Alpha Unleashed Page 4

“Great. Where’s your go bag?”

  He frowned, taking a moment to process her words. And in that time, she rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t blank stare me. I know you have one, and I’ll bet it’s…” She snapped her fingers. “Front door closet.”

  She turned and tripped lightly down the stairs. He followed, his laptop in one hand, his phone in the other. She was ahead of him, pulling out a black duffel from his closet. She grinned at him, the look triumphant as she slung the pack over one shoulder. Then she pulled open the front door and gestured to her car.

  “Come on. Food is waiting.”

  He took a step, but stopped. “The protocol keeps everyone safe,” he said. “I am not at my best now and that is not safe.”

  She frowned and he was pleased to see that she took his words seriously. Good. It was dangerous to upset a grizzly bear, and he was only 51 percent human right then. Though his higher thought processes were coming on strong, it would take a couple hours at least before he could reliably control his primal instincts. The animal still had a strong grip on his body and it was aiming his feet toward the woods. Go back out to the woods and—

  “Oh no, you don’t. We’re getting in the car.”

  This was why he got delivery. Because once the scent and sight of the woods hit his body, the grizzly surged forward. It wanted to be back out there. It wanted—

  An arm gripped him tight and hauled him around. He was already snarling, showing his teeth at the woman before her.

  “Damn it! Get it together!” she snapped.

  He was trying. But she had interrupted his protocol. This wasn’t going to work—

  She yanked on his ears as she jerked his face down until they were nose to nose. “The car. Get in the car.”

  Her scent filled his nostrils. That nutty tang that surrounded her. He liked it and he liked the lingering echo of musk that clung to her skin. It competed with the rustle of the trees and the scent of summer pine. And since it was a human scent, his mind latched on to it, using it against the bear.

  He inhaled deeply, the choice crystallizing in his mind. A human would go with the human. A bear would go back to the woods. And right now, he was human. He stood upright, he wore clothes, and he carried human things in his hands.

  “I will be stronger with food,” he said.

  “So get in the car,” she said.

  “I need to eat as a man.”

  She snorted. “You mean grunt and shove handfuls of pizza into your mouth?”

  “With a knife and fork.”

  “On pizza?” She was walking as she spoke and tugging on his arm.

  He went because she was human. And she smelled nice. “It is the protocol.”

  “Of course, it is.” Then her tone dropped and grew somber. “I got you, Simon. You’ll be okay. And then together, we’re going to save Vic.”

  He sighed. Just because his mind was split into two pieces—human and bear—didn’t mean he’d forgotten what she wanted. Her wants had been relegated to a different part of his consciousness while he came back to being fully human. But a part of him did remember, and that was the part who answered.

  “There is no saving me. Or Vic.”

  She clicked the seatbelt around him. He hadn’t even realized he’d climbed into the car. “That’s bullshit, Simon. Pure drama queen bullshit.”

  He turned to look her in the eye, his higher consciousness stuttering to a halt in shock. Had she just called him a drama queen? No part of that computed. So he did what he always did when something incomprehensible came at him. He listed the things he did know.

  “I was a bear for ten months. You shot me five times. I shifted to human to survive and began my human protocols. You interrupted that. You risk us both by changing what you don’t understand.” He looked her in the eye. “How does that equate to being a drama queen?”

  She met his gaze levelly then shrugged. “It’s just pizza and then a quick trip to Detroit.”

  He knew the human response to that.

  “Bullshit.”

  Chapter 4

  Alyssa kept her breathing calm. She inhaled and released in slow control and then realized that she wasn’t fooling anyone. Her hands gripped the steering wheel like it was her lifeline on the Titanic. And though her breath was steady, her pace on the accelerator was anything but. She’d already roared past three trucks only to slow down to grandma speed a moment later. She was losing it and all because of the crazy man sitting much too close in her suddenly tiny car.

