Alpha Rising Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Fallen Pack | Part 6: Alpha Rising

  Part Six

  Afterward by the Author

  About the Author

  The Fallen Pack

  Part 6: Alpha Rising

  by Dawn Michelle

  Published by Novel Concept Publishing LLC

  ©2015

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For additional information contact:

  www.novelconceptpublishing.com

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  Cover art © 2014 Cora Graphics

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  Look for these other parts of the Fallen Pack serial:

  Part 1: Fallen Alpha

  Part 2: The Hunt

  Part 3: The Chase

  Part 4: Denying the Pack

  Part 5: Huntress

  Part 6: Alpha Rising

  Part 7: Heir to the Alpha

  Part 8: Claiming the Pack

  Part Six

  "My arms are not hairy!"

  Evan jerked in his chair and turned to make sure no one was paying any attention to CJ's outburst. There were only a few other people in the school library that early and only one of them, a freshman girl, even spared them a glance.

  "No, they're not," he agreed. He grinned and added, "Not right now."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" CJ demanded.

  "Look, in the woods last weekend you felt different. Only for a few minutes, but you looked different too. It's crazy and I've been telling myself I was just seeing things in the dark, but after what I've been reading up on this week..."

  CJ crossed her arms and slumped back in her wooden chair beside him. "Great, now I have to go home and shave from head to toe before you come over."

  Evan raised an eyebrow. "Head to toe? Even..." his eyes darted to her denim shorts long enough to finish his sentence.

  "Everything!" she snapped. "If a little hair bugs you that much..."

  Evan wiped the grin off his face and shook his head. "That's not it. I mean, that'd be cool, but that's not the point."

  "I kind of thought that was the point of doing it?"

  "Well yeah, but— hang on, you're getting this all wrong. Look," he said and turned back to the message board he was showing her. "It took me a couple of days to even find this board. There's a lot of them out there and most full of creepy or crazy people. Come to think of it, a lot of the people on this board might be too, but some tried to help."

  "And you told them that when you and I make love I get hairy?"

  "That was one time," he hissed and glanced around again. "I didn't say it like that either, just that we were outside at night and during a time of a lot of activity your arms looked different, almost hairy."

  CJ looked down at her crossed arms and then held them out and twisted them. "No hair. Peach fuzz, sure, but everyone has that."

  "This wasn't that," Evan said.

  She snorted. "I think you're wasting your time."

  "You said you were scared. We have to ask questions if we're going to get answers."

  "I'm scared about whatever psycho followed us home and left my clothes folded on your doorstep!"

  "I kept looking behind us on our way back, nobody was following us," Evan said. "No way a person could have done that."

  "So who, the wolves in the woods? Wolves can't fold clothes!" she snapped.

  Evan hesitated before sighing. "No, wolves can't. You need opposable thumbs for that."

  "What, so there's monkeys running around in Southern Illinois now? Monkey's that can do laundry?"

  "This doesn't make sense to me either," Evan argued. "We're living through it though. You've seen what I've seen."

  "I didn't see my arms get hairy," she muttered.

  Evan sighed. He turned back to the message board. "Okay, fine. Can we go back to this now?"

  "What, where some crazy bitch wants to meet you? I don't think so. No way you're going god-knows-where to meet some strange woman."

  "Not me, us. I need you to come too. The wolves are one thing, but Ceej, admit it, you've been different."

  "I told you, I woke up after that wolf bit me. I'm not taking things for granted anymore. Not my parents and not you."

  "That's one thing, but what about the other stuff?"

  "What other stuff?" she asked. "Hairy arms?"

  He winced. "You hated gym class. You hated running and just about any sports, but now you leave me in the dust. I can't keep up. You're faster, stronger, and keep going longer than anybody I've ever seen. You got bit and the bit marks were gone two days later. That's not normal!"

  CJ crossed her arms again and glanced away from him. He watched her blink away tears and had to force himself to swallow to keep his throat from locking up. Without thinking about it, he reached out and placed his hand on her thigh.

  "Ceej, I love you. I'm freaked out about what's going on, but I'm here for you. I'm here with you. We'll get through it, whatever it is."

  She turned back and looked at him. Her lips parted and her eyes darted around as she tried to find a way to say something. Evan watched her struggle and squeezed her leg just above her knee again.

  "She sent me a private message on here, she's in Arkansas, about three hundred miles southwest of here. She wants us to come down there. Both of us."

  CJ licked her lips. "Three hundred miles is a long ways."

  "Five hours, give or take. My dad told me I could borrow his truck, he's not working this weekend."

  She glared at him. "You told your dad?"

  "No details, just that you and I were thinking about getting out of town for the weekend."

  CJ frowned and then slumped back in her chair. "Who is she?"

  He grinned. "Stephanie. Her name is Stephanie Edgerton. She graduated a couple of years ago."

  "Great," CJ mumbled. "Can't wait to meet her."

  Evan clicked the mouse and brought up another window for her. "This is her senior picture."

