The Alpha Won't Be Denied

by Georgette St. Clair

  “Yes!” Virginia brightened. “Let’s leave early in the day, like noon. Book a motel room, hang out for the day, go for a run in the woods, get some shopping in.”

  Then she glanced at Sally. “You know, if you feel so strongly, if you like him that much, you should just tell him. His response might surprise you.”

  Sally looked startled. “Really? I don’t know.”

  “It makes more sense than sitting around sulking about it and watching him hit on someone else. If you don’t make a move, you’ll never know what might have been. And he’s obviously not going to make the first move.”

  “Obviously.” Her tone was bitter. “I just don’t think he’d ever like me in that way.”

  “Sally, you’re gorgeous, you’re sweet, you cook a mean steak. You cook a mean everything. Any shifter would be lucky to have you as a mate.”

  “It’s very kind of you to say so.” Sally downed the last of her drink. “All I want to do is get married and stay home and have a million cubs and make a man happy. I feel like that makes me super boring.”

  “Plenty of men would love that in a mate. If they don’t want that, they’re not the right guy for you. And stop coming up with excuses!”

  Sally looked down at her almost empty glass, staring into it for a long time as if she’d find answers at the bottom of her margarita. Then she looked up and nodded. “You’re right. I’m going to do it. Tomorrow,” she declared, to Virginia’s surprise.

  “Wow.” Virginia couldn’t believe it. Sally had finally listened to her advice for once? She must really be getting desperate. “Well, tell me how it goes. And I’ll see you tomorrow. You don’t need to wait for me right now. There’s something I want to do before I go.”

  “Let me guess. Carver? Oh, you said something, not someone.” Sally flashed her a smirk, then dashed off before Virginia could smack her.

  Virginia waited until she was gone, then stalked over to her brother, who was entwined with a jackal shifter with streaked hair and heavy eye makeup. He held a beer in his free hand, and his other was running up and down the jackal’s back.

  “Yo!” she yelled, to get his attention.

  “Hey!” The woman who was rubbing up against him pouted. “He’s mine! Back off, bitch.”

  Pierce promptly shoved her off him.

  “That’s my sister you’re talking to,” Pierce said, turning on the woman with a growl. “Get away from me. Now.”

  She skulked off, shooting hurt and angry looks at him until she walked straight into a drunk bobcat shifter. Then she threw her arms around his neck and started kissing him enthusiastically.

  “Nice,” Virginia said sarcastically. “I like your taste in women.”

  “Don’t you start.” Pierce took a swig of his beer. “I’m not looking for Ms. Right, I’m just—”

  “Just looking for Ms. Right Now,” she finished for him. “My God, is that line getting old. Maybe you should consider looking for a higher class of female. Someone you could actually bring home to Mom and Dad. Someone to be the mother of your cubs.”

  Pierce shrugged and took another swallow of beer. “Maybe in a few years. Not now.”

  Virginia wasn’t surprised. She’d hoped he’d at least say that when he met the right wolf he’d settle down, but obviously he wasn’t in that state of mind yet. It probably wouldn’t go well with Sally tomorrow, but at least she’d finally know that Pierce wasn’t interested in a relationship, and she’d be able to move on.

  Pierce glanced over at Carver, who was still on the dance floor. With the same woman. “I see your boyfriend is here again. Has he been bothering you?”

  Virginia shook her head in exasperation. “He is not my boyfriend. He is not bothering me. And if he did, I could take care of it.”

  Pierce shook his head stubbornly. “That’s what we’re here for!”

  Virginia wasn’t sure exactly what her brothers wanted her to do; die a virgin while they screwed their way through the female population of Timber Valley and surrounding counties? Eff that.

  “It is time for you guys to back off. I can take care of myself.”

  “How, exactly, would you do that?” Pierce scoffed.

  “Like this!” Virginia’s fist lashed out and she hit his arm so hard that he let out a yelp of pain and staggered back, staring at her in surprise.

