Alpha Wolf (Full Moon Protectors Book 1) Read online

  On instinct, I raised my head to look for my friend but he remained back in the shade of the trees, only the light of the moon illuminating his ebony fur. Even from where I stood, I could tell that these proceedings were boring him despite Nia’s tantrum. As always, Cronin was lost in his own world, somewhere far apart from the rest of us somehow.

  “You’re dismissed,” Fernando said quietly, his eyes still boring into me as I moved my stare back toward him. I thought about waiting to meet up with Cronin but gauging by the look in Fern’s eyes, I knew it would be better if I caught up with the bear later. I got the sense that if I didn’t get out of there right then, Fernando was going to have a lot more to say to me. I didn’t need to be told a second time to leave and I bounded into the woods after Marcel and Dalton, who were only a few feet ahead of me.

  “That was intense,” Marcel commented when we were well out of Council view and we paused to catch our collective breaths. I could grin now, knowing that it hadn’t been as bad as it could have been. There was nothing to stop the Council from replacing us all if they lost faith in us but I liked to think they wouldn’t dare, not with all the effort we’d put in to get where we were.

  “They’re all bark, no bite,” Dalton muttered but there was no conviction in his words. It would be unwise to underestimate the Council, after all.

  “They’re old, is what they are,” Marcel countered. “When are they going to get with the times and realize that the humans aren’t our enemy anymore?”

  I said nothing as we walked back to our respective vehicles, parked far within the isolated wilderness of Willamette National Forest. On one hand, I understood where the Council was coming from. They were old-school, reminiscent of a time when the humans were out for blood. Hell, most of the Council didn’t even own cell phones. But they had elected us Protectors for a reason. We needed to ensure that our worlds didn’t descend into chaos and part of that was ensuring that our mortal counterparts were secure too, whether or not the elders liked it. We just needed to find a way to gently sway them into the new millennium. At this rate, however, it felt like it might take another thousand years to do that.

  “So what are we going to do now?” Dalton sighed, falling back against a sturdy pine to stare at us. Mars and I eyed him.

  “About what?” Mars demanded.

  “About the humans and the Council and what they said,” Dalton grumbled.

  “You know what we’re going to do,” I replied flatly. “The same thing we’ve always done—protect.”

  “Even the humans?” Dalton asked dubiously. “You heard what they said, guys, and I don’t think they’re screwing around anymore. Nia was foaming at the mouth. If Jack hadn’t been there…”

  “Jack’s always there,” I interjected. “And she knows that. She was putting on a production for us.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think you heard the seriousness of what I heard,” Dalton insisted.

  Marcel’s mouth curved into a slow smile and he gave me a sly look that I understood well.

  “Yep, we heard it too, Dalt. We just need to be sure that we don’t get caught next time.”

  I nodded in agreement but I looked away as I thought about Cronin and his inability to control himself. I shoved aside my doubts. I would just need to remind Cronin to keep a lower profile going forward but even then, I suspected it would be easier said than done.

  1

  Addisyn

  I heard the crash almost before it happened, my sixth sense warning me that things were about to get messy from the moment I walked in the door. My immediate reaction wasn’t alarm or concern. Instead, I asked myself why I didn’t stay out longer, remain at work later, go for a further run that evening. The answer was always the same.

  What for? All you’d be doing is prolonging the inevitable disaster when you got home and now it seems the disaster has surfaced.

  For a long moment, I waited in my room, a glimmer of hope shivering through me when I heard nothing following afterward. I strained my ears but still, there was nothing to be heard beyond the closed door of my bedroom suite.

  It could only mean one of two things: either she hadn’t hurt herself… or she was dead.

  Shame shot through me at the latter thought, my mouth pursed into a line of discontent, and on cue, like a baby who had just realized he was away from his mother, my own mother began to wail.

