A WOLF'S OBSESSION: PART ONE (AN ALPHA LANDS SERIAL) Read online

  Contents

  Summary

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Thank You & More

  A WOLF'S OBSESSION: PART ONE

  An ALPHA LANDS serial

  The first release in Josey Alden's sexy, suspenseful shapeshifter world

  Rosa Mendez never felt that she belonged in the human world. She spent her teenage years longing to live among werewolves, where strong, shapely women are sought after and treasured as mates. Now, living and teaching in the Alpha Lands, she attracts more attention than she ever did back home … but her heart is set on one wolf.

  Jared Clearlight is done with dating pure-blood humans. He's a beta now, a talented photographer ready to prove himself to his tribe and form his own pack, but these one-night stands with delicate, humorless females are only draining his energy. He swears off human women altogether … until the night he catches sight of Rosa.

  For the first time in her life, Rosa has to fight off the guys swarming around her. For the first time in his life, Jared holds something in his hands that he cares about far more than achieving alpha status. Can they satisfy each other's deepest desires, or will a wolf's obsession rip them apart?

  This serial novella is a shapeshifter/BBW romance with a cliffhanger. The story contains strong sexual themes not intended for readers under the age of eighteen.

  ______

  Prologue

  She refuses to sit here doing nothing while he is out there—somewhere—defending her. As she quickly dresses, her mind throws worst-case scenarios at her. A wolf has injured him. A pack of wolves has killed him. Or he's still alive but in desperate need of help, and she's the only one who can find him in time.

  She climbs out from behind the waterfall, wishing she'd worn sturdier shoes. The rocks are slippery with algae, and she loses her left shoe to the river. She wrenches the other one off, throws it into the river with the other one, and continues up the embankment.

  When she's standing on level ground again, she surveys the woods. The trees all look the same to her. Tears of frustration run down her face, but she's determined to find him. She must do this. After checking every direction again, she chooses a path that looks like it was recently disturbed. She follows scattered leaves and broken branches for more than fifteen minutes, not seeing or hearing anyone. She then stops and turns in a full circle, not at all certain she is going in the right direction.

  All she knows for sure is that she's lost.

  She sits down for a minute to plan her next move. The thought of wandering in the woods for hours or days makes her hyperventilate, and if she doesn't calm down, she'll pass out.

  At that second, something explodes out of the trees to her right: a wolf bearing down on her in a dead run. She instinctively covers her head with her arms, positive that she's about to be attacked.

  But the blow doesn't come. Instead, she hears a hard crack, like a plank of wood snapping in half. When she puts her arms down to see what made the sound, she sees two wolves rolling across the ground together at high velocity. When they slam against the trunk of a mature oak tree, the one on top turns to look straight into her eyes.

  She recognizes this wolf. She knows him. But she doesn't understand the murderous expression on his face.

  ______

  Chapter 1

  Rosa Mendez belonged in the Alpha Lands.

  She knew this like she knew that her eyes were blue and that her sweet tooth sometimes got the best of her. She knew it like she knew she would honor her parents' wishes for her to stay away from the Alpha Lands while they were still paying her college tuition—but after that, she would be her own woman.

  While she was in high school, her parents forbid her to visit the reservation, warning her of giant werewolves who patrolled the borders, waiting for full-blood humans to cross. Rosa knew that frustrated parents started the rumor to try to keep carloads of teens from drinking in the small bars that dotted the border. It was impossible to convince her parents of that fact, though, so Rosa was forced to make her plans in private up to the day of her college graduation.

  With her English degree and teaching certificate in hand, she quietly accepted a job in the Wolf Nation as part of an educator recruitment program. As in many other communities across Texas, teachers here were in short supply. Rosa was eager to help fill this need.

  And she was thrilled at the idea of becoming an alpha wolf's mate—a secret she shared only with her best friend Cynthia.

  "I still don't get it," Cyn said as she helped Rosa pack up the last few things in her room for the move. "You have the whole United States—hell, the whole world—to find Mr. Right, and you want to limit yourself to the guys in three wolf tribes right smack in the middle of Texas? In a place you've never once visited?"

  Rosa gave her friend a patient smile. This running argument had gone on for three years, ever since Rosa revealed her plans in strict confidence. She appreciated Cyn's concern, but this wasn't so much a choice as a calling. She'd tried to date ordinary guys, but not one of them held her interest for more than a few weeks. They all seemed shallow, disrespectful, and unrooted. How could she adequately explain the overwhelming need she felt in the depths of her soul when she thought about being with a werewolf? In human form, these gorgeous creatures were everything she wanted in a man: powerful, intuitive, intense. In wolf form, they spoke to her ancient soul in a way no other being could. Even though she was an English major, she could not find the words to explain this to Cyn. No one but Rosa herself could understand why she had no choice but to go to the Alpha Lands.

