The Alpha (The Lycans 4)

I shook my head to clear the thoughts. Being sentimental wasn’t going to help me, and in fact would muddle up my thoughts even more.

“For fuck’s sake,” I mumbled just as the sound of my cell phone chirping from inside my purse rang out. A surge of excitement slammed into me at the fact that I had service.

Home. That one word sounded funny to me. Not right. My apartment certainly wouldn’t be considered a home by any means. It was a place I rented, basically a storage unit I crammed my body and some materialistic things into.

There was nothing I had that was sentimental in my apartment, aside from the pictures I’d collected of Darragh and me over the years, and a few of the foster kids I’d grown up with who I’d become close with.

Those things were what I held dear, ones that gave me wonderful memories that were more priceless than anything else in the world.

I wasn’t a professional photographer by any means, but being able to catch the tip of the sun setting behind the massive buildings and long stretch of land, the sky painted in oranges and reds, blues and yellows, was something beautiful among all the glass and steel, pollution and overpopulation I lived with daily.

I pulled out my cell and looked at the text that had just come through.

Darragh: I miss you.

I smiled and sent a reply right away.

Me: Stop missing me and let me live vicariously through you. In fact, I’m on my own adventure too.

I was trying to pretend like things weren’t super weird after what Darragh had revealed to me. So my go-to, what I fell back on, was trying to make light of things even though it seemed totally unnatural at the moment.

A second later my phone buzzed with an incoming call, and I rolled my eyes but felt my chest bloom. Darragh knew me well enough to know I was trying to deflect things, I supposed. But she was also nosy as hell—just like me—and probably wanted all the details of my trip.

“When I said stop missing me, that didn’t mean call me to check up.” I was laughing as I made my way toward the entrance of the country store. Darragh started laughing. “Isn’t it late over there?”

There was a sound of shuffling on the other end of the line, and then her exhale. “Yeah. I’m lying in bed, trying to sleep, but it’s not working.”

“Shouldn’t you and your…?” I didn’t know what to call him. Mate? That sounded too strange to me. Boyfriend? Sounded too juvenile after all the intensity Darragh told me came with Lycans. So I just let it hang in the air and heard her laugh, but it sounded tight, like this was still so strange and new for her, too.

“Caelan left to run in the woods that surround his family’s home.”

“Run?” I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand over them. “Like… as a track star or as… a wolf?” I groaned, because I felt so stupid even thinking it, let alone saying it out loud. I trusted Darragh with my life, knew she’d never lie to me—even about something so unbelievable as this. But it was for sure going to take me a while to get used to all of this.

“Yeah, as a wolf,” she said with amusement in her voice that had me smiling as I opened my eyes. “It’s crazy. Believe me, I know.”

“Yeah” was all I could say. I pulled open the door, a blast of cool air and sweet-smelling bread slamming into my face. I wanted to ask her if she’d found any new information out about her family—the reason she’d even traveled to Scotland. But I knew if she wanted to delve into that, she’d tell me.

“But I called because I wanted to tell you that he left.”

I made a beeline right to the baked goods sections, seeing packaged cinnamon rolls, freshly baked breads, and all the sugary sweet—totally not good for me—carb-loaded items.

“Caelan?” I picked up a package. “Yeah, you told me, but I don’t need a play-by-play of your man’s whereabouts,” I teased, and she chuckled, but it was tight again, the sound weird enough I froze with a pack of gooey, thick cinnamon rolls in my hand. “What?” I already knew the answer to my own question. I glanced up and saw the minivan couple over by the deli, the woman holding a bouquet of flowers as she brought them up to her nose, the man holding her waist in a loving, possessive manner.

“I wasn’t talking about—”

“Darragh?” I pulled my focus away from the couple. Darragh started speaking again, but her voice was cutting in and out. I pulled my cell away from my ear to look at it. The call was still connected, but the reception was once again crappy. “Darragh?” I asked again when I put my phone back to my ear. “I can’t hear anything. You’re breaking up.”