Reluctant Alpha (6 page)

“
I don’t care which nut they offer you, I’m just glad that you declined.” She glanced at Diana when she giggled. Airic didn’t think she’d ever heard her do that before. Strange.

They had been walking around about an hour looking at the set up when a group of people walked in. They were quite possibly the most beautiful people she’d ever seen. There were four women and five men. She could tell how they were paired off because the men with their female counterparts kept touching them, running fingers up their bare arms, leaning into them. The single man kept glancing around the room. His date, she thought, he’s looking for his date. She turned her back to them and started walking toward the back part of the showroom.

Her thoughts went back to the man as she walked away. She’d like to paint him someday, she mused. He would be a difficult subject to do, his hair as many shade of colors as were on her palate, reds, golds and browns. His body was large and muscular, very wide at the shoulders, his waist thin and belly flat. His hips flared out and were supported by muscled thighs and long legs that she could see beneath the fit of his dark dress pants. She could tell that he was used to wearing a tie; he hadn’t tugged at it once like the blond man next to him. Probably a corporate big wig, she thought with a snort.

She’d just gone into the room and was beginning another round when someone grabbed her by the arm and began dragging her toward the back of the building. It was him, the single man, and she was so surprised by that that he had her inside the office with the door closed before she could react.

“
What the hell do you think you’re doing dragging me around like…like…I don’t know what, but I want you to open that door.” She moved toward the door and hearing the lock engage, stopped her in her tracks.

“
I’d like a word with you, Bitch. I want to know what the fuck you are doing in my territory as an unmated female, and just what right did you have to manhandle my wolves the day before yesterday?” he snarled at her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“
What are you talking about? Wolves, what wolves? You’re insane. Open that door this instant before I scream the place down.” He watched her stride forward and he countered her move out the door. She was going to listen even if he had to tie her down to do it.

“
My wolves. They were on the porch at Elaine’s yesterday and you picked one up by the neck and tossed him to the ground like you’re their master. You cut him, was that necessary? I’m the master around here, not you. They aren’t very bright, but this is not your domain and I do not appreciate you thinking you can come in here and be alpha bitch and order them around.” He knew he was not handling this well. He had talked to both boys and they both confessed to starting the confrontation with her. They had even gone so far as to admit that one of them had grabbed her breast and twisted it. But when he looked up and saw her turn her back on him, he saw red. She was not going to dismiss him like he was some callous pup.

“
Wolves? They were your wolves? Then you’re their…” He barely noticed that she had paled, that her voice had gone faint. He was too angry to see beyond this moment, this second.

“
I’m the alpha around here. The king wolf of this territory. And you’d do well to remember that, Ms…” He turned when someone knocked on the door. Before he could snarl for them to go away, the girl was at the door and fumbling with the lock. “I’m not finished yet. I…” She bolted out the door as soon as the lock opened and was gone before he could finish, heels clicking rapidly across the hardwood floor.

“
Airic?” The young woman who stood in the open doorway started after her. He moved to intercept her and was shoved against the wall by the little thing standing there.

“
I’m busy right now, but if you’ll find…” She slapped him hard across the face. Startled, he nearly snarled at her too.

“
What did you do to her? What the fuck did you do? Do you know how fucking hard I had to work to get her to come here tonight, how long I’ve worked to make this happen for her? And in ten minutes, no, less than ten, you scared her so badly that…oh, fuck you. Where is the owner? I’m going to report you. What is it with this fucking town and its males going around handling women as if they’re playthings rather than people?”

Bradley looked down at her and knew with all certainty that he had just did something he would regret for many, many years to come. “I’m Bradley Wolff, and you, I assume, are Diana Lake. And that woman…who is she?” He knew the answer as surely as he knew his own name.

“
Wolff, the owner, I presume? Well, that, Mr. Wolff, was Airic, otherwise known as Alastriona Bennett. You just insulted your artist and her assistant. Now, you want to tell me what kind of damage I’m going to have to clean up?” She folded her arm across her chest, glared at him, and tapped her foot. He felt three inches tall.

“
Maybe you should come into my office. I grovel better without witnesses.” He moved back away from the door and waited for her to enter. When she did, he noticed that everyone in the gallery had already witnessed his dressing down, and Aaron, his best friend and master vampire of this realm, was hanging onto his mate Sara. They were laughing their asses off.

***

Airic ran out into the night, not stopping when she heard Diana call for her when she opened the office door. Moving through the parking lot, she didn’t see anything, hear anything. Wolves, wolves, wolves kept circling round and round in her head. He touched her arm before she saw John standing in front of her, and she screamed.

“
Are you all right, Ms. Bennett? I won’t hurt you. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Here, come sit down in the car, and let me go find Ms. Lake for you.” He took off his coat, draped it around her bare shoulders, and started to move toward the gallery again.

“
No! No, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me alone. Take me home, John, please. I want to…please, I want to go home, take me home.” She needed to leave and they were wolves. They were wolves; they were wolves.

She pulled her legs into the limo and shut the door. She felt marginally better when he got into the front seat and under the steering wheel then started the car up and put it into gear.
Home, home, home, home.
Over and over it ran through her mind.
Home.
When she saw that they were headed toward her home and not the hotel, she slid off the seat and onto the floor behind the passenger seat, huddling herself into a ball, and backed herself hard against the door. She glanced up when John rolled the window up between them, hardly aware of the motion, and she didn’t move again. It was nearly a two hour ride to the house and her comfort zone.
Home.

