In Love with the Alpha (Full Moon Series Book 1)

by Mia Rose

  Declan stood up, shoving his chair back against the wall. He whipped around and snatched a rusty brown key. The one that was dangling on one of the rungs on the cork key wall. The light just above their heads bounced off of the green of Declan’s eyes, highlighting the hot rage behind them.

  When he parted his lips, his voice echoed a savage growl, “Let’s find out.

  “What’s happening?!”

  Chapter 2

  Running

  “At one with nature.”

  Her feet pounded against the dirt, she grimaced, picturing the painstaking process of scraping the dirt off her boots that she would have to endure later. She had to look neat when she left for a hunt and when she returned from one. It was one of those traditions that still hung around because no one could be bothered to separate themselves from the official image long enough to question it.

  Noelle’s chest pounded, the air she inhaled was in short, rapid bursts and sent a shard of pain down the crease between her breasts. Strands of black hair clung to her lips as she threw her legs against the mud and dirt long enough to propel herself behind a thick shrub.

  Noelle reached into the thin band that sat snug against her trim thigh and wrapped her fingers around the holster of her four-inch, long blade.

  I can’t believe that they just run through here like this.

  She kept her ears open and the distant sound of heavy paws pounding against the earth grew closer. Noelle raised her blade up toward her eyes, it gave off a metallic blue tint. A hint that the crushed bullet salve that she applied to it was still in place.

  The wind shifted and lifted pieces of her hair. Her thick ponytail separated into thin pieces. When the wind sailed past her carefully positioned body, it brought the wolf with it. The massive paws emerged first, and Noelle tried to remember the first and previously sole moment that she'd seen a wolf of this size. A distant memory of dark gray eyes resurfaced in her mind, rising out from under hours of training and studies on various sub species.

  When the low growl that slipped past the wolf’s lips sent vibrations throughout her feet, Noelle focused all her energy into her legs. She took a deep breath, and clenched the handle of the blade until her knuckles were white. Noelle lunged, the wolf turned its head. Then, an outraged glare burned into Noelle’s eyes as she dragged the blade down the wolf’s back with all of her strength.

  A savage howl erupted from the wolf. It jerked its body to the right of Noelle as she made a messy landing on her feet. She was not going down. Noelle pursed her lips and with her hand extended out in front of her like twiggy shields, and she took a timid step forward. The fierce intelligence behind the wise eyes of the wolf rattled Noelle to her core.

  I can’t believe this used to be a person.

  Sweat gathered on the edges of Noelle’s forehead, her unblinking eyes were fixed on her target. She watched as the wolf’s legs collapsed from underneath her and a low groan rose up to the sky. The dark gray eyes appraised Noelle as if to say, “You’re just going to kill me? Where is your humanity?”

  Noelle raised her blade and brought it down. Just a hair before it connected with her own forehead. Then the wolf pushed against the ground and towered over her on its hind legs. It snapped its jaws together. Noelle shrieked, the breath escaping from her chest as her back roughly connected with the dirt. Her arms rose up to cover her face, and they shook as she waited for the loud tear of her skin which separated from the tendons underneath it.

  The musky wave of heat that hung above her before disappeared, and she lifted her eyelids and lowered her arms. The wolf had vanished. She wrapped her arms around her body until her fingertips gripped the soft flesh underneath the band of her bra. Wild eyes scanned the trees and foliage, and she rose to her feet. Tucking her blade back into its holster, she turned on her heel and shuffled back towards the set of massive oak trees at the opening of the woods.

  The screen door clanged against the frame as Noelle dragged her sweaty and dirt-plastered body through the walkway. The air was frigid inside. Noelle’s mother, Abigail, kept the house at a cool seventy-two degrees; just the right temperature to walk into after a sweat inducing hunting session.

  Noelle groaned, the muscles in her right bicep screamed in protest as she extended her arm toward her ponytail and tugged her hair loose. The thick, straight strands spilled out of the elastic band that secured them and fell around her shoulders. Noelle walked along the hard wood floors of the hall and made a left past the family room. Abigail, and Noelle’s father Garrett, would have given up any illusions they had of having a peaceful night in front of the TV hours ago.

