Chasing the Alpha (Full Moon Series Book 2)

by Mia Rose

  With no warning, a barrage of images of a naked Noelle came to his mind; her icy cool blue eyes, seeing right through him. Her smile turning from beautiful to bloody. She laughed as she stomped on Cassidy’s lifeless body. He couldn’t stand it anymore. His eyes sprang open. Have I fallen asleep? He quickly realized that the noise wasn’t Noelle stomping, but someone knocking on the door.

  Declan got up from the floor and walked over and opened the front door. Gabriel stood before him looking exhausted and pale. He had intense black circles underneath his eyes accentuated by the redness you get when you’ve spent hours crying.

  “You look like shit, man,” Declan said. There was no brevity in his voice at all.

  Gabriel grimaced in return and stepped inside. Declan watched as he saw his second in command take in the apartment. Although he had been inside countless times before, this time was completely different.

  Gabriel turned around and asked the one question Declan had been dreading since last nights’ events, “What are we going to do?”

  Declan took a seat on the wooden chair in the kitchen. He dragged his hand over his face and then slammed his fist on the table, causing the wood to splinter. Gabriel just looked at him without flinching.

  “I don’t know,” Declan said finally. “First thing first though, we have to pay our respects to Cassidy. We have to send her off the right way.” Gabriel nodded slightly, but Declan saw something in his eyes. “What is it, Gabriel?”

  “Nothing,” he responded, “just, you know, it just sucks.”

  “Yeah,” Declan somberly agreed. They stayed like that for a few moments longer, each consumed by their own thoughts until Declan finally broke the silence. “Can you let the pack know that we will have a meeting in an hour?”

  Gabriel left the apartment with a somber nod and once again Declan was left alone.

  Noelle’s father hadn’t woken up all night and she hadn’t gone to sleep at all. Her mother finally fell asleep around three in the morning with her head resting on the side of her father’s bed while holding his hand. Abigail hadn’t spoken to her since they walked into the room.

  The entire night, Noelle kept going over the scenario in her mind from every angle. She knew the reason she hadn’t shot Declan, but she could never admit that to anyone, especially no one from her family. Every time she pictured him, his beautiful face and his perfect, soft, emerald eyes… they would morph into the grotesque face of a wolf with bloodstained lips —the blood that belonged to her own father.

  “How could he?” Noelle whispered to herself.

  “What’s that, Sweetie?” Noelle’s head shot up and saw her father lying there, looking so weak, but awake!

  “Oh, Daddy!”

  “Is this heaven?” he said softly, “because you haven’t called me ‘Daddy’ since you were at least six years old.”

  Tears welled up in Noelle’s eyes and she could do nothing to hold them back. She ran to his side and hugged his shoulders tenderly, not wanting to put any pressure on his wounds.

  “I’m so happy you’re awake. We were all so worried. The rest of the family was here but we told them to go home until you woke up. Mom has been a hot mess all night long.”

  “Yes, well, your mother’s always been hot.”

  “I can hear you,” her mother mumbled, face still buried in the sheets.

  She looked up and her face had black smudges from the mascara smearing her eyes between all the crying and sleeping. Her lips were chapped and her face was flush, but she was wearing a smile bright enough to light up the entire hospital.

  “If I didn’t know any better,” her dad laughed, “I’d think you two were a little worried about me.” Abigail swatted playfully at his arm and Noelle noted that despite this joyous moment, her mother still hadn’t looked at her once.

  “How about I go let someone know that you’re awake and see about some food or something?” Abigail said. She stood up, wiping under her eyes trying to remove some of the caked-on makeup from the night before. Garret nodded at his wife.

  “Hey!” he called out before she stepped into the hallway, “I love you.”

  Abigail turned back and smiled at him, “I love you, too,” and then added quietly, “and if you ever let a wolf that close to you again, I will kill you myself!” She slapped on her smile and left the room, leaving behind a laughing Garret.

  “So,” he said turning to Noelle, “what’s going on between you and your mother?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, come on, don’t ‘what’ me. I’ve been out for a night, not a decade. I can tell when something is going on between you two, so just spill it.”

  “Mom thinks…” Noelle trailed off, not finishing her sentence.

  “Yes?”

  “She thinks that I shot the wrong wolf, and I guess, she blames me for what’s happened to you.”

  “That’s nonsense, Noelle. Wait…” he stopped to look at her more closely, “you shot a wolf?”

  Noelle thought back to the night before and realized that her father had lost consciousness prior to the trigger being pulled. She gave him a brief rundown of what happened and watched his face closely as she explained that instead of shooting the wolf who had taken him, she shot the one behind him. Right then, Abigail came back into the room.

  “Guess what, I managed to convince them to make chocolate waffles for you! Your favorite!”

  “Abigail,” Garret said seriously. Noelle’s mother immediately stopped smiling and her gaze finally drifted over to her daughter. “Abigail, you need to apologize to Noelle right now. How dare you accuse her of causing this! In fact, she probably saved my life. Had she shot the wolf who had taken me, he would have been able to kill me and who knows who else before he finally died. But because she shot another pack member, he was distracted enough for us to get away. Noelle, sweetie, you saved me.”