  "Would you say I was limiting myself if I stayed in the city?" Rosa said. She pulled an armload of books from her shelf and stacked them neatly in an open box. "Yes, I'm moving to the Alpha Lands, but it doesn't mean I have to date only those men. You can practically walk to Austin from the south end of the reservation."

  "But you won't go to Austin or Dallas or anywhere else," Cyn said. "I've never seen someone so obsessed with the Alpha Lands. Hell, I don't think half the people in the state even know the place exists."

  Rosa paused before returning to the shelf for more books. "Don't worry. I won't settle for the first wolf who looks at me twice. I have standards."

  "Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of," Cyn muttered.

  After they loaded the remaining boxes into her old, black Land Rover, Rosa turned to her friend and gave her a long hug. Tears came to her eyes when she realized that for the first time in four years, she wouldn't wake up with Cyn in the bedroom next to hers tomorrow morning. Cyn clung to Rosa's neck, crying openly. Her friend never stuffed down her feelings. When the sobs stopped, she stepped back.

  "If anyone, and I mean anyone, lays a paw on you, I'll kill him," Cyn said. She was a twenty-something wisp of a woman, but she was as tough as someone twice her size.

  Rosa smiled through her tears. "I'm not heading to the wild, wild west," she said.

  "You may as well be."

  She didn't have much of a response for that, so she stayed quiet. She wasn't naive. By taking up residence in the Alpha Lands, Rosa was, in effect, moving to a foreign country. To her, the
Wolf Nation was both exotic and ordinary, frightening and spiritual. Spread over a million acres in Central Texas, this self-ruled reservation had followed the laws of the tribal world for more than a hundred years. The elders often told stories about the time thousands of years ago, when werewolves were free to live where they wished on the North American continent. This was before pure-blood humans started hunting wolves out of spite, in retribution for the unruly behavior of a small fraction of the population.

  By the time the wolf leaders came together to do something about the senseless deaths, the tribes had lost more than a million citizens. An agreement between the Wolf Nation and the federal government granted one million acres—symbolizing the number of lost souls—to the three largest tribes. Many wolves moved to Texas from other states to help build the new communities. Others, enraged by the thought of being confined to a specific piece of land, went deeper into the forests and mountains to maintain their freedom. They didn't trust that citizens of the Alpha Lands would be granted the same rights as the rest of the United States. They feared virtual imprisonment. Each year, though, hundreds of young wolves drifted to the Alpha Lands to make their new homes.

  Rosa had waited years to be one of them. Now, at the age of twenty-two, her new life was only two hours away.

  ______

  Chapter 2

  A woman was locked in Jared Clearlight's bathroom. He didn't put her there. He didn't want her there. It looked like she wasn't coming out any time soon, though, and he had to pee.

  He pulled off his pajama bottoms. He didn't feel like exposing his human body to his neighbors this morning. Mrs. Muller, in particular, always gave him the evil eye, even though she was the one with cat skulls lining her porch rail. He opened the front door, shifted, and then stepped out. He turned around and tugged on the rope hanging from his doorknob, careful not to pull the door all the way closed. Other wolves simply put electric door openers on their dens. He liked the challenge of doing some human things in wolf form.

  After he relieved himself behind the building, Jared pushed the door open with his snout and shifted again. He pulled on his pajama pants and then knocked on the closed bathroom door. "Jennifer? Are you okay?"

  "No."

  "Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

  "No."

  Jared rested his forehead against the door. Damn, he was tired of dating human females. Since high school, he'd been attracted to the college girls who came to the Alpha Lands by the carload for parties with the locals. But he was twenty-four now. These too-delicate creatures were beginning to irritate and bore him.

  As he reached up to knock again, Jennifer opened the door.

  "My legs feel like I rode a freakin' horse all night. I can barely walk," she said, glaring up at Jared as she limped out of the bathroom.

  "Nah, you just rode me."

  As the words came out of his mouth, he knew he should have kept them to himself. The slap came immediately, sharp and stinging. He closed his eyes and begged himself to keep his mouth shut. Asking her to slap him again would only draw out this miserable moment for both of them.

  He went into the kitchen to give Jennifer time to find all of her stuff without him standing over her. That was only one of the problems with dating small human women. He always felt oversized … in more ways than one.

  Just thinking about women in the abstract made Jared grow hard again. He sighed. There would be no more release with Jennifer, that was for sure. And seeing him with a giant erection would only fuel her anger. He mentally talked himself down while he pulled the eggs out of the refrigerator and heated a pat of butter in a large pan over the gas burner on his stove. He cracked all eighteen eggs into a mixing bowl and whipped them together with a little milk. To fit it all in the pan, he had to cook half of the mixture at a time.

  As Jared placed the second half of cooked eggs on the plate with a spatula, Jennifer burst out of his bedroom. She wore the short, red slip dress he had pulled off her last night while they were still standing on his porch. Her hair was pulled up in a messy, red ponytail, and she carried her four-inch black heels in her left hand. Her right hand held her phone to her ear, and Jared could hear a high, tinny voice bitching through the speaker.

