Alpha's Fate: A BBW Wolf-Shifter Paranormal Mystery & Romance (Arcane Affairs Agency)

by Nora Ash

  “Poppy, what a nice surprise. Are you here to see Sheriff Don?”

  “Yeah,” I said, smothering a cringe when I saw her eyes sparkle behind her blue-rimmed glasses. Sheriff Don Wilson had spent most of the year and a half he’d been in town inside my shop, sampling my pastries, and somewhere along the line he’d gotten the idea that he and I both could and should go on a date. I suppose they did say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but dating just wasn’t something I did anymore. A fact his motherly receptionist had never been too keen on accepting.

  “Well, that’ll sure put a smile on the boy’s face. He’s always thought you were cute as a button, you know.” She leaned over the desk. “Though I hear you had a very handsome young man come calling earlier today. Does our sheriff have some competition on his hands, hmm?”

  I sent an unappreciative thought to the gossipy trio of Ladies Who Lunch, as the three nosiest of my customers called themselves. They’d been chatting around a table when Jackson Dale strolled in and had clearly decided his arrival in my shop was newsworthy. How they’d gotten to Lettie this quick was beyond me.

  “Oh, no, he’s just passing through, I think. Or maybe vacationing. Wanted to know if I could recommend a B&B in the area. I sent him to Tessa’s,” I lied. If the agent did decide to stay in town for a while, he was staying at Tessa’s B&B or he was sleeping in his car. Thompson’s Mill wasn’t really a hub for high-class hotels. “Lettie, is Sheriff Wilson around? I really do need to speak with him.”

  “He sure is. You just walk on in, child, he’ll be happy to see you.” Lettie smiled again. She was probably already planning what she was going to wear for the wedding. Something about being a single girl in a small town seemed to turn everyone you met over the age of thirty-five into a matchmaker.

  I made my way through the small front office and rounded the corner to knock on Don Wilson’s door. It had a glass window with his name painted on, but the blinds covering it had been drawn so I couldn’t see inside.

  “Come in,” he said, and I opened the door, plastering a wide smile on my face as I stepped through.

  “Hello, Sheriff Wilson,” I said, closing the door behind me.

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” he said, his face lighting up as his gaze slid down my body, lingering on my breasts for a second before returning to my face. “If it isn’t Poppy Rose. And what can I do for you today, darling?”

  I sank into the chair in front of his desk when he motioned for me to sit. “It’s about Molly, Sheriff. Molly Perkins.”

  “Now now, I’ve told you—you can call me Don when we’re alone,” he said, his eyes briefly returning to my chest before he frowned. “Molly Perkins, you say? Such a tragic accident. What about that poor old bat?”

  I refrained from folding my arms firmly across my breasts and composed the expression on my face from the bright smile to one of sadness. “I’ve slept so terribly since she passed. She was such a sweet lady, in her own way. I used to bring her apple muffins once a week. We’d become friends, of a sort.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Don said, his smile also dimming. Without being invited, he leaned over the desk to put his hand on mine. “Truthfully, I didn’t know she had any friends—she was a bit of a, ah, special lady. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  For a moment, I felt bad for lying to him about the supposed closeness of my friendship with Molly, but then his hand slid from my hand up my arm to rub at my skin, and my guilty conscience eased. It’s not that Don was a bad-looking man, what with his golden hair and strong physique, but I just wasn’t interested in him in that way. Not that I’d been interested in any man that way for the past five years.

  Still, I wasn’t above a bit of flirting if it could get me what I needed. Desperate times, and all that.

  I leaned forward, displaying as much cleavage as my button-up would allow. Which wasn’t much. “I just… I know this is going to sound like an odd request, but do you think it would be possible for me to see her?”

  Don blinked, a furrow appearing between his eyebrows. “See her? You mean, the body?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed and looked down at the desk. “I think it would help me find closure, you know?”

