Alpha Underground Trilogy

by Aimee Easterling

  Every single one of whom now ached to run.

  “You’ll be okay here by yourself?” Hunter asked quietly. As usual, he didn’t bother with the preceding questions—whether I wanted to stay home and whether I wanted anybody to remain behind and coddle me. Hunter and I both knew I’d end up face-planting on the lawn if I tried to shift, so joining the pack tonight was out of the question.

  Postponing the hunt would be a terrible idea as well. I wasn’t willing to let my cracked head ruin the clan’s bonding moment and I also couldn’t afford for any bloodling to catch a hint of my current weakness. Not now, when Lupe had already shaken up the precarious status quo.

  So I just smiled widely, hoping my grin wouldn’t resemble the rictus of a death mask. “Sure, go,” I said, ushering bloodlings and other pack mates alike out the French doors that overlooked our ever-darkening valley. The sooner they were gone, the sooner I could rest.

  Most of our companions were taken in by my half-assed attempt at subterfuge, but Ginger raised one eyebrow as she brushed past. I shook my head subtly by way of reply. No, I didn’t need her to circle back around and pick me up when I fell down. Whatever was going on with my ruptured equilibrium, I could handle the issue on my own.

  Well, I could handle the issue as long as the pack got a move on with their evacuation. Because by the time Lupe crept out the door in lupine form, tail tucked between her legs and ruff very faintly raised, the ringing in my ears had become so loud I couldn’t even hear the straggler’s footsteps padding across the tiled floor.

  Unfortunately, my eyes worked well enough to tell me that the youngster’s forced inclusion was worse than if I’d just let the sullen teenager stay home alone in the first place. Because when Lupe had arrived half an hour earlier, she’d thought herself too cool for school. Now the bloodling flicked her eyes from side to side frantically as she carefully placed one paw in front of the other. The once-cocky youngster expected an attack and wasn’t at all confident that she could hold her own against two dozen angry wolves.

  Still, the juice turned out to be worth the squeeze in the end. Because even as I clung to the door frame to hold myself erect, I saw the young female sidle up beside the gentlest bloodling and give Calla an ever-so-subtle nudge of camaraderie. Instantly, willingly, Calla reciprocated and soon both Hunter’s bloodlings and mine were capering together into the gloaming.

  “Be careful,” Hunter admonished at last, his warm hand resting for an instant against my shoulder blade. Usually, even such a feather-light touch from my mate would have given me the strength I needed to carry on. But now, the contact was just one more pound of weight to bear up underneath and I found myself releasing a pent-up sigh of relief when even he was gone.

  Another string of garbled words surged up from my wolf’s den deep within my belly and the stars above my receding pack mates’ heads whirled into a confusing mass of spirals. Choking down vomit, I barely managed to prevent my knees from giving out in plain sight of my playful pack. Instead, I backed slowly into the darkness of the community house, glad no one had bothered to switch on so much as a table lamp as evening dimmed into night.

  There was no way I could have made it back to the cabin Hunter and I shared up on the mountainside. No way I could even drag myself thirty feet to the soft bed we kept ready in the walled-off room tucked behind the kitchen for the sake of overnight guests.

  Instead, I merely managed twenty faltering steps to bring my aching body from door to sofa before sagging to my knees. Then I allowed darkness to claim me.

  “HUSH-A-BYE, DON’T YOU cry....”

  The soothing drone spurred long-forgotten memories of a mother not yet spooked by my inner beast. But awakening nostrils informed me that my head wasn’t cradled in Celia’s well-padded lap. Instead, it rested upon Lupe’s bony thighs.

  That’s unexpected, I thought vaguely. I was far too comfortable to move or even to open my eyes, though. Instead, I drifted in that half-waking state where dream and reality merged and melded, allowing the warm happiness of altered memories to fill my mind’s eye.

  In my fantasy, I was back with my birth pack, Wolfie patting me on the head with a profound expression of fatherly pride spread across his face. The alpha shifted to lupine form and led me on a joyous romp through a flower-filled woodland while bloodlings frolicked around both of our feet. Dreamlike, I didn’t have to give up the new to make peace with the old either, and Hunter’s solid presence at my side made me smile in my sleep.

