The Alpha by Jenika Snow

10

Evelyn

I’d been on the road for hours, half a day, because I had taken back roads and stayed off the highways. I liked the scenery, so even if going off the beaten path had added hours, I told myself this was all part of the adventure. But this was the longest trip I’d ever taken by myself, and more than once I’d thought this was a bad idea.

My ass was numb, my neck kinked to the side, and my hands were stiff from holding onto the steering wheel for so long. And I was currently in Ohio… in the middle of Amish country specifically. And it seemed like a good enough place to stay for the night. A place to lay low, a little voice said to me.

The reception out here was awful, out in the middle of nowhere, cornfields and soybeans all over the place. But there was a certain kind of solidarity and calmness, a peacefulness that settled into me without the skyscrapers and the cars, the congestion of people and the fumes of pollution.

Another half hour into my trip and I pulled in the small parking lot of an Amish country store. I cut the engine of my rental and climbed out, my hands on my lower back as I stretched, working the kinks out. There were only a few cars in the lot, this stillness and quietness surrounding me. After living in the city for my entire life, it was almost a culture shock being out here. But one I gratefully accepted.

Aside from stopping to get gas and a couple of bathroom breaks, I’d kept on the road, putting as much distance between me and the city as possible. I hadn’t even told Darragh where I was going. Not that I knew where the hell I was heading, but I didn’t tell her any of my plans. I knew she’d take my secrets to the grave, but I felt like she told me the basics of the whole fated mate's things. I didn’t know how “bound” she was to Caelan, if she’d be powerless to keep things to herself, especially if it came to other mates and Lycans. Did they use mind control? It sounded so stupid when I thought about it, but I certainly contemplated that as a solution to how and why Darragh seemed to accept things so easily.

The sound of tires kicking up gravel had me looking over my shoulder and seeing an older white minivan with rust stains around the bottom of the frame come to a stop a few parking spots down from me. On the back of the window were those family decals; a mom and dad stick figure with three little stick figures beside them. They even added a dog and cat sitting beside the last child.

The passenger-side door opened, and a woman stepped out, her mom jeans pulled up to her waist, her flower blouse picking up at the bottom when a gust of wind moved through. She started stretching the kinks out of her neck and turned her head toward me, our gazes locking. She gave me a small smile and a little wave but didn’t wait for me to reciprocate as a large man made his way around the front of the van, and they clasped hands.

I stood there staring at the couple, something tight in my chest making itself known. I’d never had anything like that. Not even close. No desire to even be close to anyone. No touching, no kissing, and certainly no sex. And my traitorous body lit up at the thought of Cian, this heady desire moving through me that made zero sense.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts. Being sentimental wasn’t going to help me, and in fact would muddle up my thoughts even more.

“For fuck’s sake,” I mumbled just as the sound of my cell phone chirping from inside my purse rang out. A surge of excitement slammed into me at the fact that I had service.

Home. That one word sounded funny to me. Not right. My apartment certainly wouldn’t be considered a home by any means. It was a place I rented, basically a storage unit I crammed my body and some materialistic things into.

There was nothing I had that was sentimental in my apartment, aside from the pictures I’d collected of Darragh and me over the years, and a few of the foster kids I’d grown up with who I’d become close with.

Those things were what I held dear, ones that gave me wonderful memories that were more priceless than anything else in the world.

I wasn’t a professional photographer by any means, but being able to catch the tip of the sun setting behind the massive buildings and long stretch of land, the sky painted in oranges and reds, blues and yellows, was something beautiful among all the glass and steel, pollution and overpopulation I lived with daily.

I pulled out my cell and looked at the text that had just come through.

Darragh: I miss you.

I smiled and sent a reply right away.

Me: Stop missing me and let me live vicariously through you. In fact, I’m on my own adventure too.

I was trying to pretend like things weren’t super weird after what Darragh had revealed to me. So my go-to, what I fell back on, was trying to make light of things even though it seemed totally unnatural at the moment.

A second later my phone buzzed with an incoming call, and I rolled my eyes but felt my chest bloom. Darragh knew me well enough to know I was trying to deflect things, I supposed. But she was also nosy as hell—just like me—and probably wanted all the details of my trip.

“When I said stop missing me, that didn’t mean call me to check up.” I was laughing as I made my way toward the entrance of the country store. Darragh started laughing. “Isn’t it late over there?”

There was a sound of shuffling on the other end of the line, and then her exhale. “Yeah. I’m lying in bed, trying to sleep, but it’s not working.”

“Shouldn’t you and your…?” I didn’t know what to call him. Mate? That sounded too strange to me. Boyfriend? Sounded too juvenile after all the intensity Darragh told me came with Lycans. So I just let it hang in the air and heard her laugh, but it sounded tight, like this was still so strange and new for her, too.

“Caelan left to run in the woods that surround his family’s home.”

“Run?” I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand over them. “Like… as a track star or as… a wolf?” I groaned, because I felt so stupid even thinking it, let alone saying it out loud. I trusted Darragh with my life, knew she’d never lie to me—even about something so unbelievable as this. But it was for sure going to take me a while to get used to all of this.

“Yeah, as a wolf,” she said with amusement in her voice that had me smiling as I opened my eyes. “It’s crazy. Believe me, I know.”

“Yeah” was all I could say. I pulled open the door, a blast of cool air and sweet-smelling bread slamming into my face. I wanted to ask her if she’d found any new information out about her family—the reason she’d even traveled to Scotland. But I knew if she wanted to delve into that, she’d tell me.

“But I called because I wanted to tell you that he left.”

I made a beeline right to the baked goods sections, seeing packaged cinnamon rolls, freshly baked breads, and all the sugary sweet—totally not good for me—carb-loaded items.

“Caelan?” I picked up a package. “Yeah, you told me, but I don’t need a play-by-play of your man’s whereabouts,” I teased, and she chuckled, but it was tight again, the sound weird enough I froze with a pack of gooey, thick cinnamon rolls in my hand. “What?” I already knew the answer to my own question. I glanced up and saw the minivan couple over by the deli, the woman holding a bouquet of flowers as she brought them up to her nose, the man holding her waist in a loving, possessive manner.

“I wasn’t talking about—”

“Darragh?” I pulled my focus away from the couple. Darragh started speaking again, but her voice was cutting in and out. I pulled my cell away from my ear to look at it. The call was still connected, but the reception was once again crappy. “Darragh?” I asked again when I put my phone back to my ear. “I can’t hear anything. You’re breaking up.”

“He… plane… as soon—”

I knitted my brows and prompted, “Say again?”

“Ready… he’s… there—”

Everything went dead then, and I looked down at the screen to see the call had been disconnected and I had zero bars.

Of course. I shoved my cell back in my purse and stared down at the cinnamon rolls. “Screw the carb overload,” I muttered and grabbed a pack of apple turnovers while I was at it.

This was an adventure, right? I was meant to enjoy myself and not worry about anything while I learned about everything… right? So fuck the carbs and screw the thought that some supernatural man—who was too sexy for his own good—declared me as his and said he was coming for me.

He wouldn’t find me, not when I didn’t even know where to find myself. I was as lost in my own body and surroundings as I would be to him. A ghost, a shadow.

That should have given me some kind of solace, so why did I feel this gaping hole in my chest at the thought of him not catching me?