Alphas on the Prowl (21 page)

3

Over the coming days, Dr. Thayer mentioned the Mystery Dinner Party again at the Faculty Tea, and then at the department meeting, and even at an otherwise tense planning committee for the garden that would surround the Inn, which was going to be built on campus.

In between, she sent missives for everyone to “check her wall” on Pinterest for ideas.

Meanwhile, Mac was in deep discussions with the pack.

The Tarker’s Hollow wolves represented only a fraction of the residents of the town. Generations of quiet life for the wolves, relatively out of the eye of the general public were about to end.

The state of Pennsylvania was bringing a highway in. It would mean that Philadelphia was only half an hour away. And that would mean that quaint Tarker’s Hollow was about to become a highly desirable suburb for commuters.

Mac felt tremendous pressure to formulate some sort of plan that would help the wolves stay undercover. And every wolf had a different idea about what new rules might have to be adopted, and how they would be enforced.

The pack had never needed a strong alpha more than it did right now.

Mac had finally come to look forward to the daily email from Helen Thayer — with pictures of party guests reenacting a Sherlock Holmes mystery or a 1930s gangster murder — as a welcome respite from pack business.

Then the online invitation arrived. She was really going to do it.

Mac thought that online invites were convenient, though his old friend, Carol Lotus would disagree.

“How could she send us one of these vile excuses for a last minute invitation?” Carol asked, in her quavery voice. She had called Mac the moment she read the email — approximately 8 hours after it was sent.

“The party is in two weeks. I think that’s plenty of time,” Mac hedged.

“Yes, but I have to open something in my email and wander around the internet and look at advertisements just to know what time she wants us to come,” Carol scolded.

“I don’t know,” Mac offered. “I lose the real ones.”

“The Thayers have always had beautiful printed invitations and notecards. I kept some from when old Mr. Thayer was still throwing the annual Harvest Ball. He would be shocked, truly shocked, if he saw this, this…
email
.”

“Are you going?” Mac asked.

There was a pause.

“Well, of course, I’m going,” Carol admitted. “I’m not going to miss another chance to see the mansion. Plus all those emails got me sort of curious about the mystery part.”

“Good,” Mac said. “I’m going too.”

“Well let me know if you need guard duty,” Carol said sincerely.

Mac smiled to himself. Carol was a good friend and a popular packmate. The older woman had never seemed to be interested in finding a mate, which was a good thing for their friendship now.

But the idea of tiny Carol Lotus fending horny she-wolves off him with her umbrella was pretty ridiculous.

“Will do, love, see you soon.”

He ended the call and pulled up the invitation again.

It really wasn’t that bad - it looked nice, only one ad.

The stock model party guests looked back at him. They were dressed Old West style, although not very authentically. In the lower left corner, a dance hall girl with dark eyes leaned over a table. Her perfect breasts nearly spilled out of her corset.

Mac’s heart raced in response. 

This was getting out of hand. He needed relief.

4

The January cold slid its icy fingers through Mac’s jacket. At first glance, the garment looked like a full-length cowboy duster, but as he was quickly learning, the cheap costume was practically made of paper. He lowered his head into the wind and kept walking.

His cowboy boots clipped the sandstone sidewalks in an unfamiliar way. It was sort of thrilling to be dressed as someone else. Though he couldn’t help bemoaning that his costume wasn’t authentic. One more peril of being a history teacher, he supposed. But it wasn’t a reenactment, it was a party. And though his wolf blood meant alcohol didn’t have much of an effect on him, he still wasn’t going to risk driving.

He had just reached the village, when he saw a couple, standing at the edge of the college woods, illuminated by the nearly full moon.

The young man was MacGregor’s opposite - where Mac was trim and blonde and tweedy, this man was enormous, dark and muscular.

It was Erik Jensen - one of Michael Connor’s pack favorites, and the man he had hoped his daughter would choose as the next alpha.

Erik was pretty far from that right now. The girl hanging on his arm had auburn hair just past her shoulders. She gave him a knowing half-smile and pushed her glasses up her nose in an adorable gesture that made Mac want to rip her away from the younger man.

Erik looked up. He’d likely sensed Mac’s approach.

“Mac,” he cried, turning away from the girl, but keeping his hold on her hips.

