The Alpha's Quest Collection (11 page)

The doorway didn’t open into a dark hallway like Ciara thought; instead, it opened to the outside world.

“Holy shit,” she said, nearly breathless as she looked at the scene stretching out in front of her.

She was back home, in Stillwater, the night her life had changed forever. There was a huge group of people in front of a house, all of them drinking and making a lot of noise. Her old boyfriend Mark was the center of attention; everyone was looking at him and talking to him.

Ciara walked right up to him and took a swing, hoping to connect with his nose perfectly like she had the last time. Instead, her fist went right through his face as the momentum of the swing sent her barreling to the ground.

“It’s not real,” she said, realizing what was going on. “I’m not really here.”

But how could her mind show her this? She hadn’t been present for any of this; she had been inside the house, passed out drunk.

“Oh, god,” she said. “I’m going to have to watch it again.”

She tried to cover her eyes and look away, but no matter how hard she closed her eyes the scene was still right there in front of her. She turned to look away, but it appeared in front of her again as she turned. No matter what she did she was forced to watch it all play out again.

Everyone was talking to Mark and laughing at every joke he made. Why wouldn’t they? He was one of the most charismatic men Ciara had ever met. With his broad shoulders, shaggy hair right out of the 1970s and million-dollar smile, he was the perfect All-American boy that men wanted to be and women wanted to be with.

Ciara’s life had begun to turn around the moment she began dating Mark. She didn’t drink as much, she stopped doing any drugs at all and she started going to class more. Sure, they still drank on the weekends, but the constant binge drinking had ended. He was the kind of influence she needed, one that would save her from the path she was embarking on.

Eventually everyone moved on to doing their own thing except for Sabrina, that skank. She’d always looked at Mark with lust in her eyes, and here it was playing out exactly as Ciara had suspected.

She brought her thin, athletic body up close to Mark and immediately began to rub his muscular arm while simultaneously biting her lip and making “fuck me” eyes at him. Of course he bought it hook, line and sinker, enjoying every moment. He talked and she laughed. With each passing moment their bodies became more and more intertwined.

Finally the slut grabbed him by the hand and led him around to the side of the house, away from everyone else.

“Please don’t make me watch this,” Ciara said. “Please.”

Whoever she was pleading to didn’t hear a thing. Instead, she had to watch the moment her heart had broken play out over and over again.

Mark aggressively pressed Sabrina up against the wall, his drunken lips finding their way all over her neck and chest. His hands groped under her shirt, finding their way to her small tits as he ground his crotch into her against the wall.

Ciara tried to look away, but she couldn’t. Whatever was forcing her to watch wouldn’t let her shut the pain off. She had to watch the only decent man she had met in college proceed to prove that he was like every other man on the planet.

She had thought he was the one, she had thought he was so perfect. He had seemed to genuinely care about her, but here he was giving it to someone else.

It didn’t take long for them to move from foreplay into sex. Mark didn’t even bother to put on a rubber; instead, he dropped his pants and picked her legs up off the ground, smashing her against the wall as he began to fuck her with the wild abandon of a drunken fool. It was more than Ciara could bear; he was really giving it to Sabrina against the brick wall.

She was beginning to squeal and moan as his cock fired into her with speed and force. He’d never been a gentle lover, but Ciara had never seen him give it with this much gusto. Had he really found her that unattractive that he’d always half-assed it in bed?

A miserable feeling began to well up inside Ciara as she was forced to watch them have wild sex right there beside the house. A crowd was starting to gather, most of them people she had thought were her friends. Several guys she had thought were good people were laughing and clapping for Mark while several girls just snickered. Not one of them mentioned her and not one of them thought to go get her.

“What the fuck is going on here?” she heard herself scream.

She spun around to see herself standing amongst the crowd, a look of absolute fury on her face. Now that she was looking at herself, she understood how insane she had looked. Her hair was frizzy and all over the place from her sweaty, drunken sleep, while her tank top didn’t do a lot to cover her stomach and her yoga pants were twisted and hanging half off.