  CJ sat forward in her chair and stared at the beautiful blond in an expensive dress and a tiara. "She's pretty."

  Evan kept his eyes on CJ. "You're prettier."

  She snorted. "What's a prom queen that looks like that going to help us with? Hasn't she moved on from cheerleading to being some rich guys mistress?"

  "Wow," Evan said. "You haven't even met her and you don't like her."

  She sneered at the picture. "I'm better than she is."

  Evan nodded. "I agree. You are. But we need help and she says she can help us."

  "What's she want?"

  "Huh?"

  "She can help, you think? A girl that looks like that doesn't just help without getting something in return."

  "Damn," Evan muttered. "You don't even know her. She's been nice in our messages."

  "I'm a girl, I know."

  Evan sighed and decided to give it up. "Okay. Today's
Friday, we'll leave first thing tomorrow. You staying at my place tonight?"

  "If we're going to see her tomorrow you bet your ass I am!"

  "What if we weren't?"

  She softened a little and narrowed her eyes. "I see what you're up to. Yes, I'd be there anyhow."

  "What about Laura and Trista? You haven't spent time with them in a while, other than when they meet us at lunch. I hardly hear you even talk about them anymore."

  She shrugged. "I'd rather spend time with you. Is that bad?"

  Evan chuckled. "Bad? Hardly! I'd rather be with you too, it just seems funny, that's all."

  CJ sniffed and nodded. "Maybe a little. I've always wanted us to be together. Finally seems like we're really doing it is all. I blame myself."

  He laughed. "So, it's your fault now?"

  "Totally," she agreed with a grin. "I'm the one that stopped screwing around and trying to make sure everything was perfect. I decided we needed to just go for it, otherwise we'd never know. And you know what? Everything ended up being perfect without even trying."

  Evan grinned. "It did," he agreed.

  CJ nodded to the computer. "Shut that off," she said. "We've got some time before first hour starts."

  "Yeah, so what do you want to do?"

  She leaned close to him and made sure her warm breath brushed his ear as she whispered. "I want to find somewhere where I can give you a nice sloppy blow job."

  Evan's breath caught in his throat and his body stiffened in the chair. His entire body, not just his most interested part. "Ceej—"

  She nuzzled the side of his face and slid her tongue over the contours of his ear. "I'm going to make sure you don't even look at that prom queen slut."

  Evan shuddered and melted into the chair he was sitting in.

  "Come on," CJ insisted and leaned back to gather her bag. "Or should I just say come?"

  Temporarily freed of distraction, Evan corralled his thoughts. "I don't think I can stand up."

  CJ grinned. "Sure you can. Adjust him and walk right behind me. I want to be able to slow down and feel him against me."

  "Him?"

  Her eyes dropped to the bulge in his pants. "He seems to have a mind of his own, don't you think?"

  Evan grinned. "It's been all week since I've seen you. He's missed you."

  "Make sure he doesn't miss this time then," she teased.

  Evan chuckled. "I bump into you in the hall and it might be too late."

  She bit her lips and then licked them. "That would be pretty hot."

  "Hot? Try embarrassing!"

  "No," she corrected him. "I mean if I got some on me and I wore it without noticing it."

  Evan's face heated up at her obscene suggestion. He had to shift in his seat to accommodate the growing hardness in his pants. "Uh, this is crazy and probably stupid, but let's hurry up."

  She giggled. "I talked you into it?"

  "Oh yeah!" he nodded and erased the browsing history before closing the computer down. "Let's go!"

  "Come," she corrected.

  He chuckled. "Okay, sure. Anywhere you want."

  "Uh uh. Everywhere I want," she said before standing and taking his hand in hers so she could pull him out of his chair. She moved in front of him and looked back over her shoulder and winked.

  Evan grinned back and followed as close behind her as he dared. The weekend was off to a hell of a start and it hadn't even started yet!

  * * * *

  CJ stretched in her seat, arching her back and lifting her already short tank top up so that it almost showed the bottom of her breasts. Evan glanced over and then looked again, unable to turn away. She caught him looking and smiled before sliding her hands up and tugging the bottom of her shirt up until she exposed the bottom of her boobs. "How about a little underboob?"

  "Yes, please!"

  She laughed and dropped her shirt. "Eyes on the road. We're almost there. Hate to waste over four hours on the road for nothing."

  Evan was about to protest when she curled her body up in the passenger seat and leaned onto the console. Her long legs curled up under her in the seat while her head rested on her arm on the console between them. She stretched her other arm out and traced lazy patterns on his thigh with her fingernails.

  "You don't want me distracted looking at you so instead you're doing that?"

  She smiled. "I'm not going to touch him, I just like touching you."

  He watched her baby blue painted fingernails slide through his leg hair below the bottom of his shorts and shook his head. It wasn't her fault, she could distract him in a snowmobile suit! Her fingernails felt nice as they scratched along his skin.

