Alpha Wolf (Shifter Falls Book 4)

by Amy Green

  She looked around this horrible, half-ruined room, and suddenly she knew the answer. As if he were standing here, she knew exactly what Brody would want.

  “This house,” she said. “Burn it down.”

  None of them even flinched. Ian shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “We can do that.”

  It was good, sometimes, to have werewolves for brothers-in-law.

  “Nothing of value here, anyway,” Heath agreed.

  “One thing of value, actually,” Devon said. “I found an old suitcase behind a bookshelf in the other room.”

  “A bookshelf?” Heath stared at him, incredulous. “Charlie never read a book in his life.”

  “I know,” Devon said. “That’s why it looked so fucking suspicious. So while Alison was crying, I moved the shelf to see what it was hiding. And there’s a suitcase. It’s full of money.”

  “How much?” Ian asked.

  Devon shrugged. “How should I fucking know? Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds. Take your own guess.”

  “All right,” Heath said. “So we don’t burn that. But the rest of it goes. And when we’re done here, we regroup at the house and start the plan to get Brody out of that shithole.”

  “Idle hands are the devil’s work,” Devon said. “Let’s do it.”

  19

  Larkhaven Laboratories was set on the edge of the woods, its clinical, harsh windows looking into the depths of the trees. It was surrounded by a high fence, electrified and topped with coils of barbed wire—a strange feature for a medical laboratory, but no one ever came to Larkhaven to question it. The research subjects who came there against their will, animal or human, certainly never had a say.

  Security was tight—many of Larkhaven’s human research subjects were, as their files said, unstable—but it wasn’t flawless. No one seriously tried to get out of Larkhaven once they went in. And no one, certainly, ever tried to get in.

  The lab’s laundry had seven employees. One day one of them didn’t come to work, and a replacement came in his place. The replacement was Devon Donovan, big and bearded and silent. He appeared in the laundry that morning, wearing work scrubs like the other employees and putting something in one of the employee lockers.

  Another employee came in, opening his own locker and looking warily at Devon. “Help you?” he asked.

  “I’m replacing Peter today,” Devon said without looking up. “He’s sick.”

  “Did you get a credential pass from the front desk?”

  “Sure,” Devon said. “I got that.” He slammed the locker and left the room.

  In the drying and folding room, where the patients’ clothes and linens were prepped, Devon Donovan walked in and began folding piles. He worked in swift silence. The other employee working in the room watched from the corner of his eye, then turned to him. “Hey,” he said.

  Devon moved to another pile of laundry. He touched it, inhaled softly. Wrong pile. He moved to the next one.

  “Hey,” the man said again.

  “Yeah?” Devon said without looking up, moving to the next pile. He inhaled again. Yes. This was the right one. There was a clear bag next to it that had the number 36 marked on it. Patient 36 owned these clothes.

  “I don’t think I know you,” the man said, coming closer.

  “I’m Peter’s replacement,” Devon said.

  “I don’t see an ID tag,” the man said.

  Devon turned to him. “My mistake,” he said, and knocked the man’s head against the wall—gently, so as not to kill him. When the man fell unconscious, Devon went back to the locker room, pulled a piece of clothing from the locker where he’d stashed it, and came back. He tucked it into the bag marked 36, making sure to hide it from view. Then he turned and left.

  Eventually, they raised the alarm. But by then, all that was left of Devon was a set of scrubs left empty at the edge of the woods, and there was no other trace of a man at all.

  20

  Brody had no idea how long it had been. There were no windows here. He had a beard now, because they wouldn’t let him have a razor, so he knew it was at least two weeks. Of all the things they’d done to him—and there were many—he fucking hated the beard the most. It itched and drove him crazy.

  It wasn’t easy, being a medical experiment. They injected him with things, gave him pills. Nothing had any effect on him, but he had to pretend otherwise, because it was camouflage to appear weak. If they knew exactly how strong he was, they would probably try to kill him. And since that wouldn’t be easy—there were only a few select ways to kill a werewolf—it would be a very long process of trial and error that he had no desire to experience. He had to bide his time.

