Alpha Betrayed: A Dark Shifter Romance

juliet

One second, I'm debating whether to grab Ford a blue t-shirt to match his eyes or the yellow, "Beaver Town: There's no Place I'd Rather Be" for laughs, when I'm suddenly flat on the ground with what feels like a gazillion pounds of sweaty man on top of me. "Put your hands up," he shouts, even as he grabs my wrist, wrenching it behind my back hard enough to make me cry out in pain. "I'm sick of you kids stealing my beer and pissing in my hot tub. This'll teach you to take things that don't belong to you." "Please, sir," I say, fighting the urge to whimper as he forces my wrist up between my shoulder blades. "I've never been in your yard and I've never stolen anything before." As far as I know, it's true. "I was just swimming with some friends at the pond and-" Before I can finish, the man grunts as he's toppled by a couple hundred pounds of wolf.

As his weight vanishes, I roll over to see the guy on his back with Ford on top of him. His claws dig into the man's bare chest and his teeth hover inches from his throat. He growls with enough menace to make the hairs on my arms stand on end and the man pulls in a breath, presumably to cry for help.

But Ford shoves his nose into his throat with a snarl, making him break off with a terrified gasp.

"Don't hurt him," I say, glancing quickly around the yard to see if our scuffle has attracted attention. But there's no one looking over the fences on either side and I can still hear the kids giggling in the hose water a few houses away, so hopefully we're safe. "I'm not hurting him," the man says, tears rising in his eyes. "I'm flat on my f*****g back."

"I didn't mean you," I say. "I meant...Wolfie, my rescue dog." Ford casts me a judgmental look. I widen my eyes in a silent "it's all I could think of on a second's notice" and continue, "He's very protective of me, but he won't hurt you as long as you do exactly as I say." "Let me up," the guy demands. "Tell him to let me up and you can have the beer from the fridge or whatever."

"He'll let you up when I'm finished," I say, starting toward the back door. "Is there anyone else in the house?"

"No, my girlfriend is out of town," the guy says, starting to cry in earnest as he adds, "Please, don't leave me alone with it. It wants to rip my f*****g throat out. I can feel it."

"No, he won't. As long as you stay quiet and don't move," I say. "Be good, Wolfie, and I'll be right back." I hurry inside, grabbing a banana from a bowl of fruit in the kitchen as I move deeper into the house.

It smells of god-awful cologne and fried chicken, but it's clean and furnished with high-end pieces that make me feel better about liberating a few things from the man's home. He can afford to part with a couple changes of clothes and some food without being any worse off for it.

I find his bedroom and head straight for the large walk-in closet in the corner. I grab a duffel bag from a pile of gym bags and start filling it, gathering clothes for Ford before turning to the girlfriend's side of the closet. I pull on a pair of jeans, not bothering with underwear, but can barely get them buttoned. I'm a tiny woman, so his girlfriend must be positively child-sized.

Deciding against any of the blouses or nicer shirts in the closet, I rifle through the drawers in the bedroom until I find a tank top, t-shirt, and sweatshirt, layering one on top of the other so I'll have more room in the duffel. I pull on socks, then return to the closet, grateful to find tennis shoes that are only a little tight. I tie them quickly and grab a couple shoes options for Ford, tucking them into the top of the bag and zipping it up.

Next, I take a second duffel into the kitchen and grab everything that looks remotely appetizing from the pantry. Bread, peanut butter, apples, granola bars, water bottles, sports drinks, and several bags of pretzels and chips nearly fill the bag, but I open the fridge anyway, thinking I can probably fit a few things in at the top. I fill the extra space with cheese sticks, a half-eaten salami, and a Tupperware container of leftover roasted chicken before swapping a couple of the sports drinks in the bag for a bottle of chardonnay. I'm not sure if I used to drink before, but after a day like this one, something to take the edge off on our way down to New York City sounds pretty damned good.

Hitching one bag strap over each shoulder, I head back outside, where Mr. Oily is still cowering under a snarling Ford, begging for mercy.

"Give me a few minutes' head start and meet me at the spot we discussed," I tell Ford, knowing I won't be able to run as fast as he can, especially not weighed down by the bags. To the man I just robbed, I say, "I'm sorry. I took some of your food and clothes, but we really need them. I promise to send you a check to cover everything as soon as I can."

"Don't leave me alone with it," the guy yelps as I start for the back of the yard. "He almost ripped my throat out while you were inside. If you leave, I'm toast."

"He won't hurt you," I assure him over my shoulder.

"You can't know that," he says, his voice jumping half an octave as Ford lets out another menacing growl.

"Yes, I can." I pause to smile at him from the edge of the fence. "I told him not to, and Wolfie's a good boy. He always does what's he's told."

I run for the pond and the tree line on the other side, not nearly as tormented by my first foray into burglary as I thought I'd be. But then, I obviously wasn't afraid of blurring the lines between good and bad in my previous incarnation. If Ford's to be believed, we stole cars and did...other things, too.

Other bad things is a given, but how bad is still unknown.

But maybe after a good meal and a glass or two of chardonnay, Ford's tongue will loosen up a bit.

"I did okay?" I ask when he joins me ten minutes later and quickly pulls on some of the clothes from the bag.

