Page 21 of The Denver Alpha

Golden shimmers bleed into his irises, a growl rumbling in his chest. “Fine,” he barks gruffly.

“Fine!” I shout back, turning on a heel and stomping toward the door. I whip back around when I reach it, so fired up that there’s steam practically coming out of my ears. “One more thing,” I hiss, pointing an accusatory finger in his direction. “If you don’t lift that stupid ‘no touch’ order, I’ll start coming to breakfast naked.”

His hands ball into fists atop his desk. “Don’t fucking test me, Juliet,” Cole growls.

“Don’t testme, Sarge,” I bite back. “I’m not like these other girls around here.”

My hair whips me in the face as I spin around again and storm out of Cole’s office. And though I can’t be sure, I swear I hear him mutter something under his breath as I go. Something that sounds a whole lot like, “no, you’re not.”

9

“Still looking for answers in that thing?” Sam asks, the sound of his voice breaking through my concentration. I look up, a little surprised to find him standing on the other side of my desk in my office. I was so immersed in reviewing this file for what feels like the hundredth time that I didn’t even hear him come in.

I grunt in affirmation, flipping the police file on the Sparrowhead apartment fire closed and shoving back in my chair, crossing an ankle over my knee.

Sam eyes the file as he sinks down into his usual chair across from my desk and gets comfortable. “Look man, I’m sorry about what happened, truly. But torturing yourself over it isn’t going to bring them back…”

“I know that,” I snap, immediately regretting how harshly it comes out. I’m still a little more short-tempered than normal even though Juliet and I have managed to steer clear of one another for the better part of a week. But at least my daily routine is finally back on track.

I blow out a breath, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I just… I wish there was something else. Some better explanation for why it happened.”

“Sometimes things just are the way they are. You have to take them at face value,” Sam shrugs, his expression sympathetic.

“Yeah.”

Sam’s blue eyes flicker back to the file as he chews his lower lip, contemplative. “What about Astrid? Did you try asking her for help?”

I shake my head. “Nah, man, you know that’s not how her abilities work. She can’t pick and choose what she sees, it’s all random.”

My little sister isn’t an ordinary shifter. She inherited a rare gift that runs in our family and is a little bit psychic. For years, we thought the full extent of her abilities was as an ‘intuitive’- that she was limited to gut feelings she would get about people and situations that almost acted as warnings or premonitions at times- but when she found her fated mate last year, the energy of their bond triggered an unexpected development in her abilities. She started having full-blown visions of the past and the future, confirming that she’s also a seer like our grandmother was. She’s still working on honing her abilities, but they’re mostly random, which isn’t always particularly useful. And that’s if she’s even up for sharing them. A lot of the time she keeps her visions to herself, claiming that she doesn’t want to compromise the way things are supposed to play out by sharing them with those involved.

“Wouldn’t hurt to try if it’d give you some peace of mind,” Sam suggests.

I give a little shake of my head. “I always swore I wouldn’t exploit her gifts like that,” I say, remembering the pact that Astrid and I made when we were children and her abilities first started manifesting. Our grandmother was exploited for her gifts and basically sold off to mate with an alpha- our grandfather- because of the value those abilities had. She wasn’t given a choice as to using her gifts to benefit the pack; it was an expectation that made her feel like her only value was what she could do, not who she was as a person.

I promised my sister that I’d never let her be used in the same way. She deserves better, and it’s her prerogative to use her gifts as she sees fit. To that end, I generally try to avoid approaching her for help unless the situation is dire. “We put enough pressure on her to tap into her gifts when we were at war with the shadow pack,” I add. “I won’t do that again unless it’s out of necessity or she volunteers.”

Sam heaves a sigh, leaning back in his chair and carding his fingers through his curly blonde hair. “I get it. And you know how much I care about Astrid, I’m the last person who’s going to suggest taking advantage of her or exploiting her for what she can do. But it’s not like she’s going to step up to volunteer when you haven’t even told her about-”

“And I don’t intend to,” I interrupt, shaking my head adamantly. “You know how deeply she feels things, Sam. It’d only make her sad, and there’s no changing it, so what’s the point?”

“It might help to talk to her about it.”

I roll my eyes, not thrilled with my beta’s thinly veiled attempt to psychoanalyze me. “If she still lived here, I’m sure I would,” I admit. “But she’s got enough going on with her new pack. She’s their Luna, that’s where her priorities lie now. As they should.”

I don’t say what I’m really thinking. That I wish she still lived here. That I miss my sister every day. And not only because she’s the best person I know, but also because she’s left a void in our pack that I can’t fulfill on my own. She was basically our acting Luna for years, and without her to lighten the load, everything feels impossibly heavy at times. I don’t possess the patience or compassion that she does; I don’t have that same relatable quality that puts people at ease. They don’t come to me with their problems like they did with Astrid, I have to seek them out.

I don’t say it, because I know what Sam will say in response. That the pack wouldn’t feel Astrid’s absence so profoundly if I gave them a real Luna. I’ve heard it all before, but when it comes down to it, I don’t want to follow in the footsteps of my father and grandfather and choose a mate for a political or strategic advantage. I want something real. Somethingmore.

It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll admit that, though.

“Well hey, maybe this’ll turn your day around,” Sam says, tossing a large envelope onto my desk. He nods toward it as it lands with a slap. “Contracts from the new liquor distributor just arrived. We’re going to save even more than we thought if we switch.”

I lean forward to pick it up, opening the envelope at the top and tugging out the stack of papers from inside. “And you’re sure this guy’s legit?” I ask as I begin scanning the contracts.

“We did the usual background checks and follow-ups,” Sam replies with a nod. “Everything seems to check out.”

I continue scanning the paperwork. Nothing seems off about the wording of the contracts, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something. The nightclub business is like a magnet for seedy dealings- drugs, organized crime, you name it. I go to great lengths to make sure that all of my businesses operate above board so as to not draw unwanted attention to my pack, considering we’re hiding a pretty big fucking secret about who we are.

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