The Alpha's Choice: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance (Roadside Angels Motorcycle Club Book 3)

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

The Alpha’s Choice copyright @ 2015 by Kathryn Thomas. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Book 3 of the
Roadside Angels Motorcycle Club
trilogy

Prologue

“The past is prologue.”
~ William Shakespeare

“Lex,” Tammie began, playing with the hairs on his chest, “are you a black wolf when you change?”

They had been playing twenty questions for a bit, and he was sure she was up to maybe twenty-five by now.  He was also rather surprised that she hadn’t asked him this question a lot sooner.  After all, she was still a reporter, and even if she was developing feelings for him, she hadn’t gone soft in the head.  There had been numerous wolf attacks in the past month...and he was a werewolf.  He could very easily have done any or all of them, and not only would no one have known, but no one would have suspected him.  He wasn’t offended by her suspicions… they were natural.

“No, honey. I’m a white wolf.”

He watched her smile and turned his eyes to her, silently questioning her.  “Blond hair, blue eyes,” she said, as if that explained it.  He smiled in return.  “And such gorgeous, silky hair, too,” she added, combing her fingers through the ends of it where it hung around his neck and shoulders.

“I’m glad you approve,” he murmured, catching her hands and bringing them to his lips. 

“You know you’re a handsome man, right, Lex?”  She pulled her hands out of his and trailed them up the sides of his face, smoothing his brow and his cheeks.  “Very handsome, and so sexy…”

Lex kissed her lips to silence her.  “You’re the sexy one, honey.  Sexy and beautiful and feisty, and so brave.”  He kissed her again for good measure and then pulled her over onto his chest, wrapping his arms around her.  He matched his breathing to hers and let contentment steal over him. 

“Lex?”  Her voice was soft, drowsy, and warm.  “When were you a cop?”

Lex couldn’t help it.  He chuckled.  Of all the things he had expected that she might ask in bed, that had not even been on his radar.  She was always surprising him.

“A very, very long time ago, I joined the Secret Service.  That’s where I met Bear.”

“Wow!  Wasn’t that organization started in the nineteenth century?”

“1865, to be exact.  I had just arrived and was looking for work, for an identity.  For a place to hide in plain sight.”

“Why would you need to hide?”  Tammie’s curiosity was piqued.

“I’m a hybrid werewolf, honey.  To some, a half-breed, and therefore disposable.”

She squirmed around so she could look up at him.  “But you’re werewolf royalty!” she protested.  “Doesn’t that count for something?”

Lex chuckled at her fanciful way of speaking.  “I’m the next hybrid chosen to be Prime, yes.  But you know from human society that your position doesn’t protect you from racism.  My parents thought it best to send me away for my own safety—and my little sister’s.”

Now she pulled away to sit up.  “You have a little sister?”  How old is she?  Does she know you, or at least know about you?”

Lex smiled at her eagerness to know about him.  “She’s fifty years my junior.  And yes she knows me.”  He sat up, as well, and pulled her back into his arms, not ready to lose contact with her warm body.  “Anyway, in those early days, the Secret Service had only one job—to ‘suppress counterfeit currency,’ as they called it.  Then, two years later, it got a second task, to find and bring to justice people who tried to defraud the government.  It was really interesting work.”

“How long were you with them?” she wanted to know next.

“Until President Roosevelt left office.”  Lex smiled, remembering the days toward the end, when he and Bear had worked both in the president’s personal protection detail and as operatives in the newly commissioned Federal Bureau of Investigation.  “It was a great way for us to end our service, working with Teddy Roosevelt.”

“Why is that?”

“He was an environmentalist and animal lover, which are causes dear to our hearts.  And he got Bear’s unwavering and total support when he refused to harm the bear a few of the other guys had tied to a tree for him to shoot while he was out hunting once.  After that, Roosevelt could do no wrong, as far as Bear was concerned.”

