Chapter 4
He'd hate to say that the first thing he noticed about Willow was her body, but god damn her body.
She went flying into him, all excitement and giddiness for who knows what, and almost gave herself a concussion. Her robe went flying open, and suddenly Carter's shitty day was starting to really look up.
Now she was gone, retreated to whatever corner girls who smell like strawberries and cream go to, and he was stunned and working.
He didn't have anywhere to rush off to.
He just needed to get away from her before he found himself pushing her up against the wall and kissing her. Carter didn't know her; he needed to remind himself of that. She smelled amazing, though, like the forest itself had plucked her from the ripest bush of berries and set her in front of him.
Her soft curves, freckled with more daylight than her current pale complexion let on, hung in his mind. How bright her green eyes got at the sight of him. Her dark brown hair, long, tumbling out of the towel that was wrapped around her head.
She was disheveled and gorgeous.
So, so, fucking pretty.
Something about her called to him, and he knew that he had to immediately shut it down.
He already betrayed his pack by allowing their current Alpha to be killed off and by allowing so many others to vanish. If they found him threatening to dilute the blood of shifters further by taking interest in a human they'd kill him. He felt ashamed even just for his attraction to her.
She was beautiful, but dangerous.
If he let himself be distracted there was no way they wouldn't want his head.
His phone buzzed, and he slid to a camera-less corner to check the text.
"The Cavern at four."
***
The Cavern was deteriorating.
Like much of the town, it had its heyday when mining was still happening in the neighboring areas. Now that the industry had left and taken so many people with it, the bar lost most of its patrons.
Carter sat outside of the aged town-staple in his car, staring at the faded sign in front of the large building.
He knew he wasn't wanted there.
It didn't matter that the text was inviting him to the pack meeting. It didn't matter that he'd been a part of the pack since before he was born. Nothing mattered except for how they'd receive him once he went in.
He wasn't looking forward to it.
The pack used to be some of his best friends, used to be family to him. He grew up with many of them. His mother had help raising him and his brother from a few of them. Loyalty ran deep and strong, and he knew that his failure to protect the Lycaon line, the Alpha line, was a deep betrayal to them.
Dying for a cigarette, he regretted quitting.
Carter reminded himself that he quit for his mother, took a deep breath of clean air, and shoved himself out of his car.
He could hear there were already a bunch of people in there, as all of the cars in the lot were familiar. A sign hung on the door with 'private party until 6 pm' scribbled across it in the shaky handwriting of a drunk.
"I want a whiskey while you're back there," he heard James say to someone who was walking around the bar as he stepped in. A good fifty people were already in the bar, another thirty or forty were expected within the next few minutes.
In the busy energy of the room, he started walking to James, hoping to go unnoticed.
Carter wasn't so lucky.
Silence fell in waves as he walked, radiating away from him as people caught sight of him. His shame filled his entire chest until he felt drunk with it. Another drink wouldn't hurt.
"Hey," he said simply to James, sliding into the seat next to him at the bar. James looked him over for a second, pausing before he clapped an arm around his shoulder and hugged his side awkwardly.
"Don't worry, we know there's nothing you could have done," James said. "Nobody's mad at you or blaming you," he added.
"Have you told them that?" Carter asked, nodding back to the quiet room.
James laughed, and drew his arm back away. "We're mourning, Carter. Let people mourn," he explained, grabbing whiskey that was slid down to him. "A beer for him, sweetheart," James added.
"Call me that again, and I'll have your hide," Miller, one of the older members of the pack, replied, sighing as he almost tossed a bottle at Carter.
Carter kept his head low and his eyes on the bar as he listened to the last few members file into the bar. A couple people had been fired since the last meeting. One woman had a baby. One of the members said that his son keeps changing and wrecking the alley and garbage behind the house, and that he's looking for a night-sitter while he's at work.
Nobody looked at Carter. Nobody talked to him.
After a few more minutes, James turned and started banging the bar's bell to get everyone's attention.