“Ciara,” Mark said, quickly pulling out and letting his bitch drop to the ground. He was fumbling with his pants, trying to get them back on as she ran toward him. She held a beer bottle in one hand as she rushed him. He tried to duck, but she was too angry and too fast, probably possessing some kind of superhuman ability due to her rage. Blood spurted from Mark’s head as the beer bottle crashed down on top of it.

“You bitch!” he screamed, dropping to the ground and holding himself in pain.

She didn’t wait for him to say anything else. She began wildly kicking him in the ribs as he tried to pick the glass out of his scalp. When he tried to get up, she gave him a perfect kick to the jaw, knocking him unconscious.

“You fat psycho!” Sabrina said, trying to pick herself up off the ground. Ciara rushed forward, bringing her knee up into the skinny bitch’s face. Sabrina’s head snapped backwards against the brick wall, knocking her just as cold as Mark.

“Ciara, calm down,” a man named David said, reaching for her. She spun and kicked David in the balls so hard he began to vomit as he hit the ground. She was in such a rage she definitely possessed some sort of super strength. She had easily dispatched three people, like they were children.

“I really lost my mind,” Ciara said, watching herself rampage. “No wonder they arrested me.”

Just as she finished her sentence she heard another male scream for someone to call the cops. She had been so furious that day she hadn’t heard that declaration, and she hadn’t known it was probably a good time to get the hell out of Dodge. Instead she stomped to the garage, which had been left open. She exited a few seconds later with a baseball bat in hand.

“Ciara, stop!” another friend of hers said, trying to calm her. That was Becky, a girl she had thought was her best friend. Instead Becky had just laughed while Mark pounded his whore for all to watch.

The Ciara of the past swung, connecting with Becky’s ribs. She heard an audible crack as Becky hit the ground, clutching at her sides. She’d heard later that she had damaged Becky’s liver as well as her ribs with the shot.

Nobody else made a move to get in her way; instead, they watched her drunken rage play out from a distance as they waited for the cops.

Ciara first moved to Mark’s stupid Nissan 350Z that he was so damned proud of. She immediately began to beat the hood and windshield with her bat. Glass flew and the sound of wood against metal reverberated through the neighborhood. Everyone at the party had gone silent, watching in awe as she went to work.

It was scary; the only sound she could hear was past-Ciara’s maniac sobs and the bat hitting the car. By the time she was done Mark’s perfect little car was a mess. She had knocked off both side mirrors, dented the hood, broken the windshield, dented the right door and broken the left tail lamp, but she wasn’t done.

After Mark’s car she moved on to Sabrina’s BMW. She was a rich bitch whose parents bought her anything she wanted. She wasn’t going to let this slut, who’d had the world handed to her on a silver platter, steal her man too. As she began to beat on Sabrina’s car a voice shouted her down.

“Drop the bat now! Put your hands in the air!”

The Ciara of the present realized everything from this point had been a blur. Two cops had pulled up in the street and immediately hopped out of their car, both drawing their guns. She had complied and dropped the bat before collapsing onto the ground, uncontrollably sobbing. One of the cops had tried to get her off the ground, but she had gone completely limp. He had struggled with her dead weight at first before putting his back into it and lifting her completely off the ground.

She had continued to sob as he pulled her hands behind her back and cuffed her before leading her back to his car. He had asked her what happened, but she had been so upset she just continued to cry. When they made it to the car the cop had produced a Breathalyzer, demanding that Ciara blow into it.

Present-Ciara’s attention turned to the other cop, who was trying to get a sense of what was happening from the other party-goers. This was her life, a life that she’d very nearly thrown away.

“What a fucking mess,” she said, putting her face in her hands. “What a fucking mess.”

“It sure was,” Hawk said from behind her.

