Alpha's Last Fight: A Paranormal Shapeshifter BBW Romance (12 page)

Sure, it was a bit smushed together, but we made it work.

“Yeah, this is where I live. Nice, huh? And you ain’t even seen the inside.”

I pulled Natalie up the steps of the trailer.

“And you thought your garage was full of stuff,” I said. My trailer was packed to the gills with all of the necessities. The walls were covered with old photos of the previous owner’s family. I’d never got around to taking them down. I pushed a crate of empty beer bottles under the one side table.

“There’s a table and uh, this here’s the bed, and, uh, yeah. I thought we could have dinner here.”

“Is there a kitchen?” Natalie turned around, looking for whatever she imagined a kitchen might look like. It didn’t take long to see that there wasn’t. I mean, the place was one big room.

“There’s a fridge right next to your knee,” I said, pointing. She pulled at the handle and the cooler slid out from the wall. I reached down and grabbed two beers from my stash.

“This isn’t a kitchen,” Natalie said. “This is a fridge full of beer.”

“Sure, yeah,” I said, snapping the caps off of the beer bottles and handing her one, taking a big gulp of mine. “Kitchen is over—well, I’ll show you where it is. One sec.” I finished off my beer in a single chug and grabbed another. She shook her head. We turned to leave and were stopped by three little heads poking into the trailer.

“Hutch!”

“Hutch, you’re back!”

“Hutch, we have to show you something!”

The three boys tumbled over themselves in the trailer entryway. I shooed them out and helped Natalie down the steps.

“Who’s she, Hutch?”

“Are you joining the pack?”

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“Calm down, cubs,” I said. “This is Natalie. She’s just visiting for today. Natalie, these are the cubs. I don’t remember their names.”

“Aw, Hutch!”

“It’s Chris and Aiden and Dax,” Dax said. He was the littlest one at five years old. “Don’tcha remember, Hutch?”

“Right, right,” I said. I patted him on the head. “I remember now.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Natalie said. I could see her suppressing a grin at the rambunctious little kids.

“Look at what we can do, Hutch!” Aiden said. Without waiting for me to reply, the kids went running out into the middle of the street between the trailers. Dax went running down to the end of the block and Chris and Aiden stood ten feet or so apart.

“You watching, Hutch?” Dax’s little voice yelled from far away.

“Go ahead!” I yelled back, giving him a thumbs up.

The kid took off at a dead sprint down between the rows of trailers. As he ran, people working stopped and turned to see him go. For five years old, he was
fast
. And then I realized why he was running so fast: he was half-shifted, riding that edge between wolf and human.

Aiden was crouched down in front of Natalie and me, and Dax came running at him. I thought for sure the kid would plow into him and they would both be ground meat. But no. Dax took a running leap up, and Aiden was ready. He had both hands cupped together, and Dax jumped right into his waiting hands without missing a beat. Aiden launched him upwards and Dax soared up into the air.

Natalie gasped as Dax somersaulted and changed into wolf form at the top of his arc. I could see the brief shift, the claws and fur flashing, but then he was human again, finishing out his somersault. Chris caught him as he came down and they tumbled to the ground together.

“Hutch, d’you see that, Hutch?”

“Dang, Chris, you were supposed to catch me before I hit the ground.”

“You shifted!”

“So what?”

“So I’m not catching your wolf ass, you’ll scratch me!”

“Will not!”

“Will too, you dumb puppy!”

“I’m not a
puppy
!”

Dax snarled and jumped at Chris, tackling him around the legs. I went over and plucked the five-year-old up by his shirt, pulling him off of the older boy. He dangled in the air, his fists still swinging ineffectually at his friend.

“Looking good, boys,” I said.

“You think we can do it for the next fight, Hutch?” Dax said, still hanging at the end of my arm. “We almost got it perfect that time.”

“How can you get a running start in the ring?” I asked. Dax frowned and looked at the other two kids.

“Hey, we have to do it so we can do it in the ring!” he said. “Let’s try it again but smaller.”

“Bye, Hutch!”

“Your girlfriend’s pretty!”

“Don’t you dare steal her,” I said, laughing. “You keep practicing!”