Tammie was quiet for a time, soaking in the knowledge that the man who held her like precious treasure was as open to her as she could have wished.  She loved what he had already revealed to her about himself, and though she sensed there was much he hadn’t said, she knew instinctively that if she asked him, Lex would tell her whatever she wanted to know. She was content to breathe in the scent of his body and wrap herself in his warm arms.  She thought about how her life had changed over the past few days and wondered, as she drifted off to sleep, how she would explain Lex to her grandparents and to Em.  She had never been known as the quick decision-maker, so when she showed up, after such a short time with a man like Lex in tow, she knew the questions would be unending.  She snuggled closer to his warm chest and felt Lex tighten his arms around her.  Time enough to worry about that tomorrow.  She needed more sleep first.  She vaguely felt the brush of his lips on her hair as she succumbed...

CHAPTER ONE

“There will always be trouble so there will always be a time for heroes.”
~  David Paul Kirkpatrick

Lex watched Tammie sleeping as he dressed.  Dave Putnam had called again, right after she fell back asleep in his arms.  The news this time had been worse than ever.  Two bodies this time, naked, viciously mauled.  What made it so much worse was that a member of his club was implicated.  He didn’t know the specifics, which was why he wanted to get moving on it.  His decision to return to the Prime lands had taken him long enough—and was now costing innocent lives.  But before he charged off home, he needed to have all the pieces in place, which meant knowing what had happened and how his club member had been involved, if at all.

He scribbled a note, telling Tammie he would be back soon, left it on the side table, brushed a soft kiss on her exposed cheek, and hurried out to find Bear.  One look at his friend’s face told Lex that he had also heard what had happened. 

“We’ll talk when I get back.  I need you to watch over Tamara for me,” he told his friend.  “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

He floored it to town, worried more than he would admit about the fact that Jeff was once again in trouble.  Two more bodies, town vagrants, had been found near the town dump.  Everyone in town knew them, and though many people had tried to get them to stay in the homeless shelter, they were always running away and usually ended up at the dump.  One of them, the older one, was rumored to have a great deal of money hidden about his person, and the assumption was that someone had attacked him for that.  The other one was his sidekick, never seen without his friend, so he might have been killed because he witnessed the first murder.  Nobody knew for sure what was going on...except that the last person to have been seen with both of them was Jeff, who had been arguing with them loudly an hour before they were found.

Lex parked the truck and hurried into the police station, where Jeff sat patiently in the chief’s office.  His hands were cuffed in front of him, and he was answering Dave’s questions. 
He is strangely calm
, Lex thought. 
There is no anger. I wonder if Jeff had indeed lost it and killed two harmless men.  And if he had, why had he?  Jeff doesn’t need money, and he isn’t usually a brawler, either.
Lex stood outside watching for a minute, trying to read his friend’s behavior, but there was nothing but calm.  Finally, he knocked and stepped inside.

“Dave, Jeff,” he greeted them.  “What’s going on?”

“It’s like I told you, Lex,” the chief said.  “Eyewitnesses placed Jeff with the victims an hour before their bodies were found.  He had been in an argument with them, though he won’t tell me what it was about.”

Lex turned to Jeff.  “Why, Jeff?”

Hs friend looked him in the eye, and Lex saw the resolve, the determination to keep his own counsel, and he knew nothing would make him say what he had been arguing about.  It meant it was something very important to Jeff, and he was protecting someone...Ginny.

“Jeff, if this has anything to do with Ginny, you need to tell us.  We can’t help you if you don’t.”

Jeff tried to stare him down, but Lex used the advantage he had as a hybrid and gave a mental push that Jeff wasn’t strong enough to ignore or resist.  He glared at Lex and hung his head.

“They knew about us,” he said and looked up, glancing at Dave, then at Lex, then swallowing.  “They thought Ginny was one, too.”

Lex knit his brows, worry pushing at him.  “Knew what, Jeff?  What did they know?  And what did they think Ginny was?”  He was afraid he already knew the answer, but he wanted Jeff to spell it out.

