***
“Is there anything else I can get you, Conner?” the waitress asked as she topped off his coffee.
“No, thank you, Cassie,” he told her with a smile.,
“Well, I sure am happy with what you did for my mom. She’s getting on in years you know. Fighting off those pesky bears used to come second nature to her but lately…”
Conner and Cassie both saw Selena walk up at the same time. Cassie stopped talking and looked at Selena. “Well, hello again. Can I get you some coffee and a menu?”
“Yes, please,” Selena told her. It hadn’t escaped her notice that once again people had quit talking when she walked up. She had been hard at work the past two days and hadn’t run across Conner. It was Friday now though, and thanks to the Burly Bear the plant was closed and she had the day off. She decided to take herself out to breakfast, but when she saw Conner, she thought she’d try to kill two birds with one stone.
“Would you like to join me?” Conner asked.
“Yes, thank you.” Selena slid into the booth across from where he sat. “I thought since you seemed to be the go-to guy in town, you could maybe answer a question for me.”
“Sure, if I can,” he told her.
“I moved into my house a few nights ago,” she started.
“Yeah, I heard,” he said. “It’s real nice up there. How are you enjoying it?”
“Wow,” she said, still impressed with the information system in this town. “I love the house, and the views are stunning…”
“But…” he said with a smile.
She was hesitating because here in town where she was safe, the whole thing with the wolf began to feel silly to her. She took a deep breath and decided she had started now so she may as well go ahead and tell him.
“Okay, well, my first night there I noticed that there was a wolf watching me unload my things from the car. He stood back near a tree and just seemed to be following my every move. It was unnerving, but he never growled or did anything that looked aggressive. He just watched me, and when I finished he lay down by the front door. I think he slept there all night. He shows back up every night now. Like I said, he doesn’t seem to want to hurt me, but it’s strange.”
Conner raised an eyebrow. “Was he still there this morning?”
“No. He was there last night, but he was gone when I woke up,” she told him.
“So, what’s your question?” he asked.
“Do animals stalk people? I know that’s a weird question, but I felt like he watches me with a lot of interest, and then he sleeps right up against my front door all night. Will he just decide the time is right one day and attack me? Should I be worried?”
“What did he look like?” Conner asked.
She thought that was a strange question. What difference did it make? “He was a wolf, light brown or tan, I guess. Tall and kind of thin, I guess.” Selena laughed then.
“What’s so funny?” Conner asked.
“It just seemed funny to me that I was describing a wolf like maybe you’re going to put out an APB on him or something.”
Conner laughed then, too. Before either of them went on, Slam showed up.
“Good morning, Conner, Miss Selena,” he said. “Ya’ll mind if I sit with you a bit?”
“Not at all,” Selena said. The waitress brought her eggs and pancakes then and gave Slam some coffee. Slam told her he wanted the breakfast meat platter.
Once she was gone, Conner looked at Selena. “After breakfast, Slam and I will drive up and have a look around.”
Slam looked confused. “What are we looking for, boss?”
“We’ll be looking for a wayward wolf,” Conner told him.
Slam looked at Selena then with an odd look and she got the impression that Slam thought Conner had told her something that he shouldn’t have. Conner’s eyes shifted color when Slam looked at him. Watching him do that was the strangest and yet the sexiest thing Selena had ever seen.
“Oh, okay…sure,” Slam said.
Selena’s breakfast came first, and as she ate hers, Conner and Slam talked about business…she supposed. Slam had a long list of people who needed to see Conner, who said he would be opening the office after they got back from checking out the area around Selena’s house to make sure there wasn’t a hungry lone wolf hanging around.
As they talked, Selena looked around at the bustling activity going on outside. It was the busiest she had seen the town so far. Everyone seemed so happy, getting ready for a Burly Bear celebration. Selena felt like she had walked into a different dimension sometimes in this town.
Before she was finished, Slam was served his platter, and by the time she took her last bite, he had already devoured it. She looked at his thin frame and wondered where he put it all. If she ate like that, she’d weigh three hundred pounds.
“Ya’ll want some more coffee?” Cassie asked them.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Selena said. “I’ll take my check now please.”
“Conner took care of it,” Cassie told her.
Selena looked at Conner, confused. “When did you do that? I didn’t see you leave the table.”
He smiled. “Cassie knows that I never let a lady pay.”
“Okay, well, thank you,” Selena said uncomfortably.
“What are your plans for the day?” Conner asked.
“I don’t really have any. I thought I’d check out this festival going on all around me.”
“They should have all the booths set up by noon,” Slam informed her.
“Yeah, and it will give you a chance to meet a lot of the townsfolk,” Conner said.
“Okay, you two be careful with the wolf,” she told them.
The men exchanged a look that she didn’t understand and then they parted ways.
***
“You know who this is?” Slam asked Conner on the way up the hill.
“I have an idea,” Conner said. “I think Taylor must have put together a pack and is looking for a mate. He probably got a whiff of my scent on Selena. We had spent most of that day together.”
“So why would he show up as the wolf?” Slam asked.
