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  Alpha

  Rachel Valentine Series: Book Two

  By

  Samantha Allard

  This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Alpha

  Copyright © 2018 by Samantha Allard

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are

  either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Artist: Rue Volley

  Edited by EAL Editing Services

  Published by CHBB Publishing LLC.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

  any means without written permission of the author.

  Chapter One

  A month ago, I’d been Rachel Valentine, the black sheep of my family filling the role left by my brother. The one who always got into trouble. Now I wasn’t sure who the hell I was. Only one thing was certain. I wasn’t human. At least not completely. My brother, Michael, stood next to me. With his hands in his pockets and the worried expression on his face, it was like old times when we used to get into trouble and had to face the consequences. He was supposed to be dead. At least that was what they told me when he ran away. The ‘they’ being my parents. I never believed them and for once I’d been right. The thought made me smile.

  I remembered when I called my parents when I first saw him on the news. A face in the crowd, but one I instantly recognized. They hadn’t believed me, but the fact he now stood next to me, couldn’t be explained away. The reason why they’d never found him was because he’d gotten himself involved with an Alpha called Jonas. A man who wanted to take over London and who was turning runaways into wolves. It would be hard to believe if I hadn’t seen it for myself. The last month had been, for the lack of a better word, complicated and I’d barely survived it. My brother now howled at the moon and sprouted fur. Before I travelled to London I thought things like him only existed in books or films. I was also a part of it or I could be if I wanted. As a genetic wolf or a pureblood, all it would take was a bite to trigger the change in me. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a part of it. That world was scary. It was filled with rules I didn’t understand.

  It also meant something else. Something I hadn’t given myself time to think about. One of my parents was also a wolf. That was how being a genetic wolf worked. If I had to put money on it, it would be Dad, but it really could be either of them.

  “You’re scared.” Michael spoke up from his place at my side.

  “Did you pick that up using your wolf abilities?” I waved my fingers in the air as if I was casting a spell.

  “No, but you have been staring at the door for a while now.” He chuckled. “Not everything has a supernatural answer to it.”

  I couldn’t help the slightly panicked laugh that escaped me. “I ran away from a nunnery to find you. Life hasn’t really been the same since you left. I haven’t been the same.”

  “I figured out that part myself. The Rachel I remember was more at home with books than attacking a wolf with a steel pipe.” He stepped out behind me and took my hand in his. Some of his strength seemed to seep into me. “When did you become such a badass?”

  “A lot has changed over the last couple of years. I also learnt a lot from Dad.” Not that he wanted me learning from him. Dad had wanted me to be a good student, but he’d also wanted me to be able to look after myself. The skills he taught me were what probably kept me alive in London.

  My brother squeezed my hand. “Good point. We can’t stay out here forever. It’s time to face the music.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  Michael knocked on the door. The sound impossibly loud. “I’m terrified. It doesn’t matter who I am or what I can do. I ran away from home. It isn’t going to be easy to forgive.”

  I swallowed as my heart raced in my chest. The urge to turn around and leave nearly overwhelmed me. I didn’t think Michael would let me though. “We could just run again,” I suggested, half-heartedly before the door opened.

  My mother gasped as soon as she laid eyes on me. Her dark brown hair was tied up in a messy bun. There were dark circles under her eyes and I felt a pang of guilt knowing I’d been the one who put them there. “Rachel, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.” She stepped forward and pulled me into a hug so tight that it wasn’t easy to breathe.

  The sudden closeness made me feel uncomfortable. Michael hadn’t let go of my hand and I refused to let go of his. A part of me was scared that if I did, he’d vanish. She glanced across when she probably realised that I wasn’t alone. I watched as her eyes went wide.

  “Michael?”

  His grip on my hand became painful, but I ignored it.

  Don’t run. I had no idea if the words got through the bond we shared as siblings and genetic wolves. I’d seen him fight an evil man who wanted to start a war, but this was the first time I’d seen him scared.

  “Hey Mum. It’s been awhile.”

  Our mum glanced between us and finally locked eyes with her son. “Shut up.” She pulled both of us into a hug.

  I didn’t know the precise moment I started to cry. It had been such a long time since I felt any closeness to my parents. There had been such a distance between us.

  “I’m so glad that you’re home. Both of you.” She stepped back and her eyes, a startling shade of blue that matched me and Michael, were wet with tears.

  “Does that mean that I’m not going to get punished?” I asked hopeful.

  My mum laughed. “We’ll talk about that later.” She smiled. “I’ll have to call your dad.”

  “I guess he isn’t happy with me.” I might have found the brother everyone thought was dead, but I’d travelled from Scotland all the way to London. “But nothing new there.”

