Curves for the Alpha Wolf Read online

  Curves for the Alpha Wolf

  Caroline Knox

  When Justin appeared outside of my cage at the pound, I let out a dismayed whimper. Of all the werewolves in the pack to witness my shame, why did it have to be him? Why Justin, the sexy alpha I’d had a crush on forever?

  “Yes, she’s mine,” he told the interested female employee, who trailed her fingers over Justin’s large hand as she handed a thin nylon leash to him. I growled at her. Justin’s eyes laughed at me but he kept a straight face. “Good Chrissy. Good doggie. I know it’s been traumatic for you, but I’ll take you home and everything will be okay.”

  For a moment I was tempted to believe that everything would be okay. I wagged my tail at the thought of going home with Justin. If anyone could make my life okay again it was Justin. But then I remembered. I’d turned into a dog. Not a wolf.

  Not even a predator of a dog. I looked down at the black fur covering my plump figure, the gentle swell of the little belly, the long pointed tail. I shook my head to clear it. Floppy ears flapped. Adorable. Domestic. Embarrassing as hell. I was a Labrador Retriever.

  Nobody had warned me this could happen to me.

  Of course, the pack members who might have warned me had collectively turned their backs on me the night that skinny bitch Meredith brutalized my pet. Hunting in her werewolf form, she’d caught my dog Digger. She’d proceeded to play with her like a cat with a mouse. She broke all four of Digger’s legs, blinded her in one eye, sliced deep enough into her abdomen that viscera bulged out, and ripped open her throat. It was a miracle my dog lived.

  I guess people were surprised by my response when I caught Meredith still at her play. I tried to kill her. I didn’t succeed at killing Meredith—werewolves are much tougher than teenage girls—but I managed to inflict a permanent scar. One little scar at the corner of her vicious mouth.

  That, however, was one scar too many. Pack rules were absolute: any human who injured a werewolf on pack land had to leave. No further contact with werewolves was permitted. Pack law allowed no exceptions.

  At the time of the incident l unfortunately still qualified as human. Since I hadn’t changed into a werewolf yet, even at the relatively mature age of seventeen, it seemed likely I never would. Most people managed the trick during puberty or just post-puberty.

  Being thrown out of the only home I’d ever known had hurt. I hated leaving the house where my parents had raised me before the car accident claimed them. I hated saying goodbye to both my heritage and my friends.

  I hated leaving Justin.

  But I hadn’t had a choice. I took Digger and found a cheap apartment down in the city, a tiny place of my own where I could nurse the poor dog back to health. She still had trouble walking.

  As if I didn’t have enough problems, this afternoon while walking to work I turned into a dog. My memories are hazy after that, but I remember sniffing at bushes and peeing on someone’s lawn. Animal control picked me up.

  I walked around my cage, exploring. I glanced at Justin. He was suddenly looking at me like I’d grown another head. I realized I’d forgotten about him for a minute. Had I been barking at the beagle in the cage next door? Barking? Oh, crap. I sat down abruptly with a distressed whine. I was losing my identity, my memories of being a human. That was bad.

  Justin’s eyes tracked every small movement of mine. His mouth hardened and his brows came together in a slight frown. “Chrissy, I’ve got to get you out of here now.” He looked at the female attendant and for the first time I felt his alpha power surging. “Unlock the cage,” he commanded her in a seductive growly tone.

  His eyes watched her with a predator’s gleam. I knew Justin targeted her to make her submissive and compliant for his own purposes. It was an alpha’s right. His voice did delightful things to my nerve endings, but of course I wasn’t the voice’s target. The very thin and pretty woman was. She looked stunned and delighted by Justin’s attention.

  It shouldn’t have made me so jealous.

  I watched Justin’s alpha magic work on her and ate my doggie heart out.

  The woman leapt to do his bidding, her gaze going dreamy. She contrived to brush her hips against Justin’s leg as she bent over to unlock my cage.

  A fury of possessiveness filled me as my rival opened the cage door. The feral emotion fired through me. I snarled at her. My hackles pointed toward the roof like porcupine quills.