“He probably sensed he could get closer to her as an animal at first, and then once he turned her, it would be too late for her to object.”
When they got to the old pump house, Conner stopped the Jeep. He and Slam stepped out and both of them sniffed the air.
“He’s up close to the house, up wind,” Conner said. “Stay straight, so we stay out of the air. I don’t want to give him a chance to run. I’ve got too much to do today to be chasing this dog all over the mountain.”
“Gotcha,” Slam said as he began to strip off his clothes. Conner did the same and within seconds they were both running up toward the house. Conner stopped when they got close and looked at Slam, who had stopped, too. He moved his head slightly to the right, and Slam took off in that direction. Conner circled around to the left.
The intruder smelled them coming and tried to run at the last second. He took off around the right side of the house and was suddenly face to face with Slam. Slam was in a fighting stance, and the intruder knew that he wouldn’t be able to take him. He turned back and found himself face to face then with an even more formidable foe…Conner.
The skinny wolf was dwarfed by the huge white one, and he knew he should just back down. His problems had always stemmed from not listening to that gut instinct, however. Instead of giving up, he turned and ran full-bore into Slam, knocking him off all four of his feet and sending him hurtling backward. Then he put his head back to howl for his pack.
Conner knew what the skinny wolf was trying to do. He wasn’t going to give him the chance to wait for his back-up. Conner lunged for the other wolf’s throat. The brown wolf turned to the side and instead of his throat, Conner’s teeth sunk into his back haunch. The wolf howled again, this time in pain.
Slam was inching back toward them, and Conner hadn’t counted on how fast the skinny thing he was
holding in his teeth was. Before he had a chance to release his jaws, the other wolf twisted around enough to sink his teeth into the bigger black wolf approaching from behind. Now, Conner could see his friend’s silky black fur suddenly turning a deep scarlet.
Conner engaged his powerful jaws and pushed them deeper into flesh, maybe even tearing through bone. He began to shake his head back and forth, trying to get the brown wolf to let go of Slam. Blood was spurting out of both the black and brown wolves now and the big white wolf was struggling to get the situation under control. He could smell the others coming. He and Slam together were stronger than all of them, but their numbers would give them a definite advantage. They were too far out now from town for Conner to sound any kind of alert for the others to get here in time.
Conner was finally able to cause the brown wolf enough pain to get him to let go of Slam. When that happened, Slam was able to clamp down on the other wolf’s throat and shake his own powerful jaws until the wolf finally went slack. Conner and Slam both let go of him at the same time and the smaller wolf fell limp to the ground in a pile of dust.
Panting now and with fur matted with both sweat and blood, they took a few steps back and at the same time they morphed back into men. Conner was bleeding from his shoulder, which was missing a significant chunk of flesh. Slam was bleeding from a hole in his right side.
“Are you okay?” Conner asked.
Slam nodded. “You?”
“Yeah, I will be. Watch him; I’m going to get some rope.” Conner went to his Jeep and first grabbed a thin yellow rope. He sniffed the air again and could tell that the others had turned around and were retreating. They are probably a group of strays he threw together. Realizing they had a little more time than he had thought, he pulled out a first aid kit. He had an unmarked glass bottle with a concoction his Aunt Eliza made and distributed for times like this. He took that out along with a roll of clean white gauze and tape.
They first wrapped up the other wolf with the rope…tight, so that if he woke up he would be unable to fight. Then Conner treated its wounds to the neck with the poultice and covered it with gauze to stop the bleeding. Then he did the same for Slam, and then Slam helped him with his.
“I saw a hose around front. We have to get rid of this bloody mess,” Conner said. There were several large boulders and trees at the edge of the backside of Selena’s property. The fight had created massive amounts of blood spatter. It looked like a crime scene.
“I’ll get it,” Slam told him.
When he was gone, the wolf on the ground began to whimper and stir. Conner could tell it was trying to change but couldn’t. Conner had tied it extra tight for that reason. He walked over to it. “You want to be the Alpha so badly; I will send you somewhere where that will be possible.”
The wolf on the ground began to writhe. He understood what Conner was telling him. He would be taken to the sanctuary, and this day would mark his first day as being erased from the human race.
CHAPTER THREE
Selena was actually having fun at the festival. There were a lot of interesting things at the booths the townsfolk had set up. One of the booths was all about wolves. They had wolf teeth necklaces and wolf fur hats. There was a little sign with a disclaimer that said no wolves were hurt to make the products they sold, all of the items were donated after death. Selena found that part funny. She wondered if the wolves carried donor cards or if their families had to make that decision.
She stopped at another booth that had books on all of the animals who were indigenous to Alaska. There was a book about white wolves, and for some reason, something about the eyes on the wolf on the cover of the book reminded her so much of Conner’s eyes. She picked it up and began leafing through it, skimming through a chapter on how wolves mate for life and enjoy an active sex life. Lucky wolves. She closed the book and started to set it down, but something about the eyes of that wolf were still calling to her.
“How much for this one?” she asked the girl running the booth.
“Five dollars,” the girl told her.