  She sighed. “Life has never been boring with you and I have to admit that I’m thankful you decided not to listen to us this time.” She led us into the living room. “I’m glad you’re safe. Michael sit down, and I’ll make some coffee.” I watched as she reached out and gently touched the curve of his cheek with disbelief in her eyes. She smiled again before she rushed out.

  It hadn’t escaped my notice that Michael hadn’t said anything and when Mum left I noticed that he was frowning. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s her.”

  I looked at the door she left through. “What do you mean, it’s her? Of course, it’s her. Who else would she be?” He hadn’t looked away from the door. “Michael?”

  “We got the wolf gene from her. Our mum is the shifter.”

  I couldn’t get my head around the idea. My mum was a shifter? And not just any shifter she was an Alpha? The only two Alphas I’d met had been Arturo and Jonas. Jonas had been crazy, and I hadn’t really sat down for a conversation with the other one. He’d seemed okay. Powerful but nowhere near as crazy as Jonas who’d wanted to start a war and was willing to sacrifice any who stood in his way. Michael and Henry both had the potential, but they wouldn’t become full-blown Alphas till they had packs of their own.

  I glanced back at the door. Joanna Valentine, my mother, couldn’t be described that way. I’d always thought of her as meek. She might have been different before my brother had disappeared, but I didn’t remember that anymore. It had been a long time ago.

  “Are you sure?”

  Michael nodded
. “My wolf can sense hers.”

  “Does that mean she can sense yours?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone who’s denied that part of themselves for such a long time. I mean, I don’t remember Mum keeping anything from us when we were kids. Do you?”

  “You mean something this big? Of course, I don’t.”

  Mum walked back into the room with a tray in her arms. We sat in silence as she put the tray down and I kept looking between her and my brother. A shifter. She had the ability to turn into a wolf? How the hell could we bring that up in conversation? It wasn’t like it rolled off the tongue.

  “I called your father, he’s going to go to the police station and explain that you’ve returned.”

  I could feel the blood drain out of my face. “You called the police?”

  “Of course, we did. The nuns called us the day you vanished and because of your age we put in a report immediately. We even did an appeal for information on the news. Didn’t you see it?”

  I shook my head. “I was looking for Michael. There wasn’t really any time for TV.” Speaking of my brother, he hadn’t taken his eyes off Mum.

  She carried on. She hadn’t noticed that she was being watched so intently or she was ignoring it. “I can’t believe you found him. London is a big place.”

  “I had some help.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me where I’ve been?” The unexpected words from my brother, the first ones he’d really spoken.

  Mum picked up her cup and sat down in a chair that was primarily used by our dad. “I thought you’d tell me when you were ready. It’s good to see that you’re okay. You don’t know how many times that I’ve thought of you over the years, wondered where you were or if you were still alive.”

  “Why didn’t you search for me?” Michael picked up his cup and leaned back in his chair. He looked a world apart from the boy everyone seemed to remember. The last time he’d been in this room he’d been arguing with our parents. He’d become distant. At the time, they’d thought it had been drugs. Neither of them had known he’d been turned and brainwashed by a psychopath. Now Michael looked confident and in control. He’d been a wolf for years and while he’d only been free of Jonas’s influences for a short time, he was more himself, the brother I remembered from when I was younger, than he’d ever been.

  That got my attention. I felt like a stranger in my own house. It wasn’t her fault that it didn’t feel like home. I just didn’t feel like me.

  She took a deep breath. “Your dad thought that you’d died. He’d gone to all his old contacts and none of them could find you. It was like you’d vanished off the face of the earth. I didn’t want to believe it.” She smiled. “Like Rachel said when she’d called. They never found a body. When she called to say that she’d seen you on the news, that was the best thing I’d heard all day. A real physical hope, but without solid proof your dad wasn’t going to rush off to look for you. It’s been years and if you were alive he thought you’d come back on your own. Neither of us thought that Rachel would escape a nunnery, on an island none the less, to go looking for you.”

  “But I did.”

  “Yes, you did and that was the most reckless and dangerous thing you’ve done to date,” she sighed, “and I couldn’t be prouder that you did it.”

  “You are?”

  She nodded but before she could say anything else, Michael opened his mouth. “We got the werewolf gene from you, didn’t we?”

  My mouth dropped open. Did he seriously just blurt that out? No easing into it? What if he was wrong? We could end up in an asylum hooked up to electrodes. My mum’s eyes widened slightly before she put the cup down. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

  Everything was finally out in the open, but all it did was raise more questions. Like why did she leave the pack? How did she end up with Dad, a human and why hadn’t she told us? The silence in the air was so thick that you could have heard a pin drop a mile away. “Why did you never tell us?”

