Timber Valley Pack:
Bride Of The Alpha
Copyright 2014 by Georgette St. Clair
This book is intended for readers 18 and older only. It is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this book are products of the feverish imagination of the author, a tarnished Southern belle with a very dirty mind.
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The Timber Valley pack has a terrible reputation. Word is their males are dominant, kinky, and possessive – and Josephine’s best friend from college is being forced to marry one? No way!
Curvy wolf shifter Josephine Southpaw’s got the perfect solution. Using a magic charm, she’ll disguise herself as the slender, beautiful Camille on her wedding day – while Camille hightails it out of town. Of course, the Alpha will ditch Josephine the second he gets her back to the wedding suite and sees what his chubby bride really looks like. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, for starters, Alpha Maxwell Battle is smokin’ hot. And he takes one look at Josephine and vows to never let her go – but he’s going to punish her for her trickery in deliciously sexy ways. And finally, Josephine’s friends keep staging well-intentioned rescue attempts, but she’s no longer sure she wants to be rescued.
But Josephine’s not the only one with secrets. It soon becomes very clear that Maxwell’s hiding something big, a secret that puts not only Josephine’s heart but her life at risk.
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Chapter One
“Josephine Southpaw. You did not just make a date for Sunday.” My best friend Bess stared at me in complete and utter horror as I tucked my cell phone back in my purse.
“Blind date. It’s a cousin of a friend kind of thing. Sunday evening. Why do you ask?” I said innocently, checking my reflection in the mirror of my antique Victorian vanity. I looked nothing like myself, which was exactly the way it should be. I flicked the new charm that dangled on my charm bracelet. It looked like a cute little bluebird, but unlike the other charms, this one was magic; it came with the power of disguise.
“Um, oh, I don’t know, how about because you’re getting married on Saturday morning? And Alphas are not known for being willing to share their brides?”
“Fake married,” I said with exasperation. “Faux married. The wedding is a sham. We’ve been over this a million times. The second that obnoxious a-hole of an Alpha gets me back to the wedding suite, I will take off this charm and turn back into my real self. He will take one look at me, dump my fat ass, get the wedding annulled, and I will be single and ready to mingle again.”
And my old college room-mate Camille, who had been forced to agree to an arranged marriage with the aforementioned a-hole, would be long gone. That was the whole point. While I was walking down the aisle, she’d flee the state with the shifter she really loved, with fake ID, and start a new life with him on the other side of the country.
“You think he can really get an annulment that fast?” Bess’s fiancé Corwin asked skeptically.
“Um, sure, of course. I think.” I frowned. “Actually I don’t know how long annulments take. Maybe I should have made the date for next week.” It was Friday. I was getting married tomorrow morning, much to the dismay of my two besties.
I looked in the mirror again, patting at my hair. It was really disconcerting; my hair felt the same, but it looked as if I was patting shining gold ringlets, instead of my thick waves of chocolate brown hair. This was some damned fine magic. I winked at myself with my big blue eyes, which in real life are big brown eyes. My reflection winked back at me.
I looked up at Corwin and shrugged. “It’ll be fine. He’ll at least boot me out of there and I’ll be headed back home by Saturday afternoon at the latest. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Don’t say that!” Bess and Corwin yelled at the same time.
“You two are so superstitious. Also you’re ridiculous worrywarts.”
“He might actually want you to stay married to him,” Corwin suggested kindly. “What then?”
Ha. Corwin is very sweet, but seriously, what were the odds? Although Maxwell Battle, the jerkoff Alpha, had never met Camille, he knew what she looked like: a slim pre-raphaelite beauty with a waterfall of blonde curls, whose pack was very wealthy and powerful. That’s why he’d wanted her; she’d look good on his arm, and his pack would form a powerful alliance with Camille’s pack.
As for me, I was a chubby, round faced girl who, I’ve been told, laughed too loudly, spoke my mind far more than was considered ladylike, and came from a small, poor pack with no political clout. When he saw me, he would bounce me out on my butt so fast…well, it’s a good thing that I’m well padded.
“Not gonna happen,” I informed him.
“Call us right after the wedding,” Bess said. “You’ll probably need us to come pick you up. When he finds out you faked him out, he is gonna be one hacked-off Alpha.”
“I appreciate it,” I said. “Please stay by the phone on Saturday waiting for my S.O.S. call.”
I had to admit to myself, I wasn’t looking forward to that bit. The Timber Valley pack had a very scary reputation. Dominant, arrogant, deadly in a fight…Not that I thought Maxwell Battle would hurt me, but I suspected that unpleasant words would be hurled at my rapidly retreating rear.
I didn’t feel badly about tricking him, though. He totally deserved it.
Maxwell looked at marriage as a business transaction. He could care less what Camille wanted – he hadn’t even bothered to meet her before the wedding, didn’t find out if she wanted to marry him, he just demanded that she be delivered to the Timber Valley property the morning of the wedding.
Dick.