  “Poppy, I don’t think—”

  “Please, Don,” I interrupted, placing my free hand on top of his and looking back up into his eyes as I did. “It would mean the world to me. I just… I don’t think I can sleep until I get to say goodbye. I don’t have a lot of friends here, and Molly was as close as I’ve gotten in a while. I’ve been up all night thinking about her these past three days. I would really be in your debt.”

  Don paused. The frown was still locked on his face, but his gaze slid down to our joined hands for a moment and I could practically hear the gears in his head turning.

  “The general public is not allowed in the morgue, but maybe we can make an exception for a friend. Lord knows Molly didn’t have any family members stop by. How about we go say goodbye to her, and then you let me take you out for dinner tonight? So you’re not alone.”

  I blinked. Was he really trying to get a date out of this? I mean, sure, I wasn’t exactly being truthful in how close I’d been to poor Molly, and I had been flirting, but really—trying to blackmail a girl into a date for the chance to see a dead body? Somehow, my panties weren’t exactly dampening.

  But then I didn’t have much of a choice, if I wanted to look for any signs of a demonic presence.

  I gritted my teeth and nodded my head. I could sit through a dinner in order to get peace of mind. “Sure, that sounds lovely. Thank you, Don.”

  Don smiled cheerfully and got to his feet. “Come along, then. She’s out back.”

  He led me out of the office and down the hall toward the back, passing through several doors before we got to an oddly sterile part of the building. White tiles covered walls and floors, and the temperature was significantly lower than in the rest of the building.

  Don stopped in front of a metal door and gave me a quick look. “You sure about this, Poppy? It’s a pretty gruesome sight. She had a very bad fall, bashed her head in.”

  For the first time, his concern seemed without ulterior motives, and I felt a twinge of gratitude. I gave him a small smile in appreciation. “Yeah, I’m sure. I need to do this.”

  He nodded and opened the door, placing a hand on my shoulder as he did. “Okay, then.”

  The morgue was empty, save for a metal gurney and a rack with all sorts of unpleasant-looking tools mounted on it. I gulped and kept my eyes on the far wall, where rows of large metal drawers were lined from floor to ceiling. I’d watched enough crime shows to know what was inside those drawers, and felt some of my determination waver.

  As much as I wanted to assure myself that nothing was amiss in Thompson’s Mill, the prospect of seeing another dead person was becoming much too real much too fast.

  I grabbed at the crystal pendant around my neck and felt the familiar pulse of calming energy against my palm.

  My grandmother had given me the talisman when I was still a kid. She’d said it would protect me against the monsters I feared lived underneath my bed, but it wasn’t until I was older I’d understood she had imbued it with protection magic. It always calmed me to touch it, almost as if my grandmother reached out from beyond the veil to share her love and protection like she had when she was alive.

  Don pulled on the handle of a middle drawer, and I steeled myself as best I could. I’d seen enough dead people to last a lifetime when I fled my hometown five years ago, and I’d hoped I would never have to see one again. And yet here I was, standing in a morgue, waiting to take a peek yet another one. Splendid.

  The drawer slid all the way out, revealing a lifeless figure.

  “She died quickly,” Don said, squeezing my shoulder gently.

  I didn’t know if he was trying to be comforting, but it didn’t work. He wasn’t lying when he said she’d had a bad fall. A large chunk of her head was gone, dark smears of coagulate
d blood and brain matter covering the entire right side. Her skin was a gray, waxy color, and despite the chill in the air, the sickly sweet stench of death was unmistakable.

  I turned around from the gruesome sight and doubled over, heaving violently, though thankfully, nothing came up.

  Don’s large hand came down between my shoulder blades to rub at me. “Told ya it wasn’t a sight for a woman,” he rumbled, and made to close the drawer again.

  “Wait,” I croaked, bolstering myself long enough for the dry heaves to stop. Mustering every single ounce of willpower in my body, I straightened back up and turned to Molly’s still form. I needed to do this, or I would never get a peaceful night’s sleep again.

  Save the head injury, there were no visible marks on her body. Not that that meant much when searching for proof that there’d been paranormal forces at play.

