Page 9 of His Prodigal Alpha

Eric actually rubbed his hands together as he grinned. “Excellent. An unbonded male alpha. I’ve got a number of tests I want to run. Let me grab my bag.”

“Yes, please do remind me of just how very unbonded I am!” I called at his retreating back.

Ollie snickered. “You’ll have to forgive Eric. This research has been his focus for…well, forever, really. You should have seen him when he found out about Beck. It was like all his Christmases had come at once.”

“You and your fixation on Christmas,” I shook my head. “I’ve been here all of five minutes and I know that you’d be more than happy to celebrate it every day of the year.”

The fact that it was early December wasn’t helping dim his obsession at all.

“Don’t tempt me. I’m still trying to get Beck to pitch my ‘Christmas In July’ idea to the Council.”

Despite the anxiety that was building inside me now that Rex was in town, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Chapter Four - Rex

Shifters Sanctuary was not the town’s official name. Or, at least, they didn’t have any signs declaring the place as such. I supposed that might garner them attention from humans and, even though humans knew shifters existed, it seemed smart to try and lie low anyway. At least until human society felt less threatened by their —our— existence.

I was still struggling with my own identity as a shifter, what with not actually having shifted yet. I hadn’t had the balls to try. I could just see myself getting stuck as an animal and living out my days eating rodents or something.

No, thank you.

Anyhow, when I parked my car on the main street (unsurprisingly called ‘Main Street’, if the lone street sign was anything to go by) and meandered into the tiny convenience store, I was not expecting the short, frumpy woman behind the counter to react the way she had. She scented the air, her button nose twitching, and she regarded me with wide, surprised eyes.

“Hello, ma’am,” I pasted on my friendliest smile, “I was wonderin’if you could point me in the direction of—”

“Our Pack Alpha?” she finished for me, already reaching for her phone.

I cocked my head. “Could you tell me a little about him first?”

She firmed her lips and regarded me with suspicion. “You’re not plannin’ on challenging him, are you? Because Beck’s a good Alpha. We don’t need any trouble around here.”

I could feel my lips twitching in amusement at the idea of this short, matronly woman giving me a talking to. Schooling my features, I held my hands up in the universal sign of surrender. “No, ma’am. No challenge, no trouble. I’m actually hopin’ to find some answers about this whole…alpha thing.”

There was no sense pretending she couldn’t scent what I was. I’d encountered a few shifters on my journey to Iowa, and the ones I had spoken to had all sniffed the air and looked at me with wide, curious eyes. Somehow, I had known that they knew what I was, but thankfully none of them had given me any trouble.

The shopkeeper’s eyes narrowed as she clearly assessed the veracity of my claim. “You promise no trouble? Not even with D…” she paused, seeming to rethink her phrasing, “any of the omegas?”

Placing my hand over my heart, I assured her, “I swear on my birth mama’s grave, I’m not here to stir the pot with anyone. I really do just want answers.”

I decided it was a good sign that she was such an enthusiastic gatekeeper for the town, not that I thought she could do too much damage if I did have nefarious intentions. But her defense of the Pack Alpha had to mean that the rumors I’d heard were true: he was a nice guy and was trying to build asafe space for people like him. People like me.

“Well then,” relaxing marginally, she stuck out her hand, “welcome to our little pack. I’m Jazz.”

“Rex,” I introduced myself, bending to kiss the back of her hand and smirking as she giggled lightly.

“Oh, you’re dangerous,” she accused, then pulled out her phone.

Within minutes, she was shutting up shop and hustling me towards my truck, inviting herself along for the drive. “I’ll direct you,” she’d insisted when all I’d asked for were directions to the Alpha’s home, to which I’d apparently been summoned. Her eyes had gleamed with what I could have sworn was mischief. “I’m not missin’ this show for the world.”

“Show?” I asked as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

She grinned. “You’ll see.”

The drive to the large farmhouse took less than ten minutes and, as we drove up the long driveway from the street to the house proper, I couldn’t help but smile to myself. The crunch of gravel beneath my tires, the scents and sounds of a working farm, the crisp, clean country air…it was all so familiar to me. Familiar and calming.

I was a country boy through and through. I’d grown up on a ranch just outside of Fredericksburg, Texas. While my adoptive parents had mostly raised cattle, the property had also grown crops and had a large copse of peach trees. It had been idyllic and, if not for my parents’ rampant homophobia, I would have wanted to visit again, just for old times’ sake.

I parked my pickup next to a similar vehicle, its paint white where mine was red, and tilted my face up towards the sun as I climbed out of the cab, enjoying the warming rays in the cold December air.

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