Alpha Betrayed: A Dark Shifter Romance

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The first town we come to is so tiny there's not much there aside from a gas station, a marina that's seen better days, and an abandoned church high on the hill, overlooking the crashing waves. That's not really surprising, though.

The original founders built Lost Moon where they did partly because of the land's distance from human settlements. The area has become more populated in the last fifty years, but it's still a rugged, hard-to-access area without a lot of economic opportunity for people who might want to live and work here.

I pop the back door on the church, and we search the interior for supplies, but come up empty-handed aside from a few swollen cans of canned goods in the corner by a sleeping bag that reeks of unwashed human. Not wanting botulism-or body lice from the bag- we head back into the woods, still naked and hungry.

But at least we haven't been caught.

Hammer has to have men looking for us, which means the farther we can get from Lost Moon today, the better. Deciding what little strength we have left would be best used by shifting and covering ground faster, Juliet takes to the air just above the treetops, where she can quickly dip back down and hide, if necessary. Wolves are native to the area, so I won't attract undo attention if a human spots me out for a run. The same can't be said for a mythical bird with feathers every color of the rainbow.

By afternoon, my stomach is snarling loud enough to scare the squirrels away long before I pad into their territory and Juliet is stopping to rest more often. Shifters are stronger than humans, but we also burn through calories much faster, especially when we change forms. And if we get weak enough in one form, it grows increasingly difficult to shift back.

If we don't find fuel soon, I'm going to be a wolf for as long as it takes to get food in my belly, which increases the risk of getting shot by some sheep farmer who doesn't care that wolves are on the endangered species list.

Still, I'd be tempted to go after one of the fluffy creatures grazing on the grass-covered hills below the forest if I knew we'd have time to feed out in the open without getting caught.

Or if I knew what Juliet eats in her phoenix form.

What's a typical diet for a mythical bird? I send out a mental query, asking her if raw meat sounds okay, but she doesn't respond. Maybe I'm too far away from her down here on the forest floor. Or maybe she's too weak. The fact that she can hear my telepathic communication at all is new. She couldn't before, probably because she'd been kept from her shifted form for so long as a kid.

She's different than she was before in other ways, too...

Like the fact that she clearly finds me attractive and isn't very good at hiding it. I guess I should be happy that I make her blush and shoot burning glances my way, but I'm not. I miss my growly Juliet, the one who fought her feelings for me tooth and nail. What that says about my mental state, I'm not sure, but I try not to think about it too much right now. Thinking burns calories and I don't have any to spare.

Finally, just as the sun is sliding closer to the tops of the mountains, we come to a clearing high on a hill with a bench perched in the middle. It's a memorial to Bill and Carol Rascombe, a couple who apparently loved to hike the trails around here, and it smells like it's been sat on recently.

Juliet lands on the back of the bench just as I'm finishing my sniff and lifts a wing, pointing toward the valley below. I jump up onto the seat, gaining enough height to see what she sees-a seaside town with a bustling Main Street, three church steeples, a soccer field where kids are playing, and enough hustle and bustle that we might actually find a bus station.

And clothes.

There's a subdivision not far from the soccer field, and I can already see that several families are drying their clothes outside. Thank God it's summer, for more reasons than one. Scoring clothes will be easier and we still have several hours of daylight before nightfall. If we're lucky, we'll be on the road by then, or at least have found a safe place to hole up for the night, where it won't be easy for Hammer's scouts to smell us.

Do you have the strength to shift again before we head down?I ask Juliet.

She answers with a sparkle of feathers and a beat later is sitting naked on the bench beside me, her hands braced on her knees and her breath rasping audibly in her lungs. "Yeah, but that's it. I'm tapped out." She lifts her head, blinking in the late afternoon light. "And I'm seeing stars. I need to get something to eat before I'm unconscious."

Same, I say. I would have taken down a sheep a few miles back, but I wasn't sure if you could eat it as a phoenix.

"Of course, I could have," Juliet says, frowning my way. "Phoenix are the garbage disposals of the shifter world. I could have eaten carrion if we'd come across any. I guess we really didn't spend much time together as kids."

You also didn't spend much time in your shifted form, remember?

She sniffs. "Still. I'm sure I knew what I could and couldn't eat. That's pretty basic stuff."

You shifted for the very first time just a couple of days before you flamed out, I say, leaping off the seat.

"What?" She stands, reaching out to brace herself on the back of the bench. "How is that possible? I'm in my twenties, right?" She blinks and stands up straighter, recovering her balance. "At least, that feels right."

You're twenty-three. And it's possible because your dad had you micro-chipped for most of your life, I say, starting down the path toward the town. I'll explain on the way. Stay close and come up with a cover story in case we run into someone who wants to know why you're naked and travelling with a giant wolf.

She huffs. "Like what?"

You could say you were raised by wolves and I'm your sexy interspecies boyfriend?

"Very funny," she mumbles, following behind me. "That's a book, isn't it? The...Jungle Book? The boy in that was raised by wolves? Why can I remember that, and I can't remember why my father didn't want me to learn to shift?"

