Alpha Betrayed: A Dark Shifter

Ford

An hour later, after an almost disappointingly easy time with Mr. Loomis—he passed out in his living room and barely moved as I tied him up—we’re back on the road.

Except now we have a little house on wheels.

Turns out the back of the van has been gutted, and the seats replaced with a kitchenette and bunk beds. Everything’s at least thirty years old and smells of mold, but it’s functional and a little cleaning should go a long way.

We grabbed cleaning products at the Loomis house, too, as well as more food, a couple hundred dollars cash, and sleeping bags we found in the garage. Now, all we need is a sheltered place to hide out during the daylight hours. I swapped the license plate on the van with the Oldsmobile we left in Loomis’s garage, but it’s still best if we’re careful.

We haven’t run across anyone looking to kill us for the past seven or eight hours and I’d like to keep it that way.

“There’s a KOA campground in about sixty miles,” Juliet says, squinting at the road atlas we found in the glove compartment. She sits back, rubbing at the tops of her eyes. “Assuming it’s still open. We need a cell phone or some way to get online.”

“We’ll get one tomorrow,” I say. “We have extra money now, but not enough to pay for campground fees all the way across country. We should try to find a place where we can park for free.”

“Doug’s Bargain Basement lets people camp for free in their parking lots. But on the off chance someone goes looking for Bad Dad and sets him free, cops could be looking for a brown van with yellow stripes by this afternoon.”

“And we’re more likely to run into bounty hunters in populated areas,” I agree. “We just need an abandoned field or something. But an abandoned field with other things nearby to mask our scent. Like livestock or maybe a factory of some kind.”

Juliet hums beneath her breath. “That gives me an idea. Not a pleasant idea, but…” She lifts the atlas from her lap, skimming her finger over the page until she finds what she’s looking for and holds it out toward me. “There’s a landfill not far to the south. It’s huge, so we should be able to find a place to park out of the way, where no one’s watching. And not even another shifter will be able to smell us over the trash.”

I glance down at the place on map. “And it’s not too far off the highway. Let’s do it.” She settles back into her chair, and I add, “Good idea.”

“Thanks. I have good ideas. But…ditching you at the motel probably wasn’t one of them.” She glances over, adding in a grudging voice, “Recent events have reminded me it can be good to have someone around to watch your back.”

“Especially when people are trying to kill you.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m sold on the Lost Moon University thing. And I’m absolutely not going to marry you. Never. Not in a million f*****g years. No offense, you’re a good-looking guy and seem much nicer than you used to be, but you’re not my type. At all.”

“What’s your type?” I ask. “Dude bros with fancy haircuts who play rugby and wear golf shirts to class?”

She glances sharply my way. “How did you know about that?”

“People gossip about the Alpha’s daughter. Even if she’s hundreds of miles away at university.” I try to stop there, but can’t resist adding, “And the fact that he was named Chastain Eggers Weathersby the second was too funny not to make jokes about it.”

She slumps lower in the passenger’s seat, arms locked over her chest. “Chase was nice, and he couldn’t help it that his name was pretentious.”

“Oh, but he could. If I had that name, I’d be going by something new so fast it would make the collar of your golf shirt fly up.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize people were spying on me. I was so stupid back then.”

“No, you weren’t,” I say, the fun going out of teasing her. “No one should have been spying on you, especially not your own dad. Keeping an eye on you for your own safety is one thing, taking pictures of you out on dates with your preppy boyfriend and showing them around the pack to mock said boyfriend is something else.”

“Something shitty,” she agrees. “But whatever. It won’t happen again. I’m done with dating and I’m never getting married. I’m going to rule alone, like Queen Elizabeth the first.”

“You won’t have any heirs to pass the crown to.”

“I don’t care,” she says. “My cousins have kids in the line of succession. One of them can take over. Or maybe Zion will be ready to embrace democracy by then and elect the next Alpha.”

“Or you’ll be assassinated and replaced in the first year,” I say with a casual shrug. “Like you said, it’s good to have someone around to watch your back, and no one needs her back watched more than a new ruler. You’re going to have enemies from the jump, Juliet, and you know it. Half the pack doesn’t believe you have a right to call the shots. Being married to the person they think should be in charge instead of you, however, would shut that down real quick. And I’d make sure people understood there would be a price to pay for disrespecting or working against my wife. Together, we’d have Zion whipped into shape in a few years. We could finally give the pack a fresh start and a shot at a more peaceful future.”

