THE ALPHA WHO COULDN'T HOWL

Chapter2

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THE ALPHA WHO COULDN'T HOWL

Chapter 2: The Body In The River

COME NOW. HE'S DEAD.

My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone into the river.

Elara was already running.

"Hey! Wait!" I yelled. "Elara!"

She didn't wait. Her apron was flapping behind her like a cape and her ponytail was bouncing. The emergency bells were still screaming from the town square.

BONG BONG BONG BONG.

The whole town was awake now. Doors slamming. Trucks starting. Flashlights cutting through the trees. Everyone was running toward the river, away from the bonfire that was supposed to be for me.

I caught up to her at the edge of the woods. I grabbed her wrist without thinking.

She spun around. "Let go of me."

"You shouldn't be here," I said, breathing hard. "This is pack business. Go home."

"There is nothing wrong with me being here," she snapped. Exactly like she did in the diner when customers told her to smile more. "There is everything wrong with you telling me what to do, Kael. That's my brother's voice I heard."

What?

The crowd was thick near the water. I could smell blood. A lot of it. Human blood. And river water. And fear. Real, sour fear.

My father was kneeling in the mud. Alpha Magnus. His big shoulders were hunched. Jenkins was next to him, holding a flashlight with a shaking hand.

And in the shallow water, face down, was a body.

Small. Red hoodie. Soaked.

"Tyler?" Elara whispered.

Then she screamed.

"TYLER!"

She ripped her wrist out of my hand and shoved through the crowd. No one stopped her. Even the werewolves moved for her because that scream was pure human pain and it cut through everything.

I followed her. My wolf was going insane inside me. Pacing. Growling. Not at the body. At the crowd. At every male who looked at her.

Mine. Mine. Mine is upset.

Tyler Quinn. Fourteen. Elara's little brother. The kid who mowed lawns in the summer and always asked me for extra whipped cream at the diner.

He was on his back now. Jenkins had turned him over. His eyes were open. Empty. Staring at the sky.

His throat was torn out.

Not cut. Torn. Like claws.

Elara fell to her knees in the mud. She didn't care about the blood. She pulled him into her lap.

"Tyler? Tyler, hey, no, no, no. Come on. Wake up. Stop playing. Tyler?"

Her voice broke on the last one. It wasn't loud anymore. It was a whisper.

I knelt beside her. My hand hovered over her shoulder. I didn't know what to do with it.

"He's gone," Jenkins said quietly. He wasn't looking at Tyler. He was looking at me. "He's been gone for an hour. Maybe more."

My father finally looked up. His eyes found me. Then they found Elara holding her dead brother. Then they found my hand close to her.

His face went hard.

"Kael. Get her out of here. Now."

"Don't tell him what to do," Elara spat at my father, tears running down her face, mud on her chin. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare tell him to get me out of here. My brother is dead!"

"Elara," I whispered. "Please."

"They're clothes, Kael. They cover me. They aren't falling apart." She was suddenly talking about something else, something from earlier, her brain misfiring from shock. "He said... Tyler said his hoodie was fine. I told him it was cold. He said it was fine..."

The sight of her so broken and pretty and holding her dead brother made me feel something I had never felt before. Not pity. Rage. A cold, black, irrational rage that wanted to tear the whole forest apart.

My hands started to shake. Not from fear this time.

My nails got longer.

"Kael," Jenkins warned under his breath. "Control."

I couldn't. I looked at Tyler's neck. Those weren't rogue marks. I know what rogue marks look like. Rogues are messy, wild.

This was clean. Four lines. Precise. Almost surgical. Like someone who knew exactly how deep to go.

Like an Alpha.

Like someone from our own pack.

A cold drop of water hit my cheek. Then another.

It was starting to rain.

"Elara, we have to go," I said. My voice sounded wrong. Deeper. Gravelly. My wolf pushing through.

She whirled around on her knees to look at me fully, her expression becoming even more defiant, even with tears streaming down her face.

"I'm not going anywhere. My old clothes are fine. My brother is... I'm not leaving him."

"They aren't fine. Those clothes are soaked in blood, Elara. You can't sit here. You need to look... you need to be somewhere warm. You need to let them..."

I couldn't finish.

She slowly lifted her eyes from her brother and fixed me with a glare that could have killed any wolf in that clearing.

"You think I care about my clothes right now? You think I care about looking the part?"

She was right. I was stupid. I was saying stupid Alpha things because I didn't know how to say I'm sorry your brother died and I think my own pack killed him.

I reached out again and this time I touched her. Just her shoulder. Gently.

The second I touched her, something happened.

A jolt. Like electricity. Like when you touch a live wire. It shot up my arm and straight into my chest.

Elara gasped. Not from pain. Her eyes went huge. She clutched her neck, the back of her neck, right where mates mark each other.

"What... what was that?" she whispered.

I stared at her hand. Under her wet hair, on her pale skin, there was something faint. Very faint. Like a bruise forming.

A mark. Not a bite yet. Just a shadow. In the shape of a wolf's teeth.

My mark. It was appearing on her even though I hadn't bitten her.

That's impossible. Humans don't get marked before the bite. And I can't even shift properly, let alone mark.

My father saw it too. I saw his face go white.

Jenkins grabbed my father's arm. "Magnus. Look at his eyes."

My father looked at my eyes and stepped back.

"His eyes are glowing," someone in the crowd whispered. "But he can't even howl. How are his eyes glowing?"

The rain was coming harder now. Tyler's blood was washing into the river, pink.

Elara was still holding her neck, looking at me like I was a stranger.

"Kael, what is happening to me? Why does my neck feel like it's on fire?"

Behind us, a new scent hit the air. I smelled it even through the rain and the blood.

Wild. Clean snow. Pine after rain. Honey.

The same scent as Elara's.

But stronger. Coming from the woods on the other side of the river.

Another one. Another mate scent. Exactly like hers.

And a low, amused voice from the trees said,

"Well, well. Looks like the broken Alpha found his little human mate after all. Shame I found her first."