Alphas Gone Wild

by Unknown

  Her wolf clawed at Mia’s stomach. “Well, what was I supposed to do?” Mia grumbled to her inner beast. “Hit on him after he saved me?” Wow, thanks for saving me from the big nasty wolves, hot shifter guy. Wanna get some coffee?

  Mia shook her head. Seriously pathetic.

  A thumping sound that was more reverberation than music came from the upper floors of McMahon Hall. Someone was up late, throwing a party, and suddenly her room on the 11th floor was the last place she wanted to be. The tree lined street outside the dorm obscured her view of the Olympic National Park in the far distance, but the leafy arms of the branches overhead still gave her a sense of park’s darkened forest. It was the only place she could run free, shifting at will under the cover of the wild. Only she never did that… or at least very rarely.

  The events in the alley—the danger, the fight, Lucas’s breathing her in—all of it had awoken her inner wolf in a way it never had been before. Every nerve ending seemed on fire, and yet there was some ill-defined hollowness inside her. It was an unfamiliar longing: to shift, to let her wolf free, to follow some instinct that was driving her. A long, low howl echoed around inside her head, making the hollowness ring even more empty. Like a whispered promise that could never be fulfilled. Only she didn’t know what the promise was or what she wanted to fill the emptiness with.

  Mia gritted her teeth and kept the howl locked inside. Letting it out in front of her University of Washington dorm wouldn’t exactly be smart. And Mia had to be smart. She had to work hard, finish out her business degree at UDub, and land a job so she could take care of her mom. Her dad had never been in the picture, and Mia was an only child, so her mom was the sum total of her family. And if there was one thing her mom had taught her, it was that there wasn’t anyone or anything more important than family.

  If Mia couldn’t go back to The Deviation, she would have to find another job to get her through school. She whirled away from the faux forest in front of her and marched into McMahon Hall, taking the elevator to the 11th floor and trying to ignore the stale dorm odors along the way. When the elevator doors opened, it was clear that her floor was once again party central for the building. Who knew the Business and Arts dorm would be rocking it so hard so often. Didn’t these people ever study?

  Unfortunately, her room was in the wing where the party action usually happened. Given the slightly bigger rooms, the open floor plan, the balcony, and not least the stairwell for students pairing off or sneaking down to lower floors, it made sense. It was just highly inconvenient. And periodically turned her home into an over-crowded, over-smelly nightmare.

  People jammed the hall as she worked her way in. On a good day, the dorms were a hotbed of nasty—a decade of moldy feet, the residual crumbs of a thousand midnight snacks—but tonight, there was the added sickly stench of bootlegged party drinks. In the corner of the living room, between the silk plant and a five-century-old orange floral couch, sat a metal tub. Students crowded around it with their red plastic cups, waiting for their dip of whatever toxic brew they’d managed to cobble together. She was guessing Tom Collins was somewhere in the mix by the overly-sweet lemon scent perfuming the room. How they got away with throwing these parties, she could never figure. They must be paying off the Resident Assistants in sexual favors.

  Mia sighed when she found the door to her room was flung wide open with a dozen people she didn’t know inside. She wasn’t worried—she didn’t have anything worth stealing—but she was hoping to get some kind of sleep tonight. Maybe forget about the harrowing events of the alley, and the fact that she was newly out of a job.

  Her roommate, Jupiter, was flirting in the doorway to their room with some guy—probably her crush-of-the-week, a Southern guy named Jackson from her drama club. Jupiter was from Kansas with all that country-girl wide-eyed innocence on tap plus a heavy helping of roll-in-the-hay eagerness when it came to boys. When she saw Mia, she grinned and waved with far too much exuberance. Mia trudged over, debating whether she could throw everyone out without explanation. It was past one in the morning after all.

  Her roommate had the world’s coolest name and the world’s most ridiculous wardrobe. Jupiter’s outfit tonight was par for the course: purple leggings, an orange tulle skirt, and a bunched up UDub sweatshirt that was far too big. Probably belonged to Jackson.

  “You know,” Mia shouted to be heard over the low-thumping music, “being a drama major is really no excuse for that outfit.”