She’s quiet for so long, I’m starting to think she intends to ignore me, when she says, “But the same wouldn’t be true for you. The people who support me are decent, peaceful people who wouldn’t dream of sticking a knife in your back because you aren’t the Alpha they wanted. So, I’d be marrying you to keep the violent assholes in the pack at bay, and I’m sick to death of pandering to violent assholes. Assholes shouldn’t get to steer the course, just because they’re meaner and louder than everyone else.”

“I know it’s unfair, but what’s your other choice? Kill everyone you think might want to kill you?”

She bobs a shoulder. “Maybe.”

“I’m pretty sure that would make you a bad guy, and you said you didn’t want to be one of those. Not to mention you’d lose a lot of your supporters if you started acting like your dad.”

“I’m nothing like my dad,” she snaps. “I wouldn’t pick on the weak. I’d protect the weak and hold the strong accountable.”

“But if you’re Alpha, there’s no one stronger than you. Anyone you lash out at would be below you in the food chain. Murder isn’t a good look for someone in that position.”

She sighs. “Fine. But there are other ways to shore up my power. I don’t have to sell myself into marriage to the local warlord like some Viking princess. Or waste years of my life getting a degree I’ll probably never use from a university human employers have never heard of.”

“They have an agreement with the University of Toronto. When you graduate you get a degree from both—Lost Moon and UT—so you don’t have to worry about human employers asking questions you’re not supposed to answer,” I say, hurrying on before she can protest, “And we don’t have to finish a degree. If we get there and feel ready to take on Hammer sooner than later, we can always bail. It’s just a place where we can rest, recuperate, and plan in safety. We’ve only been on the road a day and we’ve already been shot at, jumped, and nearly blown up. And we can’t keep killing people, stealing cars, and tying people up in their houses. We’ll get caught, end up in jail, and then Hammer wins. He doesn’t care if we’re dead or locked away, as long as he doesn’t have to deal with us. I don’t know about you, but I want to force him to deal, and I want to do it with a rock-solid plan that will make him regret underestimating us.”

Juliet sits up straighter, pointing toward the softly glowing horizon line. “There. The next exit. Take it and turn right.” She turns back to the map, tracing a path with her finger. “Then we’ll go about three miles and make another right. That road leads straight to the landfill.”

I drive in silence to the exit and take it, deciding to give the persuasion a rest for now. I know I’ve made some good points and there’s no doubt in my mind that Lost Moon is the best place for us.

Juliet may have friends with deep pockets wanting to back her, but they won’t have a small army at their disposal. Lost Moon has a military college, and the men and women who train there serve in the university’s protection unit. It would probably be a good place for me to make friends and shore up my own combat skills, but after years of fighting for my life, all I want is a break from the violence.

I want to make things, build things, not tear them apart.

Even if they deserve to be torn apart.

I just want to be allowed to choose mercy for once in my life.

“I need to do my own research on Lost Moon,” Juliet finally says as we make the second right and head toward the landfill in the pale morning light. “Is there someplace I can do that? I know a public library wouldn’t work, but maybe a nice hotel with an office space or something? I’d just need a computer that can access the dark web, right?”

“You can get on from a cell phone,” I say. “They have an app for the dark web browser now. We’d just need to take steps to keep our VPN secret, but I know how to do that.”

She makes a considering sound. “All right. Let’s do that. First thing tonight, we get a phone. I’ll do my research while you drive. By the end of the night, I’ll let you know if I’m coming with you or not. I should make that call before we get any farther west.”

Oh, she’s coming with me. I’ll tie her up in the bunk beds back there and hold her prisoner until we get to Quebec if I have to.

But I’m not stupid enough to tell her that.

Juliet wants to feel in control. After so much time as a prisoner, I can’t blame her. I’ll just have to cross my fingers and hope she decides we should stick together.

And if finger crossing doesn’t work, I’ll move on to more…intense measures.