Alpha's Little Mate

RHIANNON

I’ve felt anxious and uncomfortable all day. The moment I left my apartment, something felt off. I can’t pinpoint what it is—I just can’t shake the feeling.

I’m taking lunch in the small cafe near the library. Flo has a story hour for two- and three-year-olds today.

While I normally wait for this day all week, I’m not sure I can handle it today. All it will take is an excited shriek from one of those adorable little rascals, and I’ll have a nervous breakdown.

I’ve been jumpy all day. There hasn’t been a single patron in the library since we opened, yet I’m certain I’m being watched.

I tuck myself into a small corner table at the cafe. No one can sneak up behind me with my back to the wall.

I eat my pesto panini while reading this week’s newest bestseller. A shudder runs down my spine as I jerk my head up, looking around the cafe nervously.

There is one old man sitting at the counter and two women I recognize from the library, eating in a booth together.

No one is looking at me. No one is paying any attention to me at all. I lean forward slightly to look out the window. I scan the street outside, but nothing looks out of the ordinary.

My eyes land on a tall man leaning up against the small post office across the street. I’ve never seen him before. He has sunglasses on, but I think he’s looking at me.

I knew something was wrong. I knew there had to be a reason I felt like I was being watched. Do I know him? Is he someone from my past?

Just as I start to panic, a bus pulls up in front of the post office. He boards it, and it drives on. How embarrassing.

After freaking out over nothing, I decide to cut down on caffeine for the rest of the day. Obviously, it’s making me jittery.

The rest of the day passes uneventfully. I know that I’m being paranoid, but the feeling never goes away.

I feel physically drained as I walk home. Being anxious uses a lot of energy. My shoulder aches from carrying so much tension all day.

Before I go to dinner at Flo’s, I decide to go home and shower. I’ll feel better if I’m clean. It might help to perk me up a bit as well.

I practically sprint home. While the dark doesn’t usually scare me, I’m feeling afraid of everything today. I keep seeing things move in my peripheral vision, then when I look, there’s nothing there.

After my nice long shower, I do feel more awake, and the pain in my shoulder has lessened.

I grab some thick fleece leggings and a huge chunky sweater. Last time I went to dinner with Flo, she was wearing fuzzy pajama pants with frogs on them. “We aren’t dressing to impress,” she told me.

I pull my long dark hair into a loose braid. I can undo the braid in the morning, and it will look nice for work when I pull the braid out.

As I twist the strands between my hands, I wonder when I learned to do this. I just knew how to do it one day.

I was standing in front of my mirror, deciding what to do with my hair for the day, and like muscle memory, my hands just did it.

I can’t remember learning it, or who taught me—my body just remembers.

There are many things like that. Little random things I can do just because my body somehow remembers.

I remember how surprised I was on my first day back in the library to find that I could type with incredible speed and accuracy.

My doctors told me to relax, the memories will come when they come. They also said I need to prepare myself for the possibility that I may never recover a lot of things.

I refuse to do that. I will remember my life, all of it. Something horrifying is hiding in my past and I’m going to find out what it is.

I sigh. I need to get going, Flo will be waiting.

The cold wind snaps against my face as I stand at the bus stop. It’s only a ten-minute walk to Flo’s, but I’m right on time for a bus tonight.

The cold is too much to walk in. My teeth chatter as I shift and shuffle around trying to generate body heat.

The bus pulls up right on time.

“Evening, miss,” the driver says with a thick Southern accent.

“Evening.” I smile, the warmth from the bus defrosting my face.

“Sure is a cold one. You stoppin’ at Baker Street again?” he asks. I’ve taken this bus to Flo’s four or five times. The town is so small I’m not surprised he remembers me.

“Yes, sir.”

“All right then,” he says with a small smile as I take my seat. There are only two other people on the bus. The old woman smiles at me, which I return.

The teenage boy has headphones on with music blaring so loudly I can hear it from several seats away.

The boy gets off at the next stop. When we pull up to the Baker Street stop, I hope the woman is getting off here too. She isn’t.

“You have a nice night now,” the driver says cheerfully.

“Thanks, you too!”

I step off the bus and the cold settles into my bones quickly. This side of the street is nothing but a field. The bus stop has a bench under an ominously flickering streetlamp.

Creepy.

I quickly cross the street. On the corner there is a small gas station with a mini mart.

As is my tradition, I stop at the mini mart to pick up flowers for Flo.

She told me about her husband once, how he used to bring her flowers every Friday. He passed away over ten years ago. Flo is alone in the world like I am.

Her face lights up whenever she sees the flowers. It makes my heart feel fuzzy.

As I reach into the refrigerated case to select my flowers, the bell over the door dings.

I walk with my flowers to the cashier. She smiles at me and says, “$14.50.”

I hand her fifteen dollars and turn to leave. The person who entered after me is a man with a scar running down the length of his face. He’s staring at me intensely from beneath a thick jacket hood.

I quickly walk out the door and turn the corner. I bump into someone, nearly falling backward.

The stranger grabs my arm, steadying me. I look up and a scream bubbles up in my throat—it’s the tall man from earlier, the one at the post office.

He smiles at me and I realize he’s still gripping my arm tightly.

“Let go of me!” I yell, attempting to sound confident.

He jerks me roughly into the shadow of the building and slams me against the wall. The man with the scar joins us in the darkness. I try to scream, but he quickly stops me.

“Shut the fuck up,” the tall one says, closing his hand tightly over my mouth.

He leans in, and I scream into his hand.

He stops close to my neck and…sniffs me?

Did he just sniff me?

“It’s not her,” he says to the scar guy.

“Fuck, I—” His sentence is cut off by a deep growl.

A huge wolf lunges forward, knocking scar guy to the ground. Tall guy turns, but it’s too late—another wolf jumps out of the darkness and bites down on his neck.

I press my body into the wall and shut my eyes. This is some kind of dream, it has to be. Wolves that size aren’t real.

I hear a sickening gurgling sound. I peek one eye open to see the scar guy’s head being ripped off. Tall guy’s head has already been removed, and he’s…melting. His body is melting into the ground.

My mouth hangs open.

I start to see black at the edges of my vision. My knees wobble, and everything sways.

As everything goes black, one of the wolves turns into a man. A completely naked man.