Alphas of Storm Isle
(The Complete Boxed Set: Books 1-5)
By Sophie Chevalier
Copyright 2015 Enamored Ink
Join Sophie Chevalier’s newsletter for your FREE copy of Choosing Her Alpha, a debut from fellow author Scarlett Rhone!
Click here to get yours: www.enamoredink.com
Table of Contents
(Alphas of Storm Isle: Parts 1-5)
Part 1: Courting Rivals
Part 2: Charmed by the Growls
Part 3: Stranded with Shifters
Part 4: Between a Boss and a Beast
Part 5: Taming Two Bears
Courting Rivals
(Alphas of Storm Isle: Part 1)
By Sophie Chevalier
Table of Contents
(Part 1: Courting Rivals)
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Prologue
The old man and old woman sat far back from the shore, at the fringe of the dense forest. They were listening to the waves crash, the shorebirds chatter, and the western wind roar.
Drift logs lined the beach; flocks of excited black turnstones hopped among the sea-battered sandstone rocks; double-crested cormorants watched the rough ocean closely, spreading their wings to dry in the sun. It was early winter, and cold on the islands.
Someone was coming up the beach, leaning on an ash staff. The man and woman traded a look.
“Riona,” the stranger said ingratiatingly, when he had come close enough; he was a grey-haired man, although not very old, and one of his eyes was white. “Torin. Respected elders.”
Torin grunted; he was white-bearded, but still powerfully built. Riona—handsome, and willowy as a girl, even given her age—said nothing. Both wore shag cloaks.
“I know you do not support my claim,” the stranger wheedled, smiling an unpleasant smile. “You would prefer MacAlister. Or even Beaumont. I know.”
“Begone, Gunnar,” Torin snapped. “You spoil a fine morning.”
“But I ask you: how can a man who spends his life in a human city, doing human business, lead us?”
“We have had this discussion,” Riona said, quietly and coolly.
“Furthermore, I ask: how can an unmated man lead us? Would you have no woman at his side, Riona? No woman to be Alpha with her man?”
“I told you to leave,” Torin growled, bristling; gold flashed in his rheumy eyes.
“I just wanted to remind you of his deficiencies, respected elders. I have spent my life among the clans, deep in the wilderness—where we belong. I am fit to lead. I know our affairs.”
“You have no mate, either,” Riona pointed out, her face stony.
“Would any woman have him?” Torin muttered.
“One will!” the man declared. “I will find a mate first. Before MacAlister. Before Beaumont. And then you will have no grounds to dispute my suit. I will find a woman, a shrewd and beautiful woman, a fine woman, and I will be Alpha. I will find a woman, a mate, and then I will be fittest to lead us—the most manful, the most established, the most responsible. Even you two won’t deny it.”
They stared at him, leadenly.
Suddenly, Torin leapt to his feet, rose his arms, and roared—like an animal, scattering birds up and down the beach—
“Come back when you have this woman!”
Chapter 1
Ginger had silenced her alarm an hour ago, more to avoid the day than to keep sleeping. But now it was going off again—loud, staccato breep breep breeps—the sun was streaming in through her room curtains, and the smell of French vanilla coffee was filling the apartment. That meant Laila was up. It was time for her to get up too.
Stiffly, reluctantly, she sat up and stretched. Her back cracked in several places.
“Ugh. Like fishbones,” she muttered, sore.
Throwing off her pilled, scuzzy covers, she crossed the room, opened her door, and padded into the kitchen.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Laila said over her shoulder as she took a cup of fancy yogurt from the fridge.
“Morning.” Ginger could see that her own shelves in the fridge were almost out of food. She didn’t want to bum another of Laila’s yogurts or string cheeses; she’d just go without if there was no breakfast stuff left.
“Looking sexy,” Laila teased, closing the fridge.
Ginger glanced down at her animal-print onesie. “What? You don’t think men love a lazy zebra?”
Laila laughed, pouring her expensive coffee from the pot into a thermos. She always looked sexy, in her impeccable makeup and tailored suits, her hair pin-straight and dark as onyx, her skin ginger-brown and dewy. “How’d the search go?”
Ginger shrugged, eyeing the apples in the fruit bowl. A long night of checking the job listings on Monster.com, Craigslist, and the Seattle Times classifieds had left her bleary-eyed and pessimistic. “Whole Foods needs baggers.”
Laila clucked. “Ish, that’s not ideal, is it?”
Of course not—but Ginger had been chronically underemployed since graduation, two and a half years ago. An unpaid intern at the corporate office of a fair-trade chocolate company. Personal assistant to the senior designer of a hemp-based organic-fiber fashion house. Front-desk girl and greeter at an upscale salon. Pizza deliverer. And, most recently, nanny for a family where both parents worked full-time in Seattle’s tech sector—until she was replaced by a glamorous au pair who could teach the kids Danish and German. Ginger only spoke a little bit of French.
She was really starting to regret that major in Journalism and minor in Medieval Studies. Laila had been smart, getting an undergrad degree in Business and then zooming through law school: now she was gainfully—very gainfully—employed. Gainfully enough employed that she was moving out when the lease was up, in three months, and Ginger would be scrambling for a place to live. Maybe she could fight the bums down at the intersection for the choicest spot under the overpass.