  They fed him, then starved him, then fed him again. They put a raw, dead rabbit in front of him, as if they thought he’d eat it just like that, as a human. They sent in a psychiatrist, but Brody wouldn’t speak. They tried electric shocks on him, which hurt like a motherfucker, but not for long. He had to stay buckled over in pretend agony so they wouldn’t know. Because there were the cameras, always the cameras, watching him all the time.

  He’d nearly lost it more than once. That first day, when he’d ripped the camera from the wall—he allowed himself that little tantrum, but no more. He didn’t want his captors on high alert. He wanted them relaxed, like they had won. Like nothing was going to happen.

  Something was going to happen.

  He could feel his brothers closer here, feel Alison closer here. And this morning, when the orderly came in and injected a needle into his arm as the cameras watched, he could smell Devon. Somewhere near. Not near enough, but near.

  He looked at the orderly with dark eyes. Then he looked up at the camera. Then he looked away.

  After the injection, they sent him back to his cell—which had a new camera installed—and he lay on the cot, staring at the ceiling. As usual, the injection had done nothing to him at all, but he closed his eyes. After an hour, another orderly came by and took away his bag of dirty laundry, replacing it with a bag of clean laundry. The orderly left.

  Brody could smell Alison.

  His wolf woke up. He hadn’t been able to change in the weeks since he’d been captured, and his wolf was miserable about it, but most of the time he could put the wolf to sleep. Wait, he’d tell it. Your time will come. Not now. But with the apple scent of Alison in his cell, his wolf roared to life. Brody’s eyes opened. He had the urge to rip the camera from the wall again, break down the door, and kill anyone who got in the way between him and his mate.

  He breathed deeply for a minute, letting his human side think. It was the laundry bag. Casually, he sat up and emptied it, aware that he was being watched.

  Buried in the clean scrubs was a scrap of familiar fabric. A t-shirt with flowers on the front. Alison’s shirt.

  Brody took the shirt and lay on the cot, curling to his side, pressing the fabric to his face. This was a message, and it was clear: We are coming. Today. It didn’t matter how or when; he’d be ready. Today was the day. This was all the message he needed.

  Alison’s scent—it was a drug more powerful than any needle they’d put in him. It made him high, wild, briefly happy. She smelled beautiful and clean and feminine. She smelled like sex and kisses. He lay with the shirt against his face, no longer caring who was watching, and lost himself for a long minute.

  Then he realized that there was a second message. Embedded in Alison’s scent. It hit him like a bolt of thunder.

  Alison was near. His mate. His woman.

  And she was pregnant.

  21

  As dusk fell, an eagle flew high above the trees. He circled Larkhaven, swift and silent, unnoticed by those below. He carried in his claws something that looked like a tree branch, but wasn’t.

  He soared lower, then lower again. As the sun dipped below the horizon, he dropped the metal conductor he was holding in his claws onto the top of the fence as he passed over it. The resulting electrical shortage was swift, and as sparks flew into the sky like fi
reworks, shouts could be heard from the guards. The eagle, whose name was Shep Wilson when he was in human form in Shifter Falls, flew away on silent wings.

  The electric fence made a sad hum, then was silent. Inside Larkhaven, the lights flickered and went out, along with the closed circuit cameras and the electric locks on the cells.

  There was a generator system, of course. It was state of the art. Except for the fence—which was damaged—the power in Larkhaven was out for exactly eleven seconds before it came back on. The closed circuit, the lights, and the locks all came fully online.

  Eleven seconds.

  Plenty of time.

  By the time the power was on again, Brody Donovan was already loose.

  The sheriff of Grant County was named Gary MacKenzie. He had replaced the former sheriff, Nadine Walker, when Nadine had taken up with a shifter and left town. Technically she’d resigned, but everyone knew she’d been fired, and Gary—the mayor’s pick—was put in her place.