  Once upon a time, the sounds had been gut-wrenching, chilling me to my core as I desperately sought to end Odessa’s endless pain. For years I had fought at her side, my amber-green eyes bloodshot and raw as I cried her tears as if I were the one suffering her agony. How many nights had I cradled her broken body on the floor, rocking her, my heart broken over and over? Too many to count, that’s how many.

  But those days were long over. Now, I only felt frustration, anger, and mounting disappointment.

  “ADDY!” Odessa screamed. Gritting my teeth, I rose from where I’d been working on my laptop over my duvet and padded through the living room. For a second, I considered ignoring her, my dark side overshadowing my sense of responsibility for a fleeting moment.

  “ADDISYN!”

  But of course I couldn’t do that. Even if I tried, she would come looking for me—I assumed. I’d never left her to fend for herself.

  “I’m coming, Mom,” I muttered, sure she couldn’t hear me. I didn’t pick up my pace, knowing that I was about to wander into a disaster wherever I found her. My life was like a bad, not-as-amusing version of “Groundhog Day”. A few miniscule details changed but in the end, I knew what was going to happen.

  As I’d predicted, chaos awaited me in the kitchen. The blender was smashed into a thousand pieces on the pristine white tile, a thick, green goop covering the walls and countertops as far as my eyes could see. The mosaic backsplash was going to take hours to clean, I just knew it.

  “Jesus, Mom,” I sighed, grinding my teeth together. “What happened?”

  Fat tears rolled down her gaunt face and she looked at me helplessly, her hands extended to show me that she, too, was covered from head to toe.

  “I was making a smoothie,” Odessa sobbed like this was some nuclear crisis and not just another one of her endless gaffes. I checked my temper and hurried toward her, realizing that she was in bare feet. Her nightgown was splattered with God only knows what and I carefully sidestepped the splinters of glass in my slippers, reaching forward to guide her away from the kitchen island before she cut herself. I didn’t want blood in the mix too.

  Stop being so nihilistic, I growled to myself but the self-chiding was useless. I was nothing if not a realist.

  “I-I just wanted a s-s-smoooothie,” Odessa whined as I led her back down the hallway and into the bathroom.

  “Why didn’t you ask me to make you one?” I asked conversationally, knowing that the irritation in my tone was unbridled. Still, I doubted Odessa could hear it. She only heard what she wanted in her world, after all, even if she could sense my mounting aggravation. Honestly, I was surprised I could still muster any frustration after everything with Odessa.

  “You’re so busy,” she mumbled, making me feel even guiltier, and I quickly shut off the little nagging voice in my head that reminded me that I was a terrible daughter. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  It’s never stopped you before, I thought nastily and again, I was ashamed of myself. I hated that I was angry at her. I hated that I was allowing myself to fall for her manipulations again. I hated so much in that moment.

  Take a deep breath and count to ten, I told myself firmly. As always, the breathing exercise helped me calm my nerves. I reached for the faucets of the bathtub and instructed her to take off her nightgown.

  “But I already had a shower today,” she chirped innocently and I gaped at her.

  “Mom, you’re covered in… I don’t even know what. You need to get it off you before you get it onto everything.”

  “Kale,” Odessa announced, beaming at me like I should be proud of h
er for knowing what it was. I wasn’t. I knew full well that she wasn’t going to drink a kale smoothie. All she was doing was wasting my kale—not to mention my money and my good nature, whatever was left of the latter.

  “Just take a shower and I’ll go clean up the mess in the kitchen,” I muttered, turning away from the shower to leave Odessa by herself. I half expected her to call out an apology but of course she didn’t.

  I’m not really sure when I started thinking of my mother by her first name. Maybe it was after that third stint in rehab when she’d come out after ninety days and walked directly to her dealer’s house where she spent four days on a bender, only to end up overdosing—again. That last stay in rehab had cost me ten grand, every penny of my savings, and she had promised to attend her therapy sessions, to attend NA, to do better.

  Ugh. She always promised.

