Once An Alpha (The S Files: Paranormal Investigation Agency – Book 1)

by McKenna, Callie

  I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t been out there last night, and it had just been Lyndon and me. Would it have been us who disappeared instead? My stomach lurched at the thought.

  We made it back to the police department, and I sat in a grey swivel chair as Sheriff Mills went through the most recent incident point by point on a whiteboard with photos taped to it.

  “This is Shane Tillbrook, and this is his wife Emma,” he said, pointing to each photo in turn. “Visiting from Australia. They were backpacking through Colorado, and we’ve tracked their last movements. They intended on staying one night up in the mountains and then coming back to the Trader’s Hotel to meet up with a tour group. At around ten last night, Agents Lyndon and Peyton observed them settling in for the night at a campsite near the eastern shoulder of the mountain. We are estimating their time of disappearance to be somewhere between then and five o’clock this morning.”

  He paused and looked around. “This has all happened in just the last few hours, so it’s now our number one priority over any other cases. We’ve already got a search and rescue team up there scouring the area, but the rest of you need to canvass the town. Go door to door, ask locals if they might have seen or heard anything at all or know anything about these tourists that may be of use.”

  With that, there was a flurry of activity in the room, and Lyndon and I returned to our usual office. We were to look through all of the Australian couple’s cell phone text message logs and email transcripts in order to ascertain their activities and see if there’d been anything unusual happening in their lives. Any threats or crime-related activity; things like that.

  We also needed to check out their records and speak to relatives and friends; a task made difficult due to the bureaucratic nightmare that came with trying to get their records sent through without any delay, and also the time difference in Australia. It was more than across the pond, it was across several damn ponds.

  As usual, we came up with nothing. Shane and Emma Tillbrook were both young and resourceful, having worked for several years developing their own software business before taking a break from it all to travel across the US. No ties to anything seedy; hell, neither of them had even had so much as a parking ticket in their young lives.

  “Fuck,” I seethed as I sat in my chair, slamming a hand against the table as the clock hit eight P.M.

  “Myla?” Lyndon looked up, his forehead creased with lines of concern. “We’ve had a long day. Let’s get back to the motel for some food and some rest.”

  “How can we rest? This is all just so screwed up,” I retorted, narrowing my eyes at him. “How can you even think of sleep right now at all? They could be out there. So could Darren Keillor and Ana Markovic.”

  He stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Myla, come on. This isn’t helping. You’re way too stressed out. Yes, I know it comes with the job. But you can’t let it get to you like this. Mills seems to have the Tillbrook investigation under control here, and if they desperately need us back here, they’ve got our cell phone numbers. We’re allowed to eat and take breaks. Especially when we’ve already been here for nine hours straight.”

  I rubbed my temples and then stood up too. He was right. I needed a break, and from the tone of his voice, he did too.

  We headed back to my motel room, where we ordered Chinese takeout and watched a talk show through mouthfuls of chow mein, sweet and sour pork and fried rice, washed down with gulps of lemonade.

  “Lyndon,” I said, my mouth still dealing with a rogue piece of shrimp from the fried rice. I finally dislodged it from between my teeth and continued. “Can I ask you something kinda weird?”

  “Sure,” he said, glancing over at me.

  “Why were you assigned to the S Files? I mean, I know why I was. Armstrong made that pretty clear. But you…all he said was that you have certain attributes and knowledge that might come in handy.”

  He laughed. “I guess because I’m just a damn good agent.”

  He was doing it again. I’d noticed this was a habit of his; he’d deflect serious issues and questions by making a joke of it all. I narrowed my eyes slightly, even more certain than ever that he was keeping something from me.

  He looked at me again and saw the serious expression marring my usually-soft features.

  “Myla…there is something we need to talk about. But not now. We’re both stressed and tired from the case. Let’s just eat and relax, and we’ll talk about it later.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  My heart sank. I was willing to bet that I knew what it was he wanted to talk about. Sorry, Myla, but I just don’t do relationships. I’m not that kind of guy. Or something like that.

  “Come on,” he said softly, placing a hand on my thigh and stroking it, moving ever-so-slowly and gently upwards. “Let’s just forget about the world for tonight.”

  I melted into his touches. How could I say no? He hadn’t actually said anything yet, so as far as I was concerned, I wanted to enjoy his company until we had the big discussion. It wasn’t like I’d been totally clear with him about what I wanted either. I’d gone from despising the guy to fucking his brains out in around five seconds flat since we’d arrived, so maybe that was it. Maybe he was confused and just wanted to have a chat about what was going on between the two of us.

  This time, our lovemaking was sensuous and slower than usual, but still wrought with passion. Stripping my clothes off, I started pulling off his clothes too, and then I pushed him to lie on his back and straddled him.

  I leaned down and rubbed my naked breasts on his hard chest while our lips met in a scorching kiss, and his rough hands caressed my back and sides in soft circles, slowly roaming down to grope my ass cheeks. I kissed his neck and then lowered my head, kissing my way down to his nipples and running my tongue in circles over them.