  "I know. I know," Jennifer said into the phone. She slung her bag over her shoulder and threw one last glare at Jared. "Men are pigs."

  "I'm a wolf," Jared said, more to himself than his guest. "And what's wrong with being a pig? They've forgiven us for all that house-blowing nonsense, you know."

  Despite the voice streaming into her ear, Jennifer heard his comment and let out a raspy cry of frustration. "I don't care if you're a wolf or a pig or the freakin' king of China. Don't call me," she said. "Ever."

  After the front door slammed behind her, Jared said to the now blissfully quiet den, "Emperor. It's the emperor of China."

  He then sat on the kitchen counter, eating all eighteen eggs and vowing never to bring home another human woman again.

  ______

  Chapter 3

  Sitting in front of the school in her car, Rosa couldn't tell if she was more excited or scared to walk into the building. She felt like a real adult with a real job for the first time. After so many years of going to school, it was hard to believe she'd finally finished. This week, she would set up her room and meet with the other teachers on the stack of materials she'd received on the curriculum and rules. Next week, she would meet her kids.

  When Rosa walked into the front office, the receptionist looked up from her typing. "Yes?"

  Several other people were in the office, too, but they only looked her up and down and went back to their conversations. Fear rose into her throat, but she wasn't sure why. Yes, everyone in this office was a wolf, but they were human, too. Her parents' myths about the dangers of being too close to wolves tugged at her a little. Could there be any truth to what they said? Would she, as a pure-blood, be targeted? She shook off the ridiculous thought.

  "I'm Rosa Mendez," she said to the receptionist. "I think I'm in room B14."

  The woman entered her name into the computer. "Yes, second grade hall. When you leave this office, turn left, go down two hallways, and turn left again. The door is unlocked, and the key is in the lap drawer of the desk. Staff meeting in the cafeteria at 9:00 a.m."

  Rosa thanked her and checked the time on her phone. She had thirty minutes before the meeting.

  As she passed more faculty members in the main hallway, she noticed several double-takes. The manager of the teacher recruiting program had emphasized that Rosa would be the only pure-blood in the school. This hadn't fazed her at the time, but now, she wished she didn't stand out quite so much. Maybe she could stand at the front during the faculty meeting to get all the staring over all at once.

  When Rosa opened the door to room B14, she thought there'd been a mistake. The room was virtually empty of anything except one tall cabinet, her desk, and four neat lines of student desks. No books, no maps, no posters. No decorations of any kind. She set her bag on her desk and opened the unlocked cabinet. It, too, was empty.

  "Hello, Rosa."

  Rosa flinched and turned to find a man standing in her doorway. He looked like he was in his thirties, wearing rectangular wire-frame glasses and a short-sleeved plaid shirt with khaki shorts. His hair was pulled back in a long, black ponytail. He had one small tribal tattoo on his forearm. Rosa had no idea who he was or how he knew her name.

  "Hi, I'm sorry, I'm terrible with names," she said. "Please tell me we haven't met already."

  His smile put her at ease. "Raub Luna. Sixth grade math and science. I saw your name on the faculty phone list and noticed that you're new to the school. It seems you're also new to the Alpha Lands."

  How could they identify her as a non-native pure-blood so easily? There had to be a way for her to blend in better. "Yes, I moved into my new den a few days ago."

  He nodded. "Do you need help with anything?"

  "To be honest, I don't know." Rosa s
urveyed the room again. It was still as drab and gray as she thought. "Are all the classrooms like this?"

  "It won't take you long to make it yours," he said. "Talk to the librarian about equipment. She manages all of the valuable electronics, like projectors."

  "All right. I guess that's a start." Rosa expected him to leave now that he had welcomed her to the school. Instead, he continued to gaze at her without apology. It seemed that his wolf lurked just beneath the surface. This thought sent a spike of adrenaline up her spine.

  "You're a beautiful female," he said in a low but firm voice. "You will make a perfect mate."

  Rosa had no response for this … what? Compliment? Harassment? Worst pick-up line ever? When he said goodbye to her and disappeared, she wondered if it happened at all.

  ______

  Chapter 4

  At dusk, Jared left his den for his evening run. He shifted and took off down his street without warming up. He loved that as a wolf, his muscles were ready at a second's notice. Humans had pampered themselves too much, and they were weaker for it. Vulnerable. He hated the thought of willingly giving up strength.

  He decided to stick around the neighborhoods instead of veering off into the woods. Surveying the area while he ran helped him keep track of who lived around him. If he was going to be an alpha with his own pack, he had to know what went on in his territory. Outwardly, he was a beta still finding his place in the Alpha Lands, but inside, he was confident he was alpha material. It wasn't only his lineage that made him feel this way, even though his father was chief alpha of the Anya tribe. A son couldn't assume alpha status based on his father's accomplishments. He had to prove himself as a leader to the community.

  And this meant putting his all-night parties and one-night stands behind him. This was his time to show everyone he had matured.