Alphas of Red Moon Ranch(50)

Jacob glanced around. Took in his surroundings. No signs of dead cougar. Or dead anything. At very least, his Beast’s rampage hadn’t been a lethal one.

But the kid. He’d bit into him, hadn’t he? The thought made his stomach clench up in a knot. He didn’t like them one bit, but he didn’t want anyone dead. Especially not a young boy caught up in his own animal instincts.

Been there. Done that. Had the scars to prove it.

Jacob pulled himself back up to his feet and looked down at his hands. They were dirty, mud caked under his nails, and they trembled.

One more transformation down. How long had he been the bear? By the look of the sky, it’d been hours. Maybe more. Used to be he could shift back in a matter of minutes. It was getting harder and harder to bounce back from it. He could practically feel his willpower slipping through his fingers.

(Become the Beast. Be your true form.)

No.

Jacob closed his hands into fists, containing the animal inside of him. He walked until he found his tattered clothes and then made his way to the road and stuck his thumb out. Patience, he tried to remind himself.

Inside, his bones rattled.





Chapter 42


Brent led Holly around the back of the farm where the fence had mostly rotted away. He told Holly to dig deep, narrow holes in the ground while he lifted the new slabs of wood for the fence and impaled the upturned dirt with them. When he saw the shoes she was wearing, however (cream Coco Chanel heels), he sent her to Cassidy’s to borrow a pair of work boots.

“I’m fine,” Holly said with a small smile. “You’d be amazed by how fast I can run in these things.”

“The hell you are,” Brent said gruffly. “You fall and break your ankle, Jacob will have my head. Go on.” There was something off about him, as though if he didn’t keep working, he’d go on a drinking binge. Holly got the impression he wanted some alone time anyway when he shooed her away as though he were shepherding a duckling.

Holly felt her heart wilt. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing Brent’s sister Cassidy again, not after the other woman had chewed her out for bringing Jacob a beer, of all things. She didn’t want to be lectured on how it was “unbecoming” of the Alpha’s mate to dig holes in the dirt with Brent.

Oddly enough, she got the exact opposite reaction from Cassidy. “It’s about time you got your paws dirty,” the other woman said, leaning in the doorway. She jabbed her thumb inside her house and said, “C’mon in.”

Holly made her way inside and was greeted with the smell of freshly cooked dinner, parsley and salmon lingering in the air. Cassidy’s house was cluttered—as any two-child household should be—with toys, gardening supplies, and horse-riding equipment. Picture frames hugged family photos—Cassidy, Dave, and their children; Cassidy and Dave at their wedding; a young Cassidy, Brent, and Jacob standing alongside Mama Mae and their father.. Jacob rarely spoke about his father, the same man from the newspaper article; since they’d been married, all Holly had managed to get out of him was a sentence or two about the other man. Holly’s gaze lingered on the picture, trying to imagine the story behind the man. A hard-working, tight-lipped older man who only spoke when he really had something to say, whose eyes crinkled with the rare warm smile, who drank and smoked and worked too much but always came home right on time for dinner.

Holly smiled at the thought, just as she heard, “Hi, Mrs. Holly.” Cassidy’s eighteen-year-old twins, Trish and Tanner, both sat at the dinner table, plates away, homework out, scrawling out answers in their notebooks.

“Hi.” Holly smiled and pulled up a chair next to them. “What are you working on?”

The twins exchanged a look as though telepathically deciding how much information they should share with the new woman in their clan. “Book report,” Trish said finally, tugging her hair back into a braid distractedly. Holly knew the gesture well—she used to play with her hair constantly until she began substituting hair for making chew toys out of pens. “We have to write about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”

“Oooh, that’s one of my favorite books,” Holly said as she leaned in closer.

“Hang tight,” Cassidy said as she brushed through the room. “I’ll grab you a pair of my boots.”

“Thank you,” Holly said. Cassidy vanished down the hall and Holly turned her attention back to the children. “What are your papers about?”

“Mine is about the separation between Dr. Frankenstein and the monster,” Trish blurted out eagerly. “And how they’re really the same person.”