  Taking a deep breath, I reached into my shoulder bag to pull out a Kleenex, and then reached out to turn over Molly’s hand, being careful not to touch the dead body with anything but the tissue.

  “What are you doing?” Don said, sounding more than a little shocked.

  The rush of blood in my ears drowned out his voice, muffling what else he said to a distant murmur as I stared at the red mark on the inside of Molly’s wrist. It looked like four fingers had wrapped around it and left a stain on her skin. No longer caring about the state of her head I moved the Kleenex up to her left temple and pressed gently, turning her head. A small, red circle was visible behind her ear.

  Numb from horror I let go of the tissue and stepped back from the drawer.

  I would never forget those marks as long as I lived.

  The agent was right. Molly had been murdered.

  And not by a human.

  3

  JACKSON

  From the drawn face on her, it was obvious that the witch was more than a little upset when she left the sheriff’s office about half an hour after walking in there.

  I followed her at a casual stroll, making sure to keep far enough behind her that she wouldn’t notice me, even if she thought to look back. Not that she did—she kept her head down and didn’t look up from the pavement, shoulders once again hunched as if trying to keep the world at bay.

  And just what did she find at the sheriff’s office to rattle her cage? I’d seen the pictures from the autopsy the Agency had intercepted. The red marks the humans had classed as tattoos were what had alerted the Agency to the possible presence of a paranormal evil-doer in Thompson’s Mill. A demon, more specifically.

  But more often than not, demons popped into our plane of existence when a witch led them here—and the likelihood of there being more than one unregistered witch in a small town like this was highly unlikely.

  Perhaps she’d found out that the marks were visible on the autopsy pictures and realized I’d seen them, too. In any case, staying on her tail seemed the best course of action for now. I could always check into the B&B later, once I’d determined her threat level. My Wolf growled in agreement.

  POPPY WALKED STRAIGHT BACK to her shop after her visit to the sheriff’s office, but she didn’t open up the shop again. Instead, shortly after she disappeared inside, movement from the windows above the shop caught my eye, and I looked up just in time to see her curvy figure walk past the window.

  Must be her apartment.

  I stayed in my car, watching the windows from across the street until it turned dark. Then, when the street emptied, I found a drainage pipe on the building opposite Poppy’s Café and easily scaled the low building to get to the roof. The entire street was made up of one-story buildings with shops on the ground floor and apartments and a few offices on the first floor. The building I crouched on top of had an office on the first floor, which was probably why Poppy hadn’t gotten into the habit of closing her curtains.

  I cocked my head as I looked in through her windows, now no longer obstructed by being at a lower angle. I could see pretty much the entire layout of her home, from her small kitchenette to the living room, where she was currently curled up on a green sofa underneath a patchwork blanket watching TV.

  That was the best part about small town assignments—surveillance was just such a walk in the park, compared to in the bigger cities, where people knew the importance of closing their curtains at night.

  You’d think a witch who dabbled in dark magic would at least be a little bit more aware of what hid in the darkness, but if Poppy knew she apparently didn’t care. Not that I was complaining—I could easily keep an eye on Poppy and the same time get a good impression of her home without going through much trouble.

  The small living space looked pretty normal with a floral wallpaper and old fashioned furniture, but here and there a crystal peeked out, signaling that the owner of that apartment was something more than human.

  Poppy herself didn’t look out of place in the small town she lived in, with her messy hair and her crochet blanket pulled all the way up around her shoulders as she stared at the TV, but I knew there lay so much more underneath the surface than what her neighbors saw. She was a witch, and no matter how cute and small she looked, or how fucking hard her tits got me, I knew she had the sort of power at her core that no normal man would know how to handle.

  And speaking of normal men…

  My musings came to a stop when I saw movement down on the street. I shifted my weight forward and caught a glimpse of a blond man leaning against one of the plain trees lining the road down below. He stood in front of Poppy’s café, his eyes trained on the windows up above.

