Alarik
A Rogue Enforcers Novel
Tracie Douglas
ALARIK
Copyright 2019 © Tracie Douglas
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All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of Tracie Douglas.
Photographer: Randy Sewell of RLS Model Images
Model: Devin Byrd
Editing by: Grace Brennan
Cover Design & Format: Dark Water Covers
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
The Rogue Enforcers Series
More Books By Tracie
About Tracie Douglas
For Mama Jan,
God blessed us the day you came into our lives.
Words cannot express how much you mean to me.
This one is for you.
XOXO.
Prologue
Sixteen years ago…
The young girl sits in the deep wild of the Appalachian Mountains, watching the way light and shadow dance on the fauna covered ground. A gentle breeze passes through the branches overhead, rustling the leaves in a flurry. She holds a jagged rock in one hand, and she carefully runs her thumb over the sharpest part of it, mesmerized by the shadows as they play against the skin of her bare feet.
The air is cold against her skin and it seeps past the dirt-streaked lavender cardigan and tattered black leggings she wears. This cold she can handle by simply sitting in the warm sunlight. This cold is nothing compared to the storm experienced three nights ago. No matter how tight she curled her small frame, there was no fighting it. It was unlike anything she ever experienced in her life.
“It’s going to be okay, child.” The voice skitters across her mind, and she feels at ease with its words. Where the voice came from, she doesn’t know—but what she does know is she hadn’t heard it with her ears.
No, it was coming from somewhere deep down inside of her, like it was an important part of her. One she couldn’t understand at her young age.
The first time she heard it, it commanded her to run, and she did without hesitation because something deep inside her soul told her to trust it. Despite the panic in her mother’s eyes when she begged the girl to run, it was the voice and the sound of her mother's screams at her back that pushed her little legs faster and harder than ever before to flee the danger that had found them.
“You have to stay safe and hidden. Hide until it’s safe to come out.”
“Mama, no, I’m scared,” the girls cries, clutching her mother’s leg.
“I know sweet girl, but you have to.” She kneels before the girl. “Trust your instinct, it will guide you to safety.”
“Mama—”
She kisses her daughter once more on her forehead and urges her forward. “Go, sweet girl. I promise I’ll find you when it’s safe again.”
The girl obeyed her mother’s wishes, and she ran into the darkness, deeper and deeper into the wild, unaware of who she was running from, but sure that she needed to keep going. Her mother’s promise echoed loudly in her ears, and she held onto it tightly, finding strength she hadn’t known she possessed in those words.
When she was finally spent and could go no further, the voice commanded her to stop, and she did without hesitation.
And this is how it’s been since that first time it spoke to her. Any time the voice commands her to act, listen and obey. After all, the voice is the one reason she’s alive after all this time.
Time.
She has no concept of it since she is too young to understand it. But as the daylight fades and the night approaches, she can’t help questioning the motive behind the voice. She has tried to speak with it directly, but it never answers back. In those moments she feels alone and frightened.
I miss my mommy, she whispered, feeling a lump form in her throat with the admittance.
The leaves continue to play in the waning sunlight and breeze, but she is no longer interested in its playfulness. No, she’s begun to think about her mother and the screams that still leave her chilled to the core.
The girl swallows hard, fighting back the tears burning her eyes. Please, let me go back to her.
I know you miss her, the voice responds finally. But you must be strong. That part of your life is over. You must survive.
The sound of footsteps and the snap of a twig nearby jars the young girl from her sadness. The smell of wet earth fills her nose, and she pushes out her senses, every cell in her tired and cold body straining for any sign of danger.
She hears the labored breathing of another. A woman, from her flowery scent.
More danger? She asks the voice, but it is eerily quiet.
The girl turns her head at the snap of another twig and sees her standing only a few feet away from her. With thoughts of fleeing already coursing through her young body, she waits for the voice to command her. But it’s quiet.
“Robert, come here quick,” the woman calls over her shoulder. The young girl watches as a man with kind brown eyes steps into her line of sight. Like the woman, he has shock and concern furrowed in his brow.
The woman steps forward, but the man stops her. “Janice, wait.”
The young girl searches inside for the voice, as the presence of these two strangers move closer.
Should I run?
No, it finally responds. But the girl isn’t sure she should stay put.
But I’m scared.
Stay. It slithers, coiling itself deeper into the girl’s chest. It sounds tired.
I want my mother, she whimpers to it.
You’re safe now. The voice tickles, feeling much fainter in her mind.
Please, don’t leave me.
