Shiftily Ever After: A BBW Paranormal Romance (Alpha Prime)

by Georgette St. Clair

  Across the clearing, Miles was walking away from the female, who was following him and tugging on his arm with a pout on her face. Miles shook her arm off. She tried to grab at him again, when John, in cub form, sailed through the air, landed at her feet, and latched on to her ankle. She screamed and shook her leg, trying to kick him off.

  Dakota ran over and grabbed at John as the woman kicked at him and swore. Naomi was right behind her.

  John dodged away from Dakota and crouched low, snarling.

  “My ankle is bleeding! That’s going to take hours to heal! He ruined my pants!” the woman wailed.

  “He’s a cub, you’re a shifter. Deal with it,” Dakota said scornfully.

  The woman tried to kick John again as he snarled at her, and Naomi jumped in front of her before she could respond.

  “If you try to kick him again, I will chew your face off,” Naomi snapped.

  “Go, Naomi ! You even scared me,” Dakota said admiringly as the woman whimpered and cringed away from her.

  Naomi picked up John the cub and scowled at his furry little face. “Do not bite that woman again,” she said. “You don’t know where that leg’s been. You could get food poisoning.” He stuck his tongue out at her, which looked adorable since he was still in cub form. And she carried him off, heading back to their seats.

  Miles put his arm around Dakota’s shoulders. “Will you please come sit down and eat dinner with me? I get that you’re rejecting my sexual advances – well, no, I don’t really understand, because I’d be amazing. But anyway. If you leave me all by my lonesome, then these annoying women will keep hitting on me, and I’m not in the mood.”

  “She can hear you,” Dakota observed, inclining her head at the woman, who was glaring at Miles now.

  “I know.” Miles grinned fiercely. He looked into her eyes. “Please help me. I’m so afraid. You’re not going to leave me alone and unprotected, are you?”

  Despite herself, Dakota burst into laughter. “Fine,” she said. “On occasion, you are somewhat charming. And I could never forgive myself if you were hurt because I wasn’t here to protect you.”

  She let him lead her over to a couple of chairs that were set apart from the rest of the group, and Anders walked up to them with a plate full of ribs.

  Normally, Dakota felt awkward enough just eating in front of a guy, much less eating something messy. For some reason, with Miles, she found herself completely at ease. He made her laugh. He didn’t make her feel judged at all.

  She loved the way he looked at her. The gleam of arousal in his eyes…it was genuine. All these women flitting around him, and he’d chased them away and chosen her. He’d done that without knowing who she really was, or how much power and money was connected to her name and her lineage.

  She found that her appetite was back, and she dove into the pile of ribs with gusto, savoring the sweet, tangy sauce and the smoky flavor of the meat.

  “Leave some for me,” Miles laughed, wiping his fingers on a napkin.

  “Gmph mmph hmpph.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak crazy-lady. What was that again?”

  She swallowed the last bite and grinned at him. “Get some of your own.”

  Miles leaned forward in his chair and took the paper plate from her and dropped it into a trash can. “So how am I doing?”

  “Er…great? How are you doing at what?”

  “Not being insulting.” He looked so earnest and so concerned about her answer that she felt herself go all warm and tingly.

  “Oh. Umm…pretty good, actually.”

  “Of course, I’m not courting you or anything. Because you told me not to. And also you’re way too good for me.”

  “Well, that’s true.” She nodded in agreement and set the last rib down on her plate.

  “Hold on,” he said, and reached up and wiped her cheek with a napkin, and as he did, he let his thumb trail down the side of her face.

  “Did you get all the sauce?” she asked.

  “There was no sauce. I just wanted an excuse to touch you.”

  The air suddenly felt very warm, and she was aware of each breath she took. Her nipples swelled into hard little buds that rubbed against the fabric of her shirt. He looked down at her, his face serious but a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “And since I’m not-courting you, I imagine you want to rejoin your family. I think all the other ladies here have gotten the message by now that I’m not interested in them.”

