CHAPTER FOUR
Hayley backed away from the window and stumbled to her bedroom. She locked the bedroom door and tunneled under the covers.
Covering her head with a pillow, Hayley squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to sleep. What else could she do? This was her bed. She had made her bed and she would have to sleep in it. Literally and figuratively.
Wolves Hollow was a shifter town. She had plonked down what was left of her hard-earned money for her house here, and she couldn't afford to sell her house in a hurry at a loss and move away. She would have to get used to scenes like this. Wolves outside her door. Her next door neighbor bringing scores of she-wolves home for an orgy.
Shifters had high sex drives and they enjoyed flaunting their sexual prowess. That she knew. She'd dated a few shifters before she got married. She had been pretty adventurous and daring when she was younger, but two failed marriages had stamped out the fire in her belly.
A female cry shattered the silence. “Yes! Oh yes, yes, YES!”
Hayley glared at the small crack in her bedroom window. She had pasted a piece of paper over the crack but it seemed glass and paper couldn't keep out the sounds of ecstasy coming from her neighbor's bedroom.
Another voice. It was a different woman this time. “Don't stop, oh don't stop...I'm coming!”
Hayley sat up in bed and threw back the covers. Was this for real? How long were they going to go on like this?
“Oh yes, oh yes, yes! Grayson! Grayson!”
Hayley couldn't help rolling her eyes.
Fine, so now she knew her next door neighbor's name.
And it was soooooo obvious what Grayson's intent was. Her next door neighbor was making those women scream for him so the whole neighborhood would know what a powerful, formidable, fearsome stud he was.
“What a prick,” Hayley mumbled. He probably had a huge one, but she bet his ego was way bigger than his dick.
Judging from the wolves gathered in silence in front of his house, she guessed that Grayson was the Alpha of these wolves. She'd heard that Alphas were cocky, arrogant and showy. They always had something to prove. To the pack, to the world.
Maybe Grayson had to prove his prowess to his wolves, but did he have to announce how awesome and skilful he was in bed to the whole neighborhood?
Apparently so. He had left his bedroom window open on purpose.
Finally, the screams and howls subsided. Hayley went to the window and looked out. She saw all the lights come on in Grayson's house. The front door opened wide and Grayson strode out.
He was barefoot, bare-bodied, clad only in a pair of track pants. The blood that she had seen on his body was gone. And all his wounds had healed completely.
Behind Grayson, three wolves slunk out from his house. The three gray female wolves padded down his front steps and meekly joined the rest of the wolves in front of his house.
Grayson raised his head and let out a long howl.
All the wolves followed their alpha's lead. The white wolves and the gray wolves all pointed their noses to the sky and howled as one.
They were one.
They were two wolf packs before. But now they was one.
And Grayson was their Alpha.
Hayley listened to the eerily beautiful sound of the wolves. She could still hear Grayson's howl through the voices of his pack. She shivered at the deep, powerful timbre of his voice, which seemed to resonate through her entire body.
Hayley gripped the windowsill to stop herself from moving to the door. Why did Grayson's howl seem to pierce right through her heart and soul, calling to her in a way that was almost impossible to resist?
He was calling to his pack, to his wolves. She wasn't part of his pack. And she wasn't one of his wolves.
She wasn't his to call. And yet…
Hayley sank into a nearby chair, but she didn't trust herself to let go of the windowsill.
She could now understand why the Sullivans had regarded her with wariness and misgiving when she first approached them. They were right to be suspicious.
This was a shifter town, and it looked like the shifters here were more wild, predatory and territorial than the shifters in other towns and cities. They behaved like animals in the wild. Wild animals fought over food, territory and females. The fittest and smartest survived. But to rule a pack of savage, predatory beasts, you had to be the most powerful, cunning and ruthless of them all.
From what she had just seen and heard, Hayley guessed that Grayson had just taken over a rival pack. By taking the three females, he was asserting his dominance and ownership over the new pack. She knew that some animals in the wild killed all the cubs sired by the male they'd defeated once they took over as alpha. They would mate with all the females and try to impregnate as many females in the pack as they could.
Was that what Grayson was doing?
Hayley shuddered and glanced at the house next door. She was living next door to a powerful, predatory alpha wolf.
She gulped and clenched her fists. She wasn't going to run. She couldn't afford to. She'd hoped to make this town her home. But...this wasn't really her town, was it?
Wolves Hollow belonged to the wolves. If she wanted to survive in Wolves Hollow, she had to keep her eyes and ears open and her doors firmly locked.