  “Since when did you hit that hard?”

  She didn’t bother to answer him. She couldn’t tell him the truth about the training she’d been doing recently anyway; his head would explode. Then he’d run straight to their father and tattle on her.

  She suppressed a smile at the thought. It was nice to have one small part of her life that didn’t belong to her family.

  “I’m going home now. Have fun with the skank-hunt.” She gestured at the room, then left the bar.

  As she walked down the hallway that led outside, a blast of cold air swirled around her. It was October, and she was skimpily dressed, but she relished the chill. Shifters were very resistant to cold, even in their human form.

  She walked outside, and as she stepped out of the front door, a huge, heavy body slammed into her, knocking her off her feet.

  Chapter Three

  “Virginia! Are you okay?” A member of her pack, a young shifter named Anna, pulled her to her feet.

  “I’m fine, thank you. Don’t worry about me.” Virginia moved away from the doorway entrance, and Anna headed off to her car, with a quick backward glance to make sure that Virginia really was okay.

  A coyote and a jackal, circling each other in human form, were shouting drunkenly. The jackal’s mouth was bleeding. They were staggering, taking drunken swings at each other. Morons. She doubted they’d even remember what the fight was about tomorrow.

  The crowd of shifters that had gathered wasn’t helping any. They were gleefully chanting “Fight! Fight!” and clapping their hands.

  “Jackal!” some of them screamed.

  “Coyote!” others shouted.

  Virginia stood on the sidelines, hands on her hips. All she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed, but as a healer, she should stay in case either of the two morons seriously injured the other.

  Two bouncers rushed out from inside the bar. They were bear shifters, which was typical of bouncers. Shifter bars and nightclubs tended to hire the bigger species as bouncers – lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

  The bouncers muscled their way through the cheering spectators, but before they could separate the two, the jackal’s fist lashed out and hit the coyote’s jaw with a sickening crunch.

  “Mother-frickin’ hell,” Virginia muttered, shouldering her way towards him.

  “Let her through! She’s a healer,” yelled one of the bouncers, who recognized her.

  Members of the crowd started throwing punches at one another, and more bouncers ran outside. Yelling and cursing and snarls ripped through the night air.

  Virginia ignored them all and walked through the crowd, stepping past flying fists and snarling, snapping wolves and bears and various species of feline. She knelt down next to the coyote, who lay on the frost-rimed ground, clutching his shattered jaw and moaning.

  She placed her fingers on his jaw, closed her eyes, and let her power flow through her. She could feel inside his body, feel the bones of his jaw moving back together and setting. Ruptured blood vessels, spilling blood, sealed themselves. Teeth settled back into their sockets.

  He was also sober now. Healing had evaporated the alcohol from his system.

  He sat up, blinking hard. “Wow, thanks.” Then he stared into her eyes. “You’re beautiful. Uh, want a date?”

  “With a drunk who gets into bar fights? Thank you anyway.” She stood up, flexing her fingers and feeling good. When she’d first come into her own as a healer, a session like that would have sent her reeling and she’d have been curled up on a couch for hours, but over the years her powers had gotten stronger and stronger.

  She’d started out by training with the pack h
ealer, and then had begun travelling around the country to train with different healers, learning new skills and techniques. Within a few years, she’d be training new healers herself.

  She glanced around to see if anyone else had serious injuries. She saw nothing but bruises and scrapes and split lips. She wasn’t going to waste her energy healing them; they deserved to wake up with black eyes. Most of them would probably be fine by morning anyway; shifters tended to heal fast.

  She waved at the bouncers, who had gotten the crowd under control now, and headed towards her car, which was parked at the far end of the parking lot. She’d tucked it away behind a big minivan, hoping that if Carver came by to check the place out, he wouldn’t see her car and he’d just go home.

  She heard footsteps trudging along behind her in the dark, and whirled around. It was the jackal.

  “What do you want?” she demanded.

  “Interfering bish.” He was very drunk, swaying and glaring at her.