Camille had called me up literally sobbing a few days earlier. She’d had to sneak out of her house to call me so she wouldn’t be busted by her step-uncle, the pack’s Alpha, and an uber-jerk from what I’d heard.
I had barely heard from Camille since she was forced to drop out of college a year and a half ago, after the death of her parents in a landslide on their property. Their house had been buried, half a dozen people had been killed. Her step-uncle, Kray Renker, had taken over as the new Alpha of the Iron Claw pack after her father died, and she’d had to go home to help take care of her young cousins, who had also been orphaned.
Camille was calling me to beg for help. She was in love with a nice young coyote shifter named Freddy, she told me, but she didn’t dare tell Kray about it because he’d never approve.
Kray had just informed her she’d be getting married at week’s end. Maxwell, an Alpha, was at the age where he needed to leave the family compound and start his own pack on his family’s property, and he also wanted to form an alliance with the Iron Claw pack now that Kray was a powerful Alpha who’d successfully expanded his territory.
She was desperate to get out of this marriage, and get out of Colorado altogether. That sounded like the best thing all around; every time I’d talked to her since she’d left college, she’d sounded more and more depresse
d. The bright, bubbly, girl I’d known was turning into a shadow of her former self. I got the impression that things were miserable at the Iron Claw pack’s compound.
So when she called me for help, I’d sprung into action right away. I happened to know a powerful shaman who specialized in disguise spells. I sacrificed most of my savings to pay for that charm, but it was worth it. She managed to convince her uncle to let her meet me at a coffee shop near her compound, to say goodbye to me – with two guards standing nearby, glowering at us. I’d clasped her hand, and slipped the charm into her palm so it could touch her skin and absorb her essence before I took it back.
The switch would be pretty easy, I figured. Saturday morning would be chaos at the Timber Valley compound. Tons of people pouring in, catering, family from all over, as well as other packs come to celebrate the Alpha’s wedding, and, if their pack was anything like mine had been, probably shifters from other species coming to pay their respects. An Alpha wedding was a big deal, and also an excuse to throw a wild party that lasted for days.
I knew exactly what building she would be staying in. I’d shift to wolf form, run onto the property, and nobody would even notice me, because of all the confusion. What’s one more wolf running around when there’s hundreds of shifters milling about? I’d sneak into her building, change into her form, she’d shift to wolf form, and make a run for it. Frederick would be waiting for her about ten miles down the road.
I would stay looking like Camille, and go through with the wedding, to buy her time. There would be ceremonies, a reception, speeches, blah blah. At least that’s how my pack did things, and all the packs that I knew of in California.
I figured the groom and I would head back to the wedding suite by mid afternoon. By then, I’d have bought her enough time; she and Frederick would be long gone, headed off to start a new life as far away from Colorodo as possible, with new i.d.s.
They’d need those new i.d.s., because God help them if Kray found them. Kray had an even worse reputation than the Timber Valley wolves, if that was possible.
“Are you worried about what Camille’s uncle will do when he finds out?” Corwin asked, as if reading my mind.
“Kind of, but it should be okay. He wouldn’t want to take on the White Blaze pack,” I said. The way our small, wimpy pack survived in California was by being under the protection of a very large, very strong pack called the White Blaze pack. The Southpaw pack paid the White Blaze pack tribute, in the form of crops from our farms and a set financial fee, and they protected us. The usual stuff.
“I don’t know,” Bess said anxiously. “He’s been on a tear lately. He’s swallowed up three smaller packs in the past year. With two of them he challenged the Alpha and killed him, and made the whole pack move on to his land, and with the third pack the Alpha submitted when challenged and left the state, and his pack had to move on to the Renker’s property too. He doesn’t sound like he’d back down from a fight.”
“The White Blaze Alpha has been in more death matches that I can count. He is undefeated,” I said firmly. “Kray would not want to challenge someone with that kind of reputation.”
“She’ll be fine,” Corwin said to Bess reassuringly. He didn’t sound all that convinced.
In the mirror, I saw Corwin throw his arms around Bess’ shoulder, and then he saw the look of wistfulness on my face and withdrew it.
“Don’t do that on my account,” I said.
Bess and I and Corwin had all been best friends in college, and then in our senior year, Corwin proposed to Bess. Corwin was a sweet, thoughtful, handsome guy, soft spoken, a perfect gentleman. I’d had a mild crush on Corwin for a while there, but it wasn’t full on raging lust. I was happy for Bess, most of the time anyway. She was a full figured gal like me; she gave me hope that maybe someday, even though I wasn’t model material, I could find my perfect man.
“Who knows, maybe Maxwell Battle will be totally hot. Want me to ask around?” she asked. “Or I could Google it.”
His picture likely wouldn’t be online, because shifters try very hard not to have an online presence – we like to keep a low profile in general, since humans don’t know we exist – but it’s a small world out there among us supernatural folk, so we probably had mutual acquaintances. There’s only a couple hundred packs in all of the U.S., all of us living in rural areas so we can shift when we want to without fear of discovery.
