The Alpha and Her Secret Mate

Blame

As it always does, the feel of my paws hitting the ground while I race through the forest is exhilarating. I fly through the trees, easily following Alex’s scent. I want to sink into his scent, even as I’m angry and confused. When his scent is mixed in with the earthy smell of the trees, it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever smelled.

“What are you doing, Alex?” I ask him, but he’s not there to respond to me.

I feel a glow of anticipation telling me I’m going the right way, and for some reason, the glow feels like the Goddess, nudging me forward.

I get to the river, and stop abruptly. His trail dissipates in the water, and I narrow my eyes at the stream as though it will reveal where he went. I turn my nose to the sky and sniff trying to sense him. There’s nothing, and I’m disheartened. I don’t want to go back without knowing what Alex is doing, but I don’t know how I can find him like this.

I pick a direction at random, and follow the water upstream. The terrain starts to elevate, and I push more power into my legs, forcing myself up the hill. The burn in my muscles is a welcome distraction, but before long, I make it to the falls.

I’m about to start climbing to the top when I hear something on the rocks. I duck behind a tree and hold my breath, watching silently. Then I see him.

At least I think it’s him. The gray fur matches Alex’s, the markings are right, and I feel the usual thrill at his presence. But it also feels off. His posture isn’t familiar, and when he turns in my direction, his eyes are joltingly wrong. His gaze passes over me, unseeing, and when he turns away, I cower lower. He’s my mate and…and I don’t want him to see me. Not when he’s like this.

He turns on the hilltop, and a different wolf shines through his eyes.

I have to get him back. I need my Alex back. My pulse races, and I jump up before I can chicken out. I quickly race up the hill along the stream and jump the last few yards to the top. I stop behind Alex, and he’s perfectly still with his back to me.

He turns slowly, unnaturally, and when he faces me, his eyes are unseeing.

I return to my human form and call out to him. “Alex?” For the first time, I feel truly vulnerable in front of my mate. My breath comes in quick short bursts, but I refuse to back down.

His snout is inches from my face, and hot steam comes off of his face. His eyes meet mine, but there’s no recognition there. An icy spike shoots from my spine down to my finger tips.

I carefully lift my hand to his face. “A–Alex?” I stroke the soft fur around his eyes. Everything about him feels familiar. The gradient of gray fur, fading to almost white at the tips of his ears, the way he leans his head into my palm, even the flash of lust in his eyes. But it also feels wrong.

Something in his expression darkens, and I flinch back.

Then he lunges at me, pushing me backwards off the rocks.

I scream as we fly through the air. He shifts then turns me around in his arms. He lands on his feet, then silences me with his mouth on mine. His usual gentle questioning touch is gone, and his lips are rough and firm against me. I gasp when his tongue plunges into my mouth, which only makes his grip rougher and more out of control.

“Who are you?” he whispers incredulously between kisses, but his voice is deeper than usual, and his tone is unsettling.

"Alex, what are you doing?" I ask, but my question is swallowed in another kiss. He pushes me back until my back slams against the rocks behind me. His hands are rough against my hips and I arch my body into his touch. The sounds I make are needy and desperate. I want this man's hands on me.

Alex yanks at my shirt, and when it doesn't give he rips it off of me. The night air chills my skin, but his body is warm and I press myself against his chest. He growls possessively, and I laugh. This is Alex, and he’s mine, and I can’t quite remember what I was so worried about.

His mouth presses against mine again but something in his touch makes my skin go cold.

“Wait, Alex?” I say, pushing him away.

“No,” he says, pushing his tongue into my mouth again.

My body wants him, but my mind is screaming to run.

His hand slides into my waistband, and I moan, I want him. When he hears my moan, his hand dips deeper into my pants, and he squeezes my butt with a desperate groan.

My eyes flutter shut, and I grasp onto his hair to pull him to me. His hand inches around my hip, but as soon as I feel his fingers reaching down, I panic. He didn’t want this. He wanted to wait. He wanted to tell everyone first.

“Alex, stop,” I say, but my voice comes out as a soft whine.

He jolts still then growls, “I’m not used to being denied.” He presses himself against me and his free hand finds my skin under the shirt he ripped.

“What are you doing?” I whisper. I put my hands on his shoulders and push him away, but he doesn’t budge. “Alex, talk to me, please.”

He grasps my wrists in one hand, and I fight against him, but he squeezes tighter.

“You’re hurting me,” I gasp.

He ignores me, and pushes his lips against mine again.

“ALEX!” I yell, and I shift with a roar. I shove my shoulder under his ribs and push up, and he flies away from me.

He hits the ground, and yells in frustration. “Who do you think you are?” he yells, but his accent is off…almost old?