  When I tried to bite her she fell back. She glanced at Justin in consternation. “Are you sure she’s safe? I can go get a muzzle.”

  The scent of the woman’s fear drove me into a frenzy of barking.

  “That won’t be necessary.” Justin pushed past her to open the unlocked cage, entered it, and patted me on the head before clipping the leash to the cheap collar I’d been fitted with upon arrival. He smelled confident and good. At his dominant touch, his power surged over me. I relaxed as alpha messages of peace and submission trailed through me.

  My human memories continued to fade away.

  Justin swore softly, then walked me too quickly to his large pickup truck, dragging me when I wanted to investigate the fascinating scents near the parking lot. He opened the door, tossed me into the back seat of the extended cab, and climbed in after me before pulling the door shut behind him. “Change,” he commanded. “Now.”

  I could hear the urgency in his voice but I didn’t understand it. I wagged my tail uncertainly. I only wanted the alpha to accept me and to not hurt me. I licked his nose.

  He responded by grabbing me and shaking me. “Chrissy! Remember who you are. You’re a shifter. Shift back.” He narrowed his eyes and stared hard into mine. I stared back, utterly fascinated by him. That’s when he sent his alpha power crashing over me more strongly than ever, scouring my brain and my body with the force of it. “Change, Chrissy. I want you back in your human form.” I yelped as my nerve endings twitched and my pelt rippled. Then, nothing. I squirmed, puppyish.

  “Please, Chrissy. I want you… I need you to come back to me.” This time Justin’s magnetism wouldn’t be denied. Fire shot through my bones and the deep ache of change began. When my pelt rippled, it kept rippling over my shifting muscles and bone. The ache quickly vanished. Fur disappeared, leaving my human form bare and smooth almost everywhere.

  I gasped, staring up at Justin’s fierce golden eyes inches from my own. His feral gaze made him look ready to change, himself. Had Justin actually said he needed me?

  I realized I was lying in the backseat of Justin’s truck and he still held me pinned down. The woodsy, musky scent of him filled my nostrils. My human form appreciated the smell of him almost as much as it did his large, very masculine body poised so close to my own. Our legs were tangled together. Mine were bare.

  Wait a minute. I was naked. Completely naked in Justin’s truck. Justin’s strong, masculine body held me pressed to the seat.

  It was exactly where I’d fantasized about being for years.

  I made a small shocked sound.

  Justin’s mouth curved into a relieved smile. “Welcome back.” He glanced down my nude body. I felt a certain large part of him respond with an instant hardening that I could feel through the jeans he wore. A muscle quivered in his jaw. His eyes flared even more yellow and wolf-like. “You’re so beautiful.”

  I folded my arms over my breasts in an effort to hide my naked body. “You don’t have to say that.” I knew I wasn’t beautiful. A prickly ball of hurt formed in my throat. My curvy body wasn’t anyone’s idea of beautiful, especially someone as handsome and charismatic as Justin. A man who could have any woman in the world.

  He growled low in his throat and moved against me, a clever shifting that pressed his thick bulge directly against th
e juncture of my thighs. The sudden shock of sensation distracted me so much that when he leaned in to kiss me, I just went with it. Justin pressed his warm lips against mine and an arc of pure lustful electricity seemed to connect us. His chest pressed my arms firmly to my own chest, making me helplessly immobile while his mouth had its way with mine. The kiss was beyond perfect. Powerful shivers wracked my body as the heat from his lips radiated into mine. When he parted his lips and his tongue glided into my mouth in a delightful invasion, a fire ignited at my core.

  I couldn’t help moaning and moving my body against his. I raised my legs, locking them around his thighs to keep Justin close.

  He groaned, a vibration I felt as much as heard.

  He finally broke away and looked down at me. At my body. He took several deep breaths. “We should stop. This isn’t... we shouldn’t. Here.” He unbuttoned his flannel shirt and tossed it over my hands still covering my breasts. “Take this.”

