Alpha Call

by BA Tortuga

  Alpha Call

  BA Tortuga

  Wendy doesn’t need any help to get rid of her evil ex. As a cop, she can handle anything life throws at her. In fact, she’s sure of it, even when trying to capture the ex alone puts her friends in danger. Too bad local werewolf alpha Brett has different ideas. He doesn’t care if Wendy wants to be a lone wolf. He has to protect all the werewolves in his town. Including her. Especially her.

  Wendy finds Brett irritating, overbearing and sexy beyond belief. Brett thinks Wendy is trouble with a capital T, and hotter than the dog days of summer. Butting heads can be fun, but there are other ways to rub against each other. Intimate, lusty ways. These two sexy shapeshifters are playing to win.

  A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Alpha Call

  BA Tortuga

  Chapter One

  The sting when Brett, the big alpha of Boulder’s local Packlands, popped her ass shocked Wendy down to the bone and she snarled, her inner wolf overcoming her inner cop in a fierce rush, everything in her reminding her that she wasn’t part of a pack. Any pack. The tiny burst of pain distracted her from the growing panic that she had been investigating the wrong perpetrators ever since the attack on Mike last night.

  “You’re lucky I don’t have my sidearm on me, you fuck!” she snarled at Brett, teeth almost snapping at the air.

  “I’m lucky? You probably would have drawn down on Stephanie here in the state you’re in, if it wasn’t for me. I can fucking smell your panic.” Brett bared his teeth at her, growling, as if this was her fault.

  “What’s going on?” Her best friend Stephanie was a sweetheart, a dear little wonder of witchiness, with her potions and rites and the constant scent of sage and rosemary. But some fights were for weres. Alone. And Steph wasn’t a werewolf.

  “I don’t know, but she’s freaking out,” the big alpha said and casually shifted, moving halfway between her and Steph, separating them. That was a classic strategy, but she wasn’t a perp. She was here looking for evidence in Mike’s attack. Sweet, gentle EMT Mike, whose big crime had been taking Stephanie out on a date. Except that wasn’t the case, was it? This wasn’t about Stephanie. This was about Wendy and her past and the reason why she wasn’t part of a pack anymore.

  “I am not freaking out!” Wendy caught herself yelling, that tiny bead of guilt that had been growing since last night when she’d smelled something totally unexpected on Mike’s wound.

  Not feral dogs as the policeman in her had suspected. Not Stephanie’s jealous lovers, Shaw and Jordan, as the wolf in her had expected. No. She’d smelled the bastard who had been her worst nightmare, once upon a time.

  “I don’t…Wendy? Honey?” Stephanie sounded so freaked out, stepping toward her.

  “You just…” Wendy could feel panic creeping up inside her, and by the moon, that made her mad.

  “Stop.” Brett barked, the command in the man’s voice undeniable, fierce.

  Wendy rocked back on her heels and she fought the urge to howl. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” Steph asked and came to her, hugged her tight, and damn, didn’t that make her feel worse? Wendy was the one who had accused Stephanie’s lovers of injuring Mike and now… “What’s wrong, honey? You can tell me.”

  “I don’t know. I thought for sure I wouldn’t ever. This is all my fault.” Apologizing was hard. Wendy hated it.

  “Nonsense.” Stephanie sounded so sure.

  “No. He followed me here. I can smell him now. I thought at the hospital I could, but it was so medicinal. He—” Jack was here. Jack, her crazy ex, had found her again, after so many years.

  “He who?” Brett asked, voice sharp, getting right in her face. God, he was a fine son of a bitch, even if he didn’t know squat about her.

  “It’s not your problem!” Wendy snapped, the guilt about Jack following her here, endangering others, making everything worse.

  “My Packlands, my problem.” Brett’s chest bumped into hers and she was reminded, rather forcefully, that wolf pack alphas were used to getting exactly what they wanted, the information they needed. Now.

  “Guys. Guys, careful.” Stephanie started flailing, her panicky voice scraping along Wendy’s nerves as if it was nails down a chalkboard. Brett grabbed Stephanie by the upper arms, shifting her away with surprisingly gentle hands.