  Gary had a girlfriend, but they’d had a big fight, and after his shift he went for a beer instead of going home. He sat in the bar until nightfall, shooting the shit with the people he knew who came and went. Everyone saw him. At ten, slightly looped, he left the bar and got in his pickup truck to go home.

  People saw that, too. They saw Gary get in his truck and pull away. They didn’t see the man lying on his back in the truck bed, beneath the canvas tarp.

  A mile out of Pierce Point, the man pushed the tarp off and sat up. He leaned over the side of the truck and yanked the driver’s side door open. Startled, Gary shouted as the wheel turned and the truck went into the ditch. It didn’t hit that hard—Gary hadn’t been driving all that fast—but it hit hard enough for the air bag to deploy, shoving Gary back against the driver’s side seat and temporarily dazing him.

  While Gary blinked and recovered, Ian Donovan got out of the truck bed, came around to the driver’s side, and pulled Gary from the car. He threw Gary over his shoulder and walked away, silently into the trees.

  Michael Archer, Pierce Point’s mayor, was in bed when Gary MacKenzie’s truck went off the road. He had just enjoyed some excellent sex—ten whole minutes of satisfaction—when his bedroom door opened and a strange man walked in.

  Neither Archer nor his partner had a chance to scream before the man put a hand to the woman’s throat, his thumb pressed under her jaw as he pinned her firmly to the pillow.

  “Get dressed,” Heath Donovan said to the mayor, “or I snap her neck.”

  The mayor gaped at him. The woman made a frightened sound.

  “I’m a werewolf, Mayor,” Heath said. “You think I won’t do it? Get dressed and I’ll let her go.”

  Archer got his bare ass out of bed and pulled on pants and a shirt while Heath held the woman still. He would never have harmed her—he wasn’t even hurting her now—but Archer didn’t know that. It was useful, sometimes, to have a reputation as a bloodthirsty killer.

  When Archer had some clothes on, Heath let the terrified woman go and stood up. “Perfect,” he said. “I notice this isn’t your wife.”

  “Fuck you, werewolf,” Archer said.

  “Right.” Heath punched Archer once on the jaw, just the right angle and strength to knock him to the floor. Then he picked the unconscious man up and slung him over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing.

  “Try a werewolf next time,” he said to the woman as he left the room. “We’re better in bed.” Then, without another word, he was gone.

  22

  Brody had spent the day ready. He was sitting on the edge of his cot, silent and still, when the lights first flickered. He could sense his brothers near, something happening. He had never felt so awake in his life.

  The lights went out, and there was a soft click as the lock on his cell door retracted. That was all he needed. Brody shot off his cot and out the door, sprinting down the corridor, pushing aside anyone in his way. He was much faster than any human, and he could see in the dark. Sensing freedom, he ran through the maze of Larkhaven, down one corridor and then another, toward the front lobby.

  He had just reached it when the lights came on again. There were shouts, footfalls behind him. Humans were painfully slow. The front door—the door to freedom—was locked, sealed with a keypad. Swift and silent, Brody raced to the front security desk, knocked over the shouting guard sitting behind it, and ripped the emergency pass from his belt. These fools thought a dumb animal hadn’t noticed the emergency pass on every guard’s belt from the first day. They were wrong.

  Shoving the guard aside, he ran to the front door, swiped the pass, and sprinted out into the front lot, heading for the fence. He was barefoot, wearing only scrubs, and he moved so fast that later examination of the security footage would show only a blur. The fence was still sparking, but the electricity hadn’t come back to it. Brody climbed it, hooking his bare feet into the chain link.

  Behind him, some guard finally had the presence of mind to shoot at him. He missed. Brody hit the top of the fence, where there were coils of barbed wire. He vaulted himself over, catching the side of one calf on the wire, ripping his scrubs and ripping open the skin. He swung down to the other side of the fence, climbed down, jumped the last ten feet, and ran again, the wound already healing.

  They shot at him some more. They missed.