She didn’t let her mind go to anything else, but focused on the fact that she was going back home. She would be home soon. She’d think when she got there, but not now.
No, home first, then maybe then I’ll think. Maybe.
In the back of her mind, she heard the window between her and John go up and down, but never acknowledged it in any way.

When the limo pulled into her driveway almost two and a half hours later and the engine turned off, she still didn’t move. When John opened the door for her, she had to move slowly in order to get out. She was stiff and sore from sitting in one position for so long and her body protested somewhat. When she finally was able to stand up straight, she handed him his coat and hobbled to her door.

“
Thank you, John. I’m sorry, but Diana. I forgot about her. You’ll need to…” she started to say.

“
I’ve contacted Ms. Lake, Ms. Bennett. I told her I was taking you home. She knows where you are. I’m going back for her now,” he told her.

“
I…don’t bring her here. If she asks you, please…I don’t want to see…don’t bring her back, please. Not yet, I’ll…tell her I’ll talk to her soon, but not yet.” She wanted them all to go away and never come back. She wanted to be left alone in her misery, left alone with her terrors.

She let herself into the house, locking the locks behind her, and began taking off her clothes as she went. First came the shoes, then the dress. By the time she went past her bedroom door, she was naked, her beautiful clothes strewn out behind her. In the upstairs hallway, she pulled down the attic stairs from the ceiling and went up them. Moving to the back of the rooms up there, she went to a small cubby hole she had made for herself when things became too much, a place she’d been in several times before. She pulled out the six paintings hidden behind old treasures long forgotten and lined them up against the wall.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The first one, the one she always started with, was of the church. The church her father had wanted to spend his whole lifetime going over and never had the opportunity to. She ran her finger along the buttress of the building in the painting. Since the accident, she had learned all the parts to the church and as much history as she could about the places he had wanted to go to next. She didn’t know why, but it had comforted her some, knowing she could pass this bit of information on to the next person. Of course, she didn’t see many people, but she had the knowledge anyway.

The next one was the smaller side cemetery they had walked through on that day. Where she had heard the first scream, where she had fallen in her haste to get to them all. She had had to gain special permission to have her father’s and brother’s ashes buried there. But in the end, they had allowed it. She thought it had more to do with the publicity that she had threatened them with than anything else, but she didn’t care. He would have liked knowing she had put them there, she thought, though not for the first time in all these months.

The next one was of Diana being dragged away, the two wolves in full form with their teeth deep into her leg and her side. The detail on this one was perfect, the blood the correct color, the woods behind just turning for fall. She had captured the terror on her face, not that it was hard, she thought. She could see it as if it were only yesterday. Airic touched the woman in this one, ran her finger along her cheek. Her tears blurred her vision for just a moment before she moved on to the next one.

The next two were almost the hardest two to look at, a painting of the horror frozen in time. The first one, the one of her sixteen-year-old brother being torn in half, his legs being pulled one direction, his arms, thin with youth, pulled the other. She stared for long moments at his head; the way his neck was angled left no doubt that it was broken, dead long before they tore at him. She was glad for that, that he didn’t suffer long. She wished again that she could ruffle his hair just once more, or hug him to her.

The tears were coming faster now, her heart pounding hard against her breast. Her father was in the next painting. He was forever lying in the damp grasses, arms over his head, his eyes wide open, looking straight at her. The two wolves on him were feasting at his belly, pulling his intestines out of him in long, wet strings and eating them. They had assured her again and again that he had been dead before that, that he hadn’t felt any of it. But she knew better; she had seen him turn to her, his mouth form the word “no” to her. Kissing her finger tips, she laid them gently against his face. She could still see the happiness on his face as he had hugged her to him that final time, his excitement of the day. After a whispered, “I love you, Daddy,” she sat back against the wall for a few minutes.

The final painting was still turned over facing the wall so that she couldn’t see it. She didn’t want to turn this one over, hated doing it every time. She didn’t know why she kept it, this painting. It hurt her more than the others, so much more. She crawled over on her knees and turned it over then sat back on her heels. It was of him. Him.

The wolves who had taken her told her when she woke up that she was to be the mate to the chosen one, the alpha male, and that she would be honored by all. They bit her daily, both of them shifting in front of her only long enough to tear into her body, deep, bloody wounds, then they would lick them, clean them free of infections. There were always the two, but there had been several others, different ones at least once a day. The pain had been overwhelming, pushing her into darkness even before they were finished tearing into her flesh. They were changing her, they said, preparing her for their leader and their life together. Then on the day before she was brought out of the caves—not a rescue, but damnation; it would never feel like she had been saved—he’d come to her. She would never forget his words or his face.

She lay on the damp cave floor, cold, bleeding and hurt, hurting in every place on her body. He walked in as a wolf, strutted more like it, large and menacing. She cowered back against the cave’s cold, damp wall, moving as far back away from him as she could. She knew he was going to bite her, tear into her, and there was nothing she could do. There wasn’t anyone to help her.

He didn’t say a word to her then sat beside her. When his bite came, she screamed over and over. He had bitten into her soft belly, tossing his massive head back and forth until she would swear his teeth met together through her body. He held on for several minutes then released her; as soon as he slipped his teeth from her, she slipped away, deeper than she’d ever gone.

When she woke, he was sitting there as a man, dressed in a fine suit and tie, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The chair he was sitting in must have been brought in because there had been no furniture in the little cave the whole time she’d been there. She figured that it had been brought in while she was out and it would be taken away once again when he left.