Alpha’s Moon: A special forces shifter romance (Shifter Ops series Book 1)

Sadie

Career day comes, and my students haven’t been this excited since I brought them the jackalope toy. I have them sit in a circle and caution them to be on their best behavior, but when the four towering soldiers arrive, the classroom erupts with excitement. I try to smooth my features but can’t stop smiling either, as my heart thumps wildly. As usual, Rafe takes the lead, greeting me and addressing the class in a smooth, deep voice that settles the children faster than I ever could. Deke hovers in the back, his thick shock of black hair making him a bit taller than his friends. He’s stone-faced and silent. Not once does he look my way, which is fine. I need to focus.

Rafe introduces his brother, Lance, and I recognize the blond from the alleyway. He winks at me, and I narrow my eyes at him. The fourth and final member of the group is Channing, who waves to the class before crossing his arms in front of his chest, making his biceps pop even bigger. All four of our guests look badass in a mix of camo and civilian clothes. Deke’s in an unbuttoned camo shirt with the long sleeves rolled up. Underneath he’s in his usual outfit of black jeans and t-shirt.

I tear my eyes away from him and get back to doing my job. “Everyone, this is Mr. Rafe Lightfoot. He and his friends are here to talk to us today about their service in the Army. But first, can we name the four branches of the military?”

The kids sing-song “Army, Navy, Airforce, Marines,” in dutiful chorus. Except for Jackson in the back, who thinks it’s funny to replace “Marines with “GI Joes.” The two kids next to him immediately inform him, “That’s wrong. It’s the Marines,” and I have to settle their squabble before things get too heated.

“The Army’s the best,” little Owen in the front row pipes up. “My dad said so.”

Rafe crouches right down in front of Owen, his eyes crinkling. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Owen nods, wide eyed.

“Your dad is right. But it’s a secret. Don’t tell anyone. Because then the service members in the Airforce, Navy and Marines will be jealous, and they’ll all want to become soldiers like us.” He winks at Owen, who’s overcome with awe and rises. “Every branch of the military is important. We all make a team. Teamwork is important.”

For the rest of Rafe’s talk, I fight to keep from looking over at Deke. I lose the battle, but when I glance over, he’s wearing his shades over his eyes. Lance notices my attention and gives me another wink. I roll my eyes.

Rafe is almost done, and the class is getting restless, ready for recess.

“Do you have any questions for Mr. Rafe and his friends?” I ask. Ten hands shoot up. Owen has both his hands up when I call on him.

“Did you shoot lotsa bad guys?” he asks, and there’s a swell of sound from the rest of the class, who are excited by the prospect of learning about violence.

“Sometimes,” Rafe answers seriously. “But only if we were sure they were bad guys, and we had done everything else we could to keep the peace.”

“Do you have lotsa guns?” Owen asks at the same time Jackson shouts from the back. “Did they die right away? Was there lots of blood?”

“Okay, that’s enough questions!” I trill. “It’s time for recess. Everyone say, thank you, Mr. Rafe.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rafe,” half the class singsongs. The rest want to know the answers to Jackon’s questions. I had no idea they were so bloodthirsty. My teacher aide comes to help the kids into their coats for recess. I’m caught up in a swirling eddy of brightly-clothed children, but head over to Rafe as soon as I escape the tide.

“Thanks again,” I say.

“No problem. Great kids.”

“You guys are great with them.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Owen approaching Deke. The big soldier kneels to help the kindergartener tie his shoes, and my ovaries melt.

And as I leave for the day, I’m even more determined to figure out what’s going on with Deke. What’s stopping him from getting close? It’s like he has this big secret, something he’s keeping from me and the rest of the world. And I just want to throw my arms around him and tell him I don’t care.

That’s what I’ll do, I decide as I get in my car to drive home that night. I’ll lure him out and seduce him. Or something. Enough of this sitting around. I’m all in on Operation Deke.

I just have to figure out how to do it.

