Last Alpha: A Highland shifter romance

by Ruby Fielding

  Emerging in the open area to the rear of the Lodge, Jenny paused and looked across at the wolf enclosure. A new padlock secured the gate, and Billy’s rough repair on the chain-link fence had been made good with more wire.

  And there, just for good measure – and presumably in case Tsang tried anything stupid again – an armed policeman stood watch over the enclosure.

  Jenny caught the man’s eye and nodded, then turned away and approached the Lodge’s rear entrance.

  The door was unlocked, and she passed inside. Pausing, she listened for signs of activity. It wasn’t a big building.

  She paused to listen. Music played somewhere deep in the building, and she recalled her first visit here, being shown around by Lilian Lee. There had been music playing in the main lab that day.

  She pushed through a door, followed a corridor that headed towards the main reception area. To the left here, a glass panel provided a view across the main laboratory. Jenny peered through, but there was no sign of anybody there.

  She found him in a side office, just off reception.

  He looked up, a flash of something rushing across his face: anger or fear, she wasn’t sure which. She remembered how erratic he had been the day before, and only now did she wonder how dangerous he might be.

  Then, when he saw it was only her, his shoulders dropped. Perhaps his reaction was only natural for someone who had spent several hours in a cell the day before.

  “There’s no-one here,” he said, turning back to a desk by the window, reaching down for a drawer. He had a briefcase open on the desk before him, a stack of papers within. He saw her staring, shrugged, and added, “It’s okay. It’s just some print-outs. I’ve been advised to do some work from home for the next few days, until all this blows over.”

  “By the police?”

  “They don’t want any more... complications.”

  She paused in the doorway. “Makes sense,” she said. Then she decided to plunge right in. “I know what happened,” she told him, and his expression faltered again. Fear, she decided. “I know what you did.”

  His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Dr Lee’s work on cellular transformation. I know it was far more advanced than she ever admitted. I know you’ve tried it out. You need help, Winston. You need to learn how to control it so that this never happens again.”

  “It’s gone beyond that,” he said. It wasn’t a direct admission, but it wasn’t far off. “I’m just getting my things. And I don’t know if I’m coming back.”

  “You can’t just run from it.”

  “You think I should stick around?” He grabbed another stack of papers from the drawer, stuffed them into his briefcase and flipped it closed. Taking the case and a laptop bag, he came around the desk. Suddenly he was up close before her, but his eyes wouldn’t meet her look. Turning, he sidled past her and then almost ran across the reception area.

  She followed him, her mind racing to catch up. Something wasn’t right.

  She caught the front door as it was swinging shut. Saw Tsang reaching for the door of the battered little red Peugeot just as Carr’s big gray BMW SUV pulled up. The look on the scientist’s face confirmed what her brain had just put together.

  She looked at Carr as he stepped down.

  “Off somewhere, Winston?” he asked, his tone jovial, with a way big undercurrent of Hollywood menace.

  “You...” said Jenny. She saw in his expression that he knew he had been exposed: she had worked out what had happened. “The work here... the shifting...”

  He shrugged. “I funded it all,” he said. “You think I was going to sit back and wait?”

  She turned to Tsang. “Did he force you somehow? Or was it Lilian?”

  Carr answered. “It’s what it always comes down to,” he said. “Money. Tsang had his price, just like anyone else.”

  “Dr Lee found out,” said Tsang. “She was mad. She tried to stop us.”

  “But you did it anyway,” said Jenny. “What... some kind of injection? Something that simple?”

  Tsang gave a slight nod. “I didn’t believe, even then,” he said. “But I watched it happen. I watched him change.”

  Jenny thought back to the previous evening, watching Billy shift.

  “I tried to stop him,” Tsang went on. “And so did Dr Lee...”

  “You talk too much,” said Carr. How had he come so close? The three of them were almost within touching distance now. He loomed over Tsang now, and added, “You should talk less.”

  Abruptly, he took half a step towards the scientist, a twitch of the shoulders and arms, a theatrical lunge. Tsang started, cried out, scrambled at his car door and threw himself inside, even as Carr straightened, laughing cruelly.

  “What now?” asked Jenny. “What’s the grand plan?” Even when she’d thought Tsang was responsible for Lilian Lee’s death, she had not been scared to confront him, but Jonathan Carr was a different proposition altogether. There was something new about him now, an edge of utter menace. It was as if the predator in him had not quite submerged again. Had he always been that way, or was it the result of whatever he had paid Tsang to do to him?

  He turned to face her now, and she wished he wouldn’t smile like that.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, Tsang started his car and sped away along the trail.

  “Plan?” Carr said, his tone almost musing. “Maybe there was a plan, once upon a time. But I can tell you, Miss Layne: when you’ve seen the world as I have, when you’ve truly given yourself up to Nature, then everything changes. You see the world afresh.”

  “What happened to Dr Lee?”

  He shrugged, as if it was nothing of consequence. “I was fond of Lilian,” he said. “Very fond. I even thought there might have been a spark of something, you know? If we’d gone through this together, we could have been the start of something new. But she was always the cautious one, the anchor pulling me back. That night... she tried to stop me.”