  “I’m sorry, did you mean bitch? Yes, I am, in fact.” She smiled politely. She stood there, keeping her stance casual. There was nothing in her body language to give away the fact that if she needed to, she could snap him in two. That was one of the things she’d learned; if confronted by violence, act meek and helpless, draw them in close, then lash out and disable the attacker while she still had the element of surprise. By the time they realized she wasn’t some skinny little she-cub, they’d be doubled over in pain and spitting out teeth.

  His foul breath reeked from his mouth, and she took a step back, fanning the air with her hand. “Whew. Halitosis, brother. Listerine – it’s your friend.”

  “That ash-hole desherved getting his ash beat. He shaid my mother… He shaid…” The jackal tried to remember what the coyote had said about his mother. His eyes were glazed. He staggered back and flailed his arms, trying to keep his balance.

  Something big and angry flashed past her with lightning speed, grabbed the drunken jackal, lifted him off his feet, and hurled him into the bushes.

  “You okay?” Carver asked, as the jackal crawled out of the bushes with a whimper. The jackal glanced over his shoulder with a fearful look and then ran for his life.

  Carver walked over to her, his hair slightly mussed, which made him look even sexier. He had a hint of stubble on his jaw, and his thick brows were drawn together in anger as he glared at the running jackal.

  “Carver, for God’s sake. He didn’t lay a paw on me, and if he had I would have kicked his butt.” Virginia shook her head, annoyed. “I’m glad you didn’t injure him, because I already had to heal one idiot today.”

  “Are you actually saying that you would have healed that loser?” Carver asked incredulously.

  “Of course,” Virginia said, with a hint of impatience. “I am a healer. That is my obligation and my calling. Besides, he was just drunk; he was basically harmless.”

  Then she tipped her head back to glare up at him. “What are you even doing here? I thought you were inside dancing with your new girlfriend.”

  To her annoyance, Carver looked amused. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you have a problem with me dancing with another woman?”

  “I have a problem with the fact that you keep deliberately scaring off every man who comes near me, and you can’t seem to stand seeing me dance with anybody else, but it’s fine for you to dance with whatever throws itself at you.”

  His smile stretched wider. “My, my, Miss Virginia. That sounds like jealousy. I’m flattered.”

  “I most definitely am not jealous.”

  “As for my scaring off men who want to dance with you, all I’m doing is standing there and looking. Is it so wrong for me to be concerned about the company you keep?”

  “It’s none of your business, is what it is. I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself, or at least I would be able to if you and my entire family weren’t constantly following me around interfering in everything I do.”

  “You are lucky to be so universally loved.” Carver grinned at her.

  “Universally stalked is more like it,” Virginia said angrily.

  “I do understand why your family wants to keep an eye on you. Given what happened,” he said, surprising her. So now he was siding with her crazy brothers?

  Several years earlier, someone had tried to kidnap her when she’d been out for a run by herself. It had turned out that the would-be kidnappers had been human military who knew about shifters and had been kidnapping shifters with mutations from all over the country.

  Those humans had all been wiped out now. She still felt that dark shadow hovering over her, still looked over her shoulder more often than she cared to admit, and checked her closet and under her bed before she went to sleep. But she couldn’t keep living as if she needed a group of bodyguards all the time.

  She shook her head. “That was years ago, and the threat is gone. And dance with whoever the hell you want. We’re not an item.”

  “And isn’t that a shame?” Carver said. He had somehow moved closer to her without her even noticing. She couldn’t help but draw his scent into her nostrils, and that sent her inner wolf crazy, howling with need. She went rigid with the effort of not rubbing up against him.

  “Trust me, Carver, you’re not my type,” she said through clenched teeth. “I am done with Alpha men bossing me around and trying to run every aspect of my life.”

  “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Carver said. “I’m only bossy in certain areas.”

  “What areas?”

  Now why had she asked him that? She already knew she’d regret it.