  A bitter laugh came from her. “How was I supposed to do that? It wasn’t something I could just say. I left that part of me behind when I fell in love with your dad. It wasn’t something that was even remotely believable.” She closed her eyes. “The packs either stay in cities or in small remote villages. I haven’t met anyone else like me for a long time and after the months became years, I didn’t think I would ever have to tell you. That both of you could remain blissfully unaware for the rest of your lives.”

  “You shouldn’t have made that decision for us.”

  Her eyes flung open and she stared my brother down. I could feel the flare of power there like the wolf inside of her was trying to wake up. “I’m your mother and I was the only one who could make that decision. A decision to keep both of you safe.” She took a deep breath. “You might not agree with me, but until you’re in the same position I was back then you can’t question it.”

  Power whipped around the room, but as she let her breath go it faded.

  “But I’m a wolf now. If you’d told me, prepared me, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up where I’ve been.” Michael hadn’t told me what happened to him before he met Henry and Arturo, but by the way he’d said it, it didn’t sound like it had been pleasant.

  She got up from her seat and sat down next to him resting her hand on his. “I’m sorry sweetheart.”

  His angry seemed to leave him and even if he was much bigger than her, he briefly rested his head on her shoulder. The pain in my chest eased.

  “What happens now?”

  “I guess you both have a lot of questions. You dad could be back at any moment, so this probably isn’t the best time for answers.” She looked at me and I saw that power there again. “You haven’t been turned?”

  I shook my head. “But you know you can’t stop me if I decide to go through with it.”

  Her lips twisted into a small smile. “I know that all of this must be very exciting for you, but it isn’t always like this. Being a wolf means keeping it a secret from the ones you love. You go down that path and fall in love with a human? You can never tell him the truth. There are rules in place to keep us safe.

  “I’m only sixteen.” How could she be talking about love and the future? I hadn’t even made the choice yet, but I knew that it was there, lingering in the back of my mind. There was a part of me, a possibility that hadn’t even known existed a week ago, I couldn’t deny that it was there or what it meant for me, but I also couldn’t ignore it.

  “Exactly and this isn’t a decision that you should rush into.”

  “Mum I’m in no rush to run straight into it.” I sighed. “I just wanted you to know that when I make my choice that you’ll stand by me. It isn’t like I’m alone. I’ve got the two of you. I’ve got Henry.” I could feel my cheeks go red. I didn’t really have Henry. A couple of kisses didn’t make a relationship. He’d offered to come with us, but Michael had said that it wouldn’t be a good idea. This was something we had to figure out as a family. He’d reluctantly agreed and gave me his number which was burning a hole in my pocket. Whatever happened next, he’d wanted me to know that I wasn’t alone, and I could always call him if I needed to talk.

  Mum looked between us. “Who’s Henry?”

  We spent the next hour filling her in on what had happened. I kept glancing through the door half expecting Dad to rush in and start yelling. He never usually yelled, but he had quiet rage down to a fine art. What would he say when he realised that Michael was back, that I was right? How were we supposed to make everything normal when we weren’t? That we had a secret?

  Nerves tied my stomach up in knots. There was a cold sensation on my hand and I glanced down. Michael held my hand. A calmness flooded through me like running into the sea, but a little less shocking.

  “Are you going to stay here?”

  He looked at Mum and shook his head. “I can’t. I said that I’d report to Arturo and he’ll give me a place in his pack.”

  Mum’s smi
le faltered slightly, but she nodded. “I understand. It’s good to know that you’re okay. You always have a place here.”

  “You can’t make promises like that. What if Dad doesn’t want me to come back?” That was the big question. One to add to the ever-growing list.

  Another emotion hit me and this time it didn’t come from my brother. How had I never noticed my mum being different? That I was different? Why was I picking up on these things now?

  “Your father is going to have to understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  I hadn’t even heard him enter and neither had the wolves in the room. My dad stood in the doorway. There were bags under his eyes and his skin was pale. I’d always imagined him as invincible, but the man in front of me wasn’t. He rushed across the room and dropped down in front of me barely sparing my brother a glance. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? What were you thinking? Were you even thinking?”

  There was a lump in my throat and glanced down in my hands. Damn it I wasn’t going to cry, but I knew that if I locked eyes with him that there would be no stopping the tears. “You didn’t listen to me. I told you that Michael was alive that I’d seen him, but you didn’t believe me. I knew that the only person who’d be able to find him was me. And I did.”

  Chapter Two

  I still didn’t look up, but tension filled the room as Dad turned his attention to Michael. He stood up and Michael followed suit. “What are you doing here?”

  “Joseph!” Mum got to her feet. “Whatever you’re about to say I suggest not saying it. It’s been six years and our son is finally home. I won’t have any fighting.”

  I glanced up and looked at her. For the longest time, I knew her as being meek and siding with Dad on everything. That was why it was so hard to believe that she wasn’t human. That she was an alpha. How much of herself had she buried when she fell in love with Dad?