“Maybe not, but I need some money. My savings are getting pathetic and—”
“Have an apple,” Laila interrupted. “I bought them for you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Ginger sighed, but she took an apple anyway. It was a Red Delicious, her favorite.
“You know,” Laila said, watching her take a bite, “I might be able to help.”
Ginger winced. Laila had helped her enough already—buying extra groceries, extending the lease last summer for Ginger’s sake, texting Ginger’s parents that everything was fine, smiley-face! “Laila…”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
Laila rolled her eyes, then lifted a wrist to check her watch. It was a sparkling Movado, a graduation present from her parents. Ginger had gotten a Barnes and Noble gift certificate and a charm bracelet. “I’m not saying you could get hired as a lawyer. But there are some openings at the firm that you’d be a decent fit for. They’re looking for internal applicants, but, you know, if you just slip me your resume, I can get you in the candidate pool…”
“What kind of openings?” Ginger asked, crunching through the apple.
“Secretarial, mostly. But there’s one for a personal assistant.”
“I don’t know if I’m qualified to be a lawyer’s PA.”
“You’ve been a PA before, at that fashion hous
e. You could do it again. It wouldn’t be that different.” Laila stared at her, penetratingly, with her big brown eyes. “Email me your resume. I’ll print it out at work and get it into the right hands.”
“I’m not sure, Laila—”
“I’m sure for you. Email me the resume.” She grabbed her Coach bag off the counter of the kitchen island. “I have to run. If you don’t email me, we’re not best friends anymore.”
“Yeah, like I believe that threat.” Ginger had to smile.
Laila winked. “I don’t make idle threats. See you later, Ginj.”
Ginger did it. Why not? She could use all the help she could get. She emailed Laila her resume, then spent the rest of the day emailing it pell-mell to everywhere else. H&M: fine. Starbucks: fine. Whole Foods: fine. Ikea: fine. Target: fucking fine.
She even called a dog-walking service to see if they needed anyone else, but they didn’t. How was that possible? Didn’t Seattle have a dog obsession? There were more dogs than kids in Seattle, for fuck’s sake. How could they not need someone?
Around one she had to field a Skype call from her busybody grandmother, a hawkish old woman who spent the whole time rhapsodizing about Ginger’s brother, Brody, and how well he was doing working for Pfizer in Shanghai.
“He’s just getting on amazingly,” she’d enthused, pointedly, her cockatiels screeching behind her. “I think it’s wonderful the way he’s taken to China. It’s so foreign, isn’t it? So foreign. But that doesn’t bother your brother. No, not at all. He’s making us all proud, Ginger. All of us.”
By the time Laila got home, around seven, Ginger was curled into a world-hating ball on their couch, staring glassily at the TV. TLC had been on for hours, but she’d barely noticed it, much less watched any of the shows. The stress was too much.
“Hi, hon. Did you have dinner—or lunch?” Laila asked cannily, shucking off her coat and throwing it over the sofa back. “I got takeout.”
Ginger had had neither. “You’re a saint, Laila. You know that, right?”
“Yep, I know. It’s Thai, come on. There’s bean thread soup, shrimp salad, and chicken himmapan—good stuff. Oh”—her voice was still casual—“and I got you an interview, too.”
Ginger sat bolt upright, lightning-struck. From the mischievous twinkle in Laila’s eyes, she’d intentionally kept Ginger in suspense; she grinned.
“Shut up!” Ginger hissed.
“No, I did! Really!”
“For what position?” Ginger scrambled up onto her knees on the sofa cushions.
“The personal assistant one. It fits best with your resume.”
Ginger grabbed one of the couch pillows and swung it at Laila, giddy. “No! Way!”
Laila squealed, dodging. “Yes way! Put that down. Let’s celebrate. I got us cupcakes from the Royale, not just dinner. And some wine!”
“That’s a little premature, isn’t it?” Ginger asked, laughing. “I’m not hired yet.”
Laila gave her a long, piercing look.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just—I wouldn’t worry too much.” Laila smiled, slightly. “You’re exactly his type.”
Chapter 2
“Shit!” Ginger turned her leg to observe the damage: she’d pulled the tights on so fast that she’d made a run in them. “Fuccck.”
Furiously, she shimmied them off, then tore through her dresser looking for another pair. “Aw, man… do these all have runs?” Why hadn’t she thrown them away, if they were no good?!
Her interview was at eleven; it was nine thirty now. She was running late to get from Fremont into the business district.
Laila was telecommuting today, advising a client in London via video chat and compiling some personal papers. Ginger rushed over into her room, sliding on the wood flooring.
“Laila!”
“Ginger!” Laila looked up from a handsome folder full of documents, sitting cross-legged on the edge of her beautifully made bed. “What’s going on?”
“My tights—they’re all—I need to borrow some.”
Laila stared at her hard. “You can’t go like that.”
“I know! Bare-legged, I know. I need some tights. I—”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean you can’t go in wearing your little off-the-rack J. Crew suit. I thought you had something nicer.”
