“You’re a fake!” Stephanie screamed.
“No.” Simon replied in a breathy, hurtful tone. “Just really very weak…”
Stephanie rose from her place on the bed. “You don’t have the lust do you?”
Simon lightly shook his head in the negative, a small smile coming to his lips. “No… I would’ve attacked you already… if I did.”
Stephanie’s lip twisted in defense. “So I guess you’re all right then. But that still doesn’t exclude the fact of what you tried to do… all of that… that came before all of this.”
“I am in debt to you and Frost for saving my life. I know that now. And my hunger is no more.”
“When did you—”
“While you were out paying for the room,” he replied.
She figured Frost moved the truck in order to make that happen. But how did he stop Simon’s lust. She thought about it for a second – what did we see coming in the parking lot, where was the truck parked – and decided not to say anything.
“So when are you going to tell us what Ryder is planning?”
“He knows. And he was right too,” Simon said.
“Right… right about what?” Steff asked the injured man.
“You should get as much rest as ya can. She’s catching up to us… ya know that right?”
Stephanie gave Simon a quizzical stare as if what he was saying was spoken in another language.
Meanwhile in the bathroom, Frost was stepping out of the shower. After getting dressed he picked up the gun he’d retrieved in Parkinsville and checked the clip and chamber before stuffing it into the back of his jeans. He took a deep breath and twisted the door knob, opening the door to find the lights were out.
There was only a glare from the TV giving him enough light to spot his seat back by the far window. He took a seat, peeped out the window before looking toward the television, seeing Stephanie. She’s sitting at the corner of the bed staring back at him.
“So… you’re not going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked him point blank.
Looking over to see a resting Simon, awake this time, figuring that he already spilled the beans, Frost exclaimed, “I was gonna tell you once we got there.”
“But why Colorado, Frost? What’s that far?”
Since Frost now knows that Simon coughed up some of the information and there is no one else here that could have told her that, he figured it best to fill in the blanks. “Because….” says Frost, “there’s a council in the Garden there. And once I get to the council… I can tell them what she’s doing.”
Frost stretched his hands out in front of him as if he were preparing for a long sermon or speech, then looked at her again, “I’ll have a chance if I go there. I need their help in order to fight her followers… It’s the only way… I can have a successful chance to… to end her forging war. And once it’s all done… she’ll have to answer to them.”
He lightly shook his head a bit, as if he were disappointed in himself somehow; which he indeed was. “She’s my sister Steff. I can’t kill her… no matter what she does to me. It’s just not in me to fight with family; she’s my older twin sister at that!”
“But that doesn’t give her the right to want to kill you. I just don’t understand it… maybe it’s just a wolf thing and I’m not supposed to understand it… but what changed in her that makes her want to kill you now?” Stephanie asked, just trying to comprehend what the whole problem boiled down to.
“We might be twins,” Frost went on, “but we have two completely different agendas. Me, I just want out. Since you’ve saved my life I’ve grown tired of the rage. I’m ready to live in happiness; give it all away and let it go. Ryder on the other hand, she’s a true leader and capable of doing wonderful things if she wants.”
Stephanie just sat there waiting for him to continue since he had finally started to open up.
“But, something in her… I’m not really exactly sure what… just has her on this big power trip. I’m surprised I don’t know what fuels her rage. But I don’t know. Really. She’s been that way all of our lives so it’s pretty complicated.”
“So what’s the rage about then?”
Simon, who had fallen asleep in the dimly lit room, grumbled, licking his lips.
Frost looked over to Simon, but doesn’t break a beat in the conversation. “I really think she’s hell bent on breaking our truce with the rest of society,” he said.
“What truce?” Steff asked.
“From what he knows…” Frost pointed a finger at Simon. “But yeah, believe it or not we’ve had a truce in effect for centuries now. Though the world as you once knew it hasn’t the least clue. The council is the apex. Filled with all those higher ups, mixed between those elites and Alphas who know all about this truce. Their bloodlines are the ones who established the truce decades ago… many decades ago… and will do whatever it takes to not let the truth of it out to the general public.”
“And what’s that exactly? What do you mean by the truth of it?” she asked quietly.
“The truth of it all, Steff, is… that there are monstrosities among you far more worse and defiant than what you know. Ryder in her great rampage could start a nationwide… No… even a worldwide panic. She’s recruiting wherever she goes. Back there in Parkinsville even. You saw it yourself but you didn’t know it. The witness on television, the guy with the scar… he was someone in our pack. That’s Ryder for you. ”
He paused for a second as if he had something else to say. “But seriously, you should get some rest.”
“What? How can I, knowing what I know? What about you?” she asked.
“I’ll stay up and keep watch. Tomorrow you’re driving.”
Book 2: The Alpha’s a Bitch: Rise Of The Pack Princess Chapter 7
A few hours later a tarty stench brought Frost to his feet. He had just begun to nod out as the sun was already up and so went the temp in the room with it. The smell was soon followed up with a light knock to the motel room door, four knocks to be exact. Frost grabbed for the handle of his semi-automatic in the back of his jeans. Then the knocks came again.
Stephanie rolled over on her back while still asleep in the bed. Simon rubbed at an aching head.