  She stole a glance to the right. He was watching her with the unceasing stare of a predatory cat. She knew he was a bear, but damn it, he was a predator and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was about to pounce. Or break. Or do something just plain scary while she was driving them to Detroit. But first she had to feed him.

  She’d gotten the directions off the flyer and now turned into the large parking lot of a small pizzeria. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw they had a drive-through and immediately headed for that. A moment later, a stunning redheaded woman with large white teeth grinned at her through the window. The name on the apron read Amanda and she winked at Simon. “You up to talking yet?” she asked.

  Simon stared hard at her and said one word, “No.”

  The woman chuckled and smiled at Alyssa. “He’s all grumbly for a few days, but then it’ll get better.” Then she disappeared.

  A moment later, she passed over two thick cheeseburgers and a large pizza loaded down with a half inch of meat. This was Simon’s usual order? He ought to weigh five thousand pounds. Though how would she know how many calories it took to shift into a grizzly? Maybe all shifters ate like bears before hibernation.

  Alyssa was about to pull away when Amanda held out her hand. “Hold on, sweetie. Let me bring out the case.”

  Sweetie? Case? There was too much in that sentence to unpack, so she threw the car into park and waited. A moment later, Amanda came out with a case of high-end water bottles. She didn’t even know that water could come in glass bottles that looked more like wine than water, but she didn’t stop to ask. Just pointed to her backseat.

  “Thanks,” she said when the water was settled and the car door shut.

  “I’ll just put it on the tab,” Amanda said. Then after another lascivious wink, she waved them on. “Have fun!”

  Not likely. Not since she was kidnapping a crazy grizzly man. But what other choice did she have? Vic said he was the only one who could help. But even knowing that, she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

  “So are you and…um…the redhead dating?”

  Simon shook his head. He took his time answering, forming the words slowly as if he had to dredge them up from deep in his memory.

  “We dated. Twice. I have gone on two dates with most of the women up here.” He looked at her and lifted a shoulder. “We did not suit.”

  He sounded like he was reading the words—badly—off a cue card. And then she understood.

  “It’s another system, right? A dating protocol. Two evenings with a woman makes her think you gave her a chance. If you treat her nicely and talk awkwardly, then she doesn’t push it when you say you two don’t suit. End of story and they stop bothering you.” She snorted. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or appalled.” Then she tilted her head. “You could just tell them you’re gay?” She lifted her voice at the end hoping he would answer the implied question.

  It worked—sort of. “Lying is too complicated. I don’t do it.”

  Well, that answered that. The man didn’t lie. Big point in his favor.

  Meanwhile, Simon continued to sit staring at her though the food lay on his lap in neat cardboard boxes. The smell must be driving him crazy. She could hear his stomach rumbling over the road noise. But he just sat there staring at her.

  “What?” she finally asked.

  “I cannot help Vic. I can barely help myself.”

  She looked at him. Not just the hard cut to his jaw or the muscles that wrapp
ed his frame. He was a powerful man to be sure, but it was the darkness in his eyes that cut her now. Blue like deep water but shadowed even though he sat in the full sunshine.

  Wait. Hadn’t his eyes been green? She shoved that thought aside and focused on getting him on board with Vic’s plan.

  “Vic says you can help him.”

  “Vic is full of shit.”

  Often. But she couldn’t admit that. If she did, then that meant there was no hope for her only brother. “He was right about you turning into a bear.”

  Simon’s expression didn’t change. It was flat. It was emotionless. And it still held shadows of what? Grief? Fear? She didn’t know. And worse, she couldn’t afford to find out. She only had emotional space in her heart for Vic.

  “It’s the only Hail Mary pass I’ve got,” she confessed.

  His silence told her clearer than anything else that her brother was doomed. She didn’t care. She’d been trying for hours to get a hold of Vic and he hadn’t answered. Which meant it might already be too late. But she was going to do what she promised. She was going to bring Simon to Detroit. If he couldn’t help, if they arrived too late, if any of a thousand terrible things happened, it wasn’t her fault. She was doing her part now.