“We will!” the three boys echoed in chorus.

I took Natalie’s hand and walked away with her. She looked back over her shoulder at the boys.

“They sure do love you,” she said.

“You’re the only one who doesn’t,” I said, winking. Natalie flushed and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder tightly, kissing her on her temple. “Nah, they’re good kids. Especially Dax.”

“So where are we going?”

“To find a kitchen,” I said. “Remember, I promised you dinner.”

“Oh! I thought you only drank beer to survive.” Natalie took a sip from her beer bottle, smiling slyly.

“Well, of course that’s the main part of my food pyramid. But you’re a guest.”

“So you’re going to find me a kitchen and cook me dinner?”

“Well, I’ll find a kitchen at least.” I smiled.

We rounded the last trailer and came around the corner. Natalie’s eyes went wide as she looked up at the structure in front of us.

“What on earth...”

“It’s the kitchen,” I said. “And the dining hall. And the living room. But yeah, come on in!”

The kitchen was in the biggest tent in the whole lot: it looked on the outside a lot like a three-ring circus tent. I’d helped put it up when we’d first moved into this lot. The walls were made of burlap and construction fabric, so that the wind could blow through the walls and not knock it over.

We walked in through the front opening into the tent and a hubbub of activity. On our left was what I’d called the living room. Which it was, kind of. Dozens of hammocks hung from every pole in the place, and every one of them was occupied with kids or people napping off their lunchtime beers. A few guys were having a poker game on one of the tables scattered through the place. One girl was slumped over a beanbag, trying to read, and some kids were playing with Lego cars on the floor.

There wasn’t a floor, not really. We’d just put this tent up over the asphalt lot, and afterwards we’d realized we needed a floor. Someone had scavenged a bunch of scrap carpet from one of the manufacturers nearby, and so the ground was half-covered with different patterned rugs.

In the middle were the majority of the tables and to the right was the kitchen, hidden behind a clothesline curtain. It was almost dinnertime, and so there were a lot of people already working. The stovetops were all occupied by huge pots of something that smelled deliciously good.

I was proud of how we’d set up the kitchen – there was a rainwater tank that led to the sinks, and a gray water catchment underneath. The generator outside provided electricity for the pump system. I took Natalie over and showed her how we’d set it up piece by piece.

“Hutch, nice of you to finally show up for kitchen duty.”

I spun to see Gina standing behind us, her hands on her hips. She nodded at me and then her eyes caught Natalie and widened a bit.

“Oh! This is, uh—“

“Gina, Natalie,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure how Natalie would react to Gina, after what I’d said on our last date. “Nat, Gina.”

“I’d shake your hand if I could,” Gina said, raising her gloved hands. “We got work to do making this stew.”

“Can I help?” Natalie said, stepping forward before I could say anything.

“Sure thing,” Gina said. She gave me a half-grin. “Hutch, you gonna go help wash dishes?”

“How do you have dishes to wash before dinner is ready?” I asked, frowning.

Gina linked arms with Natalie.

“This idiot thinks that food magically appears on his table every night. He doesn’t know what the words
prep work
mean.”

Natalie smiled over at me, and I found myself a minute later arm-deep in hot soapy water, washing the knives and cutting boards from all of the kitchen preparation. The only other person washing dishes was a nervous teenage girl whose name I’d forgotten. She kept looking over at me, and I thought maybe she had a crush on me until she took one of my cutting boards from the drying rack and showed me how to actually clean off all of the beef gunk on it.

Gina and Natalie were laughing their heads off over on the other side of the kitchen, and I kept craning my neck to see if I could hear what they were talking about. Were they talking about me? I saw Gina glance over once and I ducked my head back down, focusing on not dropping the slippery plates in my hands.

When I looked over again, the two of them were gone. I dried my hands and quickly pushed my way out from behind the curtain. Gina and Natalie were sitting around a table with a few of the other pack members, drinking and laughing it up. I pulled up a chair to the table between them.

“You went and left me to do all the work by myself,” I groused.

“Right,” Gina said. “You gotta get more efficient at kitchen work, Hutch. Then you can finish on time with the rest of us. Like your girl here.”