“They knew we were shifters.  Or at least they knew there were shifters here.  And the older one kept threatening to spread the word that Ginny was one, too.”  He stopped talking for a moment, but Lex waited patiently, knowing there was more to come.  “I heard them arguing with each other, so I followed them.  The younger one was trying to get his friend to wait till you came back to town to confront you.  His friend wouldn’t hear of it.”  He shook his head.  “It seemed as though they had already told some people, because when I confronted them, he said it was too late, that there was nothing any of us could do about it, and that the government was going to send people to exterminate us.”

Lex clenched his jaw tightly at the words he had heard too often over the many years of his life.  Holding on to calm, he let Jeff finish his tale.

“I laughed at him, and he got mad.  Pulled a switchblade and tried to stab me.  I dodged it, of course, and he ended up cutting his friend.  That made him angrier, and he came at me again.  We got into a scuffle, and he got in a few scratches.”  He lifted his hands so Lex could see.  “Then, out of the blue, I smelled them.”

“Who, Jeff?”  Dave asked that question.

“Shifters.  They weren’t from our club, so I knew they must be Lancaster’s crew.”  He closed his eyes briefly, and Lex could feel the pain rolling off him.  “I tried, Lex, honest to God, I tried to save them.  But there were too many of them and only one of me.  And those guys couldn’t fight.”  He looked up, his eyes red with suppressed rage, and Lex felt deep sorrow for the burden his friend would bear the rest of his life.  “They kept me from helping them, Lex.  They played with me…not really fighting me, just keeping me from getting into the real fight, while they ripped those poor dumb fucks apart.  I tried, Lex, but I couldn’t save them.”

The silence in the room was only emphasized by the ticking of the electric clock on the wall.  No one spoke, till Jeff did again.

“I figured it out when it was too late.  Those hobos had been set up to trap me, or you...whoever they found first.  They didn’t know anything.  But everyone knows they would do anything for money.  Especially the older one.  And I fell for it.  And now Ginny’s in danger, too.”

“No one’s gonna let anything happen to Ginny, son,” Dave said, trying to calm the frenzy he could see beginning to build in Jeff’s eyes. 

“You can’t stop them, Dave,” he snarled.  “And she’s my mate!”

Lex broke in.  As long as Jeff remained fairly calm, the mating frenzy would remain under control.  The last thing anyone needed just then was for him to become angry and in fear for his mate’s life.    “Dave’s right, Jeff.  We won’t let any harm come to Ginny.  But we need to know who saw you, and about the men fighting.”

“I don’t know.  We were out by the dump when the fighting started.  I didn’t sense anyone else around—till the shifters showed up.” 

“How many of them were there?” Dave wanted to know next.

“Four.”

Lex inhaled on a wave of rage that almost crippled him.  There was no honor in the Rebels, and if he had hoped some peace might be salvaged between him and the gang, that hope had just died.  Exhaling heavily, he paced to the window, looking out onto the parking lot which seemed to be filling up with people.  His hackles rose, and his wolf growled.  He had to protect Jeff, whom he believed, as well as these good folk, who now seemed to think Jeff was a cold-blooded killer.

“Dave, you’ve got a crowd on your hands.”  He stepped away and let the chief see the trouble brewing for himself.

“I’ll go calm them down, Lex.  You stay here with Jeff.”

Dave picked up his hat and walked out to the milling crowd.  Although Lex knew Jeff could hear every word that was said, he hoped he wasn’t letting it get to him.  A sudden commotion brought his head up, and Lex paced to the window in time to see Ginny pushing her way through the crowd.  Someone tried to hold her back, and she shook him off, saying something sharp to him as she went past Dave.  In another moment, she was through the door and crouching by Jeff’s chair, tears streaming down her cheeks.  She clasped his cuffed hands in hers and reached up to kiss him. 

