarker’s Hollow could be eaten by a remorseless thing below the ground was unthinkable.

The coppery smell of blood stabbed at her nose, and she bolted up in a flash.

“Ainsley?” Julian said.

But she barely heard him.

That guy Grace had dated, Landon What’s-his-name, was staggering down the center of Princeton Avenue. His lip was split and there was blood in his dark curls and all over the white t-shirt that peeked out of the flannel he wore. He staggered a little as he walked, and squinted at the house numbers.

Ainsley cleared the porch railing in one bound. It took all her energy not to shift. Her wolf was snapping her jaws at the surface of Ainsley’s conscience.

“What happened?” she asked, as she met him in the street.

He looked at her in shock and she slipped an arm around his shoulder to guide him toward the house.

Julian was already on the front walk and he took the boy’s other arm. Together they led him to the wicker love seat on the porch, where he collapsed.

“What happened?” Ainsley asked again, urgency pushing her voice higher. She could smell Grace’s fear on this young man.

“Grace came over to my place,” he began.

Ainsley’s wolf was on high alert. She heard Julian’s pulse speed and smelled his sweat beading. He was jealous.

“We went for a walk,” Landon continued, “and then the shadows...” he trailed off, and his eyes went out of focus.

He was in shock.

“Landon. You have to tell us what happened,” Ainsley told him in her sternest alpha voice. “No matter how crazy it seems.”

He blinked twice, then turned to her.

“The shadows came to life. They swallowed up Grace. I tried to stop it, but they were so strong...”

Ainsley stood and slipped her phone from her pocket. She paced over to the other side of the porch, and dialed 9-1-1.

Julian placed a hand on Landon’s forehead. She listened with half her mind as she explained the situation into the phone.

“You took a nasty spill over the handlebars of your mountain bike,” Julian told Landon in a silken voice. “You hit your head. The part with the shadows wasn’t real. Just a bump on the head.”

By the time she got off the phone with the Springton dispatch Landon was looking relieved and leaning back against the cushions of the love seat.

Within ten minutes he was being carried away in the back of an ambulance. If anyone noticed the lack of a bike at the scene, they didn’t mention it.

As soon as they were alone again, Ainsley looked to Julian.

“How much prana would the thing have to absorb to be strong enough to come out without the key?” she asked.

“I don’t really know,” he replied uncertainly. “At least a dozen people’s worth, I would guess.”

Ainsley thought of what she had seen inside the key — the strings, the lights of the townsfolk shining at the end of each, and Grace, eclipsing the brightest of them.

“What about one
really
powerful person?” she asked.

T
he unshakable feeling
of another presence in his room interrupted Erik’s dreamless sleep.

He opened his eyes to see a dark figure sitting at the foot of his bed. The two had never met, but Erik knew the man beyond any shadow of doubt.

Jake Miller.

Jake had the assured demeanor of a true alpha, but he carried a heaviness on his shoulders.

Erik wondered for a moment if he recognized Jake from a family photo or if he knew the alpha because he still had a touch of the wolf in himself after all.

“It’s too late to fix things,” Jake said, staring at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceiling. He spoke as though they had been talking for a long time already.

“Why?” Erik asked.

“It fed on my men. It’s almost strong enough to break free,” he said, looking down at his big, callused hands. “We should never have gone in after it. I’ve doomed the entire pack.”

“What should we do?” Erik asked.

“Evacuate the town, Erik Jensen,” Jake said, turning to Erik with fire in his eyes. “Take everyone far away, before it lures in another poor soul. The mine needs to be condemned, and the pack needs to get away, before they end up like me.”

Jake opened his mouth and a snake slowly slithered out.

Erik woke in a cold sweat to the sound of a high pitched scream. It wasn’t his own.

LeeAnn.

Erik threw himself out of bed and rushed through Mary’s room in his boxers. She was already up, standing at the edge of her bed.

He took the stairs two at a time and found LeeAnn at the wide open front door.

“Ruth! Rachel!” she screamed in a voice that was raw with panic.

Cold air rushed in, filling the living room with an ominous chill and blowing LeeAnn’s yellow nightgown out behind her. Erik spun to take in the room, but he was sure in his soul that the girls weren’t in the house.

So, apparently, was LeeAnn. She ran into the front yard and he followed her. He couldn’t help searching the view of the creek, praying not to see two small bodies floating.

LeeAnn pulled the Tweety Bird nightgown over her head and tossed it to the ground. Erik got a glimpse of pale breasts and the curve of the c-section scar on her belly highlighted in the stark moonlight before she dropped onto all fours and bristled into an earthy brown wolf.

The mother wolf lifted its delicate snout and let out a long, mournful howl that echoed off the surrounding mountains.

