2. Bexley

2

BEXLEY

“Way to go, Alpha!”

“Hell, yeah!”

“That was so cool!”

“Can you teach me how to do that sometime?”

“Alpha! Alpha! Alpha!”

Smoke billowed up from behind me as I stood there after dismounting from my somersault. The shifters around me cheered, which only cemented how successful I’d been these last few weeks. Living on the run wasn’t easy. Looking over one’s shoulder every second of every day wasn’t the best way to live life. But, I had seen things. I experienced things that no one else should have. I lost people I loved. Family that I adored. A career that had me on a straight-shot path to one of the highest positions in the CIA.

Until my boss happened.

“Do it again! Do it again! Do it again!”

I squinted my eyes as I stood there with my body half-cocked toward the edge of the meadow and half-cocked toward the makeshift pack I found wandering around a few weeks’ back. Vampires had gotten to them, just like they attempted to get to me. Vampires slaughtered their Alpha. Slaughtered their families. Slaughtered some of their children, even.

I guess I sort of… took them under my wing.

For lack of a better phrase.

“You sense him, don’t you?”

I peered up at one of the men in my makeshift pack. “He’s standing at the edge of the meadow, across the way. Barely coated in shadows.”

Silas grinned. “Your instincts have always been sharp. Almost like the universe knew our Alpha’s own fate and sent you to us.”

I guess my specialty in my career had always been undercover work. “What does he want?”

Silas sniffed the air. “He’s an Alpha, I smell it on him.”

“Have we encroached on their territory?”

He took the smallest step forward. “No. He’s on the hunt, so he may not bother us.”

I peered up at him. “And if he does?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Then, we’ve got your back, Alpha.”

It still shocked me to hear them say that. Any of them. “Even with who I am?”

He turned his entire body toward me as his face fell to stone. “Especially with who you are.”

I took one last look back over the meadow and drew in a deep breath. I’d grown up with the rumors, you know. I grew up in an area of the country that had its own dark tales of what happened to people who ventured too far into uncharted woods. I grew up with the warnings of how deep to go into the treasured darkness before one had to be concerned. I grew up with the whispers in the wind, speaking of things that lurked in the night that one never wanted to disturb. Things that only took place in the wildest of dreams.

Or the worst of nightmares.

“Alpha?”

I looked down at the small voice that hailed me. “Well, hey there, Miss Annabelle. You okay?”

She climbed up my body as if I were a tree, and it made me giggle as she seated herself in my arms. “Could I have another piece of deer? Mom said I had to ask first.”

I smiled as I set her down. “Of course, you can. You can have all you?—”

But, when I looked over at the carcass near the campfire that was picked clean, Annabelle sighed.

“Uh oh,” she said softly.

I knew what it was like to be hungry growing up. To open the fridge and not have any food. To rummage around in the empty bags of the pantry with cockroaches scurrying about. It was how I learned to tell whether or not roadkill was safe to cook and eat. It was how I learned how to open canned foods without a can opener. Survival was all I knew growing up. It was all I had at my disposal to work my way through life. There wasn’t an issue I came across that I couldn’t fix. There wasn’t a situation I got myself into that I couldn’t get out of. Survival was my specialty, by any means necessary.

Which was why I walked away from my job after my partner died in the field.

How could I fix something that couldn’t be fixed?

“Well,” I said as I crouched down in front of Annabelle, “what about this? You stay here and keep finding those beautiful flowers you keep putting in your hair, and I’ll go search for some food.”

Annabelle’s face lit up. “Really!?”

I smiled. “Really, really.”

“Uh, Alpha?” Silas asked.

I stood and turned to face him. “What’s up?”

Silvia, his sister, came to stand beside him. “I don’t mean to intrude, Alpha, but I couldn’t help?—”

I held my hand up. “You know that I don’t do those kinds of formal semantics. Just talk to me.”

Silvia looked up at her brother before she cleared her throat. “You’ve only got a couple more hours of good, strong daylight, Alpha. Three, max, with the dim slivers of sunset.”

“Then, it’ll be pitch dark. Especially this deep into the woods,” Silas said, nodding his head.

I grinned as a movement caught the corner of my eye across the field. That Alpha was still watching. “Still doubt my hunting skills?”

“Never!” Gregory said as his booming voice wafted over everyone’s heads.

The pack laughed as yet another movement tugged my attention back toward the dark edge of the meadow.

Back to where I knew that Alpha lurked.

“Would you like me to assemble a hunting team, Alpha?” Silvia asked.

I reached out and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, you guys just keep having fun. I operate better in the dark, anyway.”

Then, I took off across the meadow.

“Where are you going!?” Gregory called out.

I spun around and held my arms out. “Stay put! I’m coming back with food!”

I decided to take the interest to him. If whoever the fuck was watching us wanted something to watch, then I’d sure as fuck put on a show. But, not before I informed him, or her, that I knew they were there. I walked right toward those moving shadows. I heard something scurrying through the foliage. I smiled to myself as I leapt over the line of demarcation from the meadow to the woods, clinging to a tree branch before I touched back down into the woods.

And as I swung myself up onto the branch, I scurried like a bat out of hell into the trees.

I climbed all the way to the treetop before looking around. The tallest point was always the easiest vantage point for me to get to, and it sure as hell impressed the fuck out of my pack. I still wasn’t sure how in the fuck I managed to pull off the fact that I was some Alpha that stumbled across them. But, then again, sometimes even my own capabilities shocked me.

I scanned the area around us until I heard a sound. I stopped me in my tracks and as I closed my eyes, I focused my ears. Wind rushed against my body, swaying the tree I clung to as the sound shifted with the force of the wind. But, it couldn’t fool me. Nature was never that good when I was around.