The young girl blinks blindly as the tears she fought for days began to fall down her dirt-streaked face. The woman steps another tentative step toward her. And another. And another, until she closes the distance between them.
“Sweetheart, are you okay? Are you lost?”
The young girl watches as the woman sits next to her on the ground with guarded tear-filled eyes.
The woman is very pretty, with vibrant red hair and eyes the color of the sky. Her soft yellow dress reminds her of her mother’s favorite Sunday church dress.
“Where are your parents?”
She blinks at the woman, wanting to answer but unable to find the words. The voice said she was safe now, but how can she trust it?
Touch her.
She reaches for the woman’s hand and the moment her hand connects with her soft skin, she is blinded with warmth and light. The voice was right. The woman and the man will not hurt her.
“My name is Janice.” The woman smiles down at her and takes her hand. “This Robert.”
The girl looks between
Janice and Robert, before climbing into the woman’s lap and curling her small form against her. The woman wraps her arms around the girl, engulfing her in warmth, chasing the chill from her body instantly.
“What is your name?”
“Reaghan,” she whispers to the woman before succumbing to the exhaustion and falling asleep in her arms.
You’re safe now.
Chapter One
There is something about the rain Reaghan McAlister finds calming. The world grows quiets for a few moments until all you hear is the rhythm of the liquid hitting and splashing against the ground and various surfaces.
One of her favorite things to do is to watch it fall from the sky, as it drenches the earth with new life. Ever since she was a little girl, she found it to be memorizing. Growing up, whenever a storm would roll in, she would sit at her favorite window at home and listen to it until the very last drop. It gave her moments of peace, moments when she didn’t have to think about how different she was from the people in her life.
Only Reaghan couldn’t find peace in the storm raging outside her small black sedan. Mostly because there was a different kind of storm raging inside of her, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find any peace.
She checks the clock on her phone, noting it’s only been an hour since she called her roadside assistance company, and calculating the remaining estimated time until the tow truck arrives. Her decade-old car had decided tonight was the night to take a nosedive and putter out. But that wasn’t what fueled the storm inside of her.
For the last sixteen years, Reaghan has spent her life wondering who she is and where she came from. She had no memories of the days before her adopted parents Janice and Robert had found her, but it was clear she’d been wandering the wilderness for some time. She was called a miracle because she survived alone even though she suffered a few extremely cold nights. The cold Reaghan could remember, but the rest was a blur.
She spent the last five years doing everything in her power to find out where she’d come from, but it’s been a series of one dead end after another. No one knew the young five-year-old, and no one was looking for her.
Two days ago, she received an anonymous phone call. The female voice on the other side refused to answer any questions, but she gave Reaghan a set of numbers, the name Kennedy—although that didn’t narrow it down or give Reaghan any insight at all—and quickly hung up. She spent hours feeling like she should recognize the voice but all she did was give herself a headache over it.
So, Reaghan focused on the numbers and trying to decipher their meaning. She spent hours believing they were a code for something. She asked her parents if they meant anything to them, but it wasn’t until her father suggest map coordinates that everything clicked into place. He was right, the numbers were a set of coordinates, and they happened to land a few miles north of the area Reaghan was found.
This was the break Reaghan needed, and it left her feeling a variety of emotions. Joy. Fear. Worry. Unease. But it didn’t take long for her to pack a bag and set off to the place where she was discovered all those years ago. The spot on the map the number pointed, there wasn’t a direct road to it, which meant she’d have to hike to the location.
Her mind was filled with thoughts of this new information, and she spent the drive in a haze of questions. She hadn’t noticed the rain had started or the ugly red warning light that came on during her drive, telling her to check the engine. It wasn’t until a loud clank echoed around her and cloud of smoke filled the air that she realized something was wrong and pulled over.
Now, as she sits in her silent car, the rain is all she can focus on and for a moment she worries it’s going to keep her from getting to the secluded location. She checks the clock on her cellphone again, needing to distract herself for a moment from the tumultuous thoughts and emotions building inside of her.
A text message pings her phone. It’s from her mother. Reaghan swallows hard and locks the phone without reading it. Janice has been struggling to understand her daughter’s need to find out who she was before them. Not that Reaghan can blame her for it, Janice and Robert moved heaven and earth to find her family before giving her a permanent home. Janice believed Reaghan was an unwanted child cast out for her differences but meant to be her daughter since she could never have any of her own.
Guilt settles into her stomach, the emotion quickly becoming familiar, as she tries to forget the sadness in her mother’s eyes when she told her where she was headed. But Janice didn’t fight her about it. She didn’t try to talk Reaghan out of the trip. Instead, she kissed her violet-eyed daughter on the forehead and promised to be there when she returned.