  He groaned. Who ever said it was only women who had sensitive nipples? I nipped at one, and then moving ever-so-slowly downwards I licked and kissed my way to his already rock hard cock. My face was mere inches from it, and I looked up to see him staring down at me with passion-filled eyes as he gripped the sheets in his fists.

  Licking my lips, I stared back at him, and his eyes flared with heated lust. Wrapping a hand around his hard shaft, I slowly pumped it up and down from tip to base. Lyndon groaned as I kept going, and a pearly bead of precum trickled from his slit. I bent down and lowered my lips over the head, lubricating his cock and then running my tongue in slow circles over and around it as my hand kept working away below it.

  God, he tasted amazing; all manly and musky scents. His hips jerked slightly as I ran my tongue over his frenulum, and I kept a firm grip on the base of his shaft and slowly worked more of his length into my mouth until it was almost hitting the back of my throat.

  Then I pulled it out and repeated the action over and over again until he was slick with my saliva. My cheeks hollowed in a suction hold as I slid him down my throat, and saliva pooled in his pubic hair as I continued to blow him. His hands slid down to hold my wild curls out of the way so he could watch me pleasure him with my mouth, and the lusty, smoldering look he had on his face made me want to please him even more.

  “Jesus,” he muttered a moment later, his mouth falling open slightly. “Myla, this is so fucking good, but you have to stop or I’m gonna cum…”

  I wasn’t having any of that. I wasn’t going to stop. I clamped my lips tighter and sucked even harder while my now-wet hand continued to pump away at the lower part of his manhood, and his hands tightened their grip on my hair as he moved his hips and thrust deeper into my mouth. I wanted him to lose control. I wanted to have all the power while he couldn’t hold back, and my pussy heated with ardent desire as I watched him.

  “Baby,” he groaned again. He tried to pull me away but I continued to suck hard on him, increasing my speed to a frenetic pace. Trying to open my throat, I took in as much of him as I could.

  That was enough to bring him to the
edge. He came with a loud grunt and jerked in my mouth, and I swallowed as much of his hot release as I could. Watching me lick my lips after swallowing his cum seemed to turn him on all over again, and within seconds he was hard. Again. The man was a machine. I rubbed my stiff nipples as I straddled him again, one finger moving downwards until it was massaging my clit and spreading my lips before delving into my pussy.

  In the blink of an eye I was on my back, and Lyndon thrust his cock into my slick pussy in one smooth move. I cried out with each hard movement, and desperation drove our bodies to move in sync with each other. My nails dug into his back as I tried to pull him further into me, and I wrapped my legs tightly around his ass, locking them together.

  Lifting my hips off the bed, I tilted myself so that he could thrust even deeper into me, and the new angle spurred him on to fuck me even harder. We were like two animals in heat. With every slow thrust he slammed deep inside me, my body moving up the bed each time, and I whimpered and moaned, closer and closer to climax.

  “Who do you belong to?” he demanded, hands cushioning around my head and forcing me to look up at him.

  “Yours. Only yours,” I gasped, and his eyes darkened even more out of lust. Our bodies tensed, and my legs and arms started to shake. He rocked his hips back and forth, and his cock hit me at a new angle that made my breath catch in my throat. Moving a hand between our joined bodies, he rubbed a thumb over the swollen nub of my clit, and I screamed as the waves of my orgasm crashed over me, sending me into oblivion.

  My inner walls tightened and contracted around his driving manhood, and above me, Lyndon groaned and stiffened before coming deep inside me.

  I was too exhausted to get up and wash the sticky mess that was trickling down my thighs only seconds later, and Lyndon picked me up and carried me into the bathroom before turning the shower on. He held me up in the warm water, and I closed my eyes, savoring the feeling of being cradled by him like this.

  After our shower, we fell into bed and went to sleep, satisfied. He had been right. It had been a good idea for us to just forget about the rest of the world for the night. At this moment, there was only room for the two of us, and the rest of the damned world could go to hell.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, I felt a little nauseated as I showered and brushed my teeth before brushing on some mascara and moistening my parched lips with balm. Chinese food always did that to me, dammit. Nice enough when I ate it, but the greasiness always did a real number on my guts.

  Sheriff Mills called to tell me that no trace of the two Australian hikers had been found yet, and I sighed as I came crashing back down into the real world. It was time to really take things seriously and get out of the bubble of lust and passion. Lyndon must have had the same idea, because after I was done in the bathroom I emerged to see that he had gone.

  He texted me saying that he wanted to get a jump on things, and that he was already down at the office. Humming to myself to try and lighten my sour mood, I stopped by a café and picked up some hot drinks for the two of us. Tea for me today, strong black coffee for Lyndon.

  As I rounded a corner on my way to the police department, a little girl came barreling around the corner with a kite and almost ran straight into me.

  “Oh! I’m sorry, miss,” she said, looking up at me with wide crystal-blue eyes.

  “That’s okay, sweetheart,” I said, giving her a fond smile. She was adorable. I’d never been much of a kid person, but if I had a child with innocent eyes like that I’d be a goner. “I bet you’re on your way to the park to fly that kite of yours, huh?”