There was a pause. “What?” Ginger asked, stung. “What’s wrong with my—”
“It’s an important firm. You understand me? We advise corporate clients. Corporate. Clients.”
“I know that—”
“Microsoft. Corbis. Amazon. Starbucks. White Pages. Redfin. Zillow. Vulcan. F5.” Her eyes were burning a hole in Ginger’s face. “You can’t wear something like that. You have to look the part.”
“But—you said it yourself—that it’s not like I’m interviewing to be a lawyer.” Ginger knew she was flushing: she could feel her face getting hot. The Irish glow, her mother called it. It had always embarrassed her. “So—it’s… I don’t… so…”
“So you can borrow something of mine.” Laila set the folder aside. “Come on—strip down. Let’s make you presentable.”
Ginger stared at her, blankly.
Laila snapped her fingers. “I mean it! Everything off! We’ve got a lot of work to do!”
As soon as the elevator doors closed, Ginger used the mirrored walls to check her outfit: pulling down the skirt, readjusting the shoulders of the jacket, pinching her pantyhose to resettle the inline seam. She felt grossly underqualified to be wearing a Burberry suit, borrowed from Laila or not.
The receptionist on the ground floor had told her the other candidates had already gone up: she was just—just—on the right side of late. Another two minutes and she would have been out of the running. As it was, she’d had to splurge on a cab to get here in time; parking around Pioneer Square was a fucking nightmare, and she knew she wouldn’t have the thirty-five spare minutes to deal with it.
She willed herself not to sweat through her deodorant as she studied her face in the brassily reflective doors. Men told her it was an attractive face; to her, it just looked like her face.
Laila had ended up wiping off and redoing her makeup—lining the hazel eyes in soft, natural brown, brushing the lightest bronzer imaginable onto the pale cheekbones, thickening the brows ever so slightly with a pencil. She’d also redone Ginger’s hair. Ginger’s instinct had been to go severe, so she’d clipped it into a low, tight ponytail, but Laila had insisted she should keep it feminine and pretty instead. So Laila had taken out the clip—freeing all those orange-gold waves—and left Ginger’s hair down, adding only a Dutch waterfall braid to the back.
“Trust me,” she’d said, smiling cattishly. “It will go over well.”
Ginger hoped so.
There was a ding, and the elevator opened.
Cautiously, she stepped out. To her right was a sort of waiting room, outside what was obviously an office, but all the waiting chairs looked like they were made of Italian leather. She swallowed.
Trying not to wobble on her borrowed heels, and trying not to look too nervous, she went to one of the chairs and sat down.
The other candidates were young men, both of them. She glanced at them; they looked like typical rich-kid pukes, social climbers. One of them smirked at her.
She looked away, ignoring him.
It was very quiet. There was nothing for Ginger to do but consider her surroundings surreptitiously. The walls were mahogany-paneled, the carpets expensive orientals; the magazines on the side table next to her chair were Forbes, Jurist, the Wall Street Journal, and Businessweek.
Everything was so upscale. She’d worked at fancy businesses before, but not like this. This was a multibillion-dollar firm, and it showed. Shaken, Ginger crossed and recrossed her legs; she heard a snide chuckle from one of the boys seated across from her. As far as they were concerned, they were only competing with each other.
And maybe that was true. She certainly felt out
of her depth.
In her head, she ran through everything Laila had told her about the man needing an assistant. She knew he was successful, almost the most successful attorney at the firm; that he was young, just thirty-four; that he had degrees from Harvard and Berkeley; that some people found him intimidating, even difficult; and that Laila, for whatever reason, was dead certain Ginger was perfect for his needs.
But was she? Her pulse throbbed with anxiety.
There was a smooth click; the door to the office had opened. Instinctively, Ginger jumped to her feet—as did the two young men.
She heard a snatch of conversation—a rich voice saying, “Let’s keep on top of it. Now, I’ve got to review these applicants”—and saw two men step out of the office, one of them striding off to other work.
And the other man—the other man.
She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a more attractive man.
He was tall, taller than her: just over six feet, the perfect height. He was broad-shouldered, too, and she could tell—even wearing a suit, a suit even she could tell was Armani—that he was muscular, hard-bodied, strong. Proud nose. Impeccable, commanding posture. Strong-jawed, with light brown hair and designer stubble. A Rolex flashed on his wrist.
But it was his eyes that fascinated her the most. Their inner ring was hot gold, their outer ring bright, piercing hickory-brown. She’d never seen eyes like that.
Obscenely, irrepressibly, she was turned on.
He came closer to the candidates—he had a firm, authoritative way of moving—and let his eyes sweep briefly, almost dismissively over the men. They settled, with interest, on Ginger.
She gazed at him, as coolly as she could. He gazed back.
“You’re Laila Majumdar’s friend, are you?” he asked, his voice deliciously masculine. It was deep, confident—alpha.
Yes, that was what he was: alpha.
“I am,” Ginger heard herself say, with surprisingly calm considering how gorgeous he was.
“I’m—”
Alphas of Storm Isle (Complete Boxed Set: Books 1-5): Werebear Shifter Menage Romance Page 1