"All right, all right! Quiet down," he shouted, and the room slowly turned their attention to him. Carter felt too close to him, felt too visible. "In lieu of an Alpha here, I'll be the speaker. We'll go over a few small things, and then you can go enjoy the rest of your Monday," he started.
He was always good at taking the lead.
By the end of the meeting, people were treating Carter like a human being again and were almost acting kind to him. A few were talking about Alpha killings happening in other packs. A couple who had come from a pack on the outside mentioned that they happened more and more often.
There was a conspiracy going around that Alphas were dying off all around the world.
The end of a dynasty.
Carter wasn't sure if he bought that. The ruling Alphas were there for a reason, and there's no way their bloodline could be ended so easily.
He needed to run, though.
Carter drove back to the resort, far away from where any other shifters may be running.
The sun had set behind the mountain range, letting a deep blue shadow settle over the town and lakes. Carter kept an eye out for where the cameras were, parked his car on the side on the building, and shed his clothing.
He needed this more than he needed anything.
The change came on hungrily, wrecking his body as it reorganized his organs and bones. The occasional pop and crack of bone punctuated his breaths until it all stopped.
His lungs felt so much fuller, his mind so much more alert.
Relaxing into his nature, Carter let the spirit of his wolf carry him and drag him forward. His legs fled beneath him with an appetite, searching for as much ground to cover as possible. He needed to run, needed to find…
To find...
He wasn't sure what he was seeking out.
His body wanted it, though. His wolf was craving it, and so he let it do as it wished until it got close to the back entrance of the resort. He didn't need to cause any panic or hysteria with the humans. Even more than that, he didn't need any of his pack members knowing he was shifting this close to people.
To wash himself of whatever he was tracking, Carter forced his paws toward the lake.
He dove in, his thick fur soaking up the water as he went, his heart heavy again as his mind took over.
How much longer would he be allowed to enjoy this lake?
This town?
How much longer until he, like his mother, had to flee to another pack and hope they'd accept him. His mother's original pack had seen her having twins as a bad omen, despite one of the side lines of shifters descending from twin brothers.
They needed her to either get rid of the children or leave.
So, she left.
Now Alphas were dying left and right here.
Now his brother was dead.
It hadn't even been six months since his brother died.
His mother had been gone for ten years by then.
A fish skimmed past him, and Carter snapped at it, wanting to take it to shore for dinner. At least if he ate while shifted he could save money for when he got dumped from the resort as well.
Swimming back to the still surface, Carter gasped loudly, taking in the chilly evening air in gulps. His wolf perked up and started kicking toward the shore without much of his permission. Carter focused his eyes to see what he was smelling, and his heart beat quickly.
The girl from earlier, Willow, was starting out toward the lake from the resort.
Carter forced himself back into his human form, diving under to do it so that he wouldn't be seen. It was painfully fast, and his muscles ached as he resurfaced.
He gauged where she was and then continued to swim, pretending he hadn't seen her and he was just doing laps. She stood there for five minutes, just quietly watching, and he willed himself to ignore her, but it was hard. She was gorgeous, and he wanted to get to know her, even if he knew it wasn't for the best. Giving up, he began to swim toward her, keeping his nakedness hidden in the black water.
"Hey," he said, swimming to the shore.
"I thought I saw a bear or something out here," Willow said slowly, looking out toward the water. "Something bigger than you was swimming out here, I thought," she added.
"Just me," Carter replied shrugging as he leaned on a rock that jut out from the water a few feet from the shore. “Sorry to scare you,” he added.
"What about that busy work schedule?" she asked, he could see her eyes wandering down to where the water hid him from her vision, and part of him just wanted to burst out and take her into the water with him. She was dressed this time, but he didn't mind fixing that.
"I needed a swim to de-stress," he replied, shrugging. His wolf egged him forward, and if it weren't for his recent shifting he wouldn't have said it, but words started to come out quickly. "I do have time tomorrow, if you're still interested," he couldn't bite down the words before they all escaped.
"Oh?" She sounded happy, she looked happy, and suddenly, Carter couldn't take his eyes off of her.
"Yeah, if you want, I'll pick you up around six," he added.
"It's a date."