  "Hey," he jerked his eyes back down and then over to CJ. "Are you growing your nails out? I don't remember them being that long."

  She picked her hand up and stared at it. She frowned. "That's weird."

  "What?"

  She shifted so she could hold her hand up between them. "I painted them this morning."

  Evan looked at her fingers, trying to understand the problem. It only took him a few seconds to overcome his gender-induced blindness. "Wait— your nails have grown that much since this morning?"

  She stared at the almost quarter inch of new growth near her cuticle and then looked up at Evan. "That's never happened before."

  He shook his head. "No, I don't imagine it has."

  She curled her fingers into her palms and clutched her hands to her chest. "What's happening to me?"

  Evan reached over and rested his hand on her shoulder. He gave her a squeeze and began to stroke her arm. "We're going to find out," he promised.

  She slipped her hand and rested it over his. "I'm scared. I feel fine. No, better than fine. I feel awesome, other than when I get really tired. But that doesn't last long."

  Evan glanced down at her and tried to give her a reassuring smile. His lips twitched when he noticed her hand. The gap between the end of her fingernail polish and her cuticle had disappeared.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Your fingers," he whispered.

  CJ lifted her hand and sat up in her seat. Her legs were still curled under her, but she didn't look uncomfortable in the awkward position. Her brow furrowed as she looked at first one and then the other hand. "What the hell?" she muttered. "I saw what I saw— you did too, right? I'm not crazy?"

  "No, you're not," he reassured her. "Or we both are, maybe."

  She nodded. "How much longer?"

  Evan glanced at his phone that was connected to the vent on the dashboard. "Our exit's coming up in a couple of miles. Then we're meeting her at some roadside park."

  CJ sat up straighter. "A roadside park? Does she know I'm coming?"

  Evan ignored the sharp tone in her voice. "She asked that you come."

  "Oh."

  Evan fought to keep a smile off his face at her subdued response. This was crazy, what was happening to her, and the only things he could find that made any sense at all didn't make sense. They were impossible.

  "Evan?"

  He jerked himself out of his thoughts and glanced over. "Yeah?"

  "I love you... you know that, right?"

  He wanted to crack a joke and lighten the sudden tense mood in the truck, but he knew better. "Yes," he replied without hesitation. "Almost as much as I love you."

  She smiled and nodded. "Thank you for helping me."

  "Stop, this is my fault. I'm the one that talked you into going out parking with me that night when...uh, when this started."

  She responded with a sad smile. "Hardly. You beat me to the punch is all. I'd been dying to find a way to jump your bones without you thinking I was some kind of slut."

  "Slut?" he blurted out. He laughed. "You're insatiable and the sexiest woman alive, but you're not a slut."

  She blushed and shook her head. "I am. I like it. I want to be..."

  "You do?"

  She nodded. "Only for you though. You make me so hot... even right now I want to make you pull over and climb on
top of you."

  "Woah!"

  "Yeah, tell me about it," she said. "I'm scared and nervous and god-knows-what-else! But one thing my twisted little slut mind keeps thinking is trying to make love to you. It pushes the other stuff away and calms me down."

  "Well, that's not all bad, I guess."

  She laughed. "You're such a boy."

  Evan grinned and turned the truck off onto their exit. He rolled up to the stop sign and looked both ways. The road was empty. "I thought we lived in in the middle of nowhere."

  CJ shifted onto her other hip and looked around. "Lots of fields and trees. I think it looks nice. Better without people ruining it."

  Evan shrugged and turned onto the road. He drove less than two miles before he noticed a speck growing in his rear view mirror. The speck turned into a motorcycle that raced towards him. He glanced down at his speedometer and frowned. He was doing sixty and the biker was making him look like he was standing still.

  "Stupid," he muttered.

  CJ turned and looked out the back window of the truck. The biker caught up to them in a few seconds and passed them, roaring past in a thunder of exhaust and a streak of red hair. The motorcyclist pulled back in front of them and raced ahead, leaving them in the swirling dust.

  "Jesus," Evan muttered. "I bet we find that idiot smashed into a ditch in a few miles."

  "That idiot was a girl," CJ said.

  "I wasn't sure," Evan admitted. "I did notice she had shorts on and wasn't wearing a helmet. Stupid."

  "Skirt."

  "What?"

  "Those weren't shorts, she was wearing a miniskirt."

  "A miniskirt? You're kidding me!"

  CJ shook her head. "Only thing she had on that made sense were her boots."

  "Unbelievable." Evan said as he stared ahead at the disappearing speck. He shook his head and then offered a grin for CJ. "Any chance you'd wear something like that?"

  She slapped his leg.

  Evan laughed and drove on. Two more turns and another twelve miles passed before he pulled off into the roadside park dedicated to some local redneck who'd done something heroic in the middle east. The small parking lot was muddy and almost abandoned. A weathered picnic table looked like it might fall apart if someone tried to sit on it. The only other thing of interest was the trail that led through the weeds at the edge of the parking lot beside the motorcycle.