  Noelle’s eyes traveled downward and she winced. She had tracked dirt into the kitchen and Abigail wouldn’t run out of things to say about it later.

  Of course, if I moved out like anyone else over twenty-two, I wouldn’t have to worry about getting into fights with my mom.

  But it had always been easier to be closer to home. Shortly after her twenty-first birthday, Garrett extended an invitation to pick up the family pastime. For years, a part of her suspected that he and her mother were taking part in some sort of white collar crime. As she grew older, they’d gotten relaxed about having ominous-sounding conversations around her.

  “You missed a big one.” She would overhear them talking from the next room, while Abigail rolled thick strands of dough intended for homemade pasta in between her hands.

  “Well, he might have been too far gone. I thought I could take him back.”

  Noelle would assume it was about an employee since her parents also owned a small sporting goods store. Not even a full day after the candles had been blown out, and while Noelle was in the midst of considering going to a four-year university, they’d sat her down.

  They padded her with wine that they’d purchased to celebrate her twenty-first birthday. Once the third glass had been poured, Abigail nervously looked at Garrett, who gave her his signal before she disappeared into their bedroom. She returned with a maroon and gold family album that Noelle hadn’t previously laid eyes on. Abigail spent the next couple of hours pointing out family members that Noelle had never met.

  “Talia, one of my oldest cousins, was devoured by werewolves. She wanted to clear out a pack that began to gather in the area that she normally hunted in, but she went in alone. That’s not something we’ll be doing,” Abigail said.

  It turned out that Garrett, while he was more of a serious and no-nonsense man, had come from a very superstitious family. His background coupled with Abigail’s family pastime of hunting werewolves, created the perfect foundation for them to take on secondary careers as werewolf hunters.

  In the week that would follow Abigail and Garrett’s revelation, Noelle learned that other members of her family throughout Colorado were also werewolf hunters. Noelle hadn’t had even the slightest bit of interest in taking on the family role of a werewolf hunter. That was until she observed a hunt gone awry with her parents.

  They had insisted that she sit in on a hunt before she made the decision to completely opt out of any business with werewolves. Noelle watched her father pull his gun out of his holster and aim just as if he were going to shoot a home invader. He squared his shoulders and pointed the revolver straight ahead.

  Abigail’s hand covered Noelle’s mouth as they watched a young, shirtless man stumble out of the forest. He was obviously petrified. His eyes were as big as saucers. Noelle shrieked and fought against her mother’s hand.

  “Drop your gun! Drop it, it’s just a kid!”

  Abigail instructed, “Sshh. Look closer.”

  Noelle’s panicked gaze ran over the situation one more time. Thin scratches sat in the middle of his muscular chest, and an ethereal glow bounced off his eyes. Upon looking closer, she noticed that they were an eerie light gray.

  Garrett raised the gun and pointed it at his face, “Just give in. It’ll be quick.”

  The shirtless boy scowled, and hunched his shoulders. Noelle wondered if he was going to
try to wrestle the gun from the forty-year-old man in front of him. It wasn’t unlikely that he thought he could close the distance between them.

  Noelle’s mouth fell open as the boy’s body appeared to vibrate and snarl. His shoulders fell into an even deeper hunch and his skin, as if he were a snake shedding its old layer. It fell to the wayside and revealed perfect white fur. His bones snapped and crackled and a six-foot tall wolf stood in front of Garrett.

  The wolf growled, a thin trail of saliva hung from its jowls. Garrett fired his gun, and Noelle reflexively covered her ears. The wolf moved fast enough to evade the silver bullet and lunged toward Garrett.

  Noelle’s blood-curdling scream sliced through the air and Abigail threw her arm against her chest, holding her back and keeping her inside of the sedan. Abigail’s opposite hand reached toward her own gun as they witnessed Garrett wrestle with the beast.

