Wanted by the Alphas(32)

She is worried. Worried sick.

Worried that Jared might be foolhardy enough to confront one or all of the werewolves, and it would be just the thing he would do too. Worried that tonight was just a warning. This is our territory. Go hunt elsewhere. Worried that the woods – huge as they are – might not be big enough for another shapeshifter.

They would have to leave. Go further north, maybe even to Canada.

She will have to talk to Jared about leaving.

Oh, but her heart wrenches at the thought of having to leave! They have just gotten here. She is tired of running. And she has gotten a job at a place that she likes. She has just met Lucien.

The thought of having to leave Lucien now that she has found some measure of happiness is devastating. Besides, another handsome face is lurking in the corner of her mind. Kirk. She likes her boss. She feels very comfortable around him.

She doesn’t want to leave this place.

Is it possible they can all coexist?

She can’t put a reading on the werewolves. Are they willing to share their territory, or will it be all- out war the next time they meet?

Maybe Jared won’t be alive the next time they meet.

But maybe she is overthinking this. Maybe they won’t ever meet.

Her cellphone rings in her purse and she jumps. She retrieves it.

“Lucien?”

“Good time to call?”

“Yes. I’m home now.”

“You OK? You sound a little winded.”

She desperately wants to tell him about everything that has happened, but she doesn’t know how he will take it. Does he know there are werewolves in the community?

“Sorry.” She tries to make her tone light. ‘I was just running in from outside.”

“You have to be careful out there in the fringes, Shannon.”

“I know.”

“Don’t go out there at night, OK? There are wild animals there and there have been attacks on people.”

“I know. I’ve heard about them.”

She wonders if he is trying to give her a subliminal message. It is so difficult when you are just starting to get to know someone. You don’t know how much to say. What would scare them off? How much information would be too much information?

She senses he is going through the same thing with her. Maybe all of them have secrets that are buried too deep within their families to share. Lucien would be very repulsed if he learned that she had slept with Jared back when they were lonely and alone and teenagers. They had clung to each other because they thought they were the only two abnormal people in the world.

“I’d feel a lot better if you moved out of there,” Lucien says seriously. “Look, I’ll find you another property. One that isn’t by the forest.”

That is one no-no for Jared, she knows. He needs the forest. That is part of the reason why they moved out of Arizona. Because he needs new hunting grounds.

“No. Jared likes it here. We’ll be all right, Lucien.”

Wherever they move to, Jared will always need forest territory, so he will have to carve out his own place one way or another. Either he will have to share it, or he won’t.

Lucien pauses. Again, she knows he is wondering how much to tell her, just as she is doing the same. But they can’t always be there to look out for each other, just as a parent won’t always be there to help a child cross the street.

“Just be careful, OK?” he says.

“OK.” She is starting to feel more at ease now. Maybe she is worrying too much for nothing.

“What are you wearing?” he says in a low seductive voice.

She laughs, and all is well in her world again.

For now.





FAMILY





In the next few weeks or so, they arrive into some sort of unspoken co-existence. Jared does not encounter the werewolves again. Maybe they are circling in different hunting grounds, or maybe they are avoiding one another.

Or maybe they have come to an understanding of shared territory.

There are so few of us shapeshifters. We are not animals. There is plenty of forest for all of us. We don’t have to fight one another to death to claim it like real animals. We don’t want to incur investigations from the police or they will hunt us to the ground.

At least, Shannon hopes that is the reasoning.

It would make total sense.

Lucien and she have also come to a serious dating cycle. They would meet several times a week. He balks at waiting for her outside the clinic due to his unspoken feud with Kirk Fitzpatrick, but he doesn’t mind picking her up from home. They would go out to the fanciest restaurants in Dolphin’s Bay and the surrounding towns.

Shannon has had boyfriends before, but none who have feted and wined and dined her as covetedly as Lucien Walker.

She is falling in love with him, God help her. Although Lucien has never mentioned the word ‘love’ to her even once, he appears to show it in his every gesture and act – in his concern for her wellbeing and happiness. She gets that he is not a man who banters the word ‘love’ easily around, although she can clearly see the struggle in his blue eyes. This is why she appreciates him all the more for what he is doing.