Normally, I’d call up my girlfriends and get them to come over for wine and a brainstorming session, but they’re super busy right now. Adele is taking more catering jobs to cover the slow season at the chocolate shop, and Tabitha is helping her. Charlie is busy too, with some secret project she’s not telling any of us about. Besides, they’re not entirely pro-Deke. They’re firmly pro-Sadie and seem to think I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to him. I get it—I haven’t made the best choices when it comes to men. They don’t want me to get bulldozed by a domineering man again.

Deke isn’t like that. He’s strong, but he doesn’t bulldoze me. Besides, he’s not even interested or available for a relationship. He can be my wild fling.

I’ve never had a wild fling.

I’ve never been wild. And Deke definitely makes me feel wild. In the most wonderful way.

I get home, kick off my ballet flats and rub my hands together. I’m about to call Deke when I see I’ve missed a call, and I’ve got a voicemail.

My heart sinks. It’s from my father. “Sadie, we need to talk.”

Thirty minutes later, I pull into the parking lot of the uptight restaurant my father likes. I didn’t have time to dress up as I know my father would like, but I changed into a fancier cardigan and ballet flats. My battle dress. Too bad I can’t roll up in a tank and wear a suit of armor. Not that my father can’t pierce those sorts of shields. I square my shoulders and march inside.

My father’s already seated at a table right in the center of the restaurant, where everyone can see him. He’s town councilman and prides himself on knowing everyone “worth knowing,” as he’d put it.

He introduced me to Scott.

“Darling,” he says as I dutifully cross to him and bend down to give his cheek a kiss. “I took the liberty of ordering already.” He gestures for me to sit.

“Great.” I’ll have to pick at whatever he ordered for me. Last time it was freshwater trout and a salad of mostly arugula. I hate fish and a little arugula goes a long way.

I look longingly at my wine glass but shake my head when the waiter offers a drink menu. I’m a total lightweight. Besides, I only drink in public with people I absolutely trust not to mock me, like my girl posse. When I was out with Scott, I ordered a lot of cranberry juice with club soda. With my father, I don’t bother with a mocktail. He’ll drink enough for the both of us.

My father is commonly a handsome man, with silver tinsel in his hair. He’s tan and fit from golf at the country club and skiing in the winter. He’s already getting a few appreciative looks from two forty or fifty-something ladies with yoga tight bodies and Botox tight faces. They keep glancing over at him, and he pretends not to notice, but I know he does. He perfected the art of hiding his wandering eye back when he was married to my mother. Now it’s a habit of his to pretend to be oblivious to other women’s attention, at least in public.

Another similarity he shares with Scott.

I clear my throat. “You said you wanted to speak to me?”

“I did.” We’re both absorbed in separate tasks, me placing my napkin on my lap and him inspecting his whiskey glass. We’ve yet to really make eye contact. All part of our regular farce of a father-daughter dinner. “How was work?”

“Wonderful.” He doesn’t care about my teaching career, so I skip telling the latest stories about the moments this week when my students were particularly cute. He doesn’t deserve them. “How’s yours?”

He launches into some city council story, and I nod and murmur at the correct places like a dutiful daughter. Another thing Scott had in common with my father. All their stories revolved around work or golf but mainly them being Very Important. That and their stories seem to get longer and more boring each time.

About twenty minutes into the story, my father clears his throat. “That’s the project Scott proposed, by the way,” he says, seemingly casually, but he makes eye contact with me for the first time. “Have you seen him?”

“Who?” I am busy making a big show of cutting into my trout. Poor dead fish, sacrificed to this dreadful dinner. I wish I could go back in time and toss it back into its mountain stream. Then one of us would be free.

My father clears his throat again. “Scott Sears. Your boyfriend.”

“Ex-boyfriend,” I say with a big smile. Probably should tone it down, but I am very happy Scott is my ex.

“Really? That’s a shame.” My father signals for another single malt scotch. “I thought things were going well.”

“Mmm.” I pretend my mouth is full of arugula.

