fate of the alpha - episode 2

by Tasha Black

  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.

  CHAPTER 17

  Erik 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.

  CHAPTER 18

  A insley crouched, the muscles in her legs tensed to spring.

  The door swung open to reveal the familiar silhouette of her best friend, Grace Kwan-Cortez framed in the day’s first light.

  Sucking in calming air, Ainsley eased her body upward and managed not to shift. Unspent adrenaline coursed through her veins.

  “What’s wrong?” Ainsley asked.

  Grace shuffled in with a nervous look. She held Camilla Parker Bowles in one arm. It was a funny picture - Grace wasn’t exactly a dog person, but she cradled Camilla as though they had been besties for years.

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” Grace said. “I’ve been calling and texting you. I was afraid something had happened. You never sleep this late.”

  “It’s fine,” Ainsley said, thinking of the dream and feeling like nothing was fine. “What’s going on?”

  “Owen called, so we had to get Sadie back right away. It was a very close call.”

  “Oh my gosh, Grace, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help you! How did it go?”

  “Oh, no worries, it went really smoothly,” Grace said.

  Ainsley could see by the traumatized expression on Grace’s face that her friend was trying to hide that it had not gone smoothly.

  “I can’t believe you got her back in all by yourself,” Ainsley said in wonder, as they headed for the kitchen.

  Grace put Camilla Parker Bowles down and she trotted after them.

  “Julian helped me,” Grace said.

  What?

  Ainsley noticed the familiar smell clinging to her best friend. She would have picked it up right away, despite the shower and scented lotions Grace had used in the interim, but she had been shaken by the vestiges of the dream.

  Julian.

  Ainsley was scandalized, thrilled, and even a little jealous. Grace would say something if she wanted to talk about it. Ainsley didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. But her curiosity won out over her discretion.

  “Julian,” she breathed, as Grace sat down at the table.

  Grace blanched. She must have guessed Ainsley would sniff out the truth right away.

  “Is it weird?” she asked, looking down at Camilla Parker Bowles.

  The little dog flopped down at her feet and went right to sleep.

  “A little, I guess,” Ainsley admitted. “But mostly it’s just unexpected. I thought you guys hated each other.”

  A smile played at the corners of Grace’s mouth. “We do,” she said, “but I guess not enough to make up for how much we like each other.”

  “What happened?” Ainsley asked.

  “I’m not really sure,” Grace replied.

  “Was it good? Are you going to do it again?”

  “It was good,” Grace said, but she had a sort of shell-shocked look on her face.

  Ainsley swallowed a giggle. Maybe Julian had done that dominating business with Grace. It was sort of fun, but it was never really Ainsley’s thing. From the look on Grace’s face, it was hard to tell if it was her thing or not.

  “Ainsley,” Grace said. “I promise I’ll tell you all about it, but I have a feeling there’s something else we need to talk about first. You almost attacked me just now. What’s going on?”

  The dream.

  Ainsley busied herself putting on the kettle. It would be easier to talk about this if she didn’t have to see the concern on Grace’s face while she was telling her.

  “I had the dream again,” Ainsley said, pulling their favorite mugs out of the cupboard and placing them on the counter.

  “No,” Grace said.

  “Yes. I never thought I’d see him again.” Ainsley grabbed the peppermint tea and placed a bag in each mug. “The dream was different this time though. Instead of making out until the bad stuff happened, he dragged me to the old field house.”

  “On the construction site?” Grace asked.

  “It was. And it wasn’t” She ignored the puzzled look on Grace’s face. “But when we went in, we weren’t in the field house. We went down this tunnel and then we were in a room. And when I turned to him, he was wearing a yellow raincoat, and he was covered in blood--”

  “--A yellow raincoat?” Grace interrupted.

  “Weird, right? It looked like something a woman would wear.”

  “Could it be the coat that went with the belt I showed you?” Grace asked. “The one Lilliana was wearing when she disappeared?”

  “Yes,” Ainsley said thoughtfully. “Same shade. Maybe that’s why it was in my mind. Do you think it means something?”

  Grace shrugged and urged her to continue.

  “Anyway, Brian was wearing the coat and his blood was flowing into this grooved pattern in the floor and going down a hole and... feeding something below. It was evil and it was banging on the floor. Then you started banging on the door, and here we are. What does it mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” Grace replied with a troubled expression. “Abuela has always been better at finding the meanings in this kind of stuff. When there is meaning - she says there usually isn’t. It could just be a bad dream, Ainsley. You’ve been under a lot of stress. And it was the full moon.”

  Ainsley let the air out of her lungs between pursed lips. Grace was right. She was under strain. Things weren�
��t exactly going well.

  “I’m having such a hard time, with... everything.” Ainsley admitted. “So much is going wrong, I don’t even know what to work on first.”

  “Start with the magic, Ainsley, it will make everything else easier when you accept that part of yourself.”

  “Magic is not going well,” Ainsley said. “As a matter of fact, it’s going terribly. I can’t control it at all.”

  “You did fine in the fight. You need to stop over-thinking it. Just do it,” Grace said. She waved her hand nonchalantly. “Do it now.”

  “Now?” Ainsley asked.

  “Why not?”

  Ainsley couldn’t think of a good reason why not, so she shrugged and lifted her hands, palms up. Closing her eyes and straightening her spine, she took a measured breath and pushed.

  She could feel a droplet of energy hopping between her palms. She opened her eyes and the light spluttered out before she could get a good look at it.

  Camilla Parker Bowles growled softly, then flopped over and went back to sleep.

  “Ainsley, I feel like you’re tensing up so much it’s a miracle you can squeeze anything out,” Grace said gently. “Let’s try something different.”

  “Okay,” Ainsley said. What did she have to lose?

  “Let’s go out back, it’ll be easier out there.”

  Ainsley nodded and they headed out the back door. The backyards up and down Princeton were quiet. It was getting colder outside, so the kids weren’t out as much. Not to mention that the leaf collection trucks weren’t coming for another week, so the yards were slippery with fallen leaves.

  Camilla Parker Bowles trotted out and immediately began sniffing at the gate to the side yard.

  Grace followed Ainsley down the steps of the back porch and out to her mom’s old vegetable garden. The veggies were long gone but there was still an old watering can tucked in the corner of the picket fence.

  “So how do you usually get the magic to work?” Grace asked.

  “I’m not sure work is exactly the right word,” Ainsley said, eliciting a scowl from her friend. “But Julian says to visualize the energy, then will it to project.”

  Grace’s brow furrowed in disapproval.

  “When you made us tea just now,” she said. “Did you will the water into the cups?”