  Brody vanished into the trees, tore off the scrubs, then ran naked, faster and faster. At an inhuman sped he leapt into the air, and then he was his wolf for the first time in three long weeks. His wolf paws hit the ground and now he ran as his animal was meant to run, the rough terrain of the woods, the dark, the cold—all of it nothing to him. He tore through the forest at top speed, going back to his pack, his brothers, his mate, his child.

  Overhead, Shep the eagle appeared again. Brody took note and followed him. They didn’t head directly for Shifter Falls, or for Brody’s house. He longed to go home, but it wasn’t time yet. His brothers still had other plans first.

  He could smell his brothers now—all three of them. Their scents were growing stronger and stronger. They were close. Mixed in were two unfamiliar human scents, laced with fear. There was no blood scent. At least, not yet.

  When he entered a clearing in the dark, he saw a neat pile of clothes on the ground. Shep wheeled sharply and flew away, toward home. Brody changed back into a human and picked up the clothes.

  He put on the underwear and jeans, then picked up the shirt. It was his shirt, but it smelled like Alison. A deliberate gesture. She’d put this shirt on, then taken it off again before it was left here. Another message from her. I’m close. Keep going. Don’t quit.

  He put it on, reveling in her scent. It was icy cold now, the cold of a late November night, but there were no socks or shoes in the pile, no coat. He didn’t need them.

  When he had finished, he left the clearing and walked toward his brothers’ scents, which were strong now. He found another clearing, with all three of his brothers in it. All three were in wolf form: Devon’s hulking black wolf, Ian’s smaller and sleeker wolf, Heath’s lighter, handsomer wolf. They were standing guard over two men sitting on the ground, their hands tied, blindfolds over their eyes. The sources of the strange scents and the fear.

  Ignoring his brothers—though he was very fucking happy to see them—he stepped forward and ripped the blindfolds off the men. He recognized them instantly as the Pierce Point mayor and the Grant County sheriff, respectively. He knew their faces from the news articles Alison had shown him, the press conferences.

  This was his brothers’ gift to him, then. Escape, and now his enemies, tied up and helpless. Perfect.

  The sheriff, Gary MacKenzie, was the first to recognize his captor in the dark, with his new-grown beard. “Brody Donovan,” he said, the fear even stronger in his voice.

  Next to him, the mayor hissed a startled breath. “Jesus. You’re right.”

  “Here I am,” Brody said, letting them see that he was free and unharmed. “Who wants to die first?”
<
br />   Mayor Archer gave a frightened moan in the back of his throat.

  His brothers circled the clearing. Brody saw Devon’s big wolf pad behind the prisoners, felt Ian pace behind him. Heath approached and sat next to Brody, his head almost as tall as Brody’s shoulder, looking at the prisoners as if waiting for a cue.

  “We can do it quick or slow,” Brody said. “Up to you. I have to say, after three weeks locked up courtesy of you two, I’m not feeling particularly charitable. Especially after the electric shocks.”

  “Listen,” MacKenzie said. “Donovan. What happened wasn’t personal, and—”

  “Not personal, huh?” Brody said. “You mean, arresting me, locking me up without charges, then sending me to a fucking research lab—that wasn’t personal? Because it felt personal to me. Don’t get me wrong.” He stepped forward, dropped to a crouch, his forearms resting on his knees as he regarded the prisoners. “I know you two don’t hate me. The mayor has an election to win, and you, Sheriff, need the mayor in order to keep your job. Just politics as usual, right? Who cares if a wolf gets caught in the crossfire?”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” the mayor broke in. “It was Gary’s. And now that Carson Dunne is dead—”

  “Shut up.” MacKenzie glared at him. “You’re going to get me fucking killed.” He turned and saw Devon’s wolf, standing next to him, his gaze lowered and hungry. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “Here’s what I think,” Brody said. “You two had an opportunity land in your lap when the Silverman got killed, and you decided to take it. Use shifters to win your election. Stir up fear and hate. Hell, even arrest the alpha as a show of power. Send him away where no one will ever find him again. That was Plan B when Carson threw himself on a bullet. How much money did you get for me as a research subject, by the way?”

  Mayor Archer went white. “I didn’t—”