  He left it there. A simple statement of fact.

  She had to turn this round somehow. She could call out, try to get the attention of the police marksman on duty at the wolf enclosure. But short of screaming out loud, what would bring him? What would he even hear?

  It was bizarre. She was standing here, confronting a killer, a beast, but she couldn’t just scream without something to trigger it. The human mind was a strange thing, indeed.

  “You... you shifted?” she said. Get him talking. Keep him distracted. Draw this out in the hope that something would happen, someone would come. Something. “What was it like? How did it feel?”

  He gave a soft laugh, then. “I know what you’re doing.”

  That thing. Like a physical barrier, stopping her from screaming out loud even though she had tried to force it. That very human reserve that made her try reason rather than extreme action.

  Carr didn’t have it.

  She had time to realize all this in the instant when she registered that twitch in his body again. The sudden movement, a drop of the shoulder, the jerk of his right arm snapping back, the blur as his fist stabbed forward, growing suddenly in her vision.

  The blow broke that single, drawn-out moment of realization. A sharp intake of breath. The snap as her head jerked backward under the impact. The explosion of pain in her jaw, followed by a smothering blanket of numbness. Nausea. Dizziness. Head swirling, spinning.

  A sense of movement as she fell, but it felt as if it was Jenny who remained motionless, hanging in mid-air as the world twisted and spun around her, and then blackness swept over her, deadening, stifling blackness.

  Nothing.

  33

  She came to, stretched out flat on a hard single mattress. The air was cold, and smelled damp. The light dim, a few shafts of sunlight angling in through a shuttered window.

  She looked around, her eyes adjusting. The room was sparsely furnished, containing only this mattress on the floor, a bucket, and a single wood
en chair by the door.

  Gingerly, she felt her jaw, wincing at the stabbing pain her touch triggered. The dull ache made her feel sick and she wondered if something might be broken.

  He’d hit her!

  He’d goddamn hit her.

  She sat, drawing her knees up to her chest. The movement prompted a wave of dizziness and nausea. From the blow, or something else? She suspected Carr had drugged her – a simple punch to the jaw would only have stunned her for a few seconds at most. Not long enough to bring her here. Wherever here was.

  It seemed to take forever for her to think even the simplest of thoughts. To register her surroundings. To process.

  How long had she been unconscious? There was daylight, but was this even the same day?

  She checked herself, then. Her clothes appeared undisturbed. No purse, no cell phone, but otherwise there was no sign that she had been touched. Even the thought made her feel sick. More sick.

  She made herself move, turned onto all fours, then tipped back so she was just on her knees, her body straightening and her head spinning wildly.

  She stood. Swayed. Righted herself.

  Took a step, then another. Came to stand with a hand against the stone wall.

  The door was locked. She had expected nothing else, but had to try, at least.

  Walking across to the window came easier, the dizziness dissipating.

  She breathed deep, pushing at the shutter and expecting it to be locked too, but it swung open, away from her.

  She saw slim tree trunks. Pine forest. Beyond, the purple fuzz of heather moorland. Leaning out, she saw the water of a lake, almost black – from the peat, Billy had explained. Loch Ellen. Was this the bothy he had showed her? The basic stone building by the water’s edge, a hiker’s shelter.

  She peered down, saw that she was on the top floor. Even if she could escape through this narrow window, the drop was maybe twelve feet. Could she manage that without breaking an ankle? Not while she felt like this.

  §

  She didn’t know for sure that he had left her here alone until he returned.

  She had slumped back onto the mattress again, succumbing to the dizziness, the blackness.

  Later, lying there, her head had felt clearer. Just as she was making her mind up to do something – try the window, see if she could force the door somehow – she heard the rumble of an engine outside.

  She rushed to the window and peered out, hoping that someone had come for her, only to see the big gray BMW pulling up below.

  A short time later, she heard footsteps outside her room, the clatter of the lock, and the door swung open.

  Carr stood there, peering at her warily.

  She should have smashed the chair up while she had the chance, formed one of the legs into some kind of weapon. Too late now. And did she really think she could overpower him? He’d killed Lilian Lee, after all.

  “You need help,” she said. Calm. Reasoning. “That first change: you didn’t know how to handle what was happening to you. It swept over you, took over.”

  She could see it in him now. The animal in him, the beast so near to the surface. The look in his eye. The way he moved. The way he straightened aggressively, his lips drawing back from his teeth.

  Was this a result of Dr Lee’s artificial process, some kind of imperfection where the boundaries between man and beast were less distinct? Or was it because he was so newly changed? Had Billy been like this, too, until he had learned to master the change and keep that part of himself segregated away?

  “You need help to cope with all this,” she went on. “Help to adapt.”

  That drawing back of the teeth – it started almost as a snarl, then became a smile.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Because we both know someone who could help with that, don’t we? Someone who’s been through it already.”

  She stared.

  He knew about Billy! When she’d asked if anyone knew Billy had insisted no-one did. He was convinced Carr knew nothing of his secret. But clearly he had been wrong.

