The Werewolf Academy Series Boxed Set

by Cheree Alsop

  “But Alex…” Trent began.

  Alex shook his head, cutting his friend off. “I need you to trust me, Trent. We’re on Drogan’s trail. I can’t let go now. What if they need the Demon and I’m too far into this breakdown to help out. I won’t let the other werewolves suffer because of me.”

  Trent’s gaze was sharp. He ran a hand over his buzzed hair before he finally said, “Okay, if you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure,” Alex told him. He hesitated, then said, “As long as I have someone who can help keep me in check; someone who knows what’s going on.”

  A smile crossed the smaller werewolf’s face when he realized what Alex was asking of him. “I’m there for you; I promise.”

  Alex grinned at Trent’s sincerity. “It’s getting a bit mushy out here. Jordan’s going to start getting jealous.”

  Trent laughed. “Don’t worry. She’s the one who thought we should stay in your quarters tonight. She says sometimes wolves need to look after their Alpha.”

  Alex snorted. “I don’t think I’ve heard that one.”

  Trent gave him a serious look. “You should listen to her. She knows what she’s talking about. She’s even smarter than I am.”

  The awe in the small werewolf’s voice made Alex happy. “I’m glad to see you’re engaged to someone who will challenge you.”

  “Trust me,” Trent replied. “I feel like I’ll be catching up to her my whole life, and it’ll be time well spent.”

  Alex grinned. “Me, too. Siale keeps saying she’s happy, but being engaged to her makes me the luckiest werewolf in the world.”

  “Second luckiest,” Trent shot back.

  “I’m still going with luckiest,” Alex said.

  “Second.”

  “You’re right; you’re second. I’m the luckiest,” Alex told him.

  Trent shook his head with a sigh and a pleased expression. “We’re both pretty darn lucky.”

  “It’s true,” Alex gave in. “So you just have to help me get through this so I can be the husband Siale needs.”

  “Will do,” Trent said. “Just make sure I don’t get shot.”

  “Deal,” Alex agreed. “We both have our work cut out for us.”

  Trent laughed. “You’re right about that. If I’m in charge of your sanity, we might be in trouble.”

  Alex stood and held out a hand to Trent. His best friend rose to his feet.

  “A bear?” Trent said.

  Alex shook his head. “Don’t ask.”

  Trent grinned and opened the door to Alex’s lone wolf quarters that was quickly becoming much more crowded than he had anticipated.

  Chapter Nine

  “Let’s go.”

  Alex stared at Mr. O’Hare. “Go where?”

  “I need to run to my office,” the man explained with obvious annoyance as though he shouldn’t have to explain himself to his assistant.

  “And you need me to go with you?” Alex replied.

  Mr. O’Hare gave him a straight look. “You are my assistant, are you not? So, hurry up. The helicopter’s landing at the airport in ten.”

  “Minutes?” Alex didn’t know what was going on. After a too-short night’s sleep, his brain was having a hard time following what the human wanted from him.

  “Yes,” Mr. O’Hare replied with a grimace. “I thought werewolves were smart.”

  “We are,” Alex snapped back. At the human’s raised eyebrows, he took a calming breath. “Let me go tell Jaze where we’re going.”

  “Seriously?” Mr. O’Hare replied. “Do you run to your dean for everything? Is there some sort of Alpha protocol for kissing Jaze Carso’s shoes whenever he calls?” He grabbed his briefcase and waved for Alex to go out the door. “I’ve already cleared it with him. There’s no time for you to double-check me on everything I tell you. You’re my assistant, so assist me by carrying this.”

  He shoved the briefcase at Alex and stormed through the door, leaving Alex with no choice but to follow. The students and professors had already gone to their first classes. Alex glanced down the halls they passed in the hopes that he would see Jaze. He wasn’t worried about leaving the school; he had done that enough times not to have any concerns about going outside the walls. But something about the man’s request bothered him.

