Page 40 of Unexpected Alpha's Claim

He hissed and bared his fangs, but Helena did not move an inch. My inner beast’s call was a scream ringing in my head. It couldn’t wait to dispose of my human skin and pounce on them.

“Contain him,” Helena ordered as a growl rose up in my throat. The other seven vampires caught up to the first four. Easing her staff out of her cloak, she pointed its top end at them. “I’ll ask nicely. Once. Which one of you is the Alpha?”

“Look at that,” the one who had spoken, a gray-haired vampire smirked. “The food wants to know who’ll eat it first.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Helena said as a red glow encircled her staff. With a quick jab towards the advancing creatures, a powerful beam shot out from the end in their direction. Striking the speaker in the chest, it shot around him and the rest of his kind. Completing a circle, it formed a wall of energy around our rivals. “Go ahead. Take another step,” she dared. “I’d love to see you burn. Now, which one of you is the Alpha?”

“I am,” the gray-haired one barked out. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Helena declared as the glow faded from her stick.

She pointed it at the alpha and swung it upward. I was amazed to see him lifted off the ground, rising high up in the air. Helena jerked her staff towards her chest and sent him flying in our direction. Fierce glares and hisses from the other vampires shattered the silence, his body hitting the ground before us with a resounding thud. As he rolled over at my feet, my blood boiled in my veins.

“Let me introduce myself, fucker,” I growled, crouching to be level with his face. “Raul Crawford, Alpha of the Dawson pack.” I grabbed him by his throat and yanked him up. His skin was icy cold under my fingertips. Whispers of my breath landing on his forehead, I let him catch a glimpse of who he was dealing with. Fangs lengthening, the beast peering out of my eyes, its yellow light reflecting off his pupils. “I’m not as nice as the witch. You tell me what I want to know, or I’ll rip you apart, limb by limb.”

“Fuck you!” he yelped, saliva dripping off his upper fangs.

A deep snarl escaped me, but I didn’t break my silence. Instead, I grabbed him by the shoulder and splayed my fingers over it. Fingers digging into his hard skin, I gripped harder, and my face started to shake as I gazed into his brown eyes. A minor crack made him grit his teeth. I let go for a fleeting moment and then held on again, this time producing a louder crack. He threw his head back, and an animalistic cry shot from his mouth.

“Okay! Okay!” He shouted, his squinting eyes focusing on mine. “What do you want to know?”

“Nora Crawford,” I told him my sister’s name, my voice more animal than man. “Why are you after her?”

“To get to your heart, asshole,” he sputtered. “We want Dawson. It’ll be easier for us to take it with you broken.”

There it was. The answer to the most vital question that had been plaguing my mind since Helena had come to me with her vision. It was amazing how two simple sentences could explain so much. Our lands were indeed in danger. My kind was facing a threat, unlike anything else they had handled in over forty years. This abomination had been going to lead his hordes into our territory and defile them. He would have tried to succeed where his ancestors had failed. I growled.

The wolf didn’t find any more resistance. I didn’t fight him because we both wanted the same thing, but it was easier for him. Tearing through my human flesh, his massive figure brought ample waves of awe and frustration to the Alpha and his minions.

I heard their growls and hisses in the dark, while Helena’s energy field singed the skin of the one closest to the front end of her trap. Without hesitation I locked my jaws around the vampire’s neck and felt his frigid flesh against my lips.

I struggled to drive my teeth deeper into him. It was like attempting to bite through a solid block of ice. In the end though, his flesh surrendered to the power of my jaws. My canines almost all the way in, I jerked my snout to the side.

A loud noise crackled through the atmosphere, signaling the end of my adversary as I ripped his head off his spine. I let his body fall to the ground and held his head up high. I cast my gaze overhis minions. What I received in return were nasty glares, bare teeth and more snarls expressing their rage.

I loosened my jaws and allowed the head to fall and roll across the dirt, coming to a stop inches from the ruined creature’s hip. I growled a threat at them. Now, no one would come near my hometown. Nobody would lay a hand on my family unless they wanted the same fate to befall them. They cowed before me and the wolf elated in its supremacy.

27

MONICA

Even compared to the slowest night in New York, this has been a picnic.

I had no idea if the night would continue the trend, but my first nightshift at Shandaken Medical Center was exactly that.

Three children came in with flu-like symptoms. I prescribed some antibiotics, then, I had to deal with the most important case of the night. A man in his late fifties came in complaining of chest pains. At first, I acted like every conscientious doctor and believed him. I instructed him to undress from the waist up so that I could examine him. Then, he mentioned that the pain had moved over to his right arm. A minute after that, it migrated to his left leg.

Hypochondriacs are tough. It takes every bit of restraint I have to keep myself from laughing. Worse still, I have to convince them that they’re alright. I make my voice sound sweeter and treat them like young children. If that doesn’t work, I resort to prescribing mild painkillers. Whenever I do that, everybody’shappy. They go home with a cure, and I get rid of a person who’s in no need of medical attention.

Wanting to share my experience with Raul, I slept a few hours in the morning, and then headed straight back to Dawson. This was the first time that I had seen the place in broad daylight and it was a buzzing beehive, but still in no way did it resemble a city, or at least not compared to the cities I was used to.

In the city, people are too stressed to even look around them. They check their watches, desperate to get where they wish on time or stare at their phones, mostly oblivious to the world and the strangers all around them.

That’s not the case in Dawson. I watched people going about their daily business at their leisure. Pickup trucks filled with lumberjacks and farmers were going in or out of the town, doing lower than the speed limit at twenty to twenty-five miles an hour. No matter where I looked there was no sense of urgency in the air or on any person. It felt as if there were only a desire to do what satisfied them the most.

Another first for me that morning, was the noise that emanated from the brothers’ workshop. I heard the characteristic sound of a drill but it was mixed with the banging of a hammer on steel. The noise was so loud it could be heard throughout their neighborhood. I walked up to the door hoping Raul would be at work already, but, when I entered the workshop I only saw a perspiring Sam.

“He’s not in yet,” Sam said, resting the hammer in his hand against the piece of metal he seemed to be shaping. He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm.

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