by Sammie Joyce
Alpha Wolf
Full Moon Protectors - Book 1
Sammie Joyce
Copyright © 2020 by Sammie Joyce
All rights reserved.
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Contents
Get the Prequel - Shifting Seasons Series
Sammie Joyce
Alpha Wolf
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Sammie Joyce
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Abiding love honors the past and provides a legacy that will live on forever.
Aspen, a bear shifter, is happy running through the woods with her best friend, Locklear. The wolf shifter loves her with all he has and ever will be. One day as they run through the forest together, they meet a stranger. Soon this stranger becomes important to them both.
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Alpha Wolf
Full Moon Protectors - Book 1
Sammie Joyce
Prologue
Inigo
I did my best not to roll my emerald eyes heavenward as the mumblings around me intensified even though I knew no one was paying me any mind. It wasn’t just that I was semi-hidden away from the bonfire which illuminated the faces of all the elders. I remained in my massive wolf body, sprawled under a low-hanging coniferous tree, half-lazily but also well aware of everything happening around me. It wasn’t hard to keep an eye out, despite the many bodies around. I didn’t expect trouble that night, even with the tension brewing among the Council and us, the Protectors. All eight of us Protectors had shown: three wolves, two panthers, two leopards and Cronin, the lone bear. Thus far, we were insignificant to these proceedings, at least as far as I could tell, even though we’d been personally asked to attend. All I was doing was lounging about, trying to stifle a yawn, and from where I was sitting, I saw that the others were doing more or less the same.
It was hard to tell who was doing the most griping and even if I had to guess, I couldn’t. Each one of the Council pairs had their own insecurities, even if they disguised them as powerful concerns. I’d been at this game long enough to know I was in the middle of another ridiculous battle of the wills, one that wouldn’t have any resolution but to send four disgruntled groups of shifters home with a sour taste in their respective mouths—until they did it again the next month.
As always, the discussion among the Council members had taken a turn off course and from my spot in the shadows, I watched Fernando and Lorna face off with Bula. Not for the first time, I asked myself how we had managed to co-exist this long but even as I thought it, I knew the answer.
We survived through necessity. If we didn’t work together, we’d fall apart, something I knew had happened before. Still, it was irritating to watch the bears and wolves go head to head on something that had been addressed to death and back. The panthers and leopards eyed one another as if they were waiting their turn to go a round too.
This is going to be a long night, I thought with some amusement. I tuned back in to the escalating debate.
“All I’m saying is that maybe we need to re-evaluate matters,” Bula insisted, refusing to back down on her position. “After all, the bears are much stronger than, say, oh I don’t know, the wolves?”
She looked at the two senior member wolf shifters, still in their mortal forms, as if she was daring them to morph and go to battle over such a trivial argument.
Oh, I don’t know about that, Bula, I thought, obviously keeping my thoughts to myself. Two or three of us in a pack could easily fell even your most terrifying bear.
Automatically, my gaze flittered back to Cronin before returning to the Council.
Lorna seemed like she might take the bait if not for Fernando’s strong hand resting on her forearm. From where I crouched, my chin resting between the thick, dark brown of my legs, the touch looked innocuous enough but I knew there was an unseen strength in Fern’s hold. He was keeping Lorna from lunging, if not physically, then with his mere presence.
“Why do you always do this?” Fern asked, his tone almost conversational, but I knew my superior well enough to hear the edge in his voice. “We weren’t talking about a division process and yet somehow, you always manage to rouse the topic.”
“She has a valid point!”
Here we go.
I darted my eyes toward Bula’s counterpart, who hadn’t seen fit to keep his trap shut. Usually Homer showed better sense in these matters but then again, peer pressure and mob mentality could get to the best of us. Moreover, I knew Homer was just trying to protect his counterpart. After all, we needed to side with our own.
“If it’s so damned valid, why have we all agreed to keep things as they are, Homer?” Lorna shot back, her teeth baring slightly. I perked up slightly, not quite rising but ready to intercede if matters got any stickier. Not that I was in any position to get in the middle of my superiors’ kvetching but at least I could put on a show of looking like I might.
“Fernando is right,” Amity interjected, perhaps sensing as I did that nothing was going to get accomplished at this rate. “Division process is a matter for another time. Tonight we’re here to discuss the Protectors.”
Ah.
I barely glanced at the panther councilwoman who had just spoken, my mind beginning to buzz. One of us was in the hotseat. I should have seen this coming.
I was on my feet now, realizing why I’d been asked to come. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marcel also rise. We exchanged a nervous look but when I darted my eyes toward Dalton, he didn’t seem fazed in the least. Then again, that was almost always Dalton’s factory reset expression. For all I knew, my pack comrade was just as flustered beneath that gray fur as I was.