“Hi, Erik,” Mac replied, wishing he had taken his car so that he wouldn’t have to explain the cowboy clothes.

“Hey, I’m Heather,” the girl said, offering her hand.

She smelled so good, Mac was almost afraid to take it.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking gently.

“Nice get-up,” Erik said with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m on my way to a costume party,” Mac explained.

“Oh yeah, up at the Thayer place, right? I might stop by after…” He caught himself. “I mean, um… later.”

“
Seriously?”
the girl exclaimed, wrenching herself out of his grip.

“I didn’t mean—” Erik back-pedaled.

“Oh, I know what you meant,” the girl cried. “Erik Jensen, you are a presumptuous ass!”

Before he could respond, she hauled back and smacked him hard across the face.

Then she sunk into a sleek gray wolf and bounded off into the woods, leaving nothing behind but the shreds of her clothing and a lingering female scent.

Mac and Erik looked at each other awkwardly for a moment. There was a large pink handprint on Erik’s cheek. Finally, Erik’s long eyelashes covered his dark eyes in submission.

“Well, I guess I’d better…” Erik gestured in the direction the wolf had gone.

“Yes, I think you’d better,” Mac agreed.

“See you around,” Erik yelled back as he ran for the woods.

The full moon was always hard on wolves. Its pull ratcheted up their drive to mate. And that could be difficult for a couple with a fresh relationship, and even worse if one of them thought it was a new relationship but the other thought it was a just full moon hook-up.

Mac smiled to himself. If Erik Jensen wasn’t looking for a serious relationship with a Tarker’s Hollow wolf yet, then maybe there was still hope that Ainsley would come home and choose him after all.

He continued to the north side of the campus and up Sycamore Avenue. The tree canopy hid the mansion from view until he crossed the cobblestone driveway.

The hillside rose in front of him to reveal the stone mansion on its crest. Moonlight caressed the slate roof tiles, highlighting their craggy surfaces. Four ornamental brick chimneys reached for the clouded sky. A curl of smoke floated out of each. The lights were on inside, warming all the windows but one.

For a moment, Mac stood outside, paralyzed by the idea of attending the party, being the alpha in a setting with both wolves and humans.

How would he hold in his alpha’s temper if someone roused it?

How would he constrain the insistence of his growing need?

You’re being ridiculous
, he scolded himself.
Go in there and have a good time. These are your friends
.

5

Once he settled into a nice corner of the sitting room with a glass of wine in his hand, Mac felt right at home. Of course, Mac felt right at home just about anywhere these days - a welcome side-effect of taking over as alpha.

The Thayer mansion was certainly grand, but it wasn’t without coziness. The beamed ceiling and big stone fireplace anchored the room in spite of a positively majestic view over the darkening hillside. Mac stood alone, perusing the titles on the built-in bookshelf, when he sensed her eyes on him.

Ava Gray.

Even her name sounded like a desperate cry of lust.

The young woman was Dr. Thayer’s assistant. Rumor had it that her widowed mother had died while she was an undergrad, and that Dr. Thayer had taken her under her wing at that time.

The story sounded too much like a fairy tale to be believable. But Ava was almost like a fairytale princess. As shy as she was smart. As kind as she was beautiful.

She smiled sweetly at one of the other party guests, her dark, thick hair sliding over her shoulder as she leaned forward, her lush breasts straining the material of her costume.

She was fully dressed, in a prim velvet dress with a collar that buttoned up to her chin, but that full bosom always looked exposed. She was a curvy little thing, but her comparatively delicate shoulders seemed almost overwhelmed at the responsibility of carrying those gorgeous breasts.

Mac had a sudden image of what it would be like to nuzzle them, bite them, and then blister her naturally pouting lips with kisses, while he defiled her.

So far, Mac had managed to hold his alpha in check with the females of the pack, despite their shameless advances. But Ava didn’t feel the pull the way they did. He wished Ava were a wolf so that she would long for him, too. He would slake his lust with her, no matter the cost.

But she was a human. A sweet, delicate, off-limits human.

And he was a beast.

“Hello, Professor MacGregor,” she said softly. He almost expected birds and woodland creatures to land on her shoulders.

His wolf longed to crawl up to her and butt its head into her rounded hip.