  Alex had no doubt that he could handle himself. Though the situation was beyond what he had thought was within the scope of his duties as an assistant, perhaps Jaze wanted him to tag along with Mr. O’Hare to make sure the man didn’t report anything about the Academy that would place the school in a bad light.

  A blue car picked them up at the Academy gates.

  “Couldn’t spring for the ominous black one?” Alex asked.

  “What?” Mr. O’Hare replied as he climbed inside.

  Alex shook his head and followed. He didn’t ask questions at the tiny airport in Haroldsburg and climbed silently into the helicopter behind Mr. O’Hare and the short, bearded man who had been waiting for them.

  “First time in a helicopter?” the man asked over the headset.

  When Alex realized the man was talking to him, he shook his head. “I’ve been in one before.”

  When he didn’t expound, the man smiled. “It’s a bit intimidating. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  Alex nodded. He glanced at Mr. O’Hare, but the man was busy studying the documents from his briefcase.

  They landed a few hours later in the helipad of a short, unmarked building surrounded by many others.

  “Assistants are supposed to be silent. Observe everything, but keep to yourself,” Mr. O’Hare instructed on their way inside. He paused, then said, “Especially you.”

  Alex chose not to be ruffled by Mr. O’Hare’s comment. He nodded at the uniformed man who opened the door and studied the security guard who scanned the card Mr. O’Hare pulled from his pocket.

  “Is he with you?” the guard asked, eyeing Alex with uncertainty. Alex had the distinct feeling the guard knew exactly who he was.

  Mr. O’Hare sighed. “Unfortunately, but at least we’ll be brief.”

  The guard waved a hand.

  Mr. O’Hare nodded and accepted the card back. As Alex made his way up the hall, he felt the guard’s eyes on his back. He was grateful when they turned the corner and left the guard’s line of sight.

  “Stand here.”

  Alex glanced at the door. The nameplate beside it said ‘Jamison P. O’Hare- National Education Analyst.’

  “You want me to stand out here?”

  “Do you really have to repeat everything I say?” Mr. O’Hare replied dryly.

  Alex crossed his arms and leaned against the wall near the door without a word.

  Mr. O’Hare gave a satisfied nod and went inside.

  Alex couldn’t believe that he had followed Mr. O’Hare in an uncomfortable helicopter for hours only to be told to stand outside the door like some creature unworthy of stepping past the threshold. He made a mental note to tell Trent that he was much better at landing a helicopter than the pilot who had flown them.

  Guilt touched Alex’s thoughts. He knew he should have told Trent where he was going. Whether or not Jaze actually knew where they were, and Alex highly doubted Mr. O’Hare had actually run Alex’s absence by him, Trent was the one who was usually concerned whenever Alex disappeared off the map. Although the small werewolf was sneaky with his tracking chips, Alex doubted even Trent had been given the opportunity to know they were leaving.

  The building was quiet, even to what Alex felt were standard office terms. He told himself he was just being paranoid. Perhaps everyone was busy working in offices whose doors were soundproof enough to keep in the keyboard clicks and paper shuffling he assumed should inhabit the numerous rooms.

  After an hour of leaning against the wall, footsteps sounded down the hallway. Alex listened to them through sheer boredom, sure whoever was walking in a group had somewhere more important to go than Mr. O’Hare’s office.

  As if to prove him wrong,
the footsteps turned down their hallway. The five men in suits didn’t look at all surprised to find Alex there. In fact, they walked straight to him. He pushed casually away from the wall and stood.

  “Is Jamison O’Hare in?” a bald, burly man asked.

  “Yes,” Alex replied.

  The man glanced at the door and then back at Alex.

  “Would you like to talk to him?” Alex asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” the bald man replied. He glanced at his companions.

  Alex could smell the man’s anxiety; he kept an outward appearance of calm, but his muscles tensed.

  “We’re here to talk to you,” a tall man with a goatee said.

  Alex wondered if he and Mr. O’Hare went to the same barber. He had the distinct feeling the men weren’t exactly friends by the hostility he felt from them. Keeping the sarcastic thought to himself, Alex queried, “What would you like to talk about?”