“Actually, that’s why I called you here. I wanted to talk to you about Scott.” He gives me a look under his thick brows, a look that means I am very serious. We are having a Very Important Talk. “He’s a good man, Sadie. There aren’t that many in a town this small. He’s going places. He’s an important part of the growth and development of the town. I think you’d be very happy with him.”

Seriously?

“When you decided to become a teacher, as you know, your mother and I were concerned.”

I grip my fork tighter to keep me from going for my knife. I hate it when my father talks about mom like he knows her and can speak for her opinion. As far as I know, he and mom haven’t spoken in years.

“But we thought if you could find yourself a good man with a stable vocation, you’d be fine. Besides, once you start having children, you’ll want a man to support you.”

I can’t even.

“And, Sadie, Scott is that man.” My father starts rambling again, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Which is so unlike me, but what am I doing here? It would be so easy to just stand up, throw my napkin down on my mangled entree and stride away from the table. I could even grab a bottle of wine on the way out. I don’t need to drive home—I could call Deke. Tell him I need a ride, and that I’ll owe him another favor. He’ll ride up on his big bike just as I’m finishing the wine, hand me a helmet, and I’ll straddle that giant, vibrating beast, all that power between my legs and…Mmmmm.

I’m halfway through a motorcycle-ride-with-Deke fantasy when my father says. “And of course, there’s the wedding. You’ll need to iron things out before you two travel together.”

I’ve half tuned my father out, but this snags my attention. “Wedding?” Oh God! How could I forget Jenn’s wedding? I blocked it out.

My father steeples his fingers and purses his lips to signal his displeasure. He can tell I haven’t been paying attention. “Aren’t you two both in a wedding together? For your two friends in Santa Fe?”

Gaaaaaaah. “Jenn and Geoff. Yes.” I resist the urge to rub my head. Suddenly I’ve got a headache. Jenn is a high school friend from Taos. Her boyfriend Geoff is Scott’s friend from college. They’re the ones who set us up with each other when Scott first moved to Taos from Santa Fe.

“You’ll be in Santa Fe for a long weekend, right?”

I suddenly realize why my father looks so smug, why he knows all about this wedding and organized this dinner with me.

“You talked to Scott,” I accuse. “He called you and told you all about this. That’s why you wanted to talk to me.”

My father frowns again. “Scott and I talked, yes. He’s involved in business around Taos, as am I. And our paths cross often.”

“Of course. You’re birds of a feather.”

I don’t mean it as a compliment, but my father takes it as one. “Yes. And he mentioned this wedding, that you’ll be spending time together in an idyllic setting. It’ll be the perfect time to talk about your relationship and smooth out your differences.”

Only my father would refer to Scott cheating on me and being a total butthole as “differences” and expect us to simply “smooth them out,” meaning he expects me to overlook them. Like my mother overlooked my father’s indiscretions until she finally got the courage to leave him.

“It’s perfect,” my father continues. He’s all jovial now, cutting his steak. “I always said you and Scott were meant to be.”

I would do my best impression of Munch’s painting The Scream, vocals and all, but I am truly speechless.

“I’m your father,” he finishes. “I simply want what’s best for you.”

When I finally stagger back home, I have a splitting headache. Dinners with my father are always like descending to the Ninth Circle of hell, but that was something else. Apparently my father’s vision for me is to become some sort of 1950s desperate housewife. And Scott would heartily approve.

They colluded on this. I found my backbone to stand up to Scott, but the two of them working in tandem? It’s just too much. I don’t know—I’ve always been a doormat to my dad. He has a very dominant personality. After he drove my mom away, and he was all I had, I think I was afraid of ever displeasing him for fear the only parent I had would reject me.

It’s old, stupid stuff, but the resonance is still present in every conversation and interaction we have. He’s telling me what to do with my life, and I’m doing my best not to get steamrolled.