  Noelle’s mother walked over to her and gave her a tight hug, “I am so sorry, Noelle. I was just so scared and I was looking for someone to blame. Of course, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault at all.”

  Noelle excused herself from the room for a moment so she could step outside to get some fresh air. As she walked down the hallway, the walls echoed with her mother’s last words, it wasn’t your fault at all.

  If you only knew, Noelle thought to herself.

  Declan stood in the basement facing the rest of his pack members. He recognized those who were a part of the hunt the previous night because they all had tear-stained faces. The rest of them were about to cry too, it seemed.

  Declan began by clearing his throat, “Last night,” he started, “we witnessed something truly terrifying. A group of human hunters have come here and they are trying to extinguish our kind. They are equipped with weapons which use some type of silver. And which, for an unknown reason, our bodies cannot fight off. We are still working to figure out an antidote for this.” He stopped and the entire room was so quiet, you could hear the collective breathing of the group.

  Declan looked around at all of the faces and for the first time in a while, he felt overwhelmed by the power of their family unit. But now, he had to be the one to tell them that their pack was minus one.

  “As you all know, Cassidy had been wounded by a weapon which had silver in it. And during our hunt last night, one of the human hunters shot Cassidy with a silver bullet and her body could not take it. She is… gone.”

  The room erupted immediately. All of the members who had spent the night crying picked up right where they left off. Males and females were sending howls straight into the heavens. The pack was screaming “No!” at the top of their lungs as their knees met with the concrete floor. The grief was almost enough to break Declan. But he knew that in this moment, he needed to stay stronger than ever.

  “Listen!” he yelled, the voices slowly quieted down, but the tears kept falling. “Listen to me. I am your alpha! I will do everything in my power to protect all of you, I promise. But we need to come together now mo
re than ever. We need to train harder and we all need to start finding out what we can about this silver that they are using so we may know how to defeat it.”

  The group nodded in agreement and what Declan said next did not even come from him, he felt, it came straight from Cassidy, “We are a family and as long as we stand united, we can never be defeated.”

  The group stood up and cheered and howled. Declan looked out over all of his members feeling a new surge of strength within himself. He excused himself as Gabriel went over the details for the memorial that they had planned for later that afternoon.

  Declan went into his office and locked the door behind him. He sat down behind his desk and looked at the pile of papers sitting there. He decided the best plan of action for right now was to jump into something that wouldn’t remind him of real life for a little… and what better way than to focus on paying bills and making sure all the current leases were in order.

  He shuffled through the first few bills and started getting into a sort of rhythm, for the first time feeling like he would actually be okay. That they would all be okay. Then he saw a little yellow piece of paper in the corner of his eye.

  He shifted some papers to the side and picked up the post-it, “Declan, I haven’t had the chance to talk to you today. A lady stopped by looking at a unit, her name was Noelle. Don’t like the vibe she gave off, so don’t give her a lease.” It was signed with a heart, then, “Cassidy.”

  He crumpled up the piece of paper and slammed his hand into the table. Who was he kidding? He would never be okay after this! And all for some fleeting pleasure. No, this would never be acceptable.

  Declan became absolutely positive about one thing in that moment. No matter what happened, he would be the one to kill Noelle. And soon.

  Noelle could feel the pressure building in her chest. She was beyond ecstatic that her father was doing well and that things between her and her mother had simmered down. But she couldn’t quell the overwhelming feeling of suffocation. So, she told them that she was going to go home to talk to the family and give them an update. Then take a shower and quick nap before heading back to the hospital. Her parents gave her a kiss and hugged her goodbye and Noelle quickly walked down the hallway, picking up speed with every step along the way. That was until she started running.

  She punched open the doors, and the hot blast of air from outside hit her like a brick wall. She headed toward the valet stand and handed the man her ticket so that he could bring her car around.

  Come on, Noelle, keep it together for just a little while longer.

  The man rounded the corner in her car and he parked right in front of where she was standing. He climbed out of the driver’s seat and Noelle quickly climbed in. She gave him a small smile as a way of thanks, and started to drive. She was going home at first, but the turn to take to get there came and went and Noelle kept her foot pressed to the gas. She had no idea where to go so she just kept driving.

  With the windows down, she felt the wind brush against her face working to wipe away the tears that seemed to flow endlessly. She knew part of why she cried. Some was for her father, but even more than that, as selfish as it sounded, she cried for herself. And she cried for Declan because even though they’d known each other only a short amount of time, she felt more for him than she’d ever felt for anyone in her short lifetime.

  “How could I let this happen?” she shouted at no one. She pulled over on the road and began pounding the steering wheel.

  She looked to the backseat and saw that her father’s blood stained the fabric. “That will never come out.”

  Noelle got out of the car and began walking, emotions spilling out of her in a weird mix of rage, and sadness, and despair, and an intense and unequivocal feeling of loneliness. That was the worst one by far. She let herself think about the possibility of a relationship with Declan where she was truly able to share with him stories about her family and her childhood. One where she could open up to him about how she felt about her family’s career choice… and where she could cry and not feel embarrassed or ashamed.