  The wolf took big bites of air as Garrett fought it off from below. He guarded his face and pulled out a hunting knife that Noelle hadn’t seen him grab when they’d left home earlier.

  He dragged it across the wolf’s face and as it recoiled, he got to his feet and drove it into the wolf’s skull. With his chest heaving, Garrett returned to the car and lowered his head in front of the passenger window.

  Abigail rolled it down and Garrett said, “That’s what we’re up against.”

  It was only two months later that Noelle put off her college loans and enrolled in the unofficial school of werewolf hunting. She trained with her parents, and spent weeks researching old literature on how to kill werewolves, whether it was using tried and true methods like silver bullets, or blades covered in the crushed residue of a silver bullet. There were other unique poisons that limited their abilities.

  Now, four years and fifty kills later, Noelle was still learning.

  She knocked on the door frame of her parent’s bed room and called out, “I didn’t get fifty-one today.”

  There was rustling from inside and Noelle grinned upon hearing Garrett reply, “Night will come again tomorrow, won't it?”

  “At one with nature.”

  Chapter 3

  Not This Day

  “I won’t let them come for us. Not any of us.”

  Declan and Gabriel waited outside of the high school. Declan’s hands were tight around the wheel.

  Gabriel looked over to him and commented, “I don’t know what this kid is thinking.”

  Declan snorted and leaned back against the seat, “That’s the thing, he isn’t thinking. He’s putting the entire pack at risk.”

  A group of boys filed out of the school carrying lacrosse equipment, they shoved each other back and forth as they moved about.

  Declan pointed toward the group and turned to Gabriel, “Does he hang out with guys like those? I can’t remember.”

  Whenever they found a new werewolf, Declan usually only had one opportunity to meet with them before he resumed his alpha duties. It was up to Gabriel to keep Declan in the loop about everyone’s progress.

  “He’s a basketball guy. I think we should see if anyone spotted him back at Clifton Towers. Maybe he’s spending the day in his room.”

  Declan extended his arm and grasped his phone, which had slipped in between the driver’s seat and the center console. While Declan’s fingers wiggled in between the small space, Gabriel sat up taller and leaned forward into the window.

  “Declan,” he said, “there he is.”

  Declan jerked his head up, and Aster stood in a group of his friends. And three other tall, athletic teenage boys circled around him. Aster jeered and goofed with them. Declan rolled down the window and focused, from where they sat in the car he could still make out their conversation if he blocked out everything else.

  Aster could be heard saying, “I don’t know, he thought he was some ultra-tough dude and I had to let him know that I’m the tough dude, you know? He just thought that he could walk into that gym and talk to the basketball players however he wants.”

  Declan held back an irritated groan and his ears twitched upon hearing one of Aster’s friends say, “But where did you get moves like that? He had those huge scratches down his neck, like you are part cat or something?”

  Declan eyes shifted over to Gabriel and he said, “We’ve got to do something about this. He’s being completely brazen about it.”

  Declan felt a small bit of remorse at the idea of getting rid of Aster. He closely related to him because Aster was a fellow runaway. Gabriel had been the one to find him while on a solo hunt, and he presented him in front of Declan. He was a shivering, thin boy. It was typical of Aster, he couldn’t get along with his new stepfather and ran away from home. He fell asleep at a bus stop one night, and woke up with an incredible bite mark on his left shoulder. Once Aster came to stay at Clifton Towers, Declan saw to it that he was trained well in hunting and scavenging. They helped him enroll in the local high school, and permanently welcomed him into the pack when he turned eighteen.

  Gabriel nodded, “I thought he’d be smarter than to just use those abilities in public. I wonder where the kid is that he roughed up.”

  “Either dying or going through his first round of transformations. Damn it!”

  Declan lifted his hand and slammed it down on top of the steering wheel. Gabriel observed as Declan narrowed his eyes and watched Aster separate from his friends and head to the student parking lot. Declan grasped the gear shift and slammed it into drive; the tires screeched and the smell of burnt rubber permeated the air. The he whipped his sedan into the student parking lot.