  “You’re an asshole. The goddamn alphas always are. I really need to find a town without a goddamn pack.” Wendy poked Brett in the chest with one finger, acting way braver than she felt.

  Brett’s nostrils flared, then the man’s eyes went bright yellow. “Who is attacking people in my town?”

  The scent of angry male hit her dead on, but it wasn’t Brett. It was another. Not right. Rotten and in wolf form. Jack.

  “Shit!” Brett whirled before she even had a chance to respond, shifting to his own wolf form in a breath, and Wendy knew she knew she couldn’t hold onto her humanity.

  “Wendy?” Steph backed away. “Wendy, oh goddess.”

  Wendy looked at her dearest friend in the whole world. Her oh so human friend. “Go, Steph. Run. You’re just going to get hurt if you stay. I’ll call you.”

  The change took her in a rush, the world turning gray as she hit the ground on her paws, her clothes falling away as she spun to fight the violent bastard who was trying to ruin her life.

  Brett barked, encouraging her to flank Jack as he attacked from the front, going immediately for Jack’s throat. Jack was wickedly smart, though, and deflected the blow, chasing after Stephanie instead.

  No. No way.

  No way.

  They both gave chase, paws digging into the asphalt as they headed out.

  Run! Run!

  Brett’s voice was everywhere, a mantra as they gave chase together. They covered more ground in minutes than she usually did in an entire moon. Her muscles screamed at her, the thin mountain air feeling fiery in Wendy’s lungs as she asked more out of her exhausted muscles. She was in good shape, for goodness sake. Hell, she was in exceptional shape, in both wolf and police form. What god had she pissed off, exactly, to be chasing her abusive, fuzzy, crazy ex through the outskirts of Boulder alongside the grumpy alpha asshole who had messed up her best friend’s life?

  The possibilities were endless, she guessed. She pissed off people all the time; why not gods too?

  Brett nipped at her side, the huge wolf driving her faster as they tried to flank their prey, tried to take down the sorry son of a bitch who had been attacking humans on her beat.

  At least Steph was safe. Stephanie had slipped into the car and locked the doors, leaving them to the chase the kidnapper.

  The interloper. Brett’s thoughts were inside her and she growled at him, even as she ran.

  Fucking Jack, thinking he could hurt innocent people, exposing her to the local alpha. She’d been hiding out in Boulder for years now, never so much as tweaking anyone’s interest, especially any pack’s. She didn’t play the alpha-wolf hierarchy game. Not anymore. Never again.

  They headed into the state park, gaining elevation quickly, leaving the buzz and crackle of the city behind. She heard a girl’s scream up ahead and her companion headed into the underbrush. Great. He was just leaving her to deal with all this shit. God knew if he would be able to double back in time to help and she had no idea where the trail led.

  She spared a moment to wish she had her police department partner, her Glock or some kind of backup, but there hadn’t been time to retrieve any of those things. Hadn’t been the opportunity to call, either, not when the wolf change took her so fast. The beast in her had come to the fore and everything else was left behind.

  And now she was going to have to deal with a scared, possibly infected jogger when she was fuz
zy. Damn it.

  The jogger, a teenaged girl, dangled from a tree, Jack’s teeth around one of her running shoes. Wendy never even slowed, just barreled into him, slamming both of them off the trail, away from the jogger and hard into a copse of pine trees. They thudded against each other and the tree trunks, crashing hard.

  Ow.

  It took a second to catch her breath, to figure out where her feet were, and by then Jack was on her, teeth on her ruff, digging in and shaking her. Brett’s bark hit her ears only about a second before he tore Jack off, biting hard enough that Jack cried out, and then the chase was on again. She guessed Brett knew more about where they were, which stood to reason. He’d been there his whole life; she walked a city beat and headed toward Estes to do her fuzzy days. Her legs tried explaining that she wasn’t built for long high-speed chases, that she wasn’t a horse, and she ignored them, just kept on going.