Selena bought it and moved on to the next booth. This one was about werewolves. They had books on how to become a werewolf and potions to drink for people who “got stuck in wolf form” and necklaces made of garlic to “scare away the vampires.” Selena talked to the old couple running the booth, and after a few moments, it became apparent to her that they strongly believed what they were selling.
“Where are you folks from?” She could tell from their accent that they weren’t from Alaska.
“We are from Russia,” the old man told her. “Where are you from, young lady?”
“New York,” she said.
“There aren’t many werewolves in the city. Wolves prefer forests and mountains. Out in California, there may be a few packs, but New York is a little too populated.”
“Really?” Selena asked, playing along. “So tell me, what makes a werewolf?”
“Genetics,” he said.
“What about in books and the movies where he bites you and then on the full moon you turn. Is that true?”
“A werewolf can be made, yes. But it’s not like you see in the movies. An Alpha can turn a human to be his or her mate, or for another reason that the pack agrees with. It has to be a group decision, however, and it has to be done by the Alpha.”
“And do werewolves turn with the full moon like in movies?” she asked.
“A werewolf can turn anytime, anywhere. The full moon was added in for dramatic effect in Lon Cheney movies.”
“One more important question,” she said with a smile. “What kills werewolves?”
“Anything that kills humans, only not as quickly,” he said.
“Meaning what?” she asked.
“Well, werewolves have healing abilities that are ten times stronger than an ordinary human. So if you get shot and you’re bleeding out, it’s going to take maybe an hour to lose all five pints of your blood. If a werewolf gets shot, his body starts making more clotting factors and shutting things down that it’s not using, so the rest of the body can concentrate only on healing.”
“So…no silver bullets or immortality?” she said.
“The oldest living werewolf I’ve been able to track down was over three hundred years old. So no, immortality in the sense that he will never die may not be the case, but in the sense that the old S.O.B. lived three hundred years? Hell yes! Oh, and silver bullets and knives…those are the wounds that werewolves can’t heal themselves from.”
Selena laughed. “You sure know your werewolf stuff. You should write a book.”
He grinned. He was missing his two front teeth. “I would. But I do know too much, so it would end up being an expose, and I’d have to wait until I was buried to have it published. Otherwise, the Alphas of the packs would unite against me. They’re a private bunch. They don’t care to have their business spread around.”
Selena laughed and thanked the old couple and went on her way. She spent another pleasurable two hours on the town square before running into Slam. She found him at one of the hot dog booths, eating, of course. He looked like he had showered and changed clothes, but he was really pale.
“Hi, Slam. Are you okay?” she asked.
“Hey, Selena. Yeah, I’m good. Conner and me just tussled a bit with that wolf up at your place. It zapped some of the energy out of me.”
Selena sat down. “You tussled with him? Slam, I didn’t mean for you guys to do that. What if one of you had been hurt? I would have felt awful.”
“It’s okay, Miss Selena. Me and Conner know how to handle strays. He’s over at the wildlife conservatory now. He won’t bother you no more.”
“Wow, thank you, Slam. How did you catch him?”
Slam seemed like he was thinking about it, and then finally he said, “Tranquilizers.”
Selena got the feeling there was more to it than that, but Slam was not interested in giving up any more facts. “Is Conner working?” she asked. She wasn’t sure
why Conner’s location meant anything to her, but she told herself that she only wanted to thank him for what he did today with the wolf.
“Yeah, he’s seeing people in the office today. Are you coming to the pageant and the dance tonight, Miss Selena? Conner will be there.”
“Hmm, I hadn’t thought about it,” she said.
“Please come, Miss Selena. I know Conner would like it, and I think you would have a lot of fun.”
“Well, I haven’t made any other plans so maybe… The wolf thing spooked me a little about coming and going after dark though,” she told him.
“I’ll pick you up if you like, and take you home.”
Selena smiled. She liked Slam, a lot. He seemed like he had such a good heart.
“Okay then, I guess I don’t have any other reasons to say no. I’ll see you this evening. If you see Conner before I do, tell him thanks for me.”
Slam smiled and nodded. “Will do, Miss Selena. I’ll pick you up at seven. The pageant starts at seven-thirty.”
“I’ll see you then,” she said. On her way home, her phone rang. It was Tony. “Hi, Tony!”
“Hi, Selena. How are you?” he said. He sounded sad.
“I’m doing well, actually. This place isn’t near as bad as I thought it would be,” she told him. “How are you?”
“I’m well. I’ve got no complaints,” he said in true Tony fashion. His passivity really pushed her buttons sometimes. She wished that he was more like… No, she wasn’t going to let her mind go down that dark path. “I miss you…so bad. I’m having trouble sleeping. I hardly have the energy to get through the day.”
“Aw, Tony. I’m so sorry.” She pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine. “Baby, you know that I don’t expect you to sit there and wait for me, right? You need to get on with your life.”
“I don’t have a life without you, Selena,” he said. “I’m lost.”
Alaskan Alpha: 3-Book Bundle (Books 1-3) Page 5
