The Lone Alpha Unleashed: A Big Girl Meets Bad Wolf Romance (5 page)

“What…”

“Shhhh,” Edward brushed my lips
with his own once more, “all will be made clear in time. But for now… don’t
fight it. Just sleep.”

Sleep sounded good. Everything
felt so heavy, as if I was moving through syrup. I could feel myself shutting
down. My consciousness slipping away as I sensed others entering the alley.
Strong hands caught me as I fell and the last thing I remembered before I lost
consciousness was Edward’s face looking down at me.

James. Help me James.

And then my world went black.

- X -

For the first time in as long as
I could remember I didn’t dream about fire.

I dreamed about her. I dreamed
that she was at my side. Her soft and luxurious body, sharing my heat. I
dreamed of a life together, here on the mountain. I dreamed of a life together,
a road we would travel into a shared future.

When I awoke, I reached out for
her. Extending an arm to make sure she was close and to pull her closer still.
Except she was never there. I was momentarily at a loss. She should be there.
We were supposed to be together. And then I remembered.

She’d left me.

Technically, I guess I’d left
her, but she’d made it clear that whatever we had wasn’t going to work. Not on
her terms. Not on my terms. I could have fought harder. Tried to find some kind
of compromise, but I wasn’t sure such a thing was even possible.

When we were together, it was
like an addiction. I don’t think either of us could have lived with any kind of
long distance compromise where we weren’t always part of each other’s life.

I went to bed alone.

I dreamed of her.

I woke up alone.

It didn’t have to be that way.
Darla had made it clear she was willing to share my bed, even on a casual
basis. Physical intimacy with no strings attached. She wasn’t the only bitch
sniffing around. I wasn’t their pack leader, not officially anyway, but I was
the closest thing they had to one right now. Over time I began to suspect there
was some kind of organized, ongoing effort to get me paired up with any
available female.

They thought I would give in to
temptation, forget about Carrie and claim one of them, and by extension the
pack, as my own. If that was their plan it was never going to work. I was
lonely. I craved companionship. But what I had felt with Carrie was so far
above and beyond any kind of connection I had ever felt before that the idea of
any kind of sexual encounter with another woman left me feeling cold and dead
inside.

I had always envied those who
had found their true mate. The one they were fated to spend the rest of their
life with. The one that completed them. I had never expected to find my own.
Not after Charlotte. Not after they burned my pack and I turned my back on my
own kind.

For years I had been lost. I had
turned my hands to many things. I had been a criminal, a soldier and a killer.
When I was lost I had hopped in and out of the beds of humans and shifters
alike. I hadn’t been looking for anything more than physical gratification. My
need was just an itch that needed to be scratched before moving on.

But Carrie had changed all that.
For the first time in my life I had felt it. The kind of connection that so
many others had tried to explain to me. I had found my true mate. Except it was
impossible. Humans and shifters could fall in love, sure. Although it rarely
lasted. But not like this. The connection between us, and the effect it had on
us, shouldn’t have been possible. In the end it all felt like a cruel joke.

Since she had gone, every day
had fallen into the similar routine. I’d awaken and go for a run, before
bathing and throwing myself into any kind of work that kept me busy. Nothing in
the camp that was broken stayed broken for long. I chopped wood, built
shelters, hunted and cooked. All in a fruitless attempt to forget about her. It
didn’t work, of course. But by the end of the day I was usually too tired to do
anything other than fall asleep. I couldn’t forget her, but I made sure I
didn’t have the energy to dwell on her.

Before I had left I promised
Carrie that I would come find her. That I was on a mission and once I had taken
care of unfinished business I would seek her out. At the time this had been my
intention. But every day I found another excuse to stay. There was always something
to fix or someone who needed my help.

Sometimes she spoke to me in my
dreams. She lay on her side, propped up on one arm, giving me a playful smack
when I ogled those magnificent breasts instead of paying attention. She asked
me why she was still waiting. Why I hadn’t left the camp to pursue these loose
ends. Why we were both still alone. Instead of answers I’d silence her with a
kiss.