  Jack spun as they chased him toward a tangle of bark and brush that he couldn’t go over or through. Then he turned and crouched, leaping at her in a move that was too fast to process. Wendy snarled, her paws digging into the soft dirt, hunting purchase for the blow she knew was coming. She knew Jack, knew how he fought, knew how he cheated. Fucking coward.

  She braced herself, head down to protect her throat, and when the connection didn’t happen, she yelped, looked up.

  The pack alpha had intercepted Jack, his teeth flashing and snapping as the two males fought. She was stunned for a moment, absolutely caught by the ferocity, the beauty, the strength of their pure power. Brett was—well, he was huge and amazing.

  Then she fucking shook it off and waded in.

  She’d already played this game, damn it. She wasn’t going to let her guard down again, let either one of the frickin’ males distract her.

  Jack’s teeth sank into her ear and she tugged away, biting his lip, tasting blood. He stumbled back, pushed by the Brett’s teeth and fury, the alpha claiming his territory. Jack tried to hold his own, but there was no real contest. Brett pushed and pushed, growling and snarling, teeth drawing blood with every snap. He pushed Jack, with Wendy’s help, toward the edge of the mesa, where the land dropped off sharply.

  When the ground crumbled underneath him, Jack disappeared with a yelp and a puff of ancient-smelling dust. Wendy and Brett both scrambled back, paws slipping in the dried leaves. One of the huge pine trees came down, the whole thing uprooted by the impromptu landslide, slamming into the ground, the impact enough to daze her, leaving her pawing the fallen tree and coughing.

  When the dust settled, there was sort of a jagged hole, a slippery slope leading down into…darkness and pine needles and earth.

  Wendy put her head down, sniffing hard. There was a hint of Jack, but nothing strong enough to say that he was still down there until she saw his tail disappearing deep into the forest. Wendy shifted abruptly, leaving herself filthy, naked and really fucking cold. “God damn it!”

  Brett shifted too, the motion painfully easy, as if he was shrugging out of a robe. “Well, fuck,” he growled, spitting to one side, just like a man. “He got away.”

  “You think? Really?” She shook her head, ears still ringing from the impact. “I have to get back, get to my squad car and call in some backup. Shit, someone needs to make sure that jogger is okay.” The last thing anyone needed was a crazy rogue wolf running around biting humans.

  “No. I mean, yes, I’ll get someone on it. You, though, you’re coming back with me.” His hand wrapped around her upper arm and Wendy felt her eyebrows rise so high that her forehead actually ached.

  “I’m doing what?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady, even as he pulled her closer, hands rubbing her upper arms, trying to warm her up. Her body responded to the touch and, fuck, didn’t that piss her off? “Get your hands off me.”

  “You’re coming to the Packlands with me. We need to talk.” His eyes were on her breasts, on her aching, hard nipples.

  “Bullshit, you want to talk.” She slapped his hands away, telling herself that she was not interested in a pushy, growly alpha male. “I’m going to go to my car, get clothes on and find that fucker so I can rip his tail off.”

  The alpha gave her a look, one that, she had to admit, made her want to show her belly a little bit, offer him more skin. Instinct was a crazy thing. Good thing Brett wasn’t her pack leader. She didn’t have a pack.

  “We’ll see,” Brett said. “You do know who I am, yes? You’re violating pack law. You’re a police officer. You should understand law.”

  She did. She understood completely. Which was why she looked him straight in the eye, smiled and stomped right on his bare instep.

  “Fuck pack law.”

  Chapter Two

  “There’s a rogue wolf in my territory.” Brett McMillan hated repeating himself, but somehow, not one of his lieutenants seemed to get the picture. They were all milling around his living room, drinking his Cokes and not fucking listening to him. It was bad enough that their packmates, Jordan and Shaw, had been framed by the crazy fucker, now the psycho was biting humans.

  Humans, for fuck’s sake.

  That was the death penalty for their kind.

  “Goddamn it!” He roared and everyone actually stopped and looked at him. God save him from big, growly males. He was going to start drowning the aggressive males at birth. Females too. That would go over like a lead balloon. “I want a progress report. Now.”

