Free Lonely Alpha by Ranae Rose

overcome her.
    He’d tried to roll too, but it was obvious
that the motion hurt him. Fresh blood streamed from his side, and a
stray bit of glass had cut his cheek. “Change!” he growled,
clasping her unhurt hand tightly within his own. “Then follow
me.”
    The next thing she knew, a clawed paw was
resting on top of her hand, and she was staring into the eyes of a
wolf. A whine of despair began in her throat, but it was the only
thing remotely canine about her. “I don’t know how to
change,” she said, choking on the last word. Something had been
thrown through the window and it was emitting billowing clouds of
smoke. Teargas, she realized as her eyes stung and moistened.
    Jack was already up, but he wasn’t leaving
her. He stood on the mattress, gazing down at her imploringly, an
urgent bark escaping his fanged mouth.
    She wanted to shift into her wolf form – needed to. Was the desire enough? Jack had made it sound
like it should be. Her natural reflex was to close her eyes, but
she kept them open, tearing up against the gas as she squinted into
Jack’s golden ones, thinking desperately that she wanted to be like
him.
    It worked. She was so surprised that she
barked in exultation. She paid for it when she swallowed a mouthful
of teargas and promptly began to heave and cough. Jack pressed his
muzzle briefly against hers and turned, bounding toward the bedroom
door, which he nosed open as if out of habit. Mandy flew after him,
stifling the whimpers that threatened to escape her as she ran on
her broken paw, eyes streaming as suffocating gas and fresh pain
assaulted her.
    She followed him out of the cabin, squinting
through teary eyes at his blurred form. She could hardly see, but
her sharpened senses of smell and hearing nearly made up for that
fact. She inhaled his scent – it was the same as when he was human
– and stayed close to his flank.
    They were not unpursued. Bullets flew at
them, and the sound was explosive to Mandy’s sensitive canine ears.
She winced with each shot, as much at the volume as out of fear of
being hit. She was probably damaging her broken foot more with each
step, but anything was better than being shot, or seeing Jack take
another bullet. With that horrifying vision in mind, she ran like
the wind, keeping pace with Jack. He leapt over logs – stumbling
occasionally – and ducked under low branches as he wove among the
trees, winding in a seemingly random pattern that nearly made Mandy
dizzy.
    What seemed like an eternity passed before
they stopped, and when they did she tumbled into him, sprawling
across the forest floor.
    It took him too long to get to his feet.
Mandy eyed his blood-soaked side with horror. His pelt was thick,
and to be that saturated he had to have bled substantially. And
he’d already lost so much blood… Knowing that their attacker was
probably hot on their trail, she bit back a howl of anguish as Jack
stumbled through the underbrush, panting. To her surprise, he
disappeared into what looked like a solid rock.
    She hurried to the area where he’d gone,
limping. Her foot felt like it was full of the jagged smithereens
of glass Jack’s bedroom window had been reduced to. Just when she
was thinking she was crazy and that she’d imagined Jack walking
into the rock, she found the entrance he’d gone through. It was
obscured by shadow and foliage, impossible to see until one was
right up on it. She dove inside hastily.
    The space she found herself in was roomier
than she’d imagined; a surprisingly large hollow carved into the
earth. There was enough room for both her and Jack. In the enclosed
den, his scent quickly filled the air, sparking a flare of warmth
in her middle. It was soon doused by fear as she scented the sharp,
coppery odor of blood. She extended her muzzle toward the
incongruous mixture of pine, musk and blood scents, reaching for
Jack. When her nose touched him, it met smooth skin, not thick fur.
He was human again.
    It was too dark for her to