  My cheeks burned with humiliation. “Thanks.” At the painful reminder of how undesirable I actually was, I remembered why I’d forced myself to abandon the useless dreams of Justin coming after me, telling me the pack master had had a change of heart and would make an exception for me. I used to have such silly fantasies about Justin tracking me down after I’d been evicted from pack land, sweeping me off my feet and claiming me. In my dreams he brought me home with him.

  Justin spoke as if he’d read my mind. “I’ve got to bring you home with me.”

  I blinked. “Whoa.” Things were clearly moving too fast for my comprehension. I said the first thing that popped into my head. “But I’m not allowed on pack land anymore.” I put on his shirt. It was not long enough to sufficiently cover my curvy thighs. I tugged it as low as it would go. My fingers toyed with the edge of it nervously. Wearing Justin’s shirt made me feel like he’d marked me somehow. I liked the idea of being marked by him.

  He’d already climbed into the driver’s seat. I scrambled into the front as well. He threw his truck into gear and peeled out of the parking lot. “You’d have been invited back a year ago if I’d had my way. It came down to a stubborn pack master who left it up to Meredith. Meredith blocked my request for a reprieve. You know how she is. She’s not favorably disposed toward you.” He delivered the understatement with a wry tone. “I tried convincing her to forgive you, to appeal to her better side. To make her take some damn responsibility. No dice. She had pack law on her side. Meredith sees you as a threat.”

  I frowned at the thought of Justin trying to sway Meredith. Had he used his alpha power on her? Or something more intimate? He’d dated her at one point—every guy in the pack dated Meredith sooner or later—so he must have. Even so, I figured he never got to know Meredith very well if he thought she considered me any sort of threat. I mean, look at me next to her. She was slender, blonde, glamorous. She was a gorgeous woman and a thoroughly vicious werewolf.

  I was a pound puppy.

  The overwhelming urge to just go back to my safe little apartment, where cruel werewolves never hurt or disappointed me, crashed over me. I needed to check on Digger anyway, take her for a long walk, feed her. I craved my normal routine. “Just take me home,” I said around a lump in my throat. “My home, I mean. I’ll handle it from now on. But, um, thanks for your help.”

  I watched his lips thin into an uncompromising line. His broad shoulders moved enticingly under the form-fitting tee. “Handle it, like you handled your first change?”

  I was about to answer when he shifted gears. His truck leapt forward and onto the narrow road that snaked through a forest of increasingly larger pine trees. I reached for the grab bar to stay centered in my seat. He drove fast and confident up the sparsely populated mountain that hosted the local pack that had evicted me the year before. Justin visibly fought to keep his temper. “You don’t have any idea what’s going on. You don’t know the danger you’re in.”

  I could hear his sincerity. I stared at his handsome profile, so fierce-looking and determined. “Danger? What do you mean?”

  He growled, a rumble slightly deeper than the engine noise. “Didn’t anyone teach you anything about shifting? How could you be left in such ignorance? I can’t believe you know so little.” He glanced briefly at me. His eyes glinted yellow. The color of passion, probably anger.

  My own lip lifted in response for a brief moment in a silent snarl. I’d forgotten what it was like to be around fiery werewolf temperaments.

  He drove without speaking for a while.

  His straightforward ire had snapped me awake like it was a splash of clear, icy mountain spring water. In the last year I’d lived around and worked with people. Noisy humans with their blunted communication styles that didn’t use nearly enough body language. I never got used to that, or how they judge girls like me who aren’t skinny and spend hours working out. Human girls my size had it hard. I’d been homesick for pack land to begin with but the extra pain from all the insults I got had reduced me to a near-recluse—a person who goes from work to home and back again, month after month, nothing much to live for.

  While nursing Digger back to health, I often longed for my old life, but now I realized what I’d really been missing. I’d not only ached for the forest, and my former friends, and of course I’d missed seeing Justin around so I could hopelessly pine for him. I could now see how emotionally muted my life had been since being evicted from pack land.

  Justin’s presence—his mannerisms, his bluntness, his scent—felt like home to me.

  Too bad it was temporary. And Justin dared lecture me on not knowing enough about shifting?