Reaghan wanted to explain why she needed to do this, but there have been times when even she didn’t understand this need inside of her. She only wished her mother would understand that learning about where she came from wouldn’t change the way she feels about her parents, or the role they play in her life.
She looks down at her gloved hands with frustration. If she knew, maybe she wouldn’t have to protect herself this way. Maybe she could learn to control her ability. Maybe she could have a normal life like everyone else.
Normal, she snickers to herself. Nothing about her life has ever been normal.
A sudden tap on her window causes her to jump and clutch her gloved hand to her chest. She looks to her left and notice the large shadow standing next to her car, drenched from the downpour. A shiver of unease trickles down her spine as she reaches to crank her window down a little.
“You called for a tow?” A deep, rich voice asks, filtering into the car and making her unease melt away. A sudden warmth blooms in her chest and she takes a deep breath, catching the spicy scent of the man even through the rain.
Yes, you can trust this one, something said deep inside of her.
Alarik Murray spots the small black sedan parked alongside the state highway without a problem, despite torrential rainstorm taking place outside the cab of the old tow truck he’s driving. And not because of his enhanced shifter senses. Rather it’s because the damn car is parked far too close to the road for safety, without any hazard lights on.
He pulls off the road, stopping behind it and radioing in his arrival.
“Dispatch, this Alarik, I’m on scene.” He hangs the handset back onto the clip and pulls his coat in closer around his neck, not that it’s going to do much. By the time he’s done hitching up the vehicle, he’ll be drenched to the bone.
“10-4, Alarik, radio in when you’re hitched up and rolling out,” the dispatcher responds, and he grabs his flashlight and opens the door to the cab. The rain immediately hits him, soaking his denim jacket through in seconds.
His bears chuffs at him, wanting him to be more playful about the weather. Alarik ignores him though and settles into the irritation he’s been trying to ignore.
Fuck, it’s going to be a long night, he thinks as he treks over to the vehicle and taps on the window.
He watches a dark-haired woman nearly jump out of her skin before looking at him with searching eyes. She reaches down with a gloved hand to crack open the window.
“You called for a tow?” he asks, watching as her nostrils flare and her thoughts flicker across her expressive face.
“Yes, I did.” She tries to open the door.
“Stay inside,” he clips and pushes the door closed. “Pop the hood, and I’ll take a look.”
“Don’t know you need to know what happened?” she asks through the crack in the window, reminding him that he’s supposed to be pretending with her. Humans don’t know about the shifter world.
Shit, he swears inwardly and his bear chuckles at him.
Like most shifters, Alarik has a gift. His is mechanics. All he needs to do is look at an engine or hear it run and he can figure out what’s wrong with it. Shifters from all over the country come to him for his expertise.
“Um, yeah, sure. Tell me what happened.”
“It made a loud popping
sound, then a bunch of smoke happened, and then it died as I pulled over to the side,” she explains. “It wouldn’t turn over again.”
“Okay, pop the hood.” He nods and rolls his eyes, pretending her explanation gave him all the information he needed, when in fact it did not. He knew about the smoke the moment he opened the truck door. He walks around to the front of her car and lifts the hood. The burning smell intensifies, and he notices the disarray under her hood. He rakes a hand through his hair, trying to decide where to begin. From the looks of it, she’s hasn’t serviced the car in a long time.
He checks the battery cables. They’re secure. He pulls out the dipstick and wipes it dry, before dipping it back to check the oil level. It’s low. No surprise there.
The sound of a car door opening and closing interrupts his thoughts and he concentrates on the sound of her boots against the gravel as she steps around the front of the car to join him.
“I thought you might need this,” she smirks and twirls a large umbrella in her hand. The action kicks up a slight breeze, stirring her long dark hair. His nose fills with the scent of jasmine as his bear suddenly perks up with interest.
Don’t you dare, he tells it, trying to ignore the way her turquoise tank top hugs her ample breasts or the way her skintight jeans accentuate her shapely legs and flawless round hips. But it’s too late, his body and his bear are reacting to her in ways he knows is completely unprofessional and inappropriate.
Fuck, he curses inwardly as his dick stirs to life. Even in the limited glow of her headlights, he can tell her body was created to be worship.
“Did you try starting it after it died?” he asks, clearing his throat trying to fill the silence and get his mind off the ways he would worship her body.
Alarik (A Rogue Enforcers Novella) Page 1
