Page 1 of Possessive Alpha

CHAPTER 1

My little sister and I heard about Dawley, Colorado, two months ago.

A grizzled old shifter caught our scent at a gas station in northern Minnesota and muttered something about two young girls needing a pack.

Clara tried telling him we were in our twenties.

I told him to back up. We weren’t interested in anything he was selling.

He talked over us, said he’d checked out Jackson’s pack—whoever that was—and decided it wasn’t the place for him, but it might be the right place for us.

Then he drove off in an ugly brown station wagon that looked older than I am.

I’m not usually in the habit of listening to strange men from gas stations. Clara is the spontaneous one. But we were sleeping in our car and desperate, so I figured, why the hell not?

Between an empty wallet and fumes for gas in our ten-year-old Honda Civic, we hustled from Minnesota. It took a month, bouncing from job to job to pay our way, but we made it.

And surprisingly, we stayed.

Almost every week, we have a new arrival or two, drawn by the promise of a home, safety in numbers, and a place where no one will chase you away. Rare, precious things for a packless shifter.

Some stay. Others decide this isn’t the place for them after all. One or two soon learn that Jackson Stone, alpha of the Dawley-Stone Pack, is a big, amiable guy in his early thirties, with shaggy dark hair, whiskey-brown eyes, and odd notions of what a joke is.

But threaten Regan, his mate and the love of his life? He has absolutely no compunction about clawing a person’s face off. Strangely, instead of terrifying me, it endears him to me all the more.

Two weeks ago, Clara and I had been returning to the house, relaxed, sweaty, and covered in sunscreen from having spent most of our Sunday morning sunbathing. Then Ty Logan had stepped out of his truck and stopped my heart.

Once I’d recovered, I promptly grabbed Clara’s arm and dragged her inside before he could say a word.

I’ve been running from him since then.

“I think he likes you, Martha,” Clara whispers loudly.

As I turn to hush my loudmouth little sister, my gaze clashes with a pair of forest-green eyes flecked with hazel.

The handsome owner of those pretty eyes, in black denim and a gray flannel shirt, is clutching a bottle of beer as he leans in the den doorway, where Clara and I were watching a TV show.

“No, he doesn’t like me. He’s just being rude.” I look away, pretending I don’t hear his amused snort.

“You should listen to your sister, sweetheart,” Ty calls out. “I think she’s on to something.”

“He’s hot.” Clara doesn’t even try to keep her voice down. Her bright blue eyes sparkle with the promise she’s not even close to being done embarrassing me.

My cheeks burn as I grip her arm and drag her from the room.

This is a regular habit these days.

It’s becoming clear to me that the only way to deal with her big mouth is to tape it shut or drag her away from Ty before she can humiliate me. I love my sister and I don’t own any tape, so I settle for dragging.

I pull her out of the den, past the amused alpha, who takes the opportunity to wink as I pass him.

“What is wrong with you, Clara?” I hiss, peering over my shoulder to confirm he isn’t following as I escape out the back door. “You might give him ideas.”

He isn’t following.

Yet.

He will.

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