  So she put the car into gear and headed for the freeway. “You should eat the food. Your stomach is deafening.” And it was. It hadn’t stopped growling since the scents of pizza and cheeseburger filled the car.

  His gaze turned to the topmost small box and opened it. Thick burger, melted cheese, tomato, mustard. The sight made her mouth water. He lifted it up in both his hands, but he didn’t eat.

  “Sometimes the food quiets the grizzly. It lets the man take control.”

  “Good.”

  “Sometimes the opposite happens.”

  It took her a moment to process that. So the grizzly would take over? While they were in a car together speeding down a freeway at eighty miles per hour?

  She shot him a terrified look. His head was tilted and a single brow arched. It challenged her to turn the car around right then and dump him at the nearest tree. Common sense told her that was the best thing to do. But common sense wasn’t trying to save her brother.

  “Eat up,” she said, her voice ringing with challenge.

  He nodded and chomped down.

  Swell.

  * * *

  A short hour later the food was finished, the gas tank was heading toward low, and he remained exactly as he had been before: a predator watching her every breath. Eventually, she had enough. She kept her eyes on the road, but watched him closely out of her peripheral vision.

  “So which are you now? Bear or man?”

  “Both. I am always both.”

  Not helpful. “I mean are you about to sprout fur?”

  He looked down at his arms. All human normal, as far as she could tell. “Not at the moment. And I must not change again for at least a week. If I do, I will probably stay a bear forever.”

  “Jesus,” she muttered. Like she needed more of an incentive to keep him human? “Can you just tell me if you’re about to kill me?”

  He straightened as if insulted. “I am not.” His tone indicated he thought the question insane.

  “Thank you,” she snapped, her anxiety coming out in a sharp tone.

  He waited a moment, then spoke in that slow monotone of his. “Why are you angry? I am answering your questions.”

  “Not really,” she groused. He was giving her literal answers to direct questions. But none of it told her what she wanted to know because she didn’t know what she didn’t know. How could she ask the right questions when she hadn’t the first clue how to start? Maybe at the beginning. “How did my brother find out you were a bear? Did he shoot you, too?”

  “I rescued him. As a bear.”

  She turned to look at him, annoyance eating at her already frayed nerves. God, she wanted to smack him. Instead she decided to bargain. “What do you need to talk to me like a normal person? To have a conversation where your answers don’t create a dozen more questions?”

  He tilted his head, the gesture slower than natural. “Communication is hard after a shift. I will get better.”

  “With practice?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “So let’s practice now. Tell me the full story of how my brother found out you were a bear.”

  He looked at her with clear irritation. Not a studied movement at all but a furrowing of his brow and a peeling back of his lips. His teeth flashed white but she pretended she didn’t see it. She just kept her hands on the wheel, her gaze steady ahead. Part of her screamed that it wasn’t smart to poke at the bear, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  “Talk. Now,” she ordered.

  “You cannot command me,” he said. “Only my alpha can.”

  “And now I have another dozen questions.” Okay. Ordering him around wasn’t working. She hadn’t really expected it to, so maybe it was time for logic mixed with a little begging. “It’s a long way to Detroit. It would help me pass the time and you need the practice. Please?”

  His gaze shifted from her face to the road. Then he nodded. “A solid argument.” He pursed his lips. “I will tell you the story of your brother’s stupidity.”

  Like that would be a rare story…not.

  “We were stationed in Alaska near Mount Denali. He wanted to go climbing, but I said no. The weather would turn. He disagreed.”

  “Really?” Her brother might be stupid but usually with people. Not with something like the weather.

  “The reports said the storm wouldn’t come until the next morning.” Simon snorted. “The reports were wrong.”

  She turned to look at him, only now processing what the man was saying. She remembered when Vic had been transferred to Alaska. She’d been thrilled. Sure, it was cold as hell, but he wasn’t likely to get shot at. But, of course, her brother would want to explore. Hell, he loved mountain climbing more than anything. And, of course, he would get in trouble. It was just how the boy’s luck ran.