  Or maybe I started thinking of her as my ward and not as the only parent I’d ever known when she moved into my house after the judge had asked me to be her guarantor. Somehow she’d been granted ROR from her Intent to Distribute a Controlled Substance charge and I’d agreed like a fool to let her stay with me. On day three, I’d come home from work to find her dealer in my house, putting a needle in his arm at my four-thousand-dollar dining room table.

  There were so many reasons I had to demote my mother from family status to tiresome foster, it was hard to choose. Any other self-respecting woman would have sent my mother into the world for her to die, but not me. I was a glutton for punishment, a masochist who relished misery and stress.

  But she’s your mother! a plaintive voice would cry in my head. But was she really? Would a mother leave her toddler daughter alone with Goldfish crackers and the television on for three days? It was a small miracle that neither CPS nor the police had ever taken me away from Odessa.

  Or maybe it wasn’t a miracle at all but a huge, burdensome curse that forever weighed upon my head.

  Odessa liked to say that those awful days of my childhood were ancient history and in some ways, she was right. Things could have been a lot worse and despite everything, I had ended up relatively unscathed, not abused, even if I was neglected. I’d managed to make something of myself and Odessa, well, she was doing better too. She no longer shot heroin into her veins but sometimes, the methadone she was prescribed has very similar effects to the opiates she had been taking. Coupled with the brain damage I was sure she’d suffered from years of drug abuse, it was hard to tell sometimes if Odessa was high or if she was just off kilter. And frankly, I wasn’t sure I cared anymore.

  I shouldn’t have been living in the past but it was hard to let go of, particularly when I didn’t trust my mother as far as I could throw her. She’d given me so many reasons not to and even though I wasn’t walking into strangers in my living room anymore, I couldn’t help but wonder what she did all day when I was at work.

  At least she’s not pawning your jewelry and electronics anymore, I thought grimly, making my way back into the bright kitchen of my house. Yes, that’s right—my house.

  I was twenty-five years old, a college graduate with a career and a house of her own. True, I didn’t have a partner but that was hardly in the cards when I was a single parent to a junkie. Still, life was sweet—on paper. I had everything a woman my age could possibly want… didn’t I? Why, then, was I an anxious, over-stressed mess who just wanted to leave it all behind? I loathed the monotony of my life, the 9 to 5, the corporate climb. I didn’t want to pay a mortgage and drive my Infiniti to Fallon Prime Bank in Eugene’s financial district every morning where I helped people plan their investments while trying not to dissolve into a puddle of boredom. I didn’t want my only escape to be running miles along the Willamette River, steeling myself from jumping in and staging my own death.

  Because that’s really not the kind of girl I was. With Odessa being as unreliable as she’d been my whole life, it was important that I be structured and stable, if only to prove it to Odessa, even if she didn’t notice anything but what was happening in her own world.

  As I found a roll of paper towels, I began to wipe up the floor, scowling slightly as I realized she had not only used all my kale but the last of my avocados too.

  Is she purposely trying to drive me over the edge? I wondered. It wasn’t the first time I’d questioned precisely that but why would she? Without me, there was no one to pick up the pieces of her life, was there? There would be no money, no comfort. She would likely be living on the streets and as much as she drove me crazy, the idea of my mother in a gutter made me heartsick.

  I caught sight of myself in the reflection of the sliding door leading to the black backyard beyond. The moon was almost full back there and the glow of the light illuminated my curvy frame in the glass as I shook my sandy mane of hair out of my face. The details of my face weren’t clear, not from that distance, but I could still see the pucker between my well-sculpted eyebrows, a perpetual crease that never seemed to go away. It wasn’t a wrinkle but a constant indication of worry.

  It’s not a wrinkle yet, I thought grimly. But if I keep it up…

  “You’re so much prettier when you smile, Addy,” I told my reflection sardonically. Instead of a beam, my face pinched more, highlighting my even cheekbones. At least I looked attractive when I was upset. A lot of good my looks were doing me these days.