I knew exactly where my next meal was coming from.

And as I shimmied out of the tree, I took off running.

Air rushed in and out of my lungs. The cheering of my pack fell to the wayside as the smell of their burning fire followed me as I wound around the massive tree trunks. I leapt over stumps and stopped to forage for berries and nuts. I stuffed my pockets full of things I knew that we could use for our next fry-up, such as naturally growing citrus fruits that I knew would keep the meat juicy if I found enough to stuff this next carcass. The pockets of my hoodie and the bag I carried around with me were bulging by the time I came across that deer. A small buck, with only five or so points on his rack.

I paused my movements and held my breath as I watched the little buck drink from a small stream.

I dipped behind a rock and eased up on my movements. I steadied my breathing as the buck continued eating, seemingly unbothered. I used the shadow of the rock to conceal my hand as I slipped it into my cloth purse. The thing was beat to high hell, but it wasn’t ripped yet, which was a testament, I suppose, to its maker. Five weeks in the woods would tear up anything, but not some dinky old Walmart cloth purse.

I wrapped my hand around my hunting knife as the buck made its fatal move.

A twig snapped in the distance. Enough that the buck turned its head and pointed the cave of its ears completely away from me. Wind slammed against my face, causing a wicked smile to break out across my cheeks. The deer couldn’t scent me. It was too busy paying attention to whatever sounds came from across the way. And as I settled my purse silently against the cold, hard ground, I found a way to ease myself out of my boots.

Before I pounced.

The poor buck didn’t even see me coming. I didn’t leap out of the shadows until my arms were already wrapped around the poor thing’s neck, and the second it tried bucking me away, I sank my knife into its side.

“Thank you, Earth, for this gift,” I whispered as I twisted the knife.

I hung on for dear life as the deer tried bucking me off.

“Thank you for the sustenance it’ll provide,” I grunted as I took a small point of its rack to the shoulder.

The deer tried tumbling with me, which was new. I never had a deer attempt to roll over on me the way a horse sometimes tried. But, it was much too late. The gaping wound my knife made right into that deer’s lungs already filled with blood.

I watched it sputter as it gasped to breath before we hit the ground.

“I promise never to waste a drop,” I whispered as I gripped my knife tighter.

There was no use watching the damned thing suffer. There was no use waiting until it drowned in its own blood. So, I slithered out from beneath the animal and plunged the knife directly into its heart. I watched its eyes as life fled from them. I always did that, with anyone I had to kill. Life deserved to be witnessed, even at the end, and if death was the only decision I had, then the least that I could do was watch.

I don’t know, even my partner thought I was weird for it.

You know, back when he was still alive.

Jesus, I miss you, Jacob.

As tears welled in my eyes, I set my sights on field dressing the deer. I still had plenty of daylight, as far as I was concerned, and we were right by a water source. I leapt to my feet and whipped around, taking in the vines dangling from the trees. I holstered my knife and slid it into my back pocket before I walked over and ripped them out of the branches.

They would be perfect tie-offs for major veins and organs.

“All right,” I said as I gave the vines a good swishing around in the running creek water the deer drank from, “let’s do this.”

With the deer on its side, I retrieved my purse, taking my knife out of my back pocket, and dismembered it. With each organ that I removed, I cleaned it out in the small creek and stuffed it full of the citrus and berries and nuts that I came across. I tied them all off, wrapping the organs into one another almost like I was wrapping meat to be baked in a fucking oven. I tied everything off with vines and cleaned out the carcass. I tied the last of the vines around the deer’s legs, making it easier to toss around my shoulders. And with a purse full of stuffed organs, I made the trek back to the meadow.

With the shadows still moving around me.

It felt nice, though, putting my skills to use in a way that benefited others. Don’t get me wrong, being part of the CIA was the only thing that had kept me afloat. After the shit that happened with my parents and how tossed around I had been during my entire childhood, the CIA training program for kids fresh out of high school was a no-brainer. They provided me with food, shelter, stability, and education, and in exchange, I provided my loyalty and unwavering trust. That was how I met Jacob, who would eventually become my partner and the only shred of family I had left in the world. Him and I trained together. Learned together. Fought together. Buried people together.

I didn’t even get a chance to bury him…

“Alpha! Alpha! Alpha! Yaaaaay!”

I got so lost in my memories that I didn’t even realize I made it back to the meadow until the pack cheered for me. Greg charged me, sliding the deer off my shoulders before Silas came and took my purse. He peeked inside before he showcased that sly little grin of his, and it pulled my own grin across my face.

“Is this like the stuffed livers your father used to make?” he asked.

My heart hurt at the mere mention of my father. God, I loved that man so much. “Sort of. It’s not stuffed with the things he used, specifically, but I think he would’ve liked this version better.”

“Ha, HA!” Greg exclaimed as he wrapped me up in a massive hug. “We feast tonight, everyone! Let’s get cooking!”

“Hooray!” the pack exclaimed.

I patted Greg on the back before he released me. “Come on, night is almost upon us. We deserve a big meal before we sleep.”

“What are we celebrating, Alpha?” Annabelle said as she ran across the meadow toward me.

I scooped her up into her arms before we all made our way back to the fire. “We’re celebrating being alive. It’s important to remember the joy that is.”

She laid her head on my shoulder. “Thank you for finding us, Alpha.”

I had to blink back tears at her words. “And thank you for finding me.”

If I wasn’t careful—if I didn’t navigate this with as much intelligence as possible—I’d be able to get used to this way of living. Which meant I’d do nothing but make them another target for another attack.

At least, until my boss stopped hunting me for sport.