  “This,” the man said.

  His gaze shifted and his shoulders tensed, foretelling of the punch before he threw it.

  Alex ducked under the man’s arm and spun. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  None of the men replied. Instead, they attacked in force.

  Alex realized the answer to his question in that moment. Mr. O’Hare had mentioned that there were others who weren’t thrilled about his involvement with the werewolves. Alex ducked under another fist, threw one man into another, dodged a kick, and blocked a hammer fist with crossed forearms.

  Alex wasn’t there for Mr. O’Hare to throw around his authority and tell him what to do. Alex had been positioned at the door as a bodyguard.

  He spun, using an attacker’s momentum to propel the man into one of his companions. Alex blocked another kick with his forearms and was about to follow-up with a punch to the man’s groin when he realized the truth.

  None of the men were seasoned fighters. Their skills were methodical and rusty at best, yet they were persistent as if they were under someone else’s orders instead of their own. If they hated werewolves so much and would go so far as to attack one within their own building, desperation fueled them. Perhaps Mr. O’Hare truly hadn’t found enough to shut down the Academy. If five men could report that Alex had attacked and hurt them as innocent bystanders in their own building, it might be the step they would need to shut down the school entirely.

  Alex spun inward, falling into Chet’s defensive training. He couldn’t hurt any of the men. That much was obvious. They threw themselves at him over and over without appearing to fear what would happen as a result. Alex blocked, ducked, jumped back, and spun, only to block again. The hallway felt much smaller with the five men throwing themselves at him.

  Luckily, as long as Alex remembered not to throw the punches and kicks that came with the muscle memory of hundreds upon hundreds of hours of training with Chet and the other professors and students, Alex could block attacks for hours. Even when the men intensified their assault, he was able to keep them at bay with hand flips and blocks that sent them harmlessly down the hallway; yet his attackers refused to give up.

  The men gasped and stumbled over each other. The bald man threw a slow fist at Alex’s head. The werewolf stepped to the side in time for the man to fall into his friend with the goatee. Both men fell heavily against the door to Mr. O’Hare’s office.

  Alex was in the middle of blocking punches and a kick from the three other men when the office door opened.

  “What’s going on out here?” Mr. O’Hare demanded.

  Alex looked from the men frozen in their various attacks back to Mr. O’Hare. He had thought Mr. O’Hare had set him up in an effort to launch his political attack against the school; however, it was clear by the expressions on the faces of the exhausted men around him that Alex’s theory was wrong.

  The bald man lowered his attempt to drive a fist through Alex’s jaw. “I, uh, didn’t know you were back,” he said.

  “It appears that way,” Mr. O’Hare answered flatly.

  “We were just introducing ourselves to Mr. Davies, here,” a man with short gray hair said, straightening his tie.

  Mr. O’Hare gave him the same flat look he often used with Alex. “Are you working on making a good impression for the Board, Welks?”

  To the gray-haired man’s credit, he looked somewhat uncomfortable when he answered, “Of course.”

  Silence settled over the hallway. The sound of the men’s heavy breathing as they fought to catch their breaths was harsh and loud. Satisfaction rose in Alex at the thought that he, on the other hand, wasn’t breathing hard at all. He folded his arms and leaned nonchalantly against the wall; a smile touched his lips at the discomfort of the exhausted grown men.

  “I think we’re done here,” Mr. O’Hare finally said.

  The bald man nodded. “Yes, we are.” He walked back up the hall. Three of the men followed.

  Welks hung back. He glanced at Alex but refused to meet his steady gaze. Welks cleared his throat and gave Mr. O’Hare a straight look. “James, because we’re friends, I just want to warn you that the conversations around here haven’t been pleasant since you took your position.”

  Instead of softening at the man’s apologetic tone, Mr. O’Hare appeared to stiffen even further. “Don’t make assumptions about where we stand, Welks. You know that friendship died long ago.”

  The man’s statement deflated Welks further. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

  Mr. O’Hare’s jaw tightened a moment before he said, “There’s nothing to let go. This conversation is over.”

