Falling for the Alpha

New Beginnings

Allison's POV

I was walking through the woods. There was a light breeze and the glow of the moon was illuminating the area. As I came across a stream, I sat down and dipped my toes in. I remember this place. I had been here frequently since I was a child. I knew it was only a matter of time until the woman came. The wind picked up and my hair whirled around my face. The woman stepped into the stream from the other side, her long white dress flowing in the wind, a smile on her radiant face.

"Allison, it's almost time."

"Time for what?" This woman had visited me many times during my childhood telling me stories of the supernatural. Of vampires, angels, demons, dragons, ghosts, ghouls, werewolves and other were creatures. All things that went bump in the night. But she never scared me. She just made me feel like there was more to life than I was seeing every day.

"Time for you to meet your other half. You may not have been born as one of my own, but you are bound to my children and will do many good things for them. You just need to be patient a little while longer. And be open minded. Not all things happen at the pace you would like them to go." My brow furrowed at that. She had never talked about her children, she didn't even know she had any. She was just a motherly figure who visited me and gave her advice. She had been advising me to leave John for a while, before it became overwhelmingly apparent to us that there just wasn't anything there for either of us anymore. So I trusted her advice.

"Okay... I'll go out of my comfort zone and see what happens. What should I do in the mean time?"

She smiled a big smile with dazzlingly white teeth, her eyes crinkled. "Make some new friends. Open up a little more. Explore the area. Don't let it be just you and Stormy. You still have a whole life to experience and you can't lock yourself up inside." Her smile dimmed and her eyes took on a sadness in them. She reached out a hand and smoothed my hair down. "I have big plans for you, but it isn't going to be easy. But nothing you can't handle." The smile returned as she bent down and kissed my forehead.

With that, I opened my eyes to the morning light shining in through the window. I always loved those dreams. They soothed my heart and mind. Selene had been visiting me since I was a child and she felt like a second mother to her, even if she was just a dream. She was probably just my subconscious giving me the advice I could never tell myself.

I laid in bed a moment longer, just allowing the sun to warm my face. Stormy uncurled herself from the her spot next to me and she put her head on my chest and started to whine. Yup, it was time to get up. I climbed out of bed, ready to take on a new day. I had taken the week off from work to finish getting moved and settled into my new place, so I really don't have anywhere to be. I filled Stormy's food bowl, then headed into the bathroom to shower, putting on a video game let's play to listen to while I got ready for the day. It always made me laugh how the duo cracked jokes and talked about life while playing games. I didn't need to see the screen to just enjoy their conversation.

I finished up in the bathroom, and walked to the back door to let Stormy out, while I dried my hair with a towel.

"How about we go to the dog park today pup? Meet some new friends? What do you think? Wanna go to the park?" Stormy's tail went crazy at the word park. She ran laps around the back yard, while I giggled at how much like a puppy Stormy still was, even though she was 5 years old. Still young, but not my little pup anymore. I left Stormy in the back yard while I finished getting ready.

When I was done, I locked up the house and walked to the car with Stormy's collar and leash in hand. I opened the car door and Stormy jumped in and sat in the back seat, ready for the ride. It was a very short one, since the dog park was only on the other side of the county park. I pulled up and saw that there were several people there, standing together watching as their dogs chased each other and barked happily.

"Alright Stormy. Let's go make some friends." I climbed out, attached Stormy's collar and leash and walked to the fence. The group turned to look us, and they all smiled. It gave me the courage to open the gate, unhook Stormy, then let her into the pen. Stormy trotted in next to me, then looked up at me to get permission to run with the others. I loved how well I had trained her. "Go on, have fun" Without hesitation, Stormy took off chasing another dog who had a ball who was being chased by some of the other dogs. I sidled up to the group of dog owners, while watching Stormy run.

"Hi! I'm Clara, Bastion is my dog, he's the greyhound." A pretty brunette with green eyes waved. She seemed like a caring soul. I thought we would probably have stuff to talk about.

"Hi, uh, I'm Allison, that's Stormy." I waved back.

"I'm Ted, the beagle is Gracie." Tall and lean with blonde hair and brown eyes, nodded at her. I smiled, he was cute, but not really my type.

"Hello. I'm Georgianna, but everyone calls me George. The german shepard is Gus." She had blue hair in a short pixie cut, and I liked her right away. She seemed wild, but also tame all at once.

"And I'm Chris, Tyson is the lovable mutt rolling in the mud" He had brown hair and gray eyes. I could tell her was gonna be a funny guy to be around with the way he described Tyson.

"So, is this your first time at the dog park Allison?" Clara asked.

"Uh, yeah. I just moved up the street, and saw the dog park when I drove by. I figured it was a beautiful day, and Stormy and I needed to get away from all those boxes."