I wasn’t sure how long had
passed. I wasn’t really keeping track of time. Weeks? Maybe a month? But
eventually there came a night where I didn’t dream of her. I didn’t dream of
anyone other than myself. Alone on a vast plain, howling at the moon. I
couldn’t recall a time I had ever felt so alone. Wolves share their dreams with
their kin. Some believe it is the echo of their scent. Others think it is some
kind of collective mystical experience. Whatever it is, they almost never
dreamed alone. It had to mean something.

When I awoke, I tried to
convince myself that it was a sign that I had moved on. That whatever cruel
twist of fate that had brought Carrie into my life had been thwarted by my
brute force approach to getting over her and moving on.

But if that was the case, why
did my blood feel like iced water in my veins? Why did I feel as if something
terrible were about to happen?

There was a frantic knocking on
the side of the lean-to that I currently called home. It was Tyler. A teenage
shifter who’d taken it upon himself to be some kind of personal assistant or
squire. A complication I had neither asked for, nor wanted.

“James, there’s someone coming.
Big car, tinted windows. Smells like the man. Smells like trouble.”

Kent.

I guess it was only a matter of
time until my handler came looking for me.

- X -

Kent raised an eyebrow and let
out a low whistle as he stepped out of the car, “I like what you’ve done with
the place Jimmy. Still a shithole, but I do believe it’s no longer festering.”

The pack was restless. Kent
reeked of loathing and disdain, he didn’t try to hide it. The man hated
shifters.

“You don’t write, you don’t
call. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”

“Maybe I just had nothing to
say.”

“Because you're usually such a
scintillating conversationalist?”

I proved his point by grunting
in reply.

As Kent strode across the
compound towards me, half a dozen members of the pack, those who saw themselves
as my bodyguards, or perhaps lieutenants, formed into a loose semicircle behind
him.

“Call off your dogs Jimmy, we
need to talk.”

I told them to back off with a
tilt of the head.

“I’ve got a job that requires
your particular talents.”

“I’m not available.”

“Yeah? Well clear your schedule
princess because I have a feeling you’ll want in on this one.”

“I told you, I’m not available.”

An unfamiliar ripple of anger
washed over Kent’s face. Kent was an asshole, but he was usually an asshole in
control. Something was bothering him. A part of me that had been dormant for
the last few weeks began to wake up. The part of me that wanted answers. The
part of me that wanted revenge.

If Kent was losing it, maybe I
could use that. Maybe I could find a weak point and apply a little pressure.
Kent was a foot-soldier like me. I wanted to know who he worked for. Not the
FBI. Who he
really
worked for.

I shrugged and nodded in the
direction of my lean-to.

“You’ve got to be fucking
kidding me. Get in the car. I’ll take you to a magical place called
civilization. They’ve got running water and everything.”

- X -

“Why do you hate us so much?”

“What the fuck? Small talk?
That’s a first.”

I shrugged and looked at the
window as Kent drove like a man possessed, fishtailing and slaloming along the
dirt road that led down the mountain. Neither of us spoke again until we were
sitting across from each other in a squalid little diner in what just about
passed for civilization. He pulled out a folder and pushed a photo across the
table towards me.

“You know him?”

I knew him. Shifter. Mercenary.
We’d worked together for a while. Part of an ugly little task force doing ugly
little jobs for an ugly little man.

“I know him.”

“Yeah you do. He’s calling
himself Edward Grant these days.”

I shrugged. A new name. A new
suit. Same old psychopath.

“He’s working for this man.”

Another photograph slid across
the table. Another blast from the past.

“The German? I thought he was
dead.”

“He got better. You know he’s
not actually German right?”

I knew. We all knew. We just
didn’t care.

“Why now?”