As if on cue, all Council eyes moved toward the shadows where the rest of us remained half out of sight. I suddenly wished the shadows would swallow us whole.
“Come forward,” Amity called out. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if she was talking only to the panther Protectors or if she meant all of us.
“All of you,” Lorna added, thereby answering my silent question. Begrudgingly, we ambled forward in unison, again shooting one another quick looks, but there was nothing we could do but obey her instructions.
So much for it being an easy night, I mused wryly. In a larger circle around the small Council one, we stood, awaiting whatever lecture was coming.
“I don’t suppose I need to tell you what this is all about,” Jack started, his eyes steadfast on the two leopard Protectors. For a fleeting moment, I thought the rest of us might be let off the hook but I could feel Fern and Lor
na’s eyes boring into me specifically.
Nope. We’re all in shit this time.
“No idea,” Antonio replied smugly and I tried not to cringe. His cockiness wasn’t going to serve him well in this instance. I knew he was just putting on a production for the rest of us but the man really needed to learn his audience better. None of us was smiling.
“Oh no?” Nia purred, sauntering casually toward him, her eyes glittering. Nia wasn’t my superior and I thanked the gods every day for that. I wouldn’t wish the leopardess on my worst enemy. Despite any of our squabbles, Tony was far from what I’d call an enemy and surely no matter what he’d done this time, didn’t deserve the wrath of Nia.
“I know why we’re here,” Landon offered, clearly trying to take Nia’s focus off his partner. Nia paused and gave Landon a cold smile.
“Oh good,” she said sarcastically. “I was beginning to worry that we had elected two morons, not just one. I guess brawn is overrated. I think we need to be putting a little more stock into the brains of the Protectors going forward.”
Her words weren’t directed at me but they cut me all the same. I knew the grueling process we’d endured to secure our positions as Protectors. Shifters had died in the elections, battling to the death, overexerting themselves until they were broken and useless. Making a jab at one of us was an insult to us all.
“Nia…” Jack sighed, stepping up to draw her back from the pair. Nia scowled but seemed to accept his cautionary word, falling back toward the fire to stand at his side.
“We’re not morons,” Tony barked back and I wished he’d swallow his pride for once. “Just because you don’t agree with our—”
“SILENCE!” Nia howled, her voice reverberating through the thick of the woods. I, for one, stopped breathing even though I knew her fury wasn’t aimed at me… well, not directly anyway. Like I said, we all bled together in moments like this.
“Nia,” Jack sighed again. “Let’s hear them out.”
“There’s no hearing them out!” Nia hissed back, folding her arms over her chest and beginning to pace about. I could see she was itching to shift and the struggle to maintain her composure was real, especially with the heaviness of the magic in the air. Fall was the worst time for the cloud and all of us could feel its repercussions. “We’ve been through this at least half a dozen times before. Why is it so difficult for them to grasp?”
“Tony,” Jack muttered, turning his attention fully back toward the leopard, but I could see him monitoring Nia through his peripheral vision, lest he need to subdue her bubbling anger. “Why did you and Landon intercede on that jewelry store heist in Salem?”
The leopard Protectors glanced at one another and I stifled another groan. The reason for the meeting was now blindingly clear. For a moment, neither of the Protectors spoke and I could see the wheels turning in their heads as they tried to concoct a story that would ease their punishment. In the end, Tony opted for the truth.
“Because the owner was in trouble,” Tony replied flatly. “Why else would we?”
I saw the corners of Jack’s mouth twitch and the elders began to mutter amongst themselves again but their eyes were on us. It was the wrong answer, even if it was the truth, and I found myself wishing Tony had lied through his teeth, had said that there was an endangered shifter in the mix or something—anything—to make the Council stop glowering at us. I knew what the elders were thinking—how many times had the rest of us done similar things when we had been expressly forbidden from doing it?
The answer was plenty of times. Probably daily.
Fern’s eyes were fixed on me and I wondered if he could read my mind. The powers of the Council had always intrigued me and while I knew enough about them, I could never quite be sure I knew everything. I shifted my gaze away and morphed into my human skin, knowing I was going to need my voice at some point. Also, I was worried that the temptation to bolt into the trees would overcome me if I remained in my beastly shape.
“Who cares if the shop owner was in trouble?” Nia snapped. “Was he a leopard?”
Of course they already knew the answer to that, just as I did, even though I wasn’t there.
“No,” Landon mumbled.