"Oh, so you're new to the area then?" Chris asked, a look of mild concern on his face, which made me wonder what he knew that I didn't.

"Um, well, I used to live about an hour away with my ex, but no, I'm not really from this area. I used to live up north along the coast, until I moved out here. I guess the south and the mountains just called to me." I smiled.

"Well, welcome to the neighborhood. We should go out and grab a drink tonight! We'll have some of the other dog park regulars come out and you can get to know some more people in the area!" Georgianna jumped up and down excitedly. Ted and Chris gave each other a look.

"That's an awesome idea George! I know just the place! It's a little hole in the wall just by the nature preserve that some of the park rangers hang out at!" Clara seemed just as excited as she started clapping her hands. Ted rolled his eyes, but smiled.

"Yeah, just throw her to the wolves right out the gate." He chuckled, but the girls paused in there excitement and gave him a dirty look.

"Don't listen to him, it'll be a blast! What do you say?" Georgianna grabbed my hand, bouncing up and down once again.

"Sure, that sounds great." Selene's words played back in my head to be more open minded, and hanging out with people I just met was usually not my thing, but they were going to a public place with a bunch of other people. What could go wrong?

Luca's POV

I sat at the bar with Ryan. Jay was back at the pack house, keeping everything in order, while I was out here drowning my sorrows.

"How the hell am I gonna introduce myself to her man? If she were a wolf, it would be a simple, 'Hey, you're my mate.' then she would agree and it would be over." I took another sip from my were beer, it was made stronger for weres, since they had a much higher tolerance for such things. The bar Ryan and I were at was owned by a werewolf, but it served everyone.

"Just relax man, we'll figure something out. She's not going anywhere. I checked the property. She just signed a lease a week ago. She's there for another year. We have plenty of time to figure out how to get an introduction in." Ryan handed me a shot, held up his own and waited. I just rolled my eyes, tapped my shot glass to Ryan's and downed the fierce liquid, burning my throat the whole way down. "Look man, those dog park people are back. Man, that chick with the blue hair is cute. What was her name again?" He tapped his shot glass a few times, "George! That's right. Hey George! How's your night going honey?"Georgianna smiled and waved from the group.

I took another shot and slammed the glass down. I heard the door to the bar open and cheers from behind. I didn't need to turn around to know who walked through the door. Lilac and spring rain. She was here. My body tingled and my heart raced. Ryan started pulling at his sleeve. I spun around to see her waving to the group sitting along the wall. Blue hair and another pretty girl with brown hair walked over to her and dragged her over to the group and started giving introductions. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was wearing skinny jeans, gladiator sandals and a flowy pink tank top that hid her curves from me. Her hair was in a messy bun, showcasing her long delicate neck, that was accented by a silver chain with a moon pendant on it. I could hardly take my eyes off her. We were finally in the same room. "What the hell do I do man?" I looked at Ryan.

"You're lucky I'm a good wing man. Just hold tight. Hey Cliff, we're gonna need two more shots." Cliff, the bartender, slid us two more shots, before he walked into the back room. "Just relax. She needs to come to the bar at some point for a drink. She doesn't look like the type of girl to drink that cheap beer the table has." As if on cue, she smiled to the table, excused herself and walked over to the bar. She stood a stool away from us. I still couldn't take my eyes off her. Ryan cleared his throat beside me. I dragged my eyes away to look at him. Ryan gave me a look that said chill out. Ryan stepped around me toward the angel at the bar. "Hey, I've never seen you here before. Are you new?" She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, before she replied.

"Yup." She leaned over the bar a little to see where Cliff had gone to, obviously feeling uncomfortable by Ryan's attention.

"Sorry if I'm bothering you, I just like to say I know everyone that comes in here. I'm Ryan, and this handsome guy here is my boss, Luca. Luca, say hi to the pretty lady." She sighed then turned to look at us head on. She plastered a fake smile on her face and looked at Ryan.

"I'm Allison." She held out her hand. Ryan took it and shook it.

"Great to meet you Allison. Why don't you let me and Luca buy you you're first drink? Just as a welcome to the neighborhood kind of thing?" Ryan smiled. For the first time her eyes moved to me. The smile on her face faltered for a second, then it was back in place.

"Uh, sure. Why not? Do you know the group I'm with?"

"The dog park crew right?" Ryan started to step back to give me a little room to move in.

"Yeah, they seem really nice. I only met them today and they've already invited me into their group."

"Yeah, that George is the sweetest. I'm gonna head over to say hi. Luca, keep my seat warm." And then he was gone. Cliff finally came back from the back room and I waved him over.

"So, what would you like to drink?" My tongue felt swollen in my mouth. Like words didn't want to come naturally to me. Allison sighed and sat in Ryan's seat next to me. Cliff walked over.