  I gestured towards the red and blue kite she was holding, and she nodded emphatically. “Uh-huh. My Mom and little brother are coming with me. But they walk too slow!”

  She giggled, and then looked at me curiously. “I haven’t seen you before. Do you live here?”

  “No, just in town for some business.”

  There was no way that I was going to tell a kid who couldn’t be older than eleven what sort of grim business I was here for, but she didn’t press me for more.

  “Oh. My name is Rachel,” she replied.

  “Nice to meet you, Rachel. I’m Myla.” I smiled and then continued on my way as little Rachel dashed across to the green park, where colorful play equipment stood on a bed of white sand in the middle of an expanse of neatly-cut green lawn. I fought the urge to just go crazy, shirk my duties and play on the swing set all morning, and then continued on to the office.

  Yawning, I took a sip of tea and went into the office, where I found Lyndon peering at an old case file. Handing him his coffee, I sat next to him and picked up my laptop.

  “Ah, I thought I left this here,” I said. “I was going to check my emails this morning but couldn’t find it. Remind me to take it home tonight. Any progress?”

  “Nah,” he replied. “But let’s keep our fingers crossed. We just need one break.”

  Something was playing on my mind, but I couldn’t figure out what. Instinctively, I reopened the case file for the town’s first documented disappearance; the ten ski hikers from the 1950’s, and suddenly there it was, literally staring me in the face.

  “Hey Lyndon,” I said. “Come here for a sec. I want to show you something.”

  “What is it?” he asked, moving over to me and hunching over the table.

  “See this picture?”

  I pulled out a picture that had been taken of all ten ski hikers before they went missing. It was black and white, but their faces were still clear. They had all been smiling and waving at the camera when the picture was taken, and I pointed to a petite woman standing in the middle of the group.

  “See her? Her name was….um… Hilda Beaugard.”

  I rifled through the sheaf of photographs under the main group picture until I located one that was just of Ms. Beaugard, closer up. An old yearbook picture of some description.

  “What about her?” Lyndon asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “I don’t know if this means anything, but I just ran into a girl out on the street who looked uncannily similar to this woman. Add a few years of puberty and she’d be the spitting image of her.”

  “So what are you thinking?” he asked.

  I hesitated. “Well…this is going to sound crazy. But you did encourage me to think outside the box. What if this woman was abducted that night and forced into some sort of arranged marriage with a man from the town?”

  I was expecting Lyndon to comment on how my marriage abduction conspiracy theory was a real stretch of the imagination, but he didn’t. Instead he grinned. “You might be on to something there. Why don’t you go and find the girl and ask her some questions?”

  Part of me wondered why Lyndon had been so quick to accept my idea, but the rest of me was simply too excited. It was a wild theory, but something in my gut told me I was right.

  Dashing out of the main building and turning back towards the park, I saw Rachel running around on the grass in the park, trying to get her kite to soar higher and higher. Several yards away, I saw a brunette woman playing with a much younger boy, and I assumed they were Rachel’s mother and little brother that she’d mentioned.

  The mother seemed distracted with the boy, so while she wasn’t looking I attracted Rachel’s attention. “Hey, Rachel! Remember me?”

  She looked down from her kite, saw me and smiled before running over to me. “Sure. Hi, Myla!”

  “Your kite looks awesome up there,” I said. “Anyway, sweetheart, I was wondering… could I ask you a couple of questions about the town?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “My whole life,” she replied. “My family’s always lived here.”

  “And do you have any grandparents or great-grandparents still living here?”

  She nodded again. “Yes. My grandparents are still here, and I have a great Grandma too. But she lives in a nursing home now. Mom says she was getting too sick to live on
her own anymore.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the brunette woman peering closely over at us, and she picked up her son and began to walk towards us, cradling him on her hip. I had to speed this up.

  “Okay. And do you have any idea how old your great Grandma is?” I asked. “And what’s her name?”

  Rachel shrugged and then looked to the left, squinting her blue eyes as she thought. “Um. I would have to ask my Mom. But she’s very old…maybe eighty-something? Her name is Heidi. But I always just called her Great Grandma.”

  “Rachel, sweetie, what are you doing?” The brunette woman had reached us now, and she narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms as she looked at me.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said with a bright smile. “I was just telling your daughter how great her kite looks. I used to have the exact same color kite when I was around her age.”

  She relaxed a little, but I could tell she still wasn’t entirely happy about her children talking to strangers. “Okay, honey, I’ve got some candy in my bag for you and your brother. Want some?”

  “Yes!” Rachel replied before dashing towards her mother’s bag, which was sitting on a park bench near the play equipment. She looked back for a second and grinned at me. “Bye, Myla!”

  I waved and returned her smile, and then looked at her mother. “Anyway, I better be off. Have a nice day.”

  She watched me leave, and I tried to stay as calm and collected as possible until I got back to the office. I couldn’t explain it, but I had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t the only one watching me. I’d been having this vague paranoia for the last few days, and it seemed to be getting stronger. My gut was definitely trying to tell me something.

  Lyndon stared at me curiously when I returned.