  A few nervous teens held their backpacks closer to them and shuffled out of the lot. Aster slammed his car door shut and walked over to Declan’s car.

  He knelt in front of the driver’s side window and said, “What’s up? Is there some sort of pack meeting that I need to get to? Is it alright if I’m a little late?”

  With a furious growl, Declan reached out of the window and dragged Aster’s head inside of the car. His eyes turned into a dark, emerald green color.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Aster struggled against his grasp, his eyes were wide as he choked out.

  “What? I didn’t do anything, let me go.”

  Declan’s fist closed around Aster’s shirt even tighter and he moved toward him so that their noses were touching. Aster grimaced, and on the outside of the car, he squirmed. Then his legs danced awkwardly along the pavement.

  “Not only did you get into an altercation with a human, but everyone knows about it. You’ve got the entire town alert to beastly creatures and you have endangered the rest of our pack,” Declan spat.

  “You’re being ridiculous. I got into a scrape with that kid, it was hardly even a big deal.”

  Declan whispered, “People want to know what you are now, Aster. It starts with questions, and gossip. It ends with silver bullets and persecution. I would kill you right now, but unlike you I’m not an idiot and I don’t want an entire human audience to watch. Get in the car!”

  Declan released him, and Aster’s hands limply grasped the straps of his backpack. He hovered at the car door for a moment, and Declan turned around to check and see what the holdup was.

  Aster yanked the car open and Gabriel gave him a look that almost said he pitied him. Declan put the car in drive and headed towards Clifton Towers.

  Less than twenty minutes later, Declan pulled up outside of Clifton Towers. Gabriel got out and waited on the sidewalk for Aster and Declan to join him. Aster slowly opened the door, and eons passed as he placed his foot on the ground. Declan gritted his teeth, watching Aster slowly step out of the car.

  Once he had finally planted both feet on the asphalt, Declan said, “Great. Now get inside.”

  Aster nodded and wordlessly hurried into the apartment building. Gabriel and Declan lingered outside, waiting on the sidewalk.

  Declan sighed and leaned against the edge of the car, “I think that I have to take care of him.”<
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  Gabriel turned to Declan with raised eyebrows and said, “That’s extreme for you. We could drop him off in the woods somewhere.”

  Declan shook his head and raised his hand to wipe a bead of sweat off of his forehead.

  “People will be searching the woods in a couple of weeks if we’re not careful. We might not be able to hunt in the same place for a little while.”

  They usually hunted on the outskirts of town, where a small patch of woods were perfectly located. It was the closest source of wildlife, and Declan suspected that the humans would be there within days depending on what happened to the boy that Aster attacked.

  “We’ll have to eat grocery store meat.”

  Declan nodded at a couple that walked by, with a shopping bag in one hand and their hands holding each the other. He could just make out a few heads inside the café. And the barista’s head bobbed up and down as she prepared a coffee. Near the window, a head covered in raven hair popped up, and he noticed that a lean woman was exiting the business.

  She wore a navy-blue dress; it stopped just before her knees but her legs went on forever. She squinted against the sunlight, and her head tilted just slightly in Declan and Gabriel’s direction. He watched her appraise them; first Gabriel, then Declan. Her eyes lingered on Declan’s face and they slowly traveled down the rest of his body. She smirked, before turning on her heel and heading down the street.

  Declan’s eyes followed her for longer than he cared to admit, he only peeled his eyes off her backside once she finally rounded the corner.

  Gabriel turned to him and chuckled, “I’m sorry, are you distracted? I thought that you were in the middle of delegating some official alpha business!”

  “Shut it. I thought that I recognized her from somewhere. I don’t know where though. Anyway, I’ll have a chat with Cassidy and see what she thinks.”

  Declan dismissed any of Gabriel’s follow up concerns and moved inside of the building. He walked up the old staircase, wincing at the whine of the stairs underneath his weight. He climbed the stairs until he reached the fourth floor.