“I’m okay, baby,” Jeff kept saying, despite his restraints and the serious charge leveled at him.  He returned his mate’s kisses and caressed her cheeks, a loving smile on his face.  “Are you okay?” he wanted to know, seeming satisfied when she nodded.

Lex knew Jeff would be calm now that Ginny was within an arm’s reach of him.  They both knew he could snap the handcuffs in a second if he so desired, but Jeff was a law-abiding citizen, and he was smart enough to know that making a ruckus would only draw more attention to himself and his crew, something he wasn’t prepared to do.  Shifters kept to themselves and stayed out of trouble, and when trouble found them, they kept as low a profile as they could until it blew over.  Jeff’s chief concern now had to be his mate’s safety, and Lex understood and respected that.  Now if only the question of Jeff’s innocence could be as easily settled with the town folk.  He turned away to give the couple some privacy and waited for Dave to return.  They had things to discuss, not the least of which it now seemed was Jeff’s safety.

Tammie, meanwhile, was sitting at the kitchen counter, sipping a soda and eyeing Bear, who bore her scrutiny with equanimity. 

“So Patrick, how did you and Lex come to be inseparable?” 

Bear chuckled.  “Who says we are?” he asked, amused by her question.

She chuckled back at him, her eyes as sharp as her tone.  “I may only be human, but I’m not that slow.”  She stared unashamedly at him, taking in his huge proportions and good looks.  “I can sense the deep bond the two of you share.”  She paused, then said, her voice quiet, “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t some kind of blood bond between you two.”

Bear laughed—though he gave her full points for her perceptiveness.  “We’re that transparent, are we?” he asked, finishing the fish steaks he was prepping for lunch.

Tammie shook her head.  “I don’t think you are transparent at all,” she said.  “You’re rather enigmatic, if you want the truth.  But I can’t forget the way you steered me away the first time we met.  You gave nothing away, and I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere with you, no matter what I said or did.  And all with that grin on your face.”

She sounded so disgusted that Bear turned to her and winked, then burst out laughing at the outrage on her face. 

“You don’t find love and loyalty like that much these days,” she said, her comment piercing through his mirth.  She didn’t know how right she was.  He would do anything for Lex, and he knew Lex would do no less for him—even if they wouldn’t call it love.

“Lunch will be ready soon,” he announced gruffly, turning away again, suddenly feeling the weight of his loss.  His own mate had been older than Tammie when they met, and the piercing love he had felt for her shone a light in the dark places of his soul when he thought of her.  He hadn’t thought of her in a very long time, preferring to subdue his thoughts to keep his sanity.  He had been afraid that if he thought of her, it would raise the fury he fought almost daily to suppress.  Yet this tiny thing, with fire in her eyes and warmth in her heart, made him want to call up all the memories of his lost love and warm himself in their heat.

“I’ll just go check my e-mail and send my article to Ray.  I hope Lex comes back soon.”  Tammie could sense Bear’s change of mood, and she was afraid, because she didn’t know what she had done or what he was feeling.  She slid off the stool and turned to walk out of the kitchen, when his voice stopped her.

“You do that, little lady.  I’ll call you when lunch is ready.”  A pause, then he added, “And thank you.”

She turned back to look at him in surprise.  “What for?”  That was the last thing she had expected from him.

“For reminding me,” he replied cryptically and smiled at her. 

It was the first time she felt that his smile was not teasing, but held genuine warmth...for her.  She didn’t really understand what she had reminded him of that was so good, but she was relieved he was not angry with her.

“You’re welcome, Patrick,” she said, returning his smile and then walking away.

Back in her room, she checked her messages, answered Emily, promising to tell her what was happening as soon as she could, and hinting that she might be home soon, anyway.  She knew Em was concerned about her job, as was she.  She felt that this story would be the beginning of good things for the paper and for her career.  She would be able to make her share of the payments for the apartment, so Em wouldn’t have to find a new housemate.  Then, she sent a quick message to her grandparents to tell them she was all right and would contact them again in a few days when the job was done.