Free Punished By The Alphas by Willow Wilde Page A

first.
     
    With my head held high, I strolled into the small, quaint front office of the police department. Behind the desk was a lowly attendant, an elderly, miserly croak without an ounce of verifiable muscle beneath his thin glob of skin.
     
    “Welcome to the Denham Police Department. How can I help you?” His raspy voice rumbled out.
     
    “I’m here to speak to the police chief,” I answered calmly.
     
    “What is the nature of your visit?”
     
    With thinly-suppressed exasperation, I reached into my pocket and whipped out my badge. Flipping up the leather, the silver emblem of my profession immediately widened the clerk’s eyes, and he lifted the phone and punched in a few numbers.
     
    “Yes, there’s someone to see you…yes, that’s her…right. Okay.” He set the receiver back down and turned with a glum face to regard me.
     
    “Third door on your left, straight to the back. Sounds like he’s mad, though,” the clerk warned me. “He’s not in a great mood these last few days. I hope you can change that.”
     
    “It’s not my job to care,” I explained. Before the sentiment could hang in the air for long, I reproached myself — I was more professional than this. Thoughtfully, I quickly added, “I’m sure I can alleviate some of his concerns.”
     
    The old, haggard clerk smiled a slimy but almost endearing smile, and I shoved the picture out of my head as I followed his directions. The building was small, with tiny walkways and rooms the size of closets. There were enough filing cabinets to build shelter from a storm, sometimes walls of the things. How they kept track of everything, I have no idea.
     
    As I knocked on the door to the freestanding office in the back of the main work area, with a dozen pairs of eyes on me, the sheriff greeted me at the door and closed it behind me.
     
    “You’re late,” he muttered angrily. “I don’t like late.”
     
    “You also don’t like werebears, to my understanding,” I answered. “When the highways lock up with construction in the middle of the goddamn day, my specialty whittles down to meeting one of those criteria. Would you rather punctual , or would you rather efficient at killing werebears?”
     
    A short, stout man with a thick brush of mustache, he grumbled quietly and sat himself behind his desk. It was filled to the brim with stacks of important-looking documents, and I took my seat in the guest chair, opposite from him.
     
    “So, you’re here to help with the whole “werebear” thing, huh?” He scratched at his thick whiskers. “How was the drive?”
     
    “Long. Tiring.” I replied. “I’m going to have to rest before I try to track this guy down. Got a good place in town?”
     
    He grumbled again, stroking his thick bush of a mustache. “Nothin’ too fancy for a city slicker I reckon, but yeah. We got a small motel here in town. Easy to find. One of the last buildings before the trails. Place by the name of Sandy’s.”
     
    I smirked lightly. “City slicker? What is this, Nevada circa 1850? City slicker ,” I almost laughed to myself. “I try to stay out of the cities as much as I can. I like the open road. Your quaint little motel is probably going to do the trick for me.”
     
    “Splendid,” he remarked, ignoring my derision. “So, what’s the plan? How’re you gonna tackle this one?”
     
    “Same way I do all of them,” I answered. “All were go down the same way. Silver bullet’s the efficient choice — clean, immediate, with a good shot, and permanent. I’ll track this guy down and put one between his eyes if I can help it. Then I’ll call you, and you can bring your boys up and take care of things.”
     
    He hesitated briefly, and I zeroed in on it in the instant.
     
    “What? Is there something else?”
     
    “They didn’t tell you?” He patted at his neck with a handkerchief. “It’s not one werebear…it’s a whole pack of ‘em.”
     
    An eyebrow raised. Well…that’s