“A bear? A panther? Maybe a wolf?” Nia pressed rhetorically. Her voice was oozing with contempt and it was clear why. We’d been warned already—countless times.
“No,” Tony replied in a clipped tone. “She was a human, held at gunpoint and in need of assistance. We saved her life.”
Nia exploded, spinning around to glare at the Protectors.
“Your job is to protect us, not the pitiful humans who, by all accounts, shouldn’t even exist if Darwin is to be believed!”
She snorted.
“Darwin, another useless human,” she added, rolling her eyes the way I had wanted to just moments earlier.
“Nia…” Jack tried to walk her back but it was too late. The ire had overtaken her and she shifted into her leopard shape, pouncing on Tony before he had an opportunity to react. Antonio fell back, stunned by the abrupt attack, but I have no idea why he was so surprised. I had seen it coming well before she’d done it and I wasn’t even a leopard.
Jack forced her back with his bare hands, the two entangled in a struggle until he had pinned her lithe but muscular form to the dirt as the Council began to exclaim in excited cries.
“Nia, contain yourself!”
“Nia, stop it!”
“What in gods’ names are you doing?”
The air was abuzz with apprehension and I watched Tony skulk back, his ego hurt more than his body as he glared at his superior with fire in his eyes.
Nia finally calmed enough to allow her human form to take over, her chest rising heavily as she caught her breath, her eyes baleful as they rested on Jack.
“Get off me!” she spat and Jack obeyed, falling back to let her rise, proffering a hand which she ignored. Slowly, subtly, the atmosphere settled and a newly pregnant silence overcame us all.
“Your job is to protect the shifters!” Nia cried, her eyes darting around the circle to stare purposefully at each and every one of us. “Not the humans. Not play superhero! You know this! You all know this!”
“Nia…” I spoke even before realizing I’d opened my mouth and I felt all eyes on me.
Oh, what the hell are you doing, In?
I wished desperately that I hadn’t said anything at all but it was too late now. I had said her cursed name and there was no escape unless I said the rest of what I was thinking.
“What?” she spat at me, her corneas almost invisible between the slit of her lids.
“The humans are just as much a part of our community as the shifters,” I blurted out before I could lose my nerve. “They are just as worthy of our protection as the rest of us.”
“Oh… dude…” Marcel breathed from beside me but the words were already out there and there was no taking them back. Nia gaped at me, unspeaking for a long moment. I could see the internal struggle she was facing, her desire to attack me as she had Tony almost suffocating her her. To my relief, she whipped her head around toward Lorna and Fernando.
“He’s yours,” she hissed. “Deal with him before I do.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t think I could take her on in a fight if the need arose but would I really want to be known as the wolf who took down an elder? Not if I wanted to keep my position as a Protector, I didn’t.
Without waiting for my superiors to respond, Nia shifted again but she turned in the opposite direction of where I was standing, her paws flying over the foliage and into the trees beyond. Jack hurried after her, leaving me to deal with the wrath of the Council now that I’d opened my big mouth.
I held my head up and stared at Fern as he shook his head but when he spoke, he didn’t address me directly. Instead, he spoke to all of us, his voice even and impassive.
“Nia may not have presented her concerns properly,” Fern started. “But she’s right. The Protectors are not to bec
ome involved in human affairs. How many times do you need to be told this?”
Another rhetorical question.
“If we have to stand here again and deal with another matter even remotely like it,” Lorna continued where Fernando had left off, “there will be hell to pay.”
I knew she wasn’t bluffing. We’d already pushed our luck by involving ourselves in human matters this many times but I knew that this meeting, these lectures, were all exercises in futility.
The Council was old-school, their minds working differently than the younger generation. They were indoctrinated by tradition, so much that they didn’t even understand why they were doing what they were doing anymore. Once upon a time, it had been necessary to fight to the death, to engage in duels and keep our secret closely protected. Humans had once seen us as a great threat but they, too, had been heavily influenced by their religions and lack of scientific understanding. These days, our mortal counterparts weren’t the enemy—they were our allies.
If only we could make the Council understand that, but deprogramming them didn’t really seem to be an option. Instead, we just snuck around behind their backs, silently trying to gain the trust of the humans while not arousing the suspicion of our elders.
It wasn’t working out exactly the way we’d hoped, unfortunately.
“Don’t test us, Protectors,” Bula offered and if the scene hadn’t been so grim, I would have snorted. It was only a way for her to assert her bear dominance. If I were a betting wolf, I would wager that Bula and Homer didn’t care in the least about the Protectors helping the humans. The bear Protector had never been reprimanded for overstepping, even though I knew Cronin had done more than his fair share of breaking the rules in the past.