"You kicked a*s," he says around a mouthful of the peanut butter sandwich I made while I was waiting for him. "These fit perfectly. The shoes are a little small, but not too bad. And I'm so glad you grabbed food. This peanut butter is a miracle in my mouth." Taking another bite of my sandwich, I chew and bask in the glow of a job well done. "You're welcome. So how long do you think we have before he calls the police?"

Ford hums around his last massive bite of sandwich and quickly ties his stolen sneakers. "Five minutes. Ten if he stops to change his clothes first. He pissed himself while you were inside."

"Aw, poor guy," I say, but I don't feel too bad.

He did nearly rip my arm off, after all.

"He tackled a woman half his size," Ford says, proving we're on the same page. "He can get f****d." He stands, hitching the straps of both bags over one shoulder as he glances around. "But we should move. If we can get on a bus in the next half hour, we'll probably be okay. Small town cops aren't known for their speedy police work, and it will take time to get the word out that they're looking for people matching our descriptions."

I reach for the strap of one bag, but he pushes my hand away. "Let me carry one. It will look less suspicious if we're both carrying a bag."

"I'm carrying my girl's bag. That's not suspicious, that's chivalry," he says, starting through the trees toward the road on the other side.

Ignoring the way my tummy flips with excitement over being called "his girl," I follow, fingers crossed that our luck holds. Stealing clothes and food from a guy who can spare them is one thing-grand theft auto is quite another. Call me crazy, but that seems like a good way to get even more trouble on our tail.

We reach Main Street and Ford slips down a narrow alley leading between the hardware store and a small café before continuing northeast toward the other end of town. "We'll be less noticeable back here," he says, leading the way through the parking lot behind the shops. "Bus stops are usually on the edges of town. I didn't see one on this side, so we'll look on the other before we ask someone for directions. Best if we can get out of here without leaving a witness behind who can share where we were headed." "How are we going to pay for the tickets if we find the station?" I ask, cursing myself for not thinking of that when I was at Mr. Oily's house. "I should have looked for cash while I was inside, but I was too focused on food and clothes."

"We'll figure something out," Ford says. "Maybe we can barter some of our food. Or that bottle of wine." He glances over his shoulder at me. "I was kind of surprised you grabbed that, anyway. You don't drink."

"I don't? Huh." I shrug. "I don't know, something to take the edge off sounded kind of good. Why didn't I drink?"

"You never said, but I'm pretty sure it was because you hated being out of control. Like...really hated it."

I humph again. "Well, maybe the new me thinks control is overrated."

His shoulders sag and some of the spring goes out of his step, making me think I've said the wrong thing, but I have no idea why.

Self-control is all well and good, I guess, but control freaks are pathological.

And kidding themselves.

If there's one thing I know for sure after even a single day on this planet, it's that most things are out of my control.

Like the fact that the last bus bound for Montreal-and connecting from there to New York City-is loading up just as we arrive at the bus station. Or the fact that the sweet old lady behind the counter clearly feels sorry for what she assumes are two homeless young people and gives us tickets in exchange for a box of granola bars without a fuss.

Luck is on our side tonight. If it weren't, no amount of trying to control things would make one bit of difference.

But I don't labor the point with Ford.

He seems...sad for some reason, even though everything's gone as well as we possibly could have hoped.

"We should try to sleep," he says, flipping through our paper tickets, the ones the woman seemed surprised we couldn't just have sent to our phones. "It's going to take almost thirteen hours to get to Montreal."

My brows shoot up. "Really? I didn't think it was that far."

"It's not, distance wise," he says, slipping the tickets into the bag with our clothes and shoving the bag under the seat in front of him. "But with all the narrow roads, low speed limits, and bus stops, it's going to take us longer to get to Montreal than it will from Montreal to New York." He sighs. "And the connection from Montreal to New York doesn't leave until 5 p.m. tomorrow. We'll have about ten hours to kill at the bus station."

"We won't stay at the bus station," I say, sinking lower in the seat. "We'll go find a park and have an extremely long picnic. And maybe pick a few pockets while we're at it. That's what you were talking about before, right? When you said you'd 'figure something out' to get cash." "Maybe," he says, his guard up again.

"So how do we do it? I distract the mark while you bump into them and take their wallet?"

"We never picked pockets together, but you used to brag about how good you were at stealing food. Even when guards were watching you the entire time and you weren't supposed to get too close to other people. Maybe you still have the touch." "Maybe pick-pocketing is like riding a bike?"

He sinks lower in the seat beside me, crossing his arms over his chest. "Something like that."

I roll this latest revelation around in my head before I ask, "So was I in prison? Was I an actual for real criminal?"

"No," he says, his eyes sliding closed.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

"No," I repeat, glaring at his peaceful face. "That's all you're going to say? No?"

"Yep," he says, leaning his head against the side of the bus. "Sleep. It's good for you and makes the time go by faster."

"So does conversation and telling your travel buddy all the things you're hiding from her," I shoot back. "I deserve to know who I was before, Ford. I might not remember it, but it's still my life."

He grunts, as if he isn't so sure about that, and hunches deeper into his sweatshirt, making it clear the subject is closed. At least, for now.

But I'll have ten hours to kill with this man tomorrow and I mean to get answers, no matter what I have to do to get them.