She jumped and turned to face him. He was standing behind her, wearing nothing but his underwear. If things hadn’t been so tense then Ciara might have been taken aback by the wonderful bulge hidden behind the skin-tight boxer briefs he was sporting, but instead all she could do was collapse into his arms.

“Hey, now, it’s okay,” Hawk said, cradling her in his arms. “It isn’t real.”

“It
is
real,” she said, fighting back tears. “It’s exactly what happened that night.”

“Close your eyes,” he said in a soothing tone.

“I can’t. Every time I do I still see it.”

“I’m here now. Close them.”

Ciara shut her eyes as tight as she could, letting blackness flood her world. When she opened them again she was sitting on the pile of pelts next to Hawk.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

“I just didn’t believe,” he said. “It was an illusion created by the evil in the forest.”

“Is that what happened to you earlier?”

“It was and I fought back against it, just like you have to.”

“Hawk, it was awful,” she said. He gently reached up and wiped a single tear from her cheek, a look of concern on his face. It was then that she noticed the long scratch running from his hairline down to just below his eye. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, turning away from her. “I ran into some old friends.”

“Old friends?”

“Old friends and new enemies.”

“Stop being so damn cryptic and tell me what happened!” Ciara was fed up with some of his cryptic talk; she had to know what had happened this time.

“Our town has been betrayed by the Oakdale pack. They’re the ones who kidnapped the girl in the hope that Satan’s Angels would destroy the town.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea. I ran into two of them out there. They meant to kill both of us.”

“What did you do to them?” Ciara already knew the answer, and she didn’t like it.

“It was them or us, Ciara,” he said, stroking the side of her face. “I wouldn’t let anyone ever hurt you.”

Ciara wasn’t happy he had killed someone, but it did lift her heart that he was so protective of her.

“I wish you were real,” she blurted out.

Hawk gave her a puzzled look as he scratched his head. “What do you mean, you wish I was real?”

“Don’t play coy with me,” she said.

“I’m not playing coy.”

“You saw what happened in there. Afterwards I had to start seeing a psychiatrist, because it was court-ordered. He ordered me to come into the forest to go on a vision quest so I could find myself. He said it would be a great experience that would help me defeat all my demons. I drank hallucinogenic cactus juice and then you and the other wolves appeared. You’re my spirit guide, Hawk. You don’t have to hold that back anymore.”

He held his chin between his thumb and forefinger for several minutes as he thought. Finally he put a hand on her shoulder and leaned over. “Ciara, honey. I hate to break this to you, but everything that has happened is real. This is all real. I promise you I’m a real person and you’re not on a drug trip.”

“You don’t have to play with me anymore, Hawk. I know the truth.”

“Ciara, if you were having a dream, do you think you’d feel pain?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve felt fatigue from going through the forest, but that’s just part of the quest.”

“No, Ciara,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “That’s real. This is all real.”

“No.” A heavy weight was beginning to develop on her chest as panic set in. This couldn’t be real; none of it could be real. Without warning, Hawk’s hand shot out and slapped her hard on the bare thigh, hard enough to leave a handprint.

“Ouch! Motherfucker!” she screamed, completely reverting back to her past self. “Why did you do that?”

“Do you think that would have hurt if you were dreaming?”

“Maybe. I don’t know what cactus juice does.”

“Absolutely nothing. He lied to you and gave you a placebo, Ciara.”

Ciara sat in silence for several seconds, trying to push those thoughts out of her head. Surely this was a lie; surely she was dreaming. She held her hand in front of her face, staring at it intently before bringing it to her mouth and biting down on it as hard as she could.

“What are you doing?” Hawk asked, pulling her hand out of her mouth.

She looked down at the blood flowing out of her hand and felt the throbbing pain from the spot her teeth had broken the skin. All she could do was begin to cry. It wasn’t a dream, it was all real.

Hawk leaned over and began to lick the blood from her hand gently, trying to calm and soothe her. His other hand came up on her back and began to rub up and down, reassuring her.