  “You’re just jealous.” Jupiter’s smile was too wide, the kind Mia was used to seeing on her customers at The Deviation.

  “Yeah.” Mia smirked. “Jealous of the color blind.”

  Jupiter made a snort of disgust then frowned. “You’ve missed half the party!”

  “Only half?” Mia threw a questioning look to Jackson, who was watching them with high amusement.

  He just shrugged.

  “Where have you been?” Jupiter asked with the outrage of the half-drunk for slights real and imagined.

  “I had to work tonight, remember?”

  “Oh yeah.” Jupiter’s freckled face scrunched up. “Wait, weren’t you supposed to be at The Deviation until two?”

  “Yeah, I, um… got off early.”

  Mia was saved from explaining by a guy barreling out of her room. All three of them made way for him as he headed for the bathroom and took a quick turn into the girls’. Their floor was coed—either he was confused or he didn’t think he would make it to the boys’ bathroom.

  Jupiter threw an unmistakable ew look after the bathroom perpetrator, then propped one hand on her hip. The other held a small blue-feathered purse that looked like a boa constrictor had thrown up a peacock. She took that thing everywhere, like a pet.

  Then she focused on Mia again. “I thought you had gotten that awesome internship at… at…” She snapped her fingers, fast.

  “SparkTech Partners,” Mia supplied. “I’m starting on Monday.”

  Jupiter flailed her hand without the blue-feathered thing. “Which is why you need to celebrate!”

  “It’s been a long night.” Mia gave a sad look to her bed inside their room. It currently held three senior boys each with a red cup balanced precariously on their knee. “What I really need is some sleep.”

  “But you just got here!” Jupiter exclaimed. Then something over Mia’s shoulder caught her eye, and her roommate bit her lip, looking guilty. “I might have told a certain hot senior from drama club that you would be here by the end of the party.”

  “Jeeter.” Neither Mia’s warning tone, nor the nickname Jupiter hated, slowed her down one bit.

  “Oh, come on!” Her roommate gave her a disgusted look, but dropped her voice. “Cade is perfect for you. Tall, dark, and overly serious. He’s just your type.”

  “I don’t have a type.” Which was a lie. She very much had a type. It was tall, muscular, and naked in the moonlight. My name is Lucas. Even the memory of him leaning close to her made the room feel warm. Mia closed her eyes and shook that thought from her head. There were so many ways that wasn’t even close to happening again.

  Jupiter bunched up the feathered purse and made begging hands and eyes. She mouthed, Forgive me. Then her roommate dropped the drama like a change in costume and beamed over Mia’s shoulder. “Hi, Cade!”

  Mia rolled her eyes before putting on a tight smile and turning to greet Jupiter’s drama club friend. Cade arrived just as she turned, a red plastic cup in each hand. His white t-shirt hung on his broad shoulders like it enjoyed the ride, and his smooth, muscular grace made her think of a tiger: all restrained power and limber movement. Mia was tall, but she still had to look up into those crystalline blue eyes.

  “Hey, Jeeter.” He smirked at her roommate, then gave Mia a softer look. “Hey, Mia. Didn’t expect you until later.” His tone, plus a smile he was working to restrain, made it clear he was happy to see her.

  Truth was, if she had a type before tonight, Cade would have been exactly it. Commanding pre
sence, killer grin, and gorgeous blue eyes that didn’t hurt to look at but sliced right into her heart… and that was exactly the problem. She couldn’t afford the distraction of boys. And her previous attempts at boyfriends had been near disasters. Whenever they got too close, too intimate, her control slipped. That’s when her wolf came out to play, and that had never ended well. Which pretty well explained why she had only slept with two guys before, both of whom had been so freaked by their first time that it was also their last.

  Sex was problematic for her, to say the least.

  Only with human boys, her wolf whined.

  Don’t even go there, she thought in return.

  As much as any human could be, Cade was definitely her type.

  He smiled and handed her a cup. “It’s tremendously sweet,” he warned. There was a small lift on one side of his smile.