  Welks watched Mr. O’Hare for a brief minute, but the man stared past him at the empty hall. Welks let out a sigh and turned away. His footsteps echoed long after he had taken the turn at the end of the hall.

  Mr. O’Hare’s answering sigh was so quiet Alex’s werewolf hearing barely caught it. His shoulders relaxed and he turned to Alex with the first sign of concern Alex had ever seen from the man.

  “Are you alright?”

  Alex nodded. “I’m fine. What was that?” He had his guess, but he wanted to know what the human’s thoughts were.

  To his surprise, Mr. O’Hare answered his question as though speaking to a peer instead of talking down to him. “That, Alex, is the last-ditch effort of my superiors to bring the question of werewolves as individuals with rights to an end. If you had bloodied and broken them, you would be dragged out here and probably been given the death sentence in front of the nation to end this fight once and for all. Instead, you managed to save face and merely humiliate them.” Mr. O’Hare watched him closely. “Are you sure they didn’t hurt you? Remember, I’ve seen you fight a bear and walk away.”

  Alex fought back a slight smile. “They didn’t touch me, though I’ll admit it took nearly every bit of self-control I have to defend instead of attack.” He paused, then said, “Until I realized how poorly trained they are.”

  Mr. O’Hare actually let out a short laugh. His eyebrows rose as if the sound surprised him. “Sergeant Ryker would have something to say about that, I’m sure. Our saving grace will be that each of those men has too much pride to admit that an eighteen-year-old werewolf beat them without gaining so much as a scratch, and they have nothing to show for it. You may have single-handedly saved your precious Academy.”

  “Really?” Alex kept his tone guarded, unwilling to give the man too much.

  Mr. O’Hare raised one shoulder slightly. “That’s left to be seen, but you didn’t doom it.”

  He turned away. Alex caught the briefest hint of fear in the air.

  “Mr. O’Hare?”

  The man paused with his hand on the open door to his office.

  “Is that why you brought me here?” Alex asked. “Did you know they’d attack?”

  Mr. O’Hare hesitated as though he debated what to say. He finally gave a slight nod, more to himself than to Alex as if he had made up his mind. “To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. The correspondence I have received since taking
up my position at the Werewolf Academy—” He paused, then corrected himself, “At Vicky Carso’s Preparatory Academy, have been hostile to say the least. Many feel that if we approve the education at your school, it’ll close the gap between werewolf citizenship approval.”

  Alex couldn’t contain the enthusiasm he felt at the man’s words. “That’s great!” he exclaimed.

  The candidness Mr. O’Hare had shown vanished behind his expressionless wall once more. His look was flat when he replied, “As far as I’m concerned, I’m doing my job here and it’s a job that needs to be done. Prejudice aside, children need an education and it’s my duty to see that they are educated to the same degree as the rest of the nation. Until things are decided otherwise, Vicky Carso’s Preparatory Academy is still under intense scrutiny for educational measures and extremes of student activity beyond the guidelines approved by the Board. I’ll be done shortly. Stay here.”

  Mr. O’Hare pulled the door shut with a sharp bang. Alex leaned back against the wall, baffled by what he had heard and seen. His trip to Mr. O’Hare’s office hadn’t cleared anything up. Instead, many more layers of politics had been revealed than he had imagined existed.

  Chapter Ten

  Alex’s eyes snapped open. Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones. A shiver ran through his skin. He looked around the room.

  Despite his insistence that the werewolves rejoin Jericho in his quarters, the pack that had chosen him had refused to listen. He thought back to the argument earlier that evening.

  “You’re our Alpha,” Terith said and Von nodded at her side with a stubbornness the scrawny werewolf seldom showed.

  “But what about the Choosing Ceremony?” Alex pointed out.

  “You didn’t choose anyone.”

  Alex stared at his sister. “Of course I didn’t! I’m not an Alpha.”

  “You are,” Trent replied with the quiet persistence that showed up whenever Alex tried to debate the point.