Alpha's Child Read Free

grandmother’s as she spoke the word.
    “I never understood it,” Julia said. “I thought it was just a silly nickname. But yes, I remember. The story of Wolf and the—” Her breath caught. “And the Two Jewels,” she heard herself finish.
    All at once Julia understood why her grandmother’s eyes had been shimmering. A void seemed to open in her chest, and her heart began to pound.
    “In the end…” Julia said.
    “In the end the two jewels are taken from her.” Dee’s voice quavered. Only for an instant, but enough to make Julia glimpse how old she really was.
    “They could be anything,” Julia said. “The two jewels could be anything.”
    “Two rubies, one dark, one light—”
    “Stop.” Julia put her hands to her head, trying to press out the sounds of the world. She felt them in her, just barely moving, but alive. Distinct presences.
    “I’m sorry, child, but we must all face—”
    “STOP!”
    Dee’s presence was still there, and Julia realized that her new sense was a curse as well as a blessing. Before when she’d been stressed out beyond imagining, she would retreat to her room and cocoon herself under the covers. The isolation calmed her down, helped her to realize that whatever she’d been dreading wouldn’t be the end of the world. Now, though, she had no way to retreat into the safety of aloneness.
    Everywhere she could feel presences of the other people in the house. Kyle passed by outside her door and it was as though he was inside the room; Julia had taken to staying in the bathroom whenever she was naked. Even in her bed under the sheets, she felt exposed to anyone who passed near her.
    Worse was Damien, for Julia had no respite from his constant emotions. However tiring it was to handle her own, sometimes irrational, emotions, it was more than twice as tiring having to handle Damien’s as well. She’d get frustrated while she was writing, and would throw her pen down before realizing that it was simply Damien doing a crossword, getting upset and tangling his moodiness into her attitude without her even realizing.
    She did not like feeling so vulnerable. And now, Dee thought that her babies would be stolen away from her…
    “I’ll leave you be for now, child,” Dee said. “But we should talk soon.”
    “We?”
    “Damien, you, and I. The pack. We need to decide what to do about all this.”
    Julia shook her head. Ideas of safety and home whirled in her mind.
    “I need some time to think,” she said.
    “Think, then,” Dee said. “And think on the stories you have already read. But don’t go anywhere alone.”
     
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    Damien
    Damien waited in wolf form for Julia to shift. She’d taken off her clothes, the fabric falling in whispered rustles to the ground. There had been so many people coming through the woods recently that Damien’s nose picked up a jumble of scents. Kyle and Katherine, Mara, Jordan. His pack.
    Julia was afraid; he could sense it in their connection. He sent love her way, love and reassurance. Jordan had said it would be fine, and he always knew best. He did not press Julia to go faster. She would shift in her own time.
    Damien heard her breathe heavily and then focus her energy inside of her, feeling herself shift into wolf form. Her limbs twisted, her breath strained. She whimpered as the claws came through, and Damien remembered the first time he had shifted as a child, how it had hurt him. Nowadays he didn’t even notice. Then she was a wolf entirely, her scent a wolf’s scent. There was no human left, and it made Damien cock his head before remembering. She was purebred and could be entirely human, entirely wolf. Strange, but beautiful. Just like her.
    As soon as she had shifted and fallen onto her paws, their connection strengthened and Damien’s senses grew heightened. Damien could smell the dew on the pine needles, the bitter berries in the shrubs along the trail. He felt the brief rays of the sun as they twinkled in through