“Who is it?” Frost asked the visitor with an eye in the peephole.
“Management,” Last Call’s deep, southern accented voice returned.
Checkout time isn’t until tomorrow, Frost thinks to himself. “Wait a sec,” he says quietly, shaking Stephanie awake and giving her a hushing finger.
He was just making his way over to Simon when a new boom comes to the door. Frost whipped around just as the sunlight blocked the clarity of two big burly silhouettes rushing in through the front door toward him.
Stephanie’s heart nearly falls to her gut as she let out a deafening wail to the shock as Last Call is standing outside shouting out ramblings about the extent of property damage being caused to the Blue Tides motel. Frost lets off a gunshot rip into the ceiling, stopping the intruders in their tracks; and Simon desperately rises to his feet, dropping to all fours as if he is about to transform right then and there.
Frost orders the intruders to back out the room with their hands raised; they comply, slowly walking backwards. He steps forward with them. Stepping foot on the sidewalk concrete outside, he realizes it’s two of the Switchblades.
“Yawl don’t start shooting now.” Last Call cries out. “Whose gonna pay for all…”
Frost aims the gun at him; Last Call awkwardly ducks, slipping in his pink rubber sandals and falls to the ground. No, it’s not actually aimed at Last Call. Frost’s aimed beyond him, to another gang banger running up behind them all with a semi-automatic aimed squarely at Frost.
Frost does not hesitate, he squeezed the trigger, laying the Switchblade on his back. He turned the gun back on the two intruders still with their hands high. “Why are you following us? We don’t have anything to do with—” he says, stopping in mid sentence.
The two big intruders seize the moment to relinquish Frost of his firearm, as if that would do them any good. Intruder number one grabbed the gun but Simon pounced on him in his werewolf form, making a snack out of intruder one’s wrist before he had the chance to get a shot off. Intruder number one shouts in pain, and drops the gun. His partner is frozen with fright. Last Call is now running away too. Well, he’s actually shuffling back to the office, holding up his cutoff jeans as he tries to keep the pink flip flops on his feet.
Frost snapped out of his spell, and retrieves the gun from off the ground. He ordered Stephanie to start up the truck and bring it around. As she did that he cracked a wicked grin, showing his fangs to intruder number two and asked him the reason for their intrusion while pressing the gun firmly into the intruder’s forehead.
“Some fancy chick came in town overnight,” number two grumbles in the attempt to keep his dignity; and his life.
“She wants you like real bad,” he stressed, sweat beading up on his forehead, “offered ten stacks to bring you in without a breath in ya body. Hell, she offered twice as much to bring ya in alive. A lot of people are out there looking for ya, city boy.” He snickered a bit under his breath, and passively, closes his eyes. “They all looking to cash in on ya head…”
Maybe he thought Frost was as gangster as the Switchblades. He could have wanted to go out.
But he did not appear to be shaken up by Simon’s debut performance.
Frost looked over to the highway just as three cars were passing. She could be anywhere. He looked back to the Switchblade, and then to Simon, who is now in his human form, standing over his prey as the fallen intruder cuffs his leaking wound with a braced palm.
“You can’t leave him like that Simon.” Frost said. “You’re gonna have to take him back in the room.”
Frost was right. If Simon left the Switchblade with a bite mark he’d in turn transform into a werewolf sure enough by sundown. And creating a new legion of werewolf was not on his To-Do list, nor was murder.
Stephanie pulled up as Simon was lugging a feisty Switchblade back in the room. The bathroom door slammed shut and she came to a screeching halt, stopping right in front of Frost.
“Come on let’s get out of here before the cops show up,” she called out.
Frost told intruder number two to make a run for it. And without haste, he makes a run for the wooded area across the street from the Blue Tides.
“We’d best to hurry before the police show up.” Stephanie repeats.
Frost hops in the passenger seat and looks back to the room awaiting Simon.
Moments after a grueling deep yelp was faintly heard from within the room, Simon finally appears from the bathroom wiping across his mouth. He looks toward the motel office as he reaches the room’s breached entryway, and Frost reminds him they haven’t got the time to tie up the loose end. He orders Simon into the truck, which after a few seconds of deliberation Simon jumps in the back and Stephanie pulls off.
“We have to stop for gas.” Stephanie says, coming up to a Hess gas station, while looking at a blinking gas light. “Or we’re not gonna make it much further.”
Despite the obvious threat of being surrounded by the law enforcement, and Ryder and the pack, Frost advises her to make it snappy. He decided to go in the Hess and shell out for the gas while Simon pumped the belly, but spotted a Budget car rental place a block down the road where they would instead leave the lot in a ruby red Ford Taurus in Stephanie’s name, leaving her truck in the Hess parking area.
On a scarcely cold evening, the trio drives through Los Alamos, New Mexico, passing a remote area on a small two-way bumpy back road leading toward a dense forest, up a mountainside. Stephanie noticed headlights in her rear view rapidly approaching and expressed her concern to the guys. The lights were too high off the ground to be cars; she suspected them to be SUVs. She waits to see what happens next.