“Hello, Ava,” he said, more stiffly than he would have liked.

“Are you a cowboy?” she asked, taking in his duster and faux chaps.

“Yes,” he replied, “and you must be…” His imagination took over and he guessed wildly in his own head.

An angel? A whore? A tasty little snack?

“A school teacher,” she replied with a self-deprecating smile.

“Very nice,” he commended her. The costume was actually quite good.

She scurried away before he could say any more. Which was probably for the best. His heart was already pounding. That was more attention than she’d ever paid him before.

He looked around hoping for a distraction.

Nothing but crusty old professors everywhere he looked.

And his principal, Jane Tilly, who was trying not to make eye contact with him. No wonder their phones had gone off at the same time that day.

“Hey, Mac!” a familiar husky voice floated across the room.

He spun around eagerly. It couldn’t be.

But it was.

Mac smiled, and took in the welcome sight of Parker Everly, his former student teacher.

He’d been a new teacher himself the year Parker had been sent to his classroom. Oddly, he had been almost too nervous to teach in front of her, though of course she had to observe him for two weeks before she could participate in the classroom herself.

Now her cool gray eyes were assessing him just as they had then. And it looked as if she liked what she saw. Her lips were drawn up in an ironic smile.

He allowed himself a single sweep of her body. The bright red of her dress was all wrong for the 1800s, but he forgave her instantly and enjoyed the low curve of the bodice. Her thin white costume blouse underneath was practically see-through.

One rebellious blonde curl had escaped the bunch carefully pinned atop her head, and swayed, caressing her cheek as if moved by some invisible breeze. 

Mac’s heightened senses allowed him to observe that her heart was beating quickly. She smelled like fine red wine.

“Miss Everly,” he said with a half-smile.

“I was wondering if you might be here,” Parker said.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Mac replied.

“My mom is friends with Dr. Thayer,” Parker explained. “Although I’ve always wanted to go to one of these.”

“You have?” Mac asked.

“Sure. Murder, free drinks. My kind of night,” she gave him a sly pirate smile.

“Are you teaching now?” Mac asked.

“Yep, Springton Middle School.” Parker looked around, like the last thing she wanted to talk about was work.

Good.

Mac took advantage of her distraction to inhale the warm fragrance pouring off her. Yes, she did smell like Shiraz, but he also caught the fragrance of excitement. Fuck, he had always really liked her, maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see.

“Attention, guests!” Dr. Thayer’s voice cut through the general chitchat. She paused and waited for silence. When she had it, she continued.

“Each of you received a character description and a one-page instruction when you RSVP’d to this event. I’m very pleased to see that you’re all wearing your costumes.”

She smiled encouragingly and gazed around the room.

“However,” she continued, “I hear a lot of talking that is
not
in character. This party only works if we are all in character. Anyone who is caught out of character loses bar privileges.”

There was light laughter. But everyone believed her. Helen Thayer was a born professor. She commanded unquestioning obedience.

“Let the party begin!”

Parker turned back to Mac.

“Blaine Remington,” Mac smiled. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

Parker raised an eyebrow.

“Georgia Hampton,” she said with a slight curtsy. “Likewise.”

A commotion erupted in the center hall.

Mac followed the sound of the raised voice, Parker trailing behind.

Carol Lotus, clad in a long prairie skirt, stood in front of the marble staircase. She had drawn herself up as tall as her five feet two inches would allow, and she shook her finger at Andrew Farthing, the head of campus horticulture.

Andrew was tall and thin with a shock of blonde curls that made him look permanently surprised.

“Dang you, Hadley Granville,” Carol scolded. “Your no good dogs got to my chickens again!”

Andrew stared at her, his cheeks reddening. Then he looked down at the print-out in his hand.

“The dogs were in their pen, Glenda,” he recited flatly.

“Then why are my prize leghorns lying
dead on the ground
?” Carol warbled dramatically.

Andrew squinted at his piece of paper.

“Ain’t none of my concern,” he read.

“Oh my,” Dr. Thayer said loudly, nodding her head and looking around at the other guests. “What an argument!”

More exaggerated shouting rang out in the dining room. Mac wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Sybil Cresson from Classics this time.

It was going to be a long night.