  “Thanks for the heads up.” She inhaled a small whiff of the vapors coming off the cup. Vodka, one of the cheap brands, plus whiskey sour mix and a leftover dash from a cherry that must still be swimming in the tub. She held the cup close, warding off the stench of the room with her own personal alcohol vaporizer—which she appreciated much more than the drink.

  She pretended to take a sip, just to be polite. “So are you guys ready for your show?” She didn’t keep track of Jupiter’s stage plays, but the spring quarter was coming to a close, so they must have something going.

  His smile brightened. “Yeah. You should come. It’s called Silent Death, and it’s a period piece set around Paris in World War II. We’ll be in the Penthouse Theatre tomorrow night.”

  “Sounds like a barrel of laughs.”

  He frowned. “It’s really not that bad.”

  She bit her lip. Damn, she was tired. Losing her manners, as well as her patience. “I’m sure it is. I’m sorry, I’m just…” She waved her drink. “It’s the vapors talking.” She inhaled another whiff and shrunk away from some passing partiers swinging their cups as they talked. Another glance at her room must have given away her desire to be anywhere else.

  Cade leaned forward, then he edged even closer, dipping his head to bring his lips near her ear. “You want to get out of here?” His hand touched her hair, brushing it back. He was so close that his cologne and whiskey-sour breath suddenly overpowered the rest of the dorm scents. “My roommate’s gone for the weekend.” His voice was low, husky. He probably thought it was sexy, but Mia thought he was mostly just drunk.

  Her wolf growled. The last thing she needed was to be propositioned by a half-drunk college boy. Suddenly, it was all too much, too close, and she needed out. In fact, she needed everyone out. Now.

  She nudged Cade back, hand flat on his chest. “Look, I’m done for the night.”

  Disappointment shadowed his face, but she had no time for that.

  She turned to her room, pushing past Jupiter and Jackson. “Okay, everyone, party’s over. Time to go! Find your own beds.”

  A round of grumbles, a pause as all eyes turned to see if she was serious, then another set of mumbling and complaints as they slowly rose from the bed, the floor, even her desk. As the crowd filed out, a couple spilled out of the closet, still tangled in each other, and bringing half of Jupiter’s crazy wardrobe with them, including a long, green scarf that wound around their feet and made them go down.

  Mia just shook her head. Jupiter waved goodbye from the door and disappeared with the partiers, Jackson’s arm around her waist. Mia was just as glad to see them go, too, and as soon as the last of them was gone, she locked the door.

  First thing, she tore off the top cover of the twin bed that belonged to her, vowing to run it through the laundry before she used it again. Even with that bunched up and stuffed under her bed, only ten percent of her dorm room felt like it belonged to her. The other ninety percent was taken up by her frenetic roommate’s endless leggings, half-used doodle pads, and extensive shoe collection. Mia had a picture of her mom on the shelf, about a backpack’s worth of clothes in the closet, a stack of books, and her laptop on the desk… and that was it.

  It was almost like she had never really moved in. The room belonged to the partiers as much as her—they were all temporary occupants until they moved on to the next thing. Mia eased down into the bed, lying on top of the sheets, not bothering to remove her clothes. A complete and utter weariness sunk her into the mattress, and she looped her arm over her eyes, blocking out the overhead lights.

  Her room was a cage—a tiny concrete and glass cage, with a bed too short for her long legs, and nothing of value to lose in a fire. She didn’t belong here, not in any real way. It was a way station on the path to the things she actually needed, that was all. The emptiness made itself known again, a deep hollow in her chest, and her wolf whined, curling its tail down in defeat.

  The lights still blared overhead, but Mia turned on her side and dropped off to sleep like she was falling off a cliff.

  Chapter Three

  It had been two days, and Lucas couldn’t get her out of his mind.

  His fingers drummed the edge of his tablet, and he tried again to pore over the numbers for the latest internet startup his brother, Lev, had found for SparkTech to consider for investment. After another five minutes of circling back over the same data again and again, he shoved the tablet away and rose from his desk. He just was too distracted. He flattened his palms against the floor-to-ceiling corner office window and hung his head between his arms. Back when he was a managing partner in his father’s tech-focused investment firm, Lucas’s status had commanded this office. Now he was just a principal, but his father had still allowed him to keep his luxurious view of the Olympic Mountains. The rain had swept through earlier, leaving a shine on the Emerald City in the early morning sun. He squinted against it and let his gaze roam over the high rises, flicking occasionally to the mountains beyond.