From the one set of headlights soon emerges another one from behind. The second set of headlights spread out over both lanes. And not one, but now its two sets of headlights were gaining on them through the dark. She brought it to the guys’ attention.
“Yeah, I see ‘em!” Frost exclaimed, turning back to face the road ahead. “Just step on it.”
Stephanie floored the accelerator. They hit a few curves before coming to a quarter mile stretch. Her driving was superb, the Taurus riding the wave like Patrick Swayze in Point Break; only at the end of this ride the wave catchers survive.
Frost questioned her Nascar driving abilities and Stephanie informed him that she learned from her father, who was a drunk driving, road rage enthusiast who’d once outrun the authorities while she was strapped in the passenger seat at the age of nine.
“That explains a lot.” Frost replied as loose rock sent the car on a short-lived drift around the next bend of road.
“You’re really good at this!” he exclaimed, smiling through fear, a rush, and excitement.
The trailing headlights continue their pursuit of the trio, assiduously gaining on them.
“How much longer do you intend on running?” Simon asked, as he looks out the back window, longing nails near poking into the upholstery.
Stephanie does not take the time to consider an answer. Her mind is set on one thing and one thing only – evading their pursuers in a daring feat to escape their clutches. Whoever it is can’t be the authorities chasing them so she figured it to be either Ryder and the pack, or maybe the Switchblades or the Red Fist gang in high pursuit. Either way, not the people she wanted to be captured by.
It was not that much further up the mountainside when she suddenly shouted obscenities, slammed both feet on the break bringing the car to a gliding halt, stopping diagonally in between both lanes, the headlights of two more SUV’s now blocking the roadway entrance into Colorado from New Mexico through a heavy fog.
Frost looked back to the bending road behind them to see the lights of the other SUVs nearing through the fog. He looked to the vehicles ahead of them, the cold fog filling the area. Through the fog he could see four new figures standing statue straight ahead of the trucks. It appeared as if the figures were holding either rifles or blunt objects of some sort.
With a surging feeling of disparity overwhelming him he decided to keep a grip on his firearm and keep his eyes ahead of him. The initial feeling of his sister’s antagonistic reverie undermined and might even possibly eliminate the tactic he had planned to stop her ultimate plan.
“What are they going to do to us?” Stephanie whimpered as they all sat there, unsure what was about to happen next.
“Everything’s alright babe.” Frost said. “What do ya say Simon… think we can take ‘em?” he self-assuredly queried.
“I’m ready whenever you are.” Simon replied through a groan. “Just give me the word.”
Book 2: The Alpha’s a Bitch: Rise Of The Pack Princess Chapter 8
Just then the two SUVs in pursuit pull up behind them and come to a full stop. The trio turns their heads to the sounds of the doors opening behind them. But with the lights shining in on them, it is obvious they can’t see their trackers.
Silence befalls over the trio. Stephanie looks through the black to find an escape route; but it’s hopeless; she sees nothing in the brisk of night. Simon peers through the window with shuttered eyes, a slight growl in his throat as he awaits Frost’s command. And Frost is itching at the trigger of his firearm, anticipating his rivals’ next portending steps.
“Will all parties please exit the vehicle with your hands visible…” says an unacquainted male voice from up ahead.
Frost glances through his side view mirror, and then through Stephanie’s. He contemplates transforming, his eyes itinerant; he focuses on the anonymous figures now sluggishly girdling the Taur
us.
One of the four men who stand in front of the trio lowers his blunt object and a shotgun cocking sound arises. “Step out of the vehicle, David!” entered the same masculine voice from only seconds ago.
Although the voice is unfamiliar, Frost immediately acknowledges his birth name. After a brief moment of thought he steadily hits the down button on his power window.
The figures cease movement.
Stephanie and Simon look on as Frost lifts his head and calls out, “We’re not armed! What guarantee can you give me that my friends will not be harmed?”
“They’re still breathing aren’t they?” the voice returned, the shotgun-cocked figure moving forward.
She knew it has to be someone from his pack. Or so she hoped; her head slightly lowered and her eyes clamped shut for a few seconds. She’d heard Frost’s birth name from Ryder, when his evil twin brought the door down; literally. It was soon after Stephanie first set eyes on him; it was a bit late considering she’d hit him with her car.
He suffered from amnesia then. And some parts of his past still baffle him to this day. Like the identity of the person calling his name out now.
“Frost,” Stephanie said as he opened his door.
He looked back and smiled at her. “Everything’s alright.” he said, sliding the gun in his waistband, stepping out, hands up.
Simon springs at the chance to fight by Frost’s side. His door opens and shouting arises from the many silhouettes enveloping the car. Now it’s a fact that they all held firearms – tiny red dots were focused on everyone. Through the light Frost felt as if all the objects were aimed on him.
“Whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute.” Frosts snapped, covering his head with crossed hands, turning to Simon’s door, thunder-kicking it shut as it started to open.
“It’s okay!” Frost yelled, as if he knows who the the men are that are ordering him out of the car at gunpoint. “Simon, sit this one out…”
“So, you have a youngling with you I take it?” the unknown voice with the shotgun mused.
The Alpha's a Bitch: Rise Of The Pack Princess Complete: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance Page 6