I don't know.I have way more questions than answers when it comes to phoenix shifters, but that's another reason to go to New York. There isn't much information about phoenix shifters, but we read one's journal when we first got to Lost Moon. He was a former student from New York City. The end of his journal said he was going back there to work for his family's business. That was only thirty years ago. With any luck, he's still there and we can look him up while we're there.

Juliet's expression brightens. "Yeah, that would be great. I have a decent amount of instinctive knowledge, but it would be nice to know if there's any way to recover memories of my former life."

Deciding to leave the talk about whether that's what's best until later, when I have more strength, I veer off the trail, taking a shortcut toward the houses at the base of the mountain. They're arranged in semi-circle around a park and playground, with the soccer fields and what I see now is a small school on the other side of the recreation area.

But it's summer, so the school should be empty. I tuck that knowledge away for later in case we end up looking for a place to crash tonight. Even an empty school cafeteria should hold enough smells from days gone by to make our scents harder to track. As the woods thin, Juliet slows, scanning the backs of the houses on the opposite side of the field of tall grass. Some of them are fenced, but others are open and have people puttering around in plain sight. An older man works in his garden, a young mother holds a hose while her kids run through the spray, and a man in a tiny swimsuit lies asleep on a lounge chair in the sun.

He's covered in oil and, judging by the muscle car in his driveway and carefully coifed comb-over, looks like a douchebag. But he's also enormous and drying his clothes on a line beside his covered jacuzzi tub. Finding clothes my size isn't easy. It might be worth risking a trip into his yard and hoping he's not a light sleeper.

I fill Juliet in on my plan and she nods. "Yeah, and I can grab a t-shirt and wear it like a dress until I find something better."

No, I'll go. You stay here out of sight.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

She shakes her head and bends at the waist, following me into the shorter grass. "No, I should do it. I have opposable thumbs and can reach the clothesline without jumping up and making noise. And he's likely to be less freaked out if he wakes up and sees a naked girl in his yard than a giant wolf."

I want to argue with her, but...she's right. All right, but if he wakes up, run for that pond and the trees on the other side. If he comes after you, I'll jump in and discourage him.

She frowns my way. "Why would he follow me? Wouldn't he just call the cops or something?"

You're a beautiful naked young woman, I say. And men are pigs. Especially men with muscle cars and comb-overs.

She huffs. "But he's old enough to be my father."

Doesn't matter. Trust me. It's better to play it safe with men in general and men like that in particular.

She makes a considering sound. "All right. But what if he asks if I need help and seems okay? Could I tell him I was skinny-dipping, and my friends stole my clothes as a prank or something, and ask him for a t-shirt and a sandwich? It seems silly to run from someone who might be willing to help. After all, the faster we can get dressed and fed, the faster we can go looking for the bus station."

My gut insists it's best not to trust humans, even ones who seem like they want to help, but that might just be my childhood conditioning kicking in. My birth pack was big on avoiding humanity and the Zion pack is even more secretive and isolationist. Hammer could have made big bucks by renting out our winter home to hikers and mountain climbers in the summer and fall, while the pack was on the island, but he refused to let people on our land, even when we weren't there.

But she's right, time isn't on our side, and the less of it we waste getting dressed and fed, the better.

All right, but don't go in the house with him, I say. Tell him your parents told you never to go indoors with a stranger and make him bring the food outside if he offers.

She nods. "Okay. Sounds good. And if I need backup, I'll whistle." She starts forward, then pauses, puckering her lips and giving an experimental blow. When a soft whistling sound emerges, she exhales. "I can whistle. Good to know. I'll be back soon. Don't have too much fun without me."

Fun...

The last time I had fun was in Catherine's secret swimming hole, helping Juliet relax and learn to shift. I can still remember the feel of her body resting on my hands in the water and how beautiful she looked with her eyes closed and her arms stretched out to her sides. Her breasts were bare and so tempting with the water swirling around them, but I'd done my best not to look at them, not wanting to embarrass myself by getting turned on in front of our friends.

Now, as I watch her hurry across the grass and creep into Douchebag's lawn, I wish I'd had more times like that with her.

F**k, I miss her.

It feels like she's dead even though she's right beside me, talking and scheming and well on her way to being the smartass she used to be. But she's not the same. She doesn't remember me, remember us. She's attracted to me, but she doesn't love me, and I can't honestly say if I love her, either.

I mean, I love her as a friend and would lay down my life to protect her, but I'm not in love with this woman. She's not my Juliet and she might never be, no matter how much time passes. Even with the fated mate bound between us as strong as ever, I don't know if that will be enough to banish the wrenching sensation in my chest every time I compare now to then.

I blame the dark direction of my thoughts for the fact that I don't notice Douchebag waking up until he's swinging his legs off the lounge chair and striding in Juliet's direction.

Juliet, whose back is turned as she unpins a pair of jeans from the line...

She's also upwind of the man, so it's doubtful she'll smell him coming and if I howl to warn her, I'll give my position away and attract the attention of the entire neighborhood.

I'm about to risk it anyway, when Douchebag breaks into a run and tackles Juliet to the ground, making my decision for me. I sprint toward them, lips peeling away from my teeth in a snarl.