But I have more pressing problems than learning to stand up to him. The wedding is two weekends away. Scott and I and the rest of the wedding party are all expected to be at a resort in Santa Fe for a long weekend. I know Jenn’s family spared no expense. The groom’s family comes from money, too, which is why Scott was so excited to be involved.

I’m going to have to put on a bridesmaid’s dress and big smile and stand across from Scott. He’ll have three days and two nights to harangue me about dating him again. He’s probably the groomsman escorting me down the aisle. Jenn planned this all when she thought we’d be together. She even joked about it being a trial run for Scott and I. I never told her about the cheating.

Why did I let the farce between me and Scott run so long? Because I was too nice to end things, even though I wasn’t interested. I hate hurting people’s feelings. And now that I think about it, some of the feelings I was worried about hurting belonged to Jenn and Geoff. Like I owed them to keep dating their friend just because they set us up.

God, I really am a pleaser!

Obviously Scott doesn’t share that trait. Control and criticism are his favorite relationship tools. And cheating. The only thing I got out of the relationship was my father’s approval.

This is an all-out emergency. I’m tempted to call Jenn and claim I have mono. But she doesn’t deserve that. And I’ve already taken time off for the wedding.

There’s just one thing to do. I gulp down a glass of wine, and pull up Deke and my text chat on my phone.

Here goes nothing.

“I need another favor,” I text him. “But it’s big. Really big.”

Ten seconds later, my cell phone rings.

“What do you need?” Deke asks. No hello, no preamble, no nothing. I take a deep breath. I should’ve drunk more wine.

“Sadie, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“Is it Sears?”

“Scott? No. Well, not exactly. But I have to ask you for a favor. A huge one.”

There’s a pause where I remember what he asked in return for the last favor. As if he’s thinking the same thing, his voice softens. “Yeah, baby?”

Crap, now I’m super turned on. “Um, yeah.”

“How big?”

“Really big. I would owe you so much. On top of what I already do.”

“I’m sure we can work something out.” He sounds playful. OMG, we’re flirting now! I flop down on my bed.

“Maybe.”

“What is it? Just tell me.”

“I need a date to a wedding,” I say and continue in a rush before I lose my nerve. “A pretend date again—not a real one,” I add quickly.

“Pretend.” Does he sound disappointed?

“Um, it’s at a resort in Santa Fe, so it would be for the whole weekend. I’m in the wedding party, so I have to go a day early. Scott will be there. He and I were going to go together, but—”

“Say no more,” Deke says.

“Really?” I feel as if a fifty pound dumbbell lifted off my chest. “You’ll do it?”

“Babe,” is all he says to that. I take it to mean: Of course. “When is it?”

“Two weeks from Thursday. I already got the time off, but I pushed it out of my mind because I didn’t want to deal with it.” I give him the details. “I can drive, but I don’t think you’ll be comfortable in my little car.”

“I’ll drive. What time should I pick you up Thursday?”

“Um, are you sure?”

“Yep. What time?”

“Around noon?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thank you so much. I owe you big time.”

“Mmm.” His voice is a dark rumbling hum. Like he loves the idea of me owing him. Or like he’s going to collect more than a kiss this time.

Oh God, I really hope so! I liked the last favor he cashed in with me.

“Do you have a suit to wear?”

“Babe,” he says again and hangs up.

I laugh into the disconnected phone. Deke is like no man I have ever met.

Deke

My dick is hard by the time I hang up with Sadie, my thoughts of collecting on favors turning dirty fast.

Oh shit. What did I just get myself into? I disobeyed a direct order from my alpha by agreeing to go with Sadie.

But there was no fucking way I was going to let her down. No fucking way I’d let her spend a long weekend with her ex as her date when she doesn’t want to.

My wolf already wants to tear that guy apart for bothering her.

Spending an entire weekend in close quarters with humans—at a wedding, no less—is a special kind of hell for me, but for Sadie, I’d do anything. I’ll keep my wolf in check. I’ll try to act civilized. Speak in full sentences. Make a decent impression as her fake boyfriend. Hell, I’ll even find a goddamn suit.