Natalie giggled, and I looked over to see her eyes already glassing over with alcohol.

“How many dishes did you break back there?” Gina asked.

“Ah, shut up,” I said. I’d only broken one plate, and it had been really, really slippery. Wasn’t my fault anyway – I never did this kind of work.

“Don’t get too mad at him,” I heard Natalie say. “He was just trying to punch the grease off.”

“Hey!”

“I like this one, Hutch,” Gina said, taking another sip of her drink. “Can we keep her instead of you?”

I growled, but Natalie looked pleased as anything, her cheeks bright from the work and the beer.

“Go get the stew out,” someone else said.

“Alright, alright,” Gina said, raising her hands in mock surrender. “Just saying, it would be nice to have another pair of hands in the kitchen so I’m not doing everything myself.”

“I’ll get it,” Natalie said, standing up and going off behind the curtain.

“See?” Gina said. She stood up and leaned into the middle of the table. “Such a good helper. Who here thinks Nat would make a good mate for our dear leader here?”

The table erupted in cheers. One person yelled “Let me taste the stew first!” Gina looked over at me, and something inside of my stomach twisted strangely. It was one thing to have a girl, and quite another to have a mate.

Before I could say anything, though, Natalie was back with the pot of stew and Gina helped her serve it out into bowls for us and the kids who had run over at the first sight of food. I gotta say, I had been unsure about Nat coming over, but as I ate and she talked with the other pack mates, I relaxed a bit. She seemed to fit in pretty well, for a dog at least.

And the stew
was
delicious.

Chapter Eleven

Natalie

With an extravagant flourish, the guitarist finished his song to hoots and howls and a smattering of applause. It was surreal to watch. Like a scene from a trendy t-shirt advertisement. Young and old, three generations of one pack, gathered round a crackling fire. Singing songs, telling tales and soaking in the pale glow of the moon. I had never seen anything like this pack.

A pack led by one man - the man who was idly stroking my hair as I leaned against his broad chest. He raised his glass and everyone raised theirs, and along with these people who had welcomed me into their home under the stars, I took a swig of whatever acrid homemade booze it was that they’d forced on me.

Damn, it
was
disgusting. But after a while, the taste faded away and you were left with a comforting warmth that heated you from the inside out. And while I had no idea what damage it might have been doing to my liver, for now it just felt nice to be a part of something like this.

The beer was apparently a warm up. I wasn’t exactly a heavy drinker, and now that we’d moved onto the strong stuff I was feeling pretty light headed. But it was light headed in a pleasant, fuzzy way. Deceptively pleasant. I was sure I’d pay for it the next morning.

Next morning? I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but Hutch had been drinking pretty constantly since he devoured three bowls of my stew (OK it was a team effort, but I like to think I more than did my part). He might be the biggest badass in the world, but there was no way I’d get in a car if he was behind the wheel, and certainly not that speeding deathtrap of a motorbike. For better or worse, it looked like I was staying the night.

Right now, I was firmly in the “for better” camp. I liked it here. I liked the people, but most of all I liked the side of Hutch I’d seen on my whistle stop tour of Pack City. I was beginning to suspect he wasn’t nearly the big bad wolf he liked to pretend to be.

Not as bad, but certainly big. His looming presence was comforting in a way I had never felt before. When he was near, it felt like I was being watched over. Being protected.

While I was growing up, that was my dad’s job. He raised me. He protected me. He tucked me in at night. After mom had gone, he dedicated his life to me. He did the best job he possibly could. But it never felt like this. I never felt this safe.

It wasn’t just the drink. It wasn’t that, like it or not, I was obviously attracted to him. It hung over me like a cloud. Biological, chemical, supernatural? Did it matter? As I snuggled back against this man that I barely knew and let his warmth wash over me, I felt certain I was safe. Safe from everything, including myself.

Apparently it was Gina’s turn on center stage. She leaped to her feet and lurched around the fire, her legs wide, her hands gyrating like an extra in a high school production of Avatar: The Musical. The girl was drunk. So drunk that I decided to take another swig of the vile liquor in some kind of gesture of sisterhood.