  She blushed. “What if… Just out of curiosity, what if I said that I wanted to come to your cabin tonight?”

  He actually considered that thoughtfully.

  “I would very regretfully decline for the moment, but take a rain check, on account of I need some more time to not-court you.”

  “Oh. Interesting. Well, just so you know, you’re very good at not-courting.”

  She got up quickly and walked away before she gave in to her impulse to crawl into his lap and lick his neck.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Granite Flats schoolhouse was located a block away from the town square. It was a nicely built structure with wooden clapboard siding and a peaked roof, painted bright red and with a big sign out front that said “Little Red Schoolhouse.” Wooden barrels with geraniums were set on either side of the front door.

  Sarah, John, Sailor and Mary stood outside the school and stared at the door as if it were the maw of a beast, ready to swallow them alive.

  As Miles had promised, a burly wolf shifter named Jefferson was stationed at the door for security. He was sitting on a folding chair, reading a magazine, but there was an air of watchfulness about him, and Dakota had no doubt that he was aware of everything in the vicinity.

  “Not only do we have to go to school, but we have to get here early?” Sarah whined for the twentieth time.

  “Oh, woe is you. I have never heard of such abuse.”

  Sarah scowled at her. “I know you’re being sarcastic, but you’re actually telling the truth. Have I mentioned that I’m not a morning person?”

  “Only a million times. Let’s go.” Dakota pointed at the doorway.

  They balked.

  “Why does Naomi get to sleep in?” Sarah demanded.

  “She’s going to clean the house and help Hazel in the pack’s garden today. And she’s already graduated high school, so she doesn’t need to go to class.”

  “Why do I have to learn to read?” John grumbled.

  “You like it when Naomi reads you bedtime stories, right?” Dakota asked.

  John sniffed indifferently. “Yeah. So? She can just keep reading them to me.”

  “I thought you were all going to run away.”

  “Maybe we will, maybe we won’t.” He shrugged.

  Dakota raised an eyebrow. “Is she going to read to you when you’re twenty?”

  John shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s not for a million years.”

  “And that’s why you need school. Because your math doesn’t add up. Forward march. Go on, in there.” She shooed them through the door.

  After Anthea showed them around, Dakota settled down in her new classroom. The students would rotate in throughout the day, and she would teach them English and history. She got the older kids first – the thirteen through seventeen-year-olds. There were eight of them including Sarah, and they sat there and looked at her sullenly. One of them was Fargo’s son, Purcell, and he seemed particularly hostile, playing with a pen knife and shooting menacing looks at Dakota.

  Dakota introduced herself to the class, trying to sound bright and confident.

  “Any questions?” she asked, settling into her chair.

  Purcell snorted. “Yeah, why should we listen to you?”

  He picked up his textbook and threw it on the floor, then jumped up on his chair and started howling.

  Three of the other boys joined him, and the girls in the class sat there snickering quietly, except for Sarah, whose expression never changed.

>   Anthea burst into the room, and everyone immediately scrambled to get back in their chairs. She glared at Dakota. “Do I need to get a new teacher?” she demanded, and walked out of the room. Everyone waited until she’d left to start laughing, and Dakota struggled to hold back tears.

  At that, Sarah shot up out of her chair with a snarl.

  “I’ll tell you why you should listen to her,” she said, and her eyes glowed with a feral, crazy light. She picked up a pencil and jammed it completely through her hand, with barely a flinch, then yanked it back out. Blood poured from her hand, but the wound sealed itself up before their eyes.

  Dakota stifled a gasp, and all the kids gaped at her.

  “I heal super fast. My daddy used to do that to me all the time just to watch it heal. He thought it was funny listening to me scream,” Sarah said with a grin that exposed fangs. “But I barely even feel it anymore. And then one night he tried to do it to my little brother and I pushed him down a flight of stairs and he died.”

  The entire room was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Dakota blinked hard and tried not to cry.