  I wasn’t prepared for my Wolf’s instant rage as I zeroed in on him, and it took everything I had not to shift then and there as it tore at my insides to break free and charge at the stranger.

  Whoa, what the fuck? I braced against the roof, gasping in deep breaths of air as the shock slowly wore off. It had never fought me so fiercely for control before, not even when I’d just hit puberty. And the only times it was this intent on ripping apart someone was if there was an immediate threat to my life.

  Slowly, making absolutely sure the snarling beast inside of me was under control, I leaned forward again and let my supernatural senses take over.

  The faint whiff I got of his scent on the wind didn’t betray anything about him—his smell was male and human, with the hints of fake tropical fruit from his shampoo indicating he’d showered in the past few hours. Nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing that stood out on him was the small metal star adorning the chest of his khaki shirt and the weapon and handcuffs attached to his thick leather belt. Seemed like the sheriff had taken to lurking outside Poppy’s windows.

  But why?

  My best guess was that it had something to do with her earlier visit to his office, but what I couldn’t figure out was: if the local Sheriff had been a paranormal, the Agency would most definitely have known about it, so what possible reason could he have to want to keep an eye on Poppy? By human standards, she seemed as non-threatening and incapable of murder as they came. Unless he knew her true nature, there was no logical explanation as to why a human law enforcer would be spending his night outside this witch’s windows.

  The sheriff shifted against the tree he was leaning against, moving behind it. I kept my eyes locked on his form, searching for any hint as to what he was up to.

  I found it when his hand disappeared down in front of his body, and his arm began moving rhythmically up and down.

  The Wolf did take over this time, rendering me in a partial shift before I managed to regain control.

  Slowly—and painfully—I pressed the snarling beast back, forcing bones to snap back into their human form as gray fur reseeded from my skin until I was once again fully human. Still trembling, I shook my head to clear it of the red fog of rage that’d come over me when it finally clicked why the sheriff was hanging around outside Poppy’s windows.

  Stalking was about as human an offense as they came, and not even remotely relevant to my investigation. He could break in
and jack off in her underwear and it still wouldn’t be any of my concern.

  Unfortunately for me, my Wolf was of an entirely different opinion, and I had no fucking clue why. I didn’t suffer from any sort of white knight complex, and as far as I knew, that witch was shady. So why was I suddenly ready to tear out some guy’s throat for being a standard-issue creep? He hadn’t even threatened her, for fuck’s sake!

  With a smothered groan I slumped back down on the roof, leaning my back up against the chimney so I could hide my face in my hands.

  This was so not the time for my Wolf and I to be at odds. I’d heard it happen to other shifters now and then, but I’d always assumed it was because they spent too much time playing by society’s rules and not enough time listening to the animal part of their nature. I’d always relished the Wolf side, spending as much time as I possibly could in my shifted form. Hell, just before this assignment, I’d spent a month hunting under the stars, only shifting into my human form to fuck the occasional woman when the urge for company became too overpowering.

  So why the fuck was he flipping out on me now?

  Muffled ringing brought me out of my reflective state, and I cussed low under my breath when the pervy sheriff pulled his hand out of his pants and looked around for the source of the disturbance.

  I fumbled for my phone and swiped it off, making sure I stayed low enough to the roof that the sheriff wouldn’t be able to spot me. He stared in my direction, but I could tell from the unsure look in his eyes that he hadn’t spotted me. He hesitated for a few moments, and then—with one final look up at Poppy’s windows—he turned away and walked down the empty street, disappearing around the corner. Shortly after, I heard a car start up and drive away.

  Irritated with myself for forgetting to turn off the sound on my phone while staking out a suspect, I looked at the display. Matt Hawk, it read. My handler.

  I sighed—deeply—and hit the call-back button. My skin still prickled with irritation from the unfulfilled urge to shift and hunt down the offending perv, and I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with Matt’s shit on top of it. My old handler had understood my lone wolf ways, but Matt was fucking relentless in his pursuit to pair me up with another agent.