I stand, a shiver of pleasure running through me, coming straight from my wolf. I sense his desire to yip and spin around.

Well, I’ll be damned.

My wolf is happy. Excited, even.

I walk out of the lodge and down to the river, hiking uphill along the bank to release some of the pent-up energy. I need to figure out what I’m going to tell Rafe. How to present this.

It’s a mission. Not a date.

I’m not engaging with a human on a social basis. It’s a job.

A half mile up, I come across Lance fishing in the stream. I shake my head because I seriously don’t get it. We’re predators. We hunt animals on four legs. We don’t need to stand at the water’s edge in human form with a fishing pole to catch food.

“Don’t say it,” Lance murmurs, correctly reading my thoughts. I presume he’s speaking quietly to not scare off the fish.

“I didn’t say a word.” I stand beside him. The sounds of the wilderness register as peaceful for once. I always crave the wild, and I absolutely love living here where we can roam the mountain on four paws or two wheels at any moment, but this afternoon feels different.

Like I almost understand Lance’s urge to fish. It’s not about the catch. It’s about the quiet. Standing at the cold water’s edge and watching it babble by. Listening to the trees.

Why is my wolf so calm?

Sadie, I almost hear him whisper.

I shake my head. I can’t have Sadie. Sadie’s not for keeping.

Lance shoots me a curious look. “You seem… different.”

I don’t answer. I can’t tell him about Sadie because there’s nothing going on. And nothing will go on.

“It’s the teacher, isn’t it?”

I draw in a sharp breath at the mere mention of her.

“She calms the madness,” I finally admit.

“She seems sweet.”

Just hearing him talk about her makes my heart surge up and bounce in my chest. “She is,” I say gruffly. “But it’s not like that. I’m not getting involved.”

“Right.” Lance looks into the river, probably so I don’t have to lie to his face.

“Her ex is bothering her,” I explain. “And she asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend to scare him off.”

Now Lance looks over and his brows pop up in surprise. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I scrub a hand over my face.

“Fuck, Deke. That sounds like trouble. Does she know you’re likely to put that ex of hers in a body bag?”

A sick feeling stirs in my gut. “That won’t happen,” I say gruffly although I’m not even half sure that’s true.

If that guy laid one fucking hand on her, I would kill him. No question.

But that doesn’t seem to be the nature of her perturbance. The fact that she doesn’t seem too hurt by the guy in general soothes my wolf’s need to exact justice for her. It seems like he’s more of an annoyance than a real threat—to her heart or to her person.

“I don’t know, Deke. The last human female you protected landed you with an assault and battery charge. And you would’ve flat-out killed the guy if we hadn’t been there. I’m not saying you weren’t justified, I just—”

“I know,” I snap. “I lose control. My wolf goes into war-mode in every situation.”

“I would hate for that sweet teacher to ever see that side of you,” Lance says in a gentle voice. “That’s all.”

A low growl rumbles from my chest. I actually think my wolf is growling at the idea of me scaring Sadie. It’s true I would want to punch my own face if that ever happened.

“I won’t touch the ex,” I vow. “But I’m not going to refuse Sadie the favor.”

I couldn’t.

I feel bad I’m leaving for the weekend when the team is trying to discover how we got made in Switzerland, but at the moment it feels like we’re chasing shadows, and Sadie needs me.

“I get it.” Lance snags a fish on his hook and tugs, pulling a flopping rainbow trout out of the water.

I rumble my appreciation. If he catches a few more, we can all have fish for dinner. He gently withdraws the hook and drops the fish in his net in the water. “Just be careful. I like Sadie—”

He breaks off when a ferocious growl erupts from my throat.

“Not in that way,” he says quickly. “Not at all. Dude—that’s what I”m talking about. I don’t know if you can pull this off.”

Shit. He may be right. But backing out now is not an option.

“I’ll pull it off,” I swear. “Sadie will be safe with me.”