  Maybe I should just cave and ask Wolfie for his advice? I thought drowsily. Track him down. See if he has any ideas for making peace with my wolf and my pack in the next nine days before All-Pack begins.

  Before I could continue that line of reasoning, though, Lupe’s next stanza woke me right up. The teenager’s subsequent verse maintained the tune of the lullaby but contained words better suited to her usual abrasive demeanor. “Close the door, you pesky bloodlings,” she crooned.

  Immediately, floorboards creaked and a latch clicked shut as a lupine member of the pack did the two-legger’s bidding. Meanwhile, my rusty brain kicked back into gear, assessing and analyzing.

  We’re in the community house’s bedroom after all, I realized. Which meant that the panting breaths all around me emanated from post-hunt bloodlings relaxing in the communal space after a long night’s run.

  Meanwhile, the voices drifting in from my left originated on the building’s front stoop. “...to bother you,” the sugary southern words broke into my musings. This wasn’t a member of my pack, and my scattered brain took a moment to place the familiar tone and cadence.

  Amanda Sellers, I remembered at last. Mayor of Arborville and Celia’s sometime friend.

  “It’s good to see you,” my mother replied, her words growing softer as she drew the visitor deeper into the heart of the community house. And even though humans visited Wolf Landing from time to time, something about the scent trail creeping in under the door made me think this was more than a mere social visit.

  Time to stop playing opossum and to remember I’m a wolf.

  Rising, I ignored the way Lupe flinched back as soon as she realized I was awake. We’d deal with our own issues at a later date. In the meantime, my gut told me that the conversation between Amanda and Celia was one I needed to overhear.

  To that end, I stalked through a transient sunbeam, the warmth on my skin proving that I’d slept through the entire night and half of the next morning too. In the interim, my body had recovered from whatever ailed it. Now my skull was only subtly sore and my limbs felt loose and ready for action as I tiptoed through the adjoining bathroom to press my ear against the door separating private and public areas of clan central.

  Behind me, every bloodling came alert in an instant. Without looking, I could feel them fall into step behind me, youthful antics forgotten in the face of an alpha on the hunt. Soon, a dozen furry bodies pressed up against my legs as wolf-form adolescents plus Lupe all came to stand by the door in absolute silence.

  While we’d been scurrying across the room, Celia and Amanda had dispensed with pleasantries. Now the latter got right down to business. “I’ve come to talk to you about your rescue dogs,” the mayor said, and I could almost see the middle-aged woman’s painted lips pursing unhappily at the subject matter.

  “Yes?” Celia prodded gently, as if she wasn’t at all concerned that the human residents of the nearby town might eventually clue in to the fact that she lived with a werewolf pack and didn’t—as she’d originally claimed—run a dog-rehab operation.

  “You know there are leash laws in Arborville for a reason,” Amanda began pedantically, and I couldn’t resist glancing down at the wolves who hadn’t been restrained in months. Jerry the joker lolled out his tongue as he gazed back, the topic of conversation amusing him no end. But some of the meeker bloodlings were instead falling all over themselves to see how many wolves would fit behind a shower curtain.

  In case you’re curious, the answer is five.


  Outside our bathroom, Celia was fielding the issue as best she could. “In Arborville,” my mother answered carefully, “we would be very careful to keep our pets on leashes.”

  “Well, that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?” Amanda broke in. “You may not be located within town limits, but your dogs don’t seem to understand that fact. A farmer came to me this morning very upset because his prize ram had been killed and...and mangled by some beast.”

  “And so you thought of me? How sweet.”

  Celia was holding her own very well. Still, I couldn’t resist twisting the knob and nudging the door ever so slightly open in order to peer outside.

  As expected, Amanda was visibly bristling at Celia’s refusal to take livestock mayhem seriously. “You city slickers may not think it’s any big deal,” the mayor rebutted. “But a prime Katahdin ram could be worth over a thousand dollars at auction. And what if your dogs had injured a child instead? My grandbaby is staying with me this week and I’m afraid to even let her out of my sight now that...”