  “So if I’ll do this to myself, ask yourself what I’ll do to you if you make me mad. Any questions?”

  Everybody in the room shook their heads, wide-eyed.

  “Now,” Dakota said firmly, refusing to let her voice shake, “let’s get started on the lesson plan for today.”

  After that, the kids settled down, although she noticed that they kept looking out the window.

  Finally she said in exasperation, “Okay, guys, what do you expect to see out there?”

  “We’re looking to see when the bus gets here. There’s going to be a fight,” one of the boys told her. “My dad told me. There’s ten guys coming today who are going to kill the Alpha Prime.”

  “Miles or Creel?” another kid asked.

  “Miles. And I heard there’s fifty guys on the bus,” one of the other boys said.

  “I heard there’s a hundred!” Purcell said eagerly. “And when Miles is dead, my dad’s going to take over the Fenris Pack.”

  “There can’t even be a hundred people on a bus. There’s no bus that big. And the Fenris Pack would eat your dad for lunch. Dumbass,” one of the other boys sneered.

  Dakota jumped in to stop the brewing fight, but she felt worry twist deep inside her. Miles had given them a ride to the schoolhouse that morning and hadn’t mentioned a thing. She was sure the kids were exaggerating about ten people coming to challenge him, but Miles had a death challenge today.

  Would she feel it if Miles were hurt? Or if he died? Somehow she thought she would.

  During lunch, she went outside and asked Jefferson what had happened.

  “Three shifters challenged him.” Jefferson shrugged, not even bothering to look up from his magazine. “He took them out.”

  “Three? Is that unusual?”

  “Yeah. More of them seem to be finding their way up here these days. It’s fine. He’ll handle it.”

  She went back inside, worry twisting in her stomach.

  Chapter Twelve

  The evening was cool, and the scent of woodsmoke drifted from the fire pit in the middle of the clearing.

  The cubs were in the cabin, eating dinner that Naomi had cooked for them. Dakota was wandering aimlessly…or maybe not that aimlessly. She found herself drawn towards the woods just north of the clearing, because she sensed that Miles was there. He hadn’t come around to not-court her that evening, but she didn’t take it personally. Fighting off three challengers would leave him emotionally drained and hardly in the mood for company.

  As she drew closer to Miles’s cabin, she heard Anders and Baldwin talking in low tones. They were just around the corner, but she could hear them easily.

  “He’s better when he’s with her,” Anders said. “Wish he’d stop being such a stubborn, stupid ass about it.”

  “You’re right,” Baldwin said. “With all these fights, I was afraid that he was going to go right over the edge, even with me trying to help him. But when she’s with him, it seems to draw some of the darkness out.”

  Were they talking about her?

  “They’d better be,” she heard herself whisper. The thought of Miles with another woman made the fangs itch in her gums.

  It had to be her. The thought that she could help Miles, the thought that he needed her on some level, sent a deep warmth pooling in her belly.

  “I don’t know how much longer we can go on like this, though.” She could hear the tension in Anders’ voice. “I wish Creel would take on some of these fights. Not that I’d ever tell Miles that.”

  “Creel won’t bother, because he doesn’t care about law and order and keeping the territory safe,” Baldwin said. “Miles goes out of his way to find the troublemakers.”

  “Creel’s a self-centered sack of shit,” Anders growled. Their voices were getting closer, and they came around the corner of the cabin and stopped talking when they saw Dakota.

  She smiled as if she hadn’t just eavesdropped on them, and gestured at Baldwin. “Can you come to my cabin with me?” she said. “Naomi needs you.”

  “She does?”

  “Yes, she just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Baldwin looked confused, but let her lead him to the cabin anyway.

  Dakota pulled the door open and bellowed “Naomi!”

  Naomi came into the entryway and froze on the spot as soon as she saw Baldwin.