“They’ve taken something. We
need it back.”

“We?”

“Leave it Jimmy, I’m not in the
mood for your little crusade.”

My little crusade?
He was
talking about the massacre of nearly everyone I loved. A massacre I had
witnessed and only just survived myself. I struggled to remain calm. I had to
remain calm. This was a rare slip from Kent and I needed to take advantage of
that.

“My little crusade?”

Kent templed his fingers and held
my gaze. I sensed that he wanted to tell me. That he needed to tell me.

“You really don’t have a clue do
you? You still think I’m the enemy?”

I shook my head, “you’re not the
enemy. But I’m pretty sure you work for them.”

Kent laughed dismissively, he held
up the two photos, Edward and The German, “these are your enemies. You want
more? The Purity Project is your enemy. The Four Huntsmen are your enemies. You
have more enemies than you could possibly believe.”

I was confused. These names
weren’t familiar to me.

“Your enemies are legion. Your
enemies are powerful. But I don’t work for them. I work for your
fairy-fucking-godmother you ungrateful son-of-a-bitch.”

My head was reeling. It had
spent years trying to find answers and if what Kent was saying was true, I
hadn’t even been close.

“You want to know why I hate
you? Because you’ve dedicated your life to finding out who your enemies are and
you’ve never once asked who pulled your shaggy ass out from beneath a burning
tree. You don’t know who nursed you back to health when you were more dead than
alive. You never ask how many men died extracting you and your team from the
Sudan when The German left you high and die. Or who bailed you out after you
fucked it all up in Detroit.”

“I…”

“And you want to know the best
part? I don’t even know why. You’re a weapon. A blunt instrument. You have your
talents, but you're hardly irreplaceable. I have no idea why you’re so
important to the Daughters...”

That was a slip and Kent knew
it.
The Daughters of Diana
. They were a legend. A campfire tale, part of
shifter folklore. But even if they did exist, they were supposed to be our
enemy. If Kent was working for them, why were they looking out for me? Or any
shifter for that matter?

None of it made sense any
more.  I just wanted to forget about it
all and go back up the mountain. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I had to ask the
question.

“What have they taken? What do
you need back?”

Kent slid a third picture across
the table.

It was Carrie.

- X -

I woke up in a crisp, white
hospital room that looked like it was straight out of One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest. It was an environment completely devoid of any kind of warmth or
humanity. A small black and white TV mounted in the corner of the room played
what looked like some kind of retro soap opera. The sort of daytime TV my nanny
used to watch when I was growing up.

I glanced nervously around and
immediately noticed bars on the windows. I was lying on a spectacularly
uncomfortable mattress. My back ached and I needed to pee. I tried to stand but
couldn’t. I was cuffed to the bed at my wrists and ankles.

Shit… oh shit
.

I opened my mouth to scream, but
no sound came out. What the hell had they done to me? Where the hell was I?
This was like something out of a horror film. Literally, my worst nightmare
made real.

I remembered a night out with
Trudy. I remembered a handsome British guy who seemed as eager to hook up with
me as I was with him. And then everything was just a blur.

I was about to be punished for
my promiscuity wasn’t I? I was going to be tortured because some sick bastard
hated women. Why hadn’t I stayed at home pining for James instead of letting
Trudy convince me I needed a night out?

The door opened and someone
dressed up as an old-fashioned doctor entered the room. I’d been expecting the
hunky Brit who’d clearly been involved in my abduction, not this gray little
man with a comb-over.

He’d gone all out to look like
the genuine article. Lab coat, stethoscope, right down to the shiny circular
disk on a headband. I had know idea what that thing was called, let alone what
it did.

I tried to calm down. I needed
to think before the scalpels came out and the torture began. My captor was
clearly delusional, maybe I could work with that.

“Good Morning Miss Derry. How
are we feeling today?”

I’m feeling… wait who? It’s
Ms Jones actually, perhaps you have the wrong room.