  “None of this will ever happen, I don’t even know why I’m thinking about it. I don’t even understand why I would want to think about it! Seriously, I am beyond fucked up, right now.”

  Noelle walked further into the wooded area, completely consumed with her thoughts and her inner monologue. Before she even realized how far she had gotten, she saw smoke in the distance. A forest fire?

  She started running again in the direction of the smoke with no idea of what she would even do when she got there if it was a fire. She finally reached the edge of the small river that separated her from the other side where she saw the smoky heat. It wasn’t a forest fire at all and what she saw made her sick to her stomach, but something made her stay and watch until the last ember burned out. She knew she wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. Her mind was overflowing with racing thoughts.

  “I hate insomnia.”

  Chapter 3

  The Plan

  “Saying goodbye is never easy.”

  Declan watched as the other pack members built a pyre from tree branches and leaves. Once the fire had started, he and Gabriel uncloaked Cassidy’s wolf body and laid her atop the flames. The wolves had all howled together in unison as they watched their leader burn before their eyes; a respectful send off as they set her spirit free. The fire continued on for hours and soon the howling stopped. After a time, slowly pack members began to leave the site. Declan stayed with Gabriel as they both shared an unspoken promise never to leave Cassidy’s side, even in death.

  He could barely even tell that a body had been there at all toward the end of it all. The smoke began to lessen and the soft hue of the warm night started to cloak the sky.

  Declan stood up from his place and turned to leave for the car when Gabriel spoke, “I brought something to burn in her honor. I have to get it from the car.” Declan nodded solemnly as he watched his friend walk slowly to the edge of the woods.

  Just then from across the small river, Declan saw something move. He squinted his eyes a little to see if he could make out what it was, even in his human form he had exceptional vision. He noticed a small object leaning against the bottom of a tree in the distance. Declan knew it couldn’t have been a boulder because it kept shifting. He also knew it was unlikely to be any animal as the smoke would have scared them away. Quietly, he crossed into the water being careful not to make any loud noises. He didn’t want to alert whatever it was sitting there. As he got closer, he could tell it was a person. Another pack member waiting to the end? But why wouldn’t they have stood by us, it isn’t like us to choose isolation over company?

  He saw the human’s head snap up as his foot connected with the land on the other side. His eyes shifted into focus with the night sky, and the person he saw sitting there made his heart feel as if it were burning from the inside out. He let out a terrible yell and began running toward her.

  Noelle looked in Declan’s direction and once she saw him running toward her, she stood up and began racing back to her car. With every one of her steps, Declan made five. There was no hope in outrunning him. Perhaps this is meant to happen, she thought, maybe I should just let him kill me so all of this can end.

  “Noelle!” Declan yelled out, he stood about five feet from her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, not from exhaustion, but from the adrenaline pumping in his veins as he prepared to kill her. “How dare you come back here after all that you have done! You killed Cassidy and you march into her memorial, why?” He screamed at her but she did not turn around, “Why?” he demanded.

  Noelle turned slightly so that she faced him over her shoulders. He could tell that she had been crying as the mascara had ran down her eyes and cheeks. Her blue eyes were made even more crystallized when surrounded by the redness. She gazed at him and there was such a sadness that she carried that Declan felt his shoulders droop without even thinking about it.

  “Declan,” she started,
“no words can possibly explain to you how sorry I am. I had no idea that was Cassidy.”

  Hearing Cassidy’s name on her lips filled Declan with a new rage, so much so that he lunged toward her and took her by the throat, pressing her against a tree.

  “I’m so sorry,” she choked out against the incessant pressure he applied with his fingers.

  “Don’t you ever speak her name again; do you hear me?” Noelle tried to nod, but she could already feel the consciousness fading from her.

  But it seemed that Declan was not done talking to her as he relieved some of the pressure, bringing in a new wave of air.

  “Why did you come here?”

  “I didn’t know you were here,” she started, “I had to get out of the hospital and I just started driving and I wound up here. I swear, I didn’t know you were doing… this.”

  “This?” he spat out at her, “you mean burning the body of my date mate?”

  “Declan, you would have killed my father had I not done anything. What would you have done if the tables were turned?”

  Declan thought back to the night before. It is true that the only reason he hadn’t killed her father was because the trigger was pulled.

  “You betrayed me,” he said, “you told me that you didn’t want to be enemies. You told me that you had no idea who owned the crossbow when it was your own father!”

  “I didn’t know, Declan. You have to believe me.”

  “I will never believe you. I saw you in the store with your entire, revolting, hunter family. A family field trip to buy weapons to kill my family —how fucking sweet.” In the distance, Declan could hear Gabriel calling his name, “Do you know how easy it would be for me to snap your neck in half right now?”

  He looked at Noelle straight in the eyes, but instead of the fear he expected, all he saw was sadness. There was a certain level of repulsion he felt knowing that he would take her life without her putting up any sort of a fight.