  He leaned down. “Oh, I think you know, Virginia,” he breathed into her ear. “You want to hear me say it, don’t you? Good, I like that. The bedroom. I always dominate in the bedroom. I’m quite old-fashioned there. In fact I believe in spankings for my woman when she’s been naughty.”

  The rush of desire that flooded Virginia’s body left her speechless. Her panties were suddenly drenched, and the skin on her arms was goose-pimpled as the hair stood straight up.

  “Of course, I would never, never take a woman against her will,” his low voice growled into her ear, his hot breath tickling her. “I would wait for that woman to come to her senses and come to me when she is willing to admit to herself how badly she wants it.”

  Virginia felt herself flushing self-consciously. She knew that Carver could scent how much he turned her on.

  She should leave right now before she did something she’d regret. She really needed to. Right now. Instead she found she was rooted to the spot. Her stupid feet wouldn’t obey the orders her brain was frantically telegraphing.

  A sudden, crazy thought occurred to her. What if Sally was right and she should just get it out of her system? What if she went home with Carver, just this one time, screwed his brains out and then left? It would be like bingeing on chocolate until she was sick of it. That would work, wouldn’t it? Or was it just her hormones talking? She couldn’t think straight at all.

  Carver wasn’t moving. He wasn’t coming closer; he wasn’t backing off.

  The hell with it, she thought. Just one night wouldn’t be so bad. She hadn’t been with anyone in a long time, which was the only explanation for how incredibly aroused she was right now. She might as well use Carver the way he clearly wanted to use her.

  Then she would go to the casino with Sally next Friday, and from now on they’d go hang out there on weekends instead of at the Zoo.

  “Okay,” she said to Carver. “Fine. Just one night. Let’s do this. Let’s get it out of our systems and then never speak again.”

  Carver shook his head. “Nope,” he said.

  “Nope?” She echoed disbelievingly. “What the hell? Did you seriously just turn me down? Isn’t this what you’ve been after ever since you first laid eyes on me?”

  “You’ll figure it out.” He turned and walked away, leaving her standing behind him, fuming. She blinked back tears of anger and humiliation. Not only that, but she final
ly understood what men meant when they talked about “blue balls”.

  She was about to scream something really insulting at his back when she saw Pierce walking towards his car with an ebony-haired jaguar shifter. Well, that hadn’t taken him long.

  With Pierce there, she couldn’t yell anything at Carver, or run after him and confront him, because she didn’t want to start a fight between Pierce and Carver.

  Instead she climbed into her car and raced home.

  Once she got there she went through an entire dishware set, hurling it against the wall and screaming and swearing and stomping her feet. She was never setting foot in the Zoo again. She was utterly mortified, which was obviously what Carver had wanted. First he’d danced with another woman in front of her, then he’d actually had the nerve to turn her down and walk away.

  Fine. She was glad she hadn’t ended up going home with him; he didn’t deserve her. And she couldn’t wait to go to the casino next week.

  * * *

  Jab. Jab. Carver slammed his fist into the punching bag so hard that he rocked it with every blow. Sweat plastered his hair to his scalp and trickled down his forehead. He blinked it out of his eyes and kept punching.

  He’d hung up a punching bag in the living room of the in-law apartment he was renting. It was attached to the main house of a couple who lived in a suburb of Timber Valley. He did handyman work on the property to pay his rent, and worked as an auxiliary deputy for the sheriff’s department.

  He’d taken a cold shower and indulged himself in a very unsatisfying jerk-off session, during which he’d pictured Virginia the whole time. Oh, how he’d been tempted to accept her offer. Just thinking about it sent the blood rushing to his crotch again.

  His front door opened; like most shifters, he didn’t bother to lock his doors. For an Alpha, that would be a sign of weakness.

  His landlord, Bert Thompson, stood there yawning and rubbing his eyes.

  Carver stopped punching and took a step back, breathing heavily. He grabbed a towel from a side table and mopped his forehead.