Rise of the Alphas

by Alexis Davie

  “Until you’ve sorted out that mess in your head, and your heart,” Talon interjected.

  “Know your place, Talon.”

  Talon lowered his gaze submissively and stepped back.

  “Do not capture him, and do not harm him unless he attacks, but—”

  “Don’t kill him, right. The poor bastard is family now,” Reed muttered and turned away. “Come on, Talon.”

  Pike clenched his jaw in disapproval, but there was nothing he could say that would rectify the situation. He watched as Talon and Reed left the living room and he turned back to the staircase.

  He was surprised to see Farrah at the top of the staircase, slowly making her way down to him.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did your two henchmen want?”

  “I asked them to get information on you.”

  “Why?” she asked and crossed her arms. “Because all humans lie?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “That’s mildly insulting,” Farrah said with an exaggerated eyeroll.

  “Reed thought he knew you, and…”

  “And what?”

  “Something about you seemed familiar to me, too. So I asked them to find out more about you.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” she sneered. “There was nothing to find. Nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing, Farrah,” Pike answered.

  “Yes, it is. I lived an ordinary life with a somewhat dysfunctional family, but that’s it,” she pointed out.

  “It wasn’t your life that is the problem. It’s your father’s.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your father was Terrence Walker, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve lived in Detroit your entire life?”

  “Up until I moved here, yes.”

  Pike lowered his gaze and his eyes grew darker. “Your dad wasn’t who you thought he was. And his death didn’t happen the way you were told it did.”

  Farrah’s eyes welled up with tears, but she stood motionless in front of Pike. “What happened to him?”

  “Did you know what your father did at night? When he wasn't home? Do you know where he was?”

  A tear ran down her cheek and she shook her head. “No.”

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying to you. Just tell me what you know,” she demanded.

  “Your father was a wolf hunter, and he got too close to a pack. The Alpha had him killed to make it look like he’d been gunned down.”

  “No, that’s impossible. My dad was a kind and decent man. He’d never do something like that.”

  “Even the kindest of men had the motivation to do what he did.”

  “My dad was not a monster. He apparently just hunted them,” she retorted and glared at Pike.

  Farrah’s words struck him deeper than any blade had ever done, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. It felt as though he had been punched so hard that all the air escaped from his lungs and his shoulders slumped momentarily.

  “Talon also found out that your brother took over for your dad when he passed away.”

  “You mean was murdered,” she corrected him.

  “I’m sorry, Farrah.”

  “I don’t believe you. I know the kind of man my father was,” Farrah said after a pause.

  Pike sighed, knowing that there was only one way to convince Farrah that he was telling the truth. Even though he had known about Terrence Walker for a long time, he never realized he had a son and a daughter. Terrence had done a stellar job in keeping their identity a secret, as well as keeping them from harm. If it hadn’t been for Talon and Reed putting the pieces together, Pike would have never made the connection between Farrah and her hunter father.

  Pike walked to the door which led to the garage and looked back at Farrah. “Come on.”

  Farrah frowned. “What?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  “No,” she answered simply as she wiped her face and glared at him with narrowed eyes.

  “Farrah, please. There is something I need to show you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have to drive us there.”

  Farrah inhaled and her eyes widened, showing her obvious fear. He just hoped it was fear of what she might find out, and not a fear of him.

  “Please, Farrah. Maybe things will make more sense to you after you see it for yourself.”

  “See what?”

  “Let me show you,” Pike urged and held out his hand toward her.

  Farrah bit her bottom lip, then pushed past Pike through the door leading to the garage. Pike simply pursed his lips, knowing Farrah wasn’t in the mood to take his hand, or even look at him at that moment. The truth about her father, which she reluctantly believed, had obviously shaken her up a bit, and Pike knew she would be even more shaken up once they arrived at the underground chapel.

  Pike climbed into his dark blue Audi, and Farrah slid onto the seat beside him. She immediately buckled her seatbelt and stared out in front of her. He lowered his gaze, waited for the garage door to open, before he shifted the car into reverse gear and drove out of the garage, and into the streets.

  During the drive, he glanced occasionally at Farrah, but he didn’t say a single word to her. He wanted her to be the one to talk first, as he knew anything he would say to her could make her doubt herself even more. She had already accused him of lying to her about her father, but Pike didn’t take it personally. He could only imagine how lost and confused Farrah was at that moment, as her entire life and the image of her father she thought she knew were lies.

  Gray clouds formed in the sky, casting an ominous shadow over New Orleans as Pike drove out of the city toward Lake Pontchartrain. The road split in two and he took the right road. He noticed Farrah’s growing discomfort as she shifted in her seat, gazing around her at the swamp wasteland.

  “Where are we?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “Almost there.”

  Pike took another small side road, and as they reached the clearing, surrounded by trees, Pike slowed the car.

  Farrah glanced at him in confusion as he stopped the car and turned off the engine.

  “This is the part where you kill me, right?” she asked anxiously.