I stand over him with my front paws on his chest. “What the hell are you doing? Talk to me!”

Something changes in his expression, some sense of determination settles on his face. I shrink back, just enough for him to shift. The wolf launches himself at me, and he hits me with a force I don’t expect from Alex. My breath is knocked out of me, and I brace for the impact of his teeth.

His jaw closes on my neck, but it’s not a bite to kill. I scratch at his neck and feel his skin give way to my claws, and he lets go.

I jump away from him the second I’m free.

“What is wrong with you?” I demand.

When he looks up at me, his expression holds no recognition. His eyes are angry, and his muscles tense, ready to pounce. But there are also flickers of fear. “I don’t care who your mate is!”

When he starts to get up, I slam him back into the ground. “You’re my mate, you dummy!”

There’s a flicker across his face that I don’t recognize, and then he leaps up towards me. I lower my body to the ground. When he hits me, I stumble back, but only a little bit. My feet dig into the dirt as I stabilize myself, but I don’t fall.

He falters when I don’t fall, and I don’t give him time to recover. I shove my shoulder into his chest, and he takes the brunt of the hit, knocking the wind out of him. His back hits the ground, and he scrambles to right himself, but I attack. I close my teeth around his neck, holding him to the ground. My claws dig into his shoulders.

“What the hell, Alex!”

In an instant, I feel the resistance go out of him. He shifts again, and I jump up to keep from hurting his human form. He won’t meet my eye, almost in a sheepish way, but when he does look up, the familiarity of his gray eyes is marred by fear.

I shift and kneel beside him. I wait for him to say something, anything. I need any kind of explanation. But it doesn’t come.

He starts to back away from me, wrapping his arms around his stomach protectively. I can sense him on the mindlink, but he won’t let me see his emotions. ‘Layla, I…” His voice falls silent, with no explanation to follow up.

I want to hold him, but the memory of that icy stake of fear weighs heavy. “Go home,” I order him. “Don’t come back to the pack house until you’re ready to talk.”

I don’t wait for him to respond. I turn and start jogging away towards home, eventually shifting so I can leave faster. Even my wolf form can’t get away fast enough.

Current Chapter

I returned to the party quietly and with little fanfare, much to my relief. Now that I’m home, my hands are shaky, and my thoughts are racing.

Someone hands me a piece of mate cake, and I must thank them appropriately, because they beam as they turn to serve another wolf. I take a bite, and realize it’s my favorite. Vanilla sprinkles cake with strawberry frosting.

My eyes grow hot with a memory of mom making this for me and Gracie when we were living in California.

This is my favorite cake of all time, she’d told us as she smeared frosting on Gracie’s nose. Gracie had laughed and laughed trying to lick it off.

When we asked why this was her favorite, mom had said, Back home, we only had this for special occasions.

Is this a special occasion? I’d asked.

Everyday with you two is a special occasion to me! she’d said, and I’d groaned because I was a surly teenager. I miss her. And I miss the liberty of being a surly teenager.

The celebration is well underway, so no one notices when I slink upstairs to my room. I’m happy for Jamie and Rowan, I really am. But I need to be alone.

My room is warm and cozy, and as soon as I close the door behind me, I sit down on the floor and lean back against the wall. I stare straight ahead, refusing to let my mind wander back. I blink once, and when I look up, there’s a wolf in my room.

I nod, and the Goddess says, “Hello little Alpha.”

I snort and turn away from her.

“Come, we have places to go,” she says, nudging my elbow with her nose.

I round on her, pushing myself to my feet. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?”

“You’ll see in due time,” she says calmly.

“What did he do to me?” I say almost in a sob.

The Goddess looks towards the window, as if checking something, then kneels next to me. “Alex is on a path that he must complete alone.”

I glare at her silently.

“Come,” she says simply, and when I blink, we’re outside in the front yard.

She starts to trot away, and I shift with a sigh. I follow her down the driveway and through the trees. She doesn’t glance back, but she must know I’m following her because she picks up speed. The run relaxes me as it usually does, but it doesn’t erase my anger. I’m seething, so I don’t recognize the area until the Goddess trots a circle around me.

We’re in the clearing outside the Bassette Mill. I’ve been here before, just once. It was the first time I’d seen Alan, and he’d attacked Taylor. We had to flee, and I’d thought this town was involved in the mob or drug trafficking or something. I could laugh now at how dumb I was then.

The clearing is still a little overrun, but less so. The dirt is more packed down, and the sign is still hanging. I shift back and walk up to the sign, running my hand along the letters. I saw it like this in a picture once. Nearly a lifetime ago.