“It’s okay, babe,” he said, giving her his big doe eyes. His eyes had changed from the beautiful blue they had been before to yellow and his hair was just a shade darker than the blond it had been earlier.

“Why are your eyes a different color?” she asked, trying to forget the situation she was in.

“I can change my eye and hair color whenever I want,” he said, a wry smile appearing on his face.

“How?” she asked. “Can all wolves do that?”

“Just the ones who had a skin-changer for a mother,” he said, looking away. “Nobody else knows that, by the way. That’s how much I trust you. How much I care about you.”

“What’s a skin-changer?” she asked.

“Exactly what it sounds like,” he said. “A human who can change their skin, like a chameleon. The Native Americans thought they were evil spirits, but they’re just another supernatural being, like werewolves.”

“And you said nobody else knows about this?”

“Nobody. It’s a secret I’ve closely guarded my entire life. Nobody knows how I got my powers, but that’s where.”

“Why did you tell me?” Ciara was confused. She barely knew Hawk, but here he was spilling secrets to her, when she was at her most vulnerable.

“Why?” Hawk asked, lowering his face to hers. “To prove to you that this is very real.”

“I understand I’m crazy,” she said, trying to fight back the tears. “I can’t believe I thought this was all some dream.”

“No, not that,” he said, shaking his head. Hawk grabbed her hand and placed it over his heart before doing the same with his hand on hers. “This is real. I’m proving to you that this is real. You and me, Ciara, that’s real, and it’s what’s going to get us through this.”

“Why?” she asked, the tears starting to stream slowly. “Why me?”

“Because you’re special, Ciara.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just some chubby drunk girl who’s fucked her life up.”

“Well, nothing can be more fucked up than a town full of werewolves desperately relying on one wolf to find a kidnapped girl who may or may not be demonically possessed.”

“Well, my problems seem kind of small when you put it like that.”

“Your problems aren’t small, Ciara, not to me.” He pressed her hand against his heart, indenting his skin. “This feels something for you, something wonderful. The evil tried to possess me, it tried to take dominion over my heart. You know what kept it out?”

“You?”

“No. You did, Ciara. If it wasn’t for the growing feelings that exist in there, then we would both be gone. That doesn’t happen with just anyone, beautiful. You saved me and now I’m going to save you.”

Ciara couldn’t hold it back anymore; she burst into tears and buried her face in Hawk’s chest. Her life was a mess, and it’d just gotten a lot more complicated. The vision quest she had thought would save her life had turned into a real-life quest that was going to be life or death. She had actually been lost in the woods for two days. If she didn’t come back, then they’d think she had run, trying to skip out on all the fines and property damage she owed money for. She’d go to jail for sure.

“I’m going to take care of you,” Hawk said. “Don’t worry.”

“I don’t know if you can,” she sobbed into his beautiful, rock-hard chest. “My life is a mess. Nobody can.”

“I’ll figure it out,” he said. “Nobody will ever hurt you again, Ciara, I swear it. You have my heart more than you can ever know.”

Ciara pulled back, looking deep into Hawk’s eyes which had shifted back to the beautiful blue she had seen before. Her hand was on his neck, but she snaked it up to the back of his head, digging into his shaggy hair. She pulled him forward, their lips meeting with electricity. His lips quickly overtook hers, hungry to roll over them.

She pulled away, looking up at him with lust in her eyes. “Do you want me?”

“I do,” he said, nearly breathless. But surprisingly he pulled away. “I only want you when you’re ready, though, not when you’re vulnerable like this.”

“Will you hold me?” she asked, feeling her heart swell with his words. He was the first guy to ever show her this kind of compassion.

He lay back onto the pelts, pulling her face down onto his chest.

“I’ll hold you as long as you need me to.”

That was how Ciara fell asleep that night, her first real one as she followed the alpha on his quest.