"What can I get for you miss?" I looked at Allison, who was looking at me. She turned as soon as she noticed I'd caught her looking at me. It gave me more confidence and I couldn't help but smile.

"Hm, how about an L.I.T.?" She smiled at Cliff.

"You got it. And for you Alpha?"

"Another shot and another beer please" I was gonna need it at the rate I was going with Allison.

"Make that two shots, if you don't mind." Allison turned to look at me. "Where I come from, you don't do shots alone." She smiled at me. The smile seeming real for the first time since she walked through the door. Cliff looked at me, asking for approval.

"What kind of shot do you want?" I was hoping she'd ask for something fruity or watered down. There was no way she'd handle were liquor.

"Whatever you're having is fine." Cliff's eyes went back and forth between the two of us. I gave Cliff a slight head shake, telling him to give her something different from what he was giving me. Cliff nodded and walked away to make her drink.

"Allison, what brought you to the area?" I needed to get her talking. I hoped that if I got her talking about something she liked, she wouldn't rush back to the dog park group. I wanted more time with her.

"Uh, well, I guess you can say a break up did." My hand clenched around my beer bottle. The thought of her with someone else made my blood boil. I lifted up the bottle and gulped what was left before bringing the bottle down a little too hard to the bar. She jumped a little at the sound.

"Sorry, so a break up huh? That sucks. What happened?" Cliff walked over and deposited her L.I.T. my beer and two shots, then walked away. Allison reached over and grabbed a shot and her drink then slid it over to her.

"We just weren't in love. We love each other, sure, but we aren't IN love, if that makes sense. We were both in weird places in our lives when we met and we both needed someone to fill that hole in our lives. But, you know, the chemistry just wasn't there." She looked into my eyes and I felt that she was trying to tell me something. Maybe she felt what I did. The chemistry she had with her ex had been lacking, and our chemistry was not. She lifted up the shot to me. "To new beginnings?" I smiled, and raised my shot glass to her.

"To new beginnings." We tapped glasses and took our shots. The second I swallowed I knew something was wrong. It tasted like water going down. I looked at Allison and she was grimacing. "Are you okay?"

"Woo! That is STRONG! What the hell was that?" Shit... she had taken the wrong shot. She'd be stumbling drunk before she knew it.

"Uh, just local stuff. Might as well be moonshine. Maybe you should have a water chaser?" I tried to flag Cliff down, but it was too late. She started drinking her L.I.T. to clear the taste from her mouth. I looked over to the rowdy group Ryan was with, he had his arm around Georgianna, as he smiled over at us. The look on my face must have showed panic because Ryan's smile slid from his face. He turned to the group, then started walking over to us.

"What's up you two?" Ryan asked.

"Ugh, you guys do shots of moonshine? That stuff is intense!" Ryan looked at me with a panicked look on his face. I just nodded.

"Oh, so you've tried our hooch, huh? It is really strong, maybe switch to water for now." He slid the drink from her hands and smiled at her. "Did you drive yourself here?"

"Well, yeah." Ryan and I looked at each other. "I've only had a shot guys, it's not that big of a deal. I'll be fine."

"Why don't we head over to the group and see how the rest of the night goes?" Ryan smiled and turned around and headed back to Georgianna. We stood up and as she took one unsteady step, my hand found it's way to her lower back, guiding her back to the group.I had met these people before. They were regulars since the bar wasn't that far from the dog park. They'd come in every week. Some of the women in the group knew this was a were bar and were into that kind of thing. I assumed some of the men were aware as well, since they never did anything to cross anyone here. They all seemed pretty nice and they tried to include everyone in the conversation. I kept an eye on Allison out of the corner of my eye. Her cheeks were getting red and her eyes were starting to get glassy. She put her hand on my arm, causing sparks to ignite under my skin, then she looked at me. Our eyes locked, and then she smiled and nodded toward the door. I looked at her then the door, then back to her. She slid her hand down my arm to my hand, taking it in hers and tugged me toward the door. When we got outside. She took a deep breath of the fresh air.

"Wow, it gets hot in there! Thanks for coming outside with me." She was fanning her face with her hand.

"It really wasn't that hot in there." I smiled at her, taking a step closer. There were strands of hair that had fallen out of the messy bun and I swiped them aside and slid them behind her ear. She leaned into my hand and closed her eyes. "I don't wanna come off too strong, but you are very beautiful." Her eyes popped open and she smiled, taking a step closer to me.