  “How did you find him?”

  He grimaced. “I went with the rescue team. I knew where he meant to go, but the storm came in fast and hard. We were ordered back.” He shook his head. “Stupid. Stupid not to listen to me.”

  “That’s Vic all right.”

  He shot her the most human look she’d seen on his face: a wry almost-smile coupled with a shrug. God, how many times had she done that in response to one of her brother’s mad ideas?

  “I was very angry. I fell behind the rescuers—told them I was going back—and shifted.” He grimaced. “The grizzly was very near to the surface that day. There is something about that mountain that draws it out. I don’t know why, but it allowed me to save Vic’s life.”

  She blew out a breath. “You found him…as a bear?”

  “Yes.” His voice was the same near monotone he’d used before. But she was starting to hear fluctuations in his tones now. And his next sentences seemed to imply curiosity as much as irritation. “My bear was very sharp then. Very smart in that place. Even with the snow and the storm, I could smell Vic.”

  She felt her hands ease on the steering wheel. Her shoulders relaxed even though the danger had been months ago. Vic had survived and come back to Detroit only to be hit by whatever it was that was changing him now. “So you found him and both made it back to base.”

  “I was a bear and he was hurt from a fall.” Simon looked down at his hands where they seemed to clench his thighs. Like claws digging in? She didn’t have the time to ask because the moment she noticed them, he stretched out his fingers until he could set his palms flat on the denim. “It was too cold to shift back to human, and I had already ripped out of my clothing.”

  Right. They’d been in Alaska in a snowstorm. No way could he just shift back in torn skivvies and travel back to the base. “What did you do?”

  “I carried him as a bear.” His lips curved and she was startled to see his smile. It softened the harsh angles of his
face, but only in a small way. His mouth and cheeks eased, but not his eyes, which stared fixedly ahead. “He was terrified, but I gave him no choice.”

  She couldn’t even imagine how that had gone down. “I’m surprised he didn’t shoot you.”

  “He tried. It took a long time for me to convince him to climb onto my back, but then he did and we made it back to base.”

  “But you were a bear.”

  “There is much that can be expressed by pushing with my nose and a well-timed growl.”

  She snorted. “Wish I had been there to see it.”

  He flashed her a frown. “You would have frozen to death.”

  Literal much? “Yeah, I know. I… It’s just a figure of speech.”

  He didn’t respond at first, and when she finally glanced at him again, she was startled to see him grinning at her. Like full-blown grinning. It made his face look youthful. She did a double take and then finally figured it out. “You’re teasing me. Taking my words really literally just to see if I’ll roll with it.”

  “No, I’m not.” His grin widened.

  Holy hell, he was teasing her. She’d just gotten into the rhythm of the man’s hyper-literal speech pattern, and now he was turning the tables on her. Pretending to be more communications-challenged than he really was. Would she ever gain the upper hand with this guy?

  “Don’t be a dick,” she groused, but without much heat. She preferred dealing with someone who had a sense of humor, odd though it might be. “So you’re a bear and you convince Vic to climb onto your back. Was he able to hold on as you went back to base?”

  “His knee was hurt, not his arms. He held on tight and I was able to move fast.” He blew out a breath. “Very fast.”

  Sounded like it was surprisingly fast, even for Simon. “That’s the part about your grizzly being close to the surface, right? Being especially strong?”

  “Yes.” The word held a wealth of uncertainty. “I have never been that strong or that fast before. Or since.”

  “Since you saved my brother’s life, I can only be grateful.”

  He blew out a breath, clearly brooding on the experience. She let him do it for a while, hoping that he would talk out his thoughts. He didn’t. He was the strong silent type, which made him mysterious and attractive to her twisted libido. Why couldn’t she lust after someone who couldn’t shut up? Then she’d know exactly what drivel went about in his head.