  “Amanda.” My mother stopped the flow of words by placing one hand atop the other woman’s clenched fist. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” Yet even as she spoke, Celia was meeting my gaze above the mayor’s head and raising her eyebrows. Did they do it? she was asking.

  I shook my head in instant negation. Okay, so I’d been out for the count last night and had no way of providing our bloodlings with an alibi. Still, Hunter would never have allowed livestock mayhem to happen on his watch.

  Who’s the farmer? I mouthed in lieu of entertaining the notion that one of the bloodlings currently pushing up against my legs had gone rogue.

  Luckily, my mother was a pro at lip reading and she parroted my words right back at the unwitting visitor sitting between us. “Who’s the farmer?” she asked.

  “Silas Lerner.” The mayor jumped back to business as easily as she’d descended into grandparently concern. “You know the place. Go down past the old country store the Grahams used to own, then take a right alongside the river....”

  The long-winded country directions could have gone on for hours, but I didn’t bother to listen further. Because the hairs on the back of my neck were abruptly standing on end.

  Amanda’s description made Mr. Lerner’s property sound distant and unrelated to Wolf Landing. But I’d spent the last few months running over the nearby hills in fur form, so I knew exactly which farm the mayor was talking about.

  As the crow flies, the slaughtered ram wasn’t far away at all. Instead, the scene of the crime was located directly on the opposite side of our very own mountain.

  Chapter 5

  THE BLOODLINGS AND I had crept back through the bedroom and out the front door in search of Hunter before Celia found a way to dislodge her uninvited guest. But apparently this was visiting day at Wolf Landing, because the first thing I heard when I emerged from the community house was the crunch of another vehicle creeping up our gravel driveway. Meanwhile, the scowl on my mate’s face as he eyed the approaching limousine suggested that this second visitor was no more welcome than the first.

  Hunter was so intent upon the view, in fact, that he didn’t notice when two thirds of the pack sauntered up behind him. Only after I slipped my slender fingers between his much larger digits did he finally greet me with a brief but tender kiss.

  “Trouble?” I asked when I was finally able to breathe again. Then, via the mate bond: Should I take the bloodlings up the trail and out of sight?

  “Stay,” my mate answered, evidently not as worried as I was that unpredictable adolescents would be a liability in the middle of a dicey situation. His tone was vague, though, and he appeared to dismiss me as abruptly as he’d initially drawn me into our heated embrace. Yep, the usually calm uber-alpha was definitely on edge.

  Not that I blamed him. Because the shiny, black Cadillac currently rolling up in front of our den looked awfully familiar. And the last time Hunter’s mentor had appeared in his big, fancy luxury car, the father figure had proceeded to shred Hunter’s faith in humanity before grinding his heel into my mate’s already tenuous ties to shifter-kind in the process.

  It had taken weeks to pull Hunter out of his funk then and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to a replay now. My mate, though, was always willing to cut straight to the punch. Gently disentangling himself from my anxious grip, he marched forward and yanked the passenger door open even before the vehicle had come to a complete stop.

  Then he stepped back with brow furrowed, because the shifter who emerged from the dark recesses of the limousine wasn’t the visitor that either of us had expected. Instead, the newcomer was younger than Hunter and nearly as handsome in a hard-edged sort of way. A still healing wound sliced across one high cheekbone and straight dark hair partially obscured the opposite eye. Meanwhile, knives dotted his person—I easily counted five and suspected yet more weapons were secreted away beneath his clothes.

  It wasn’t the blades or the laceration that made me shiver and step backwards, though. Instead, as I watched my mate’s eyes latch onto the stranger’s in an instant alpha battle of wills, it was the set of Hunter’s shoulders that gave me pause.

  In the past, I’d had utter confidence in my mate’s ability to cow any opponent. After all, to the best of my knowledge, he’d never lost a power struggle, whether that contest consisted of an eye lock, an alpha compulsion, or an actual physical battle.