  Pike sighed in exasperation and opened his door. “Come on.”

  He climbed out of the car, but it was only when Farrah realized that he was serious that she climbed out of the car as well.

  “Wait a second. We’re in the middle of nowhere. What can you possibly show me out here?” she called out as she quickly closed the car door and ran after him.

  Pike steadily made his way through the grass and came to a stop all of a sudden. He reached down and grabbed a metal ring which was cleverly concealed by the grass and shrubs. He pulled the ring upwards, and the large circular trapdoor opened.

  “What the hell…” Farrah gasped as she finally reached him.

  “Ladies first,” he offered with a cocky smile.

  “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to go in there first. I don’t even know what’s down there. You could be leading me to my death,” Farrah scoffed.

  Pike rolled his eyes and took a few steps down into the tunnel. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already.”

  “That’s comforting,” she retorted.

  Pike couldn't help but smile as he descended the stone steps, Farrah following closely behind him. She placed her hand on the small of his back, and it set off a whole new range of emotions as he felt his cock harden from just her touch.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Pike reached for a switch and the entire room, which was large and spacious, with books, old chests, and dusty furniture that made it look as though no one had been there for a while, was lit in a dull orange haze.

  “What is this place?” Farrah asked as she took a few steps forward, looking around the room.

 
“It used to be my lair when I first arrived in New Orleans,” Pike answered.

  “Your lair?” she asked and turned to him. “Okay, Batman.”

  “Talon, Reed, and I would come down here to figure things out, have discussions and meetings. We even had orientations here.”

  “Orientations for what?”

  “For those who wanted to join my pack.”

  “You’re the pack leader?”

  Pike shrugged his shoulders and cocked his head. “We prefer the term Alpha.”

  “So I’ve heard,” she mumbled and approached a tall stack of books. “And all these books are…”

  “Our history, mostly. What we are, where we came from. A lot of them are journals from previous generations, trying to figure themselves out. Being what we are didn’t exactly come with a guidebook,” he answered.

  Farrah looked at him, her blue eyes luminous in the orange light. “So this is what you wanted to show me? A secret wolf lair? What does this have to do with my father?”

  Pike walked toward a high shelf against the wall furthest from him and reached up. He found the rough leather-bound book and retrieved it from the shelf. It was the only book that wasn’t as dusty as the rest since he had read through it every so often, especially once he had acquired it after Terrence Walker’s death. He wiped the thin layer of dust from the leather and handed it to Farrah.

  “What is this?” she asked as she reluctantly took it.

  “It’s your father’s journal. Or at least one of them.”

  Farrah’s eyes widened and she opened it on the first page. “That’s his handwriting,” she whispered as her fingers gently traced her father’s words on the pages.

  Pike looked at her face, tears already starting to form behind her dark eyelashes. He watched her read for a few minutes, the emotions forming on her features. Sadness, confusion, anger, resentment, guilt, love, and disbelief. A single tear ran down her cheek and she shook her head. “I can’t believe this. My dad was a wolf hunter. All this time and I never knew.”

  Pike shifted his weight, the feeling of discomfort a foreign concept for him. “I’m sure he wanted to tell you, but he just didn’t know how to. He just wanted to protect you and your brother.”

  Farrah glanced up at him and let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “I know what it feels like to find out things about your family, things that happened right under your nose and you had no knowledge of it.”

  “What did your dad do? Was he also a murderer?”

  “He wasn’t a very good guy, and he paid the ultimate price because of that,” Pike answered and his eyes glowed softly in the dimly lit room. “My mother was a human, and I never knew that. It was only when she started to age that I realized it. I felt lied to because everyone knew except me.”

  Farrah eyed him sympathetically. “People are selfish idiots, no matter what species they are.”

  Pike nodded in agreement and lowered his gaze.

  “How well did you know my dad?” she asked after a brief pause.

  “I knew he was a great hunter. He singlehandedly killed over a thousand of us in his lifetime. Everyone feared him, even just the mention of his name. Many of us believed he wasn’t human; many of us still do, waiting for him to strike at any moment like he was never dead to begin with,” Pike said.

  “Did he try to kill you too?”

  “I’m the Alpha,” Pike said and held out his hands. “Of course he tried to kill me.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You had no idea,” Pike whispered.

  “Can I ask you something?” she whispered in return.

  “You can ask me anything.”

  “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

  Pike regarded her grimly and his eyes flickered as he approached her. “Because I can’t.”

  “That’s not an answer,” she pointed out.

  “Then maybe this is,” he said huskily, and he pulled her close to him and kissed her on the lips.

  Pike felt himself melting into Farrah, and despite his suspicions that mating for life was absolute nonsense, he couldn’t help but feel like he had just found his true mate.

  5

  Pike’s heartbeat was slow and steady against her ear as she stood enveloped by his arms in the weird underground lair. The words that were written in her father’s journal still spun around in her head, but she knew some of it wasn’t true. Her father had written that the wolves were heartless animals who deserved to die, but he was wrong.