  “Aye, that’s right,” said Carr. “Wee Billy thinks he’s been very clever, but I know all about him. I always did.”

  That night. The attack. He’d known it was Billy who had killed his father, but he’d kept that quiet. Maybe he’d even been grateful.

  “I always looked up to him, you know. When you’ve seen something like that... It was magnificent.”

  “This project,” said Jenny. “The work you hired Dr Lee to do. It was all because you wanted to be like Billy.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Carr told her. “More one of my schemes, protecting endangered species, if you will. I know Billy thinks he’s the last, and maybe he is. I took him on, gave him the freedom of the hills. Then I picked up on Lilian’s work and started to think about a more formal reintroduction scheme. You know: establishing a breeding pair. I knew he’d fallen for you.”

  The enigmatic message, luring her here. Had that been from Billy, or from Carr?

  “You wanted to turn me, so I’d breed?” What kind of lunatic was this?

  A dangerous one, she reminded herself.

  “But you couldn’t resist, could you?” she went on. “You had to try it yourself? And Dr Lee tried to stop you and–”

  He shrugged, as if it was nothing.

  “So what now?”

  That smile again, half snarl, half cruel, knowing leer. “Oh, I don’t see why much should change,” he said. “The reintroduction. The breeding pair, you know.”

  She understood what he meant immediately.

  “No.”

  Shaking her head, backing away. She felt the anger as a palpable thing, a ball of rage building up from her belly, threatening to overtake her. The feeling of being trapped in. “No,” she repeated.

  And all he did was keep on smiling. “That’s the way of it,” he said. “The alpha chooses his mate. You should consider it. You would have the freedom of my wealth, a life you could not imagine. You would be a part of something breathtakingly exciting. It would be so much easier if you chose to accept what is inevitable. For when I was merely a man I was never a one to take ‘no’ for an answer. And now?” That lip curl, that animal look in his eye as he stepped towards her. “Now I will take whatever I want. Do you understand me, Miss Layne?”

  34

  She would have fought.

  She would have clawed and kicked and punched, smashed him over the head with that chair. Anything.

  She was not property. Not a prize to be taken. To be claimed.

  She knew it was a territorial thing. Carr wanted her because she was Billy’s. She remembered Billy telling her only this morning that he had detected another shifter on his territory, a new alpha male who had been marking the territory as his own.

  And now she was a part of what he claimed.

  But she would never be his.

  Did that mean, then, that she was Billy’s?

  That was different, though. Very different.

  There was a huge gap between being taken and choosing to give yourself.

  §

  But there was no need to fight. Not this time, at least.

  Carr loomed over her, dominating her with his physical presence. Then he barked a short laugh and stepped back, turned, made to leave.

  Pausing in the doorway, he said, “Come. Join me. You’ll have a grandstand view. But a word of warning: don’t even think about trying to get away. I came up here by car but I’ve hidden the keys, so you’d have to go on foot if you chose to flee. And believe me, you would not get very far at all.”

  He let her lead the way down the narrow staircase, clearly alert to the possibility that if he had chosen to go first a well-placed foot in the back might send him flying down. He had sensed the fight in her, she was sure.

  The stairs opened into the main downstairs room, and she went across to the window. Where upstairs the window had only been protected by a wooden shutter, here there was glass, incongruous plastic-framed double
-glazing units. As functional and practical as they were ugly.

  Carr went to the front door, smiled back at her, then let himself out.

  The summer days were long here in the Highlands, but Jenny recognized the low sun and golden hues of evening. How much of the day had she lost? It was only now that she really felt she was coming to her senses again. She wondered where Billy was, what he must be thinking. Was he going frantic with worry, or had he spent a day distracted by dealing with the police and the stray wolves? Did he even know yet that she was missing?

  Carr stepped out into the open ground before the window from the side, a sudden movement, enough to make Jenny jump. A shock of fright, a surge of frustrated anger at the delight he took in these little theatrical flourishes. She remembered that half-lunge towards Tsang down at the Lodge, a move only designed to intimidate.

  Cold gray eyes locked onto hers, transfixing her. It felt like a predator-prey thing, but no matter how she tried to rationalize it she was unable to break that look.

  Only a few feet separated them as they stood either side of the glass.

  Carr’s lips twitched, drawing away from his teeth.

  Jenny folded her arms across her chest. Now it was a petty honor thing, not breaking that stare.

  Carr reached for his waxed jacket, loosened it, slid it free from his shoulders and down his arms so that it fell behind him.

  He casually flipped at the top button of his shirt, pulled at the next one down, slowly opening his shirt to reveal a ghostly pale white chest thick with dark hair.

  His striptease was a gruesome mix of horror, grim fascination and warped sexuality.

  His shirt fully open, he let it fall loose, made sure she was looking, then pulled it away. The black body hair covered his ribs and belly, save for a large patch on his ribcage and side where the skin was a grayish pink, a rough landscape of scar tissue. The mark of the wolf attack from all those years ago. The mark Billy had left.