  In contrast, Hunter’s muscles now quivered and his back hunched as a layer of frost formed on the dead grass at the duo’s feet. The extraordinary cold wasn’t unusual since compulsions always sucked energy out of the air whenever an alpha attempted to twist weaker wolves to his will. What was less familiar was the ice crystals’ location—the visual indication of the power’s source formed a perfect circle around the hard-edged stranger rather than around my mate.

  Behind me, a bloodling whined and Lupe gasped as Hunter fought back with all of his might. Usually, my favorite uber-alpha didn’t even find it necessary to relinquish his relaxing odor of spicy sassafras when barking an underling into line. As a result, I was jolted by the abrupt aroma of teeth-chattering liquid, the scent so strong my lungs struggled against breathing in what seemed less like air and more like water.

  Now Hunter will win, I promised myself once I’d finally managed to inhale a stuttering gasp of air. He’ll definitely come out ahead once he’s truly exerting himself.

  But, instead, the knife-wielder’s formerly expressionless face broke out into a surprisingly boyish grin. And, at the same instant, Hunter’s usually unfailing body betrayed him at long last.

  Legs that had seemed as sturdy as fence posts abruptly went weak at the knees. A formerly capable hand trembled as Hunter reached out to steady himself against the car’s rounded roof. And finally, unwillingly, my unconquerable mate allowed his eyes to drop to the ground in a show of werewolf surrender.

  We might have remained frozen in our shocked tableau for an eternity had another figure not unfolded himself from the back of the limousine in the aftermath of the battle. The older shifter was the one I’d initially expected, his silver hair and jovial laughter reminding me of a kindly gentleman...something that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  “Grey, meet Hunter, our region’s former enforcer,” Stormwinder said, slipping between the two uber-alphas as if they hadn’t been metaphorically tearing each others’ throats out moments before. “And, Hunter, this is Grey. He’s come to take over your old job.”

  BEFORE HUNTER HAD TIME to choose whether or not to take Stormwinder’s bait, though, the screen door behind us slapped shut as Amanda and Celia emerged from the community building. “...have to worry,” Celia said, still soothing a mayor who appeared considerably less distraught than when she’d first arrived. “If it was our dogs, then it won’t happen again. My son-in-law is an excellent tracker, so we’ll get to the bottom of this mess one way or another.”

  I glanced over at my mate to see what he tho
ught of being elevated to the status of “son-in-law” despite a complete lack of human marriage ceremonies. Far from being upset, amusement glinted in his eyes and for a moment I thought perhaps he’d thrown the recent contest intentionally. But surely no uber-alpha would ever lose on purpose, not when strangers were potentially threatening his beloved pack?

  “Ma’am,” Hunter greeted the women as they walked past, completely ignoring our shifter visitors when there were one-bodies within earshot. If my mate had been wearing a hat, I was sure he would have tipped it out of respect for the older women, and he did leave my side for a moment to hold open the gate separating yard from driveway until the pair had passed through.

  To my dismay, the resultant gooey feeling in my belly had nothing to do with my recent fall and everything to do with the sheer perfection of my mate. Darn you, Hunter. How am I supposed to keep my eye on the ball when you’re just so dang irresistible?

  As if in response to my internal dialogue, strong fingers once again slipped into mine, then I was being tucked underneath my returning mate’s shoulder as he visibly claimed me before all and sundry. Finally, Hunter’s lips spread wide into what Amanda would probably think was a jovial smile but what I knew was a warning for Stormwinder to keep his trap shut until the mayor was safely inside her car and rolling away in the opposite direction.

  Only when Amanda was gone and Celia had obeyed my chin jerk and removed herself from the proceedings did my mate speak at last. “I’m afraid we have business to attend to....”

  “Business relating to a slaughtered sheep?” Stormwinder interjected, one eyebrow raised. “I hope I don’t have to inform you that a landed pack must make every effort to stay on good terms with its human neighbors. You won’t be able to move away from any problems, and shifters can’t afford to air their dirty laundry in public.”