Alpha Tiger

Chapter 1-2

As for her body, she had learned early on that she wasn’t going to be the thin, wispy woman that her mother had been when she was younger, effortlessly eating and doing whatever she wanted, while maintaining a flawless figure. Even today, her mother weighed hardly anything and ate like a starving freshman in college.

But, Danni was far from overweight. She just had to work for the body that she had and she worked hard. Her roommate Molly was a fitness competitor for pageants and she believed in working hard every day and Danni had learned everything that she knew from Molly.

Whenever she was feeling down or not liking something about her body, Molly was there to show her what she needed to do with brutal reality checks. Molly was a loving kind of person who believed that some of the best love in the world needed to be delivered through a shout.

Danni understood and respected that, even though she’d spent some time crying in the locker room, she couldn’t argue with the results.

Molly had reshaped Danni’s life and habits and now, she didn’t even notice that she was healthy. It was just who she was. She didn’t suffer from cravings, she didn’t count her carbs, and she didn’t fear going to the gym. All she did on a daily basis was take care of her body. She made sure that she was putting good things in her body, and great things came out when she went to work out.

Everyone complimented her and she knew that when women said it, it was out of envy and when men said it she knew that it was out of lust. That was all that she really knew about her body as far as people were concerned about her. She knew that women hated it when they saw her at the gym and they always assumed that she was there to steal their men. It was an absurd idea, but when men’s eyes followed her wherever she went, she understood the concern.

She had legs that were chiseled out of the workouts that made her muscles and joints feel like they were made out of jelly and that she could hardly stand. Her leg exercises were brutal, to say the least, but they ended up with incredible results, giving her strong, long legs that looked great in any dress and an ass that made men want to break down and cry out of desire.

She loved her flat stomach and her abs that she had honed over the course of her work at the gym. There was nothing that she could give up when it came to the results that she was getting at the gym. Just for the sake of her performance ability, she knew that going to the gym and looking attractive were vital to the success of her industry and her talents.

People wanted to see an attractive woman on stage or at the front of the restaurant, not someone who didn’t put forward the effort. That was just reality for men and women who liked to play music. So, she made sure that her body was performing to the quality that people wanted.

Walking out of her room and down the hall to the bathroom that she had used the entire time she had been growing up, she was getting a strange sense of déjà vu about all of this. She didn’t like the feeling and all she needed was her younger brother being a d**k in the hallway like he used to be.

She remembered all the years of him trying to trip her, jumping out to scare her, or grabbing her towel and yanking it so she would freak out. She didn’t miss those days and as she walked calmly to the bathroom in her underwear and a T-shirt, she could hear her parents downstairs.

Honestly, she loved her parents, but she didn’t want to deal with them right now. She wanted to go into the bathroom and be left alone for a while. She wanted to shower and put on her make up and get ready before she had to deal with all the questions about why she’d shown up in the middle of the afternoon yesterday and asked if she could stay with them for a few days or weeks.

She had given them the lame excuse that she needed a change of scenery, but she knew that it was an excuse that didn’t hold water and that they were going to want to know the truth in a matter of time. She would give it to them, but she knew that before that, they were going to give her the respect and the distance that she needed. She was grateful for that and she was going to string it out for as long as possible.

She closed the door and turned on the hot water, feeling like a teenager again and hating that feeling so much. She felt like she had spent so much of her life running away from this house and trying her hardest to get away from a life that she knew she should like and that she should be grateful for.

There was nothing about this life that was inherently bad, but since she was young, there was an explorer’s spirit inside of her that wouldn’t accept good enough or anything mediocre. She knew that she wanted the best, even if it was only the best for her. She wanted to find the perfect piece to every part of her life. Everything could work out for the best. She lived by that code and she wanted to make sure that she made it in life by that code.

Sure, she didn’t believe in fate and she didn’t believe that there was someone out there for everyone, especially crafted for them, regardless of those mate rumors that her parents would tell her when she was younger. She didn’t believe in any of them and she knew that it was just the equivalent of the Christian soul mate story that parents would tell their children so that they would wait to have s*x when they were married but just ended up sneaking around like the rest of the teenagers in the world.