  Dakota gave her an innocent smile and blinked hard. “Remember we had a certain agreement that if I talked to a certain someone again, you would— Don’t you back away from me, Naomi, I know where you sleep. I am staying here with the cubs. You are going through with your end of the bargain.”

  “Eep.” For once, Naomi was speechless.

  * * * * *

  The night sky was black velvet set with twinkling diamond-white stars. Baldwin and Naomi walked side by side beneath towering pines that swayed in the gentle breeze, and pine needles were laid in a fragrant carpet on the forest floor. Naomi felt as if a thousand butterflies were swarming in her stomach.

  Baldwin wasn’t talking, so Naomi found herself chattering to fill the silence.

  “Just so you know, I’m taking this walk with you because I made a promise to Jamie, not because I like you or anything,” she blurted out.

  “You don’t like me?” Baldwin looked confused. “Everyone likes me. Why don’t you like me?”

  Naomi wondered if that “everyone” included other women. Did other women like him, and in what way?

  “I didn’t say that I didn’t like you,” she protested. “I just said that I didn’t take the walk because I… Actually I don’t know what I said. When I’m around you I get really nervous and I start talking a lot for no reason and I don’t know what to say next and I…” She trailed off, almost in tears.

  Baldwin stopped walking, so she stopped too, and looked up at him. It was nice to look up at someone. Naomi always felt like an awkward giraffe, towering over most of the guys she knew.

  “You don’t have to talk,” Baldwin said. “But I like it when you do.”

  That was a new one. “You do? Why?”

  “Because you make me smile,” Baldwin said. “You’re funny, and loyal, and a good person. I have all this weight on my shoulders, with my responsibility to the Alpha Prime and by extension the entire pack. And the entire region. When I’m with you, I’m just thinking about you, not about all the challenges we’re facing here.”

  “Oh.” Naomi blushed. “I like you too.”

  “I know,” Baldwin said, and he stooped and kissed her.

  For a moment, everything else fell away. When Baldwin kissed Naomi, she wasn’t the nerdy awkward girl everybody couldn’t wait to get away from. She felt sexy and desired.

  Her heart tripped in her chest as his lips, warm and firm, brushed against hers, and she opened her mouth on a dreamy sigh. Baldwin wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tightly against him. His tongue sl
id against hers, sending delicious shivers down her spine as she ran her hands over his shoulders and curled her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.

  He growled softly and nipped at her lower lip with his sharp teeth, and Naomi whimpered and pressed her mouth hard against his. His tongue flicked and stroked and his hand drifted upwards from her waist until his fingers were almost but not quite caressing the side of her breast.

  Finally Baldwin pulled away, and Naomi stood there, breathless and dazed.

  “Now,” he said, “I’m going to walk you back to the cabin. And sometime this week, you’re going to go out to dinner with me. And in the meantime, you know where my cabin is. I’m home every evening. I’d love it if you came to visit.”

  And he grabbed her hand and folded his hand around it and didn’t say another word the whole way back. He didn’t have to.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dakota made it through the first week of school without too much drama from the students, until Friday, when Purcell got up in the middle of a lesson and started to head for the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Dakota called, hurrying after him.

  “There’s a death challenge. My dad’s going to fight Miles. He’s going to kill him, and I want to watch.” Purcell’s eyes gleamed with malice.

  Dakota grabbed Purcell by the collar and lifted him several inches off the ground. He gasped in panic and flailed, his eyes turning amber and his fangs descending.

  “Watch what you say about Miles,” she snapped. “And you have two choices. You can either stay here and start showing some respect, or you can walk out that door and not come back.”

  She let go of his collar and he staggered back with a low, angry snarl.

  “My daddy will get you for this,” he snapped at her, then stormed out of the schoolhouse, slamming the door behind him.

  Miles won that challenge, just like he’d won all the others, then spent Friday night in wolf form, tearing through the woods on the outskirts of pack property. Dakota could feel the thick anger that roiled inside him, and it made her ache. Why wouldn’t he seek her out, if she made him feel better?