  My own temper finally flared. “If I’m a little under-educated about the subject of shifting, whose fault is that? I was thrown off the mountain after being shunned by all you full weres for years as a non-changing human. Everyone who mattered to me—every single member of the pack—treated me like I was invisible when I didn’t shift. Even you. Then I got ignored even more after I gained weight.”

  “I’ve always noticed you. I’ve always thought you’re gorgeous.” The flat statements of fact shocked me and started a buzzing warmth in the vicinity of my heart. I growled my objection to how vulnerable Justin was making me feel and was about to object in more blunt terms when he continued: “You could have visited me back then. I’d have taught you everything I know.”

  His seductive insinuation shot a bolt of lust all through me. I clenched my thighs, feeling the helpless heat and wanting Justin had always inspired.

  I had to nip that in the bud. I made a rude sound. “Me, visit you? Sure. You’d have been thrilled with a human woman like me showing up on your doorstep, elbowing all your regular bitches out of the way to ask you for private lessons.”

  “Indeed.” He gave me a wicked little smile that made my heart perform acrobatics. “It’s an appealing thought.”

  Shaken by his flirtation, I responded with sarcasm. “I guess you missed the part where I’m a big, curvy woman and not a petite blond werewolf? Like Meredith? Are you still dating her, by the way?” I cursed myself. Why had I let that slip out?

  He shifted gears more violently than necessary. “You have some misconceptions about what I find attractive. I want you. And,” he smiled knowingly, “you want me. I can smell your arousal, Chrissy. Which is a relief, since we have to mate.”

  “Huh?” He’d managed to stun me. Mate with Justin? He’d had me pinned beneath him and squirming with desire thirty minutes earlier. Then he’d stopped. Talk about mixed messages. “I’m… confused.”

  “Pack land,” he responded, as if that explained anything. He glanced at me. “I have to take you home. My home, where I can protect you. Where it’s okay if you howl and scream when we mate.”

  I wanted nothing else, with him looking at me as if he was already imagining me howling and screaming. It disconcerted me that he could smell how much I wanted him, but I could hardly deny it. He’d had a hold on me ever since my awkward adolescence while everyone except me shifted fo
r the first time to run with the pack and bring down prey. The ceremonial first kill, to be laid at the feet of one’s chosen mate.

  I’d have totally given Justin my first kill.

  Gorgeous, confident alphas like Justin didn’t go for girls like me. Yet he still held my heart in his oh-so-capable, out-of-reach hands. It wasn’t healthy how much I still wanted him. I took some fast deep breaths, then spoke firmly. “Justin. I’m sorry you believe, for some reason, that I’m going to leap at the chance to have sex with you. I don’t need your protection. I certainly don’t need a pity lay. Take me home immediately. It’s getting dark and I want to go home.”

  “That’s inadvisable.” He didn’t look at me.

  “You’re kidnapping me. Explain yourself.” My voice was as low and menacing as I could make it.

  He spoke formally. “As your alpha, I don’t have to explain myself.” He glanced over to me, then quickly added, “But this is a special circumstance. Okay. Your proximity to a dog rather than wolves influenced your first shift. Your virginity, your late change, and your isolation from other weres left you vulnerable. Vulnerable to the influence of your pet. Hence, you changed into a dog similar to your Digger.”

  I mulled it over. From the little I knew of the rules of shifting, it might be true, and it made some sense.

  I was impressed that Justin remembered my dog’s name. My cheeks flamed at the virginity comment. How the hell had he known? Was that one of an alpha’s special powers? Did I smell innocent or something?

  He answered me as if he knew my thoughts. He still spoke without looking at me. As if he were ashamed? “Only sexually uninitiated shifters—virgins—find themselves vulnerable to that particular danger. It shouldn’t have happened. I mean, if I’d known you were a virgin…”

  “You’d have initiated me? How kind of you.”

  His eyes flashed to yellow, the rising moon shining in them. “But I didn’t know. Or rather, I knew something that wasn’t true. I’m trying to apologize, damn it!” His voice came out inordinately loud in the cab of the truck.