I made a face. “Nope. I could care less what he looks like,” I said. “He’s the caveman who was going to grab my friend by the hair and drag her off to the wedding chamber. Screw him.”
I turned back to the mirror and pulled a comb out of my purse, humming “Here comes the bride,” as I combed my hair.
Chapter Two
Oh, my fur and whiskers. My future soon-to-be-ex-husband was hot. So, so hot. He was standing outside the lodge, talking to a few very handsome shifters who looked as if they were related to him, but I could barely see them because he was so hot.
I was even willing to forgive them for having come to pick me up in a pickup truck on my wedding day.
Maxwell was tall, about six four. I’m five six, not exactly short, but he would tower over me. He had broad shoulders and big, burly arms, and mighty thighs. I could tell because his jeans fit him quite nicely.
Jeans. Was that what he was going to marry me in? My illusion spell made it look as if I were wearing a flowing white silk wedding dress trimmed in lace, and a massive gauzy veil covering my face and flowing down my back, held in place with a garland of pearls and white roses, and he was wearing a black t shirt and jeans?
Oh, well. I wouldn’t mind stripping those jeans right off him. I went back to mooning over how gorgeous he was. Full, sensual lips, high cheekbones, thick dark hair that I couldn’t wait to run my fingers through…
Wait. I gave myself a mental slap on the face to bring myself back to reality. I’d never get to run my fingers through that hair. I’d be effectively divorced by this afternoon.
I watched him throw back his head and laugh at something one of the guys who’d come with him said, and felt a sudden twinge in my belly. Maybe Corwin was right. Maybe he would want to be married to me…
No! What was I thinking? I’d taken leave of my senses.
A hot guy like that would never want me. I knew that quite well. I looked just like my mom, and I’d spent my childhood and adolescence listening to her moan about how men never fell in love with women who looked like her – and then watching her be the living proof of that. My dad had an affair with my mom, and left without marrying her. It had broken her heart. She’d never gotten over it, she’d gone through life dating jerky guys and mooning over my dad, who ran off and married some beautiful, slim leopard. Then he’d cheated on her and she’d booted him out, but that was another story entirely.
I sighed, and went back to admiring the scenery. Maxwell and his family were a very handsome group of shifters, and actually the scenery behind them was beautiful too. It was June at the foothills of the Timber Mountains, and the emerald green of the trees and the shocking blue of the sky were like something out of a Technicolor dream. Fat white clouds floated like lazy, happy sheep, drifting in a gentle breeze. The Timber Mountains loomed in the distance, dark purplish blue and capped with white.
The Timber Valley pack, like many packs, had thousands of acres of property, which let their members live in safety and privacy, away from human discovery. They had a central family compound, where important gatherings took place, and where anyone who wasn’t working would likely be found hanging out and socializing during the day. They had a farm and ranch animals, and a logging operation. I was in a building a quarter mile down the road from the compound, so I’d been told.
The building was a guest house, and I was in a living room with furniture hand-hewn from logs. I turned away from the lovely scene in front of me, and walked back to the round mirror that hung on the wall. I’d been checking my reflection every five minutes, petrified that the charm wou
ld somehow stop working.
Nope. Camille still stared back at me from the mirror. I stuck my tongue out at myself, put my thumb in my ears and wiggled my fingers.
“You are in for a big surprise, Max Battle,” I said to myself with Camille’s mouth. “And it serves you right.”
The door flew open with a bang, and I started and spun around. I expected Maxwell to come striding through, but it wasn’t him. If I had to guess, based on the descriptions I’d heard of him, I’d say it was Kray Renker.
My heart froze in my chest. Had he found out what Camille and I had done? Even worse, had he caught Camille and Frederick? God, not that, I prayed.
He slammed the door shut behind him. He was big and angry, with an air of menace rolling off of him like a cobra that could strike at any time. I suddenly felt fear curling up in my stomach.
Kray was a handsome enough man, somewhere in his forties with thick black hair and a beard and mustache shot through with some gray, but the enraged expression on his face made him very ugly to me. He had a scar slashing through one eyebrow, and another on his neck. Not surprising. Most Alphas were pretty scarred up. He looked me up and down, glowering.
“I came to make sure you didn’t try to make a run for it,” he snarled. “And what the hell are you wearing?”
“What?” I was taken aback. “It’s called a wedding dress.”
A look of shock and fury washed over his face. “What the hell did you just say to me?” he demanded.
Uh oh. Camille probably never talked back to him. She was a sweet, soft spoken girl; a bully like him would run right over her.
I glanced down at the illusion wedding dress, which would vanish once I took the charm off.
“What difference does it make what I’m wearing?” I asked.
He scowled at it, his face reddening. “It’s ugly, and I already told you what dress I wanted you to wear. What did you do with it?”
Oh, crud. Camille could have warned me about this. Then again, seriously, who the hell was he to insult Camille’s choice of dress, or tell her what to wear?
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