  I turned my attention back to Odessa’s mess, one ear on the shower. It was still running which meant I wouldn’t have to deal with her for a while longer.

  There are silver linings everywhere.

  The landline rang and I almost jumped out of my skin. I had only put the line in for Odessa and I was the only one who called it throughout the day to ensure she was still alive. I didn’t trust her enough yet to give her a cell phone but I needed a line there in case of emergencies. Hearing it ring was unnerving.

  “Goddamned telemarketers,” I mumbled, reaching to snatch up the cordless from the counter. Even on the “no-call” list, I couldn’t escape the duct cleaners and window replacers. Maybe the phone call wasn’t such a bad thing. I was looking to unleash my frustrations somewhere. Why not on some unsuspecting telemarketer, working from a call center in India, who probably got paid on commission and was trying to make a living to feed his impoverished family?

  You really are going to Hell.

  “Hello?” I muttered, prepared to hang up.

  “There you are!”

  For a moment, I was taken aback by the breathless voice on the other end of the phone.

  “Van?” I said, my eyebrows raising in surprise.

  “Don’t you ever answer your texts? I’ve been messaging you all afternoon. I was getting worried about you.”

  I blinked, trying to remember where I’d left my phone.

  “Ah shit,” I sighed. “I think I left it at work.”

  “That explains it,” Vanessa laughed, sounding relieved. “No worries, then. I’m glad to hear your voice.”

  “I didn’t even know you had this number,” I commented, throwing another wad of soiled paper towel into the waste basket.

  “You gave it to me when you had it installed,” Vanessa reminded me. “Just in case Odessa did something screwy.”

  “Like break my blender?” I offered dryly.

  “Uh oh. When was this?”

  “I’m still cleaning it up.”

  My best friend sighed on the other end of the phone.

  “Don’t say it, Van,” I interjected before she could start. “Just don’t.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You were thinking it,” I growled.

  Van grunted.

  “You have an awful lot on your plate, Addy,” Vanessa offered slowly. “Maybe you should take a break.”

  I snorted, walking to the sink to wet a dishcloth.

  “Maybe I should hire a butler,” I joked. “Or a masseur. Or a man-slave.”

  But Van didn’t laugh and she blurted out what was really on her mind.

  “Or ma
ybe you should tell your mother it’s time for her to find her own way. It’s not the child’s responsibility to take care of the parent, especially when you’ve been at it for twenty-five years.”

  “I’m twenty-five,” I reminded her dryly.

  “And you’ve been taking care of her since infancy!” Vanessa exploded. “Enough is enough already!”

  “Didn’t I just say I didn’t want to hear it?” I barked with more harshness than I had intended. I knew that Van was just looking out for me, more than Odessa ever had. Moreover, I knew that Van wasn’t wrong, that I should have cut ties with my mother years ago. But if anything happened to her…

  I pushed the thought out of my head. I didn’t want to go there right now.

  “I’m sorry,” Van muttered and I could hear the hurt in her voice. “I’m just worried about you. I mean, I honestly panicked when you didn’t return my calls. I never know what’s going on with you and I swear, you’re becoming more reclusive.”

  Had I become more reclusive? I hadn’t really noticed but now that Van mentioned it, I had to admit, I had not been giving my friend the attention she deserved. Yet another round of guilt flowed through me. I wondered where I was getting it all from.

  Which body part stores the guilt hormone? The liver? Is there a guilt duct somewhere? Because wherever it is, I think mine’s on overdrive.

  “You’re right,” I muttered, consumed by contrition. “Why don’t we make plans to go out this weekend?”

  “Why don’t we go out tonight?” Van said hopefully. The idea was enticing, getting away from Odessa for even a few hours. My eyes darted toward the clock on the stainless-steel stove.

  “Oh Jesus, is that the time?” I muttered in disbelief.