"Thank you, you're not too bad yourself." She reached out her hand and laid it on my chest. I put my hand on top of hers to lock her hand there. Did she know that my heart was already hers? Desmond was howling in my head with the contact, begging me to kiss her, to make her ours. I dipped my head down bringing our faces closer. I used my free hand to tip her chin up to meet my face. Her eyes were a little glassy and I could tell she wasn't all there with me. I wanted our first kiss to be something she remembered, not something that happened when she was black out drunk. I had to get her home where she could rest and I could try again when she was sober. But how the hell was I gonna get her home?

Allison's POV

The second I had walked into that bar, I was on edge. Something felt different, like a piece of me was vibrating inside my chest. When Ryan had introduced himself to me, I had a flashback to getting hit on at the bars on the shore. They were all insincere jerks who were only interested in one thing. Selene's words reverberated in my mind again and I forced a smile and shook the his hand. When he introduced his boss and I finally looked over at Luca, that vibrating in my chest increased. It was a shock to my system. So when Ryan walked away, I wasn't tempted to follow him back to the group. I wanted to see what this sensation was and why this man was causing it. So after a shot and half of my drink, we were standing around my new group of friends chatting. I had been eyeing up Luca out of the corner of my eye most of the night, trying to get a feel for the type of man he was. A lot of the men in the bar would nod their head at him when they walked by, it was such a slight thing that I was sure no one else would notice, but the eye contact that was made between him and them, made me all too aware. Ryan had called him boss. But Cliff had called him Alpha. The room started to get hot and to spin a little so I put my hand on Luca's arm to steady myself. When our skin touched the vibrating in my chest went into overdrive. It felt like my heart was racing a mile a minute. We made eye contact, I took his hand in mine and led him outside. We were standing there, my hand on his chest with his hand covering it, his hand on my chin tilting my face up to look at him, and the feeling in my chest begging him to kiss me. I hadn't felt this way in years. Not since before John. God it had been so long. They had stopped being intimate long before they called it quits. Why hasn't Luca kissed me yet? I could feel his breath fanning across my cheeks, he was so close. I looked up into his eyes and silently begged him to kiss me. He dropped his hands and took a step back. I deflated a little from the loss of contact. What had just happened?

"I should get you home. You are gonna be hurting tomorrow." He ran a hand through his beautiful black hair. His gray eyes raked my body, from head to toe and back up again.

"Yeah, maybe you should take me home." I smiled. I reached for his hand and he took it. "My car or yours?"

"I'll drive your car. Ryan can pick me up after he leaves the bar. Where is your car?" I took my key fob out of my pocket and pointed it toward the back of the parking lot where I had left my car. The car lights turned on with the hit of a button and I handed it over to him. He put his hand on my lower back and ushered me to my car. As we came up to it I pulled away from him.

"Can we just take a minute? I love sitting outside on nights like this." I popped up and sat on the hood of the car and stared up at the sky. The moon was almost full and the stars were shining. Even though I knew I was way drunker than I wanted to be, the cool air was bringing me back to earth. Luca sidled up next to me to lean against the car. He turned his head up to the sky too. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye for the hundredth time that night. I smirked when an idea hit me. "I guess we can go now." I said. He turned to look at me as he put his hand out to help me down. I smiled. I had a feeling he'd do that. I scooted closer to the edge of the hood before I pulled him toward me. He took a step closer and put his hand on my waist to steady himself.

"Woah there. Easy now. Here, let me help you down." He put pressure on my waist like he was gonna lift me up, but before he could, I leaned in and kissed him. The vibrating in my chest eased up, like this was what I was meant to do. He responded to my kiss with a growl from deep in his chest. The hands on my waist slid to my thighs and he pulled me closer to him. I gasped at the contact to my aching body. He took advantage and slipped his tongue into my mouth, teasing me with it. I wrapped one leg around his waist and laid my hands on his chest. His hands roamed from my thighs to my hips, up my waist to my breasts, molding and kneading them in his hands. He removed one hand it continued up my chest to my throat, he hesitated there before he went to the back of my head. He grabbed my hair and pulled back just enough to break our kiss. I gasped at the pain, that seemed to only make my core ache more. He started kissing my neck from my chin down to my collar bone.

"I told myself I was gonna give you time. I was going to do this right, but f**k, I'm only a man baby." He nipped my neck and I moaned at the sweet pain that caused so much pleasure at the same time.

"Take me home Luca. Please." I moaned as he continued his assault on my body. He hesitated against me. I pulled back and looked at him. His eyes were completely black. I moved a hand up his chest to his cheek, and looked into his eyes as they slowly went back to gray. He blinked a few times before he stepped back.

"Yeah, let's get you home." He opened the passenger side door for me. I slid in and he softly closed the door as I settled into the seat. I wasn't sure what I had gotten myelf into, but I was being open minded and I wasn't gonna take my time like I usually did. Something felt right here. Even if it turned into a one night stand, I was going to have fun.