That was a ludicrous notion and she knew that it was fake, something that people were told so that they wouldn’t settle and they wouldn’t sell themselves short when they were looking for a relationship with another person.

But, she did believe that in a world of chaos, there were better options. There were alternatives that were inherently better than other choices. There were choices and they were custom tailored to each and every individual, something that she greatly enjoyed and appreciated.

But, at the same time, she knew that there were plenty of people she had to wade through to find the best person to spend the rest of her life with. It was pressure and even if she didn’t believe in fate or love at first sight, she knew that she spent way too much time second-guessing herself when she should be having fun and doing what everyone else did in the world and just enjoying the process.

God, she kept screwing herself over and over and as she stepped into the shower and felt the warm water running over her, she knew that her parents were narrowing that pool immensely. They had put the added burden upon her hunt for love by telling her that it was best if she ended up marrying another Shifter.

Like there weren’t enough people in the world right now, but she had to narrow it down to the couple hundred Shifter men in Boston and the surrounding area that she was going to have to pick from? That was too much. She was never going to find someone like that and it was driving her insane.

Had she just torpedoed everything by coming here? Had she run away and let the whole Jenga tower come crashing down in her terror and her panic? There was a good chance that all she had waiting for her back in Boston was a smoking ruin and it wouldn’t surprise her at all.

Washing her hair and trying her hardest to go to a Zen-like state of peace and tranquility, she washed her body and shaved everywhere, making sure that she was soft and smooth, just like she always did.

She was meticulous about caring for herself and when she stepped out of the shower and dried off and then moisturized herself, she was pleased to find that there wasn’t a patch of hair anywhere. For her, it was the little things in life right now that were building up her confidence to face the world. Other than that, all she had was the crushing panic and terror inside of her.

As she walked out of the bathroom, she wondered what her brother was doing for the summer. He had to be filling in for some internship or was wasting time traveling with one of his rich friends who didn’t mind having him mooch on their fun and fortune. Even though he had been a pain in the ass growing up, David had turned into the smooth, slick charmer that she knew that he was all along.

It was annoying when he would pull out the silver tongue to escape punishment or trouble that her parents were getting ready to rain down upon him. But, in the financial industry, she had no doubt that it was going to serve him well. Lucky little bastard. He always did have the better lot.

In her room, she pulled on a pair of short shorts, not wanting to wear underwear and having it show whenever she bent over. Her long legs slipped through the holes in the shorts and she admired how smooth and flawless they were. She was proud of her body and she didn’t mind focusing on it once and a while. She pulled on a loose top that hung over one of her shoulders and she didn’t bother wearing a bra. It was a dark color and it was loose enough that no one was going to see anything, even if they did magically show up at the house during the middle of the day or in the evening.

She didn’t plan on going anywhere and she was sticking to her guns on that. She was going to lock herself inside of this house for several days, probably crying and freaking out about her life. So, it wasn’t like she was worried about someone seeing her.

She did her makeup and her hair out of habit and when she was done, she took a deep breath and looked at the beautiful, lost girl in the mirror looking back at her with bright, round blue eyes that were so close to welling up with tears and pouring out of her soul. She didn’t think that there was much hope for her beyond this point, but she knew that she needed to keep going. She needed to do everything that she could to move on.

With a deep breath, she decided that it was time to go downstairs. Leaving her luggage and her bags in her room, she knew that she was going to have to come up with a convincing explanation for why she was here or she needed to stretch out for some skillful vocal finesse that would keep them on their toes for the rest of the day. She didn’t want to waste her time and she didn’t want to waste their time with being an i***t.

Walking down the stairs, she made her way into the kitchen where her father was eating breakfast and reading the newspaper like he was cut out of the 50s and plopped down in their house. Her mother was a little more advanced in the world of technology and was reading on her tablet, but she had her glasses halfway down her nose, peering through them as she held the tablet at a distance to read what was written on it.