  Or at least he was wrong about Pike.

  Pike was mentioned several times in the journal’s first few pages, which made Farrah believe that her father had specifically tried to target Pike, but never had any success. She shivered at the thought and backed away slightly. Her lips still burned from Pike’s passionate and tender kiss and gazed up to meet his eyes.

  Without a word, Pike also backed away and sighed. “I feel very protective of you, Farrah. I don’t know why, but ever since the first time I saw you, something happened to me. I couldn’t kill you because killing you would have meant killing a part of myself.”

  Farrah frowned but she understood what he meant because she felt exactly the same way about him. She had been in love once, or at least she had thought it was love at the time, but nothing compared to the feelings she had inside her for this man.

  A wolf or not, she had lost her heart to him.

  Her affection for him was sudden and illogical, but then again, there was nothing logical about the situation. Wolf shifters were real.

  “I understand. I’m glad you didn’t,” she said with a small smile.

  A hint of a smile formed on Pike’s lips but disappeared before it could become something more.

  “What’s wrong, Pike?” she asked, sensing something was weighing on his mind. Something he wasn’t going to tell her.

  “I have to let you go,” he answered simply.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I have to let you go. I can’t keep you locked up at my house anymore. People are going to ask questions. Your friends are likely looking for you. I don’t want the police snooping around my house. I’ve created a safe place for my pack, and I don’t want anything to jeopardize it.”

  “Is that the real reason? Or are you just making up some excuse for not wanting to be with me?” she asked. “Is it because of my dad? Is it because he tried to kill you several times?”

  “No.”

  “Or is it because you killed him that you can’t stand to be around me, because of that guilt stuck in your heart.”

  “I did not kill him!” Pike growled.

  “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know. How convenient,” she muttered angrily.

  “I’m so sorry, Farrah. You and I are from two different worlds, and I just want to keep you safe.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it,” she snapped as she grabbed the journal and stomped past Pike. She climbed up the narrow stone steps which led back to the surface and took a deep breath of fresh air. Her heart ached at the thought of not being with Pike, but her mind told her that it was the most rational thing to do. They were from two different worlds, and sure, it would be difficult to adjust to this way of life, but she wanted to.

  She loved him.

  Her eyes widened as those words tumbled through her mind. She loved Pike, and probably in his own twisted wolf way, Pike loved her as well. That was why he wanted to keep her safe.

  She scoffed in disapproval as if she were some kind of defenseless little girl who needed protecting. She could take care of herself, as she had done for the last five years.

  Farrah crossed her arms and made her way to Pike’s car, where she waited for him. She knew it would be difficult to let him go, but she didn’t want to make a big scene, even though they were in the middle of nowhere.

  Honestly, she wanted to go home. She wanted to wake u
p in her normal bedroom, have a normal day at work, and just go back to the life she had known before all of this. Before the wolves, before her father’s lies, before Pike.

  An ache appeared in her chest as she watched Pike slowly walking toward her through the grass. Although leaving was the last thing she wanted to do, it would just be better if she did. She squared her shoulders, suppressing her emotions from spilling down her cheeks, and turned away.

  “Are you ready?” he asked as he walked to the driver’s side door.

  Farrah wasn’t really sure what she had to be ready for—ready to go home, ready to live her life as if she had never met Pike, ready to forget about him altogether.

  Truthfully, she wasn’t ready for any of it.

  The ride back to the city was brief, but it felt like the longest twenty minutes of Farrah’s life. The moment Pike would drop her off in front of her house, it would all be over, and she wasn’t sure whether that was what her heart truly wanted.

  She directed him to the parking lot where she had left her car, and she breathed a sigh of relief to see it still parked there.

  The moon was bright in the sky as Pike parked his car next to hers, and fixed her eyes on her hands resting on her lap.

  “You know, I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I’m not going to say anything to anyone. Even though I don’t know how, I’ll just forget any of this ever happened.”

  “That’s the best thing to do,” he answered bluntly.

  The curt way he answered her ripped her soul into a million sharp, little pieces and she sighed miserably, but she remained strong. She had to be.

  “Thank you, Pike.” She opened the car door and much to her surprise, he grabbed her arm.

  “Wait.”

  Farrah looked at him expectantly and bit her bottom lip.

  “Here’s your bag. Everything is in there,” Pike said and handed her bag to her.

  Hot tears stung her eyes but she willed them away.

  Just a few more seconds, Farrah. Keep it together for just a few more seconds.

  “Thanks,” she whispered and climbed out of the car.

  She slammed the door, groped around in the bottom of her bag for her keys, and slowly made her way to her car. She didn’t look back, because she knew if she did, she’d burst out in tears, and she didn’t want that. As she reached her car, she unlocked the door and climbed inside. She watched in the rearview mirror as Pike’s car sped away, and the tears finally burst through and ran down her cheeks. The walls around her heart which she had tried to keep together had finally broken.