  He was pissed off, furious that he couldn’t find the new wolf who had attacked someone on his territory and then there was that woman. The cop. She made his teeth itch.

  “We haven’t found anyone, Boss. Not even a scent. It’s as if the forest ate them.” That earnest look on Jerome’s face made him want to hurt something.

  The evil look on Sam’s made it worse. “Except for the girl. You found her.”

  He gave Sam and Jerome both the death glare. “Shut it about the girl. She’s my problem.”

  “Are you sure? I could check her out for you, man.” That was Mitch. Fucker. Horndog. “Watch her close.”

  The growl that rose in his chest had everyone backing up a step. Booyah. That was why he was the alpha. “You leave her to me. Understood?”

  Mitch put his hands up. “Yeah. Yeah, Brett. I was just playing.”

  That’s right. Show your bellies. He rolled his head on his neck, sighing. The other male hadn’t gotten any real good bites in, but he was fucking sore, tired too. He’d looked for three hours before following Wendy back to her car and…insisting she come with him. There had to be benefits to this whole alpha thing, right? Right. “Okay. I want one more sweep. I want someone at the EMT guy’s house. I want to know everyone who even sniffs at Shaw and Jordan’s place.”

  Sam groaned. “It smells like a whorehouse up there.”

  “They’re maniacs, man.” Mitch chuckled. “Their girl is getting the hang of this whole wolf thing, though.”

  Jerome grunted. “I’ll take the EMT. He’s quiet, at least, even though hospitals smell so bad.”

  “Mitch can go see the lovebirds.” Sam grinned. “I’ll sweep.”

  “But…”

  Sam growled. “I’m the elder. I’ll sweep town.”

  Mitch backed right down and Brett tilted his head. Something smelled different there. Huh. He’d have to file that away for later.

  “Good. Someone find me something. Soon.”

  They all nodded, sucking down the last of their sodas and heading out. Brett took a deep breath, the scent of pack good, familiar. Even if they did drive him crazy.

  Now for the one that was driving him more than crazy, more than wild. There was something about that hot, fierce blonde that made him growly. It was time to check in on Wendy.

  * * * * *

  “Stay put. Asshat. Not fucking likely.” The guys on the force would never let her live it down if they found out Wendy let herself get disarmed and locked in someone’s bedroom. She’d be a laughingstock.

  A joke.

&nb
sp; Officer McStupid.

  She supposed it was better than Officer Fuzzy.

  Still, she liked Officer Key just fine.

  It wasn’t as if she could explain that Brett was an alpha, that they’d been trying to find a rogue werewolf who was spreading their peculiar virus, right? Right.

  Still, this was just…rude. Really.

  Wendy cheered as she finally got the fucking window open after spending an hour and a half working at it. Painted shut. Lazy fucker.

  Wendy wriggled halfway out the window, hands propped on the siding as she stared down at the huge bush in the way of her just landing on the ground. Damn it, she didn’t want to break a leg or anything, but that had thorns or prickly things or something.

  “Where are you going?”

  The big alpha butthead’s voice startled her and she whacked her head when she pulled back inside the window.

  “I’m going to check in with my captain. I have work to do. I didn’t want to break your door down.” And attract notice. Asshat.

  “Uh-huh. I have a phone.”

  “So did I, until you took it.” She held her hand out imperiously. “Along with my piece, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not yet.” He smiled, teeth white through the dark beard, and she was torn between admiring it and bashing him in the head.

  She went for the attack. “I can have you arrested for harassing a police officer.” She bared her teeth. “Our kind doesn’t handle jail well.”

  “You know what I have the right to do to you by pack rules, right? Coming into my territory and not letting me know.”

  “I’m a cop, asshole. Don’t threaten me.” This was why she wasn’t pack anymore, right? Because of the assholes and their rules.

  “I’m not.” He was the one to bare his teeth this time, letting her know there was a difference between a smile and a threat. “If I was, you’d know it.”

  “Fuck off.” She wasn’t going to bare her belly to anyone.

  “Now, honey.” He let his face relax, this time with an evil glint in his eye. “I bet you’re hungry.”