Lights began to turn on in the bungalows up and down the street.

LeeAnn dropped her nose and loped off into the darkness. She was headed in the direction of the library. And the mine.

“We should follow her,” Mary’s voice said, inches from Erik’s ear. He hadn’t even heard her follow him. “We need to shift,
now.
”

“No,” he said quickly, turning to her.

Mary studied him quizzically, while Zeke watched from the doorway.

“Zeke can’t shift yet,” he ventured. “And besides, I know where she’s headed. Meet me at my truck.”

He ran inside for a pair of jeans and his keys, then shuffled them into the truck.

Zeke sat glassy-eyed in the backseat. It was clear he wasn’t awake enough to understand that his little sisters were really missing.

“I was jealous,” Mary said, almost inaudibly from the passenger seat. “I didn’t like taking care of them all the time.”

Erik was driving fast on a barely familiar road, but he spared her a glance. The lights from the houses strobed on her serious face.

“This isn’t your fault,” he told her. “I promise. Now, whatever happens, I don’t want you going anywhere near that mine. Understood?”

“Hey!” she yelled.

Erik turned back to the road just in time to pull up. Bonnie was running toward the truck, waving her hands, her flaming hair dark against a white night gown.

She pulled open the back door and slid into the rear cab with Zeke.

“I’m coming with you. I’ll watch the kids,” she said.

Erik pulled out again, fast enough to skid a little. The mine was just ahead. He took the sharp turn into the parking lot in time to see LeeAnn’s lupine form bound through the gates.

Then he spotted them.

The gravel flew as he threw the truck into park. He was out before it had fully stopped. He had to get to the mine before LeeAnn.

The twins slowly approached the entrance to the mine.

Though their usual way was to fight and roughhouse, now, the sisters held hands solemnly.

Their small bare feet tread the sharp gravel and their short legs met the night air under the flimsy t-shirts they must have been sleeping in. It was cold, but the girls didn’t seem to notice. They were fixated on the mouth of the mine.

Something began to build in Erik’s chest. Never had he felt this kind of anger or fear. And there was no wolf to turn to, to take the brunt of this emotion and demolish it with action.

He was no wolf, but he was still fast. He tore across the gravel and circled the twins in time to block them from the mine. They stared at him in confusion.

LeeAnn was there in a heartbeat.

Thank god, she didn’t seem affected by the call of the thing in the mine. Her protective instincts were too powerful.

She shifted and wrapped the girls in her strong arms, moaning in wordless relief, tears striping her cheeks.

At their mother’s touch, the girls seemed to come back to life. They cried too, though Erik was pretty sure they were only crying because their mother was crying.

“What were you doing?” LeeAnn asked them tremulously.

“We... we saw Daddy!” Rachel said happily, remembering.

“He told us. He told us to come,” Ruth insisted, looking like she was worried she might be in trouble.

LeeAnn wrapped a hand around her own mouth in horror.

Erik knelt in the gravel and put a hand on each girl’s shoulder.

“Girls, what you saw wasn’t really your daddy,” he explained gently.

“It
was
my daddy.” Ruth shook her little head. “I saw him.”

Erik realized it was too late. He was out of time. He couldn’t convince the whole town to evacuate. He couldn’t even convince a five year old.

Another wave of furious despair hit him and he struggled to breathe. How could he watch it happen, helplessly?

He heard footsteps in the gravel and turned to find Bonnie and Mary approaching.

“What happened?” Bonnie asked.

Mary had thrown herself down with her mom and sisters. Zeke joined them.

Watching them, Erik Jensen understood his purpose here. The knowledge shook him to his core and filled him with both sadness and glory.

“Remember that favor I asked you?” he said to Bonnie. She looked at him strangely, but nodded. “Get the message to Ainsley for me.”

Erik turned back to the huge piece of equipment he’d recognized yesterday. It was similar enough to one of his own front end loaders. It shouldn’t be a problem for him to operate. He hoped it was big enough for what he had in mind.

He jogged over. As he expected, the key was in the ignition. It always was. This type of equipment was in no danger of being stolen.

“What’s he doing?” he heard Mary ask, her voice quavering.

“It’s going to be alright, Mary.” He turned back to meet her gaze. “You need to be strong now for your family. Whatever happens,
do not go in that mine
!”

He turned away, the naked despair in her eyes too much for him to bear. She began to protest, but he turned the key and the machine came to life with a tremendous roar, shutting out the rest of the world.

“Erik!” Mary cried. But she sounded very far away.

Erik swung the machine into gear and headed straight for the mine.

A warm sense of calm fell over him, and his thoughts turned to his love. He hoped Ainsley would be proud of him.