  His wolf surged a bit each time he did.

  He’d tried going for a hunt over the weekend, but it didn’t help. He kept thinking about the girl, the one he’d stopped the Reds from playing with, like the other field mice they liked to torment. Lucas should have asked her name. He should have gone back to the club to make sure she quit on the spot. He should have moved her to a different dorm. Something. There were a hundred things he could have done, but instead he rushed her home, thinking if he simply got her safely out of his arms reach that would solve everything, including the strange pull she had on him.

  That part he understood least of all.

  He paced the length of his office, but his gaze kept wandering back to the forest of glittering steel-and-glass high rises of downtown Seattle and to the distant trees beyond. A year ago, when he lost his mate, he lost a part of himself as well. He hadn’t been fit to be alpha for anyone anymore, so he’d left his pack and gone rogue. He even left SparkTech and lived in the wild until he’d almost forgotten what it was to be human. He’d thought he had forgotten, until Lev came looking for him and pulled him out of the dark hole of despair he’d fallen into. There was no fixing what had broken inside him, but Lev convinced him he could still contribute to the family business, even if he wasn’t part of any pack. It was just enough to keep him human, and after a while, he’d begun to believe he could keep the longings at bay with a shit-ton of work, his brothers nearby, and a steady supply of female companionship to ease the pain. Slowly, his wolf quieted. The mournful howling every night, crying his need for a pack of his own, eventually stopped. Lucas thought he’d finally found a way to carry on.

  And then… this girl.

  Human girls were a distraction, a temporary pleasure to sate his longings. They lasted a night, maybe two. Never more. And he’d found plenty who enjoyed what he had to give. They responded to his inner alpha even if they couldn’t see how broken he really was. Which suited him just fine, until… this strange girl who needed his help. He didn’t understand what pulled him to track her. Or why he went into that alleyway to stop the Reds. She was nothing to his pack, just another human in the h
alf million or so in the Bay area.

  His wolf growled at that thought, and it came out as a throaty sound that echoed around his office. The door was closed, so he didn’t even try to rein it in. He knew a lie when he heard one, even when he told it to himself. He might be broken, but no alpha could have stood by and let those sick bastards in the Red pack toy with someone the way they did. Much less a human girl, unprotected, unwary… although it turned out she knew more than he thought. She’d seen shifters before. And yet kept her silence about them.

  That was intriguing, but it wasn’t what haunted him. What kept him pacing through the weekend were two simple things: first, her scent had pulled him in, and he’d been tempted to claim her right there in the alley, something that didn’t even make sense. Humans were for pleasure, not mating. But second, and more important, he had inflamed the tensions between his father’s pack and the Reds… and he’d brought the girl deep into the heart of it. The Reds would go after her, track her, hunt her down, now that they knew she was important to him.

  And after a weekend of pacing and hunting and shredding the sheets in tumultuous dreams where he fulfilled that wish to claim her in the alleyway, he had finally admitted to himself and his wolf that she was, indeed, important to him.

  Thing was, he had no idea why.

  A knock at the door dredged his attention out of the depths.

  Lev poked his head in the door. “Hey, man, just giving you a heads up.”

  Lucas sighed. “Let me guess. My extracurricular activities this weekend found their way to our father’s attention.”

  He held his hands up. “Wasn’t me, bro. Dad found out on his own. I just heard the howling.” Lev was his youngest brother and part of his pack, back when he was a true alpha. But even when Lucas went rogue, Lev never really stopped being his beta. Officially, his brother had rejoined their father’s pack. Unofficially, he still had Lucas’s back, in family matters as well as business. There was a reason Lev had been the one to pull him out of the forest again. And why Lucas carried on, staying at SparkTech, making it work for Lev’s sake, even if every day it shoved a hot poker into old wounds.