Then I hear a noise on the trail and turn to see Grandpa walking up the path. But he's a younger man. And a little girl trails behind him, stopping every so often to pick up a flower or a pebble until both of her fists are full.

“Keep up, Anna,” Grandpa says, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

“Mom?” I say, watching the little girl in awe.

“They can’t hear you,” the Goddess reminds me.

I scowl at the Goddess while my mother drops her collected treasures.

“Watch,” she says.

I huff and sit down on the ground with my arms crossed. I’m furious, and I just want to go home. But I’m curious in spite of myself, and I watch my family, even as I frown.

“Where are you Mitch?” Grandpa yells, with barely concealed rage.

“Dad?” my mother says.

Grandpa ignores her. “I’m serious, Mitch, I won’t stand for this, and you shouldn’t either.”

The door behind me creeks open, and a man walks out. He looks familiar, but I don’t know him.

“What are you on about now?” he says, crossing his arms across his chest aggressively.

Grandpa glares at him. “We can’t let this keep happening. This is the third human to turn up dead this month!”

Mitch lights a cigarette and says, “Why do you love these dumb humans so much? They’re weak. We don’t need them.”

Grandpa glowers at Mitch. “If you can’t care about the humans, can you at least admit that we need discretion? They’re getting suspicious, and they’re going to start poking around.”

Mitch says something dismissive in response, but I’m not paying attention to him anymore. I’m watching the little boy who’s standing in the doorway behind him. He looks out cautiously, but his face brightens when he sees Mom.

He turns back inside for a moment, but quickly returns with a large rock in his hand. The boy runs up to my mom and stops shyly in front of her. “Look what I found!” he says.

She leans towards him without moving her feet, but when she sees what he’s holding, her eyes go wide with excitement. “Is it real?”

I stand up to look at the rock he’s holding, acutely aware that none of them could see me.

The boy nods. “I looked for it when we went to the beach in Beaufort. After you said you’d never seen one before.”

The younger version of my mom takes the boy’s hand in hers to look closer. Her face lights up in surprise. “It’s amazing.”

I lean over her shoulder to see the fossil the boy is holding in his hand. It’s one of those rocks with a small shell fossilized inside. I smile, watching my mom’s hands trace the outline of the shell.

“I brought it back for you,” he says.

“I get to keep it?!” she says.

The boy looks at her shyly. “If you want it, I mean.”

“Of course I do!” she says, giggling. She takes the fossil in her hand, and holds it up to her eyes to examine it more closely.

I watch the two of them, for another moment, then I look to the Goddess, a question on my face. Before I can ask it, Mitch yells.

“Get away from her, Alan!” He angrily ushers the boy away from Mom, and I look at him in a new light.

My jaw drops as I search the child’s face for signs of familiarity. I’ve only met my father a few times, and I only had one picture of him. I can see it a little bit in his eyes, but he looks so innocent.

“Anna, stay away from them,” Grandpa yells, hiding her protectively behind his back.

Mom slips the fossil into her pocket and peers at Alan from behind Grandpa.

Alan doesn’t look away from Mom. “Dad, relax,” he says.

Grandpa quietly reassures Mom, then glares back at Mitch. “I don’t care how you do things around the Bassette Pack, if you don’t keep your wolves in line, you’re going to become a threat to me.”

“That threat’s going to come a lot sooner than you think if you don’t get off my land.”

Grandpa and Mitch argued for a moment more, but I was watching Alan. He’s leaning back against the wall of the Mill, and making goofy faces at Mom. She notices and sticks out her tongue at him, stifling a giggle. It’s hard to imagine these two adorable kids are going to grow up to cause me so much trouble.

Mom mouths something to Alan that I don’t catch, and Alan mouths back, “Later.”

I look at the Goddess. “Why don’t they just mindlink?”

Different packs, she says passively.

I groan internally at the reminder of how little I know about the shifter world.

Behind me, Grandpa shifts, and I watch his wolf form in awe. He was strong as a man, but his wolf looks powerful. I’m sad that I never got to know this side of him. He nudges mom to climb onto his back. She’s too young to shift herself, so he carries her. He trots out of the clearing, and Mom turns half way around to wave goodbye, and I almost wave back.

I glance back at the child Alan, but he and Mitch and the barn behind them start to fade, and the Goddess and I are alone in my room again.

I sigh. “Why did we have to travel there if you can do that?”

The Goddess quirks her lips in a toothy grin. “I like the run.”

I’m about to ask her something else, but she disappears. I’m sitting on the floor, and I’m truly alone. I look around my room, hoping it was Alex who woke me again. But he’s nowhere to be found, and angry tears fall hot on my cheeks.