Shadow of The Wolf Ch. 05

A/N:

Once more thanks for my amazing editors Lunarosa and MythOFreak for their help.

CHAPTER FIVE

Stunned and a little bit shaken, Alex sat in her car. She couldn't believe what Troy had just told her: A shifter stalker had watched her from the mansion and followed her to her home.

She watched as Luc rounded the side yard and disappeared behind the house. A few anxious minutes ensued as she and Troy waited for him to reappear. To Alex, it seemed like hours before Luc came back to the car, and his taut and tense appearance kept Alex from fully relaxing when he did. Approaching Troy, Luc nodded enigmatically at his twin. They shared a look that Alex was pretty sure meant they were conversing mentally.

Alex saw the instant that Troy's visage changed. He seemed to be the more volatile twin. He looked more grim and appeared to almost be on the verge of violence. He was clenching his fists at his sides and was getting hairier by the second.

"Alex." Rance's voice suddenly in her head startled her and made her yelp in surprise. "What?!" she answered, aloud.

The twins looked questioningly at Alex. She shook her head at them and concentrated on Rance's mental summons. "Yeah, I'm here," she replied, "why can reach me now? I thought I closed off our link."

"Little one, you blasted it open a couple of minutes ago. I think that was about the time when the twins told you to stay in your car," Rance replied. "Please keep it open," he urged. "I want to make sure you're alright."

"Aren't you talking to the twins? Of course I'm alright. I couldn't be more protected with one hairy twin holding my door closed and the other prowling around my yard," Alex responded sarcastically. "Not that I'm not grateful, mind you. I just want to be in the loop. These two guard dogs you've assigned to me are purposely being close-lipped about the situation." She eyed the twins as they moved away from her car and held a quiet discussion.

She strained her hearing, trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. She could only hear snippets of it. "....mess...broke in....message...pissed off," Luc rumbled.

"I want you to come and stay with me in the mansion. I know you need more time. But Alex, I couldn't give you that anymore," Rance tried to explain. "I want you protected...No. I need you protected," he fervently exclaimed. "Please, let the twins escort you back here. You are in grave danger if you continue to stay there."

"Grave danger? Somebody wants to kill me? I haven't done anything to anybody that could warrant that reaction." She frowned in consternation. Feeling like everything in her life was suddenly out of her control. She knew that this invasion of her house happened because she was now mated to Rance. She didn't understand the whys of it yet, but she was certain that she was not being targeted because of something she did, but because of who she now was in Rance's life.

"I'm sorry little one. But someone crazy has targeted you. According to Luc's report, the message left at your home is especially sinister," Rance answered as calmly as he could. She knew he was trying to sound unruffled for her benefit. He probably did not want to alarm her further, but Rance could not fully mask the intense dread that was seeping, unbeknownst to him, through their mate link.

"What message did this ass leave behind in my house?" Alex asked aloud to be heard by the twins. She was truly infuriated. The pack did not have the right to keep her in the dark. This was her house, her property. She worked her ass off so she could put a down payment on this small house. It was not much, but it was hers. She would not let anyone violate her private sanctuary.

No one, man or shifter, would get away with messing with what was hers; neither would she stand around while others deal with her problem. She wouldn't be kept in the dark. She told Rance to be quiet while she dealt with the twins.

Shoving the car door open, she approached Luc and Troy determinedly. Her face was scrunched in a belligerent glare that spelled trouble to the two shifters warily eyeing their Regina.

"Tell me what did that sick shifter did in my house," she demandingly asked Luc. "If you don't tell me now, I am going in there and finding out for myself. I don't care if he is stronger than me. No one violates my private space without any retribution. I'm telling you now that I will exact it no matter how long it takes, no matter what," she said starkly.

Both Luc and Troy were taken aback at her vehemence. They were highly impressed at their Regina's display of temper. She was truly a worthy mate to their alpha. Her fierceness would serve her well, reigning beside Rance.

With a repentant smile on his face, Luc shallowly bowed his head in deference to Alex. "Forgive us. Reg- uh- Alex, we meant no disrespect. We were just conferring about how to proceed with this situation before us." Luc kept his eyes downcast to further reassure his Regina.

"Alright then, so spill. What happened in my house? I want to go inside and see for myself the damage done. Rance told me there was a message?" She waited for them to enlighten her, but the two remained mute and refused to directly look at her.

Almost at the end of her patience, she snapped her fingers in front of them "Tell me now or so help me - I will start kicking you both where it will hurt the most." She looked pointedly at their groins. Apparently Rance was listening, as she heard his laughter reverberate through their mate link. Instead of being intimidated, the two wolves sported shit-eating grins on their faces and beamed at Alex. They seemed to approve of her penchant for violence.

"Did you send me two idiotic wolves?" she asked Rance. "These two are just standing here and grinning at me....now they are outright laughing!"

What Alex didn't know was that Rance, Damian, and the twins were all communicating mentally. The twins had started laughing when, after Rance proudly extolled Alex's fierceness, Damian reminded Rance that his mate would kick him in the nuts when he angered her, too.

"My sweet Alex," Rance soothingly crooned. "They are not laughing because of you. Let me deal with them." Rance purposely kept the link open to his mate so she could listen in to the mental link he had with his betas. She would not be able to maintain a multiple link as a speaker, not just a listener, until she had finally shifted.

"Enough. We are facing a serious breach to my mate's privacy and security. Luc and Troy, I want you to make every effort to sniff out the perpetrator. Once you have brought your Regina here to the mansion, I want both of you to further investigate this incursion into her house."

"Yes Alpha." Both Luc and Troy answered, attempting to hold in their mirth.

Alex had heard enough. She turned her back on them and walked briskly to her front door. Trying the knob, she found it unlocked and opened the door wide. She was unprepared for what awaited her inside. Seeing the desecration of her living room, Alex was rooted at the entrance of her house. Her unbelieving eyes took in the destruction inside. She felt the blood leaving her face and knew that she looked pale as a ghost.

A buzzing sound echoed inside her head and her vision became blurry. Dazedly, she took several steps inside, and then abruptly stopped. Looking down, she saw her shoes scuffed something red that was splashed all over her living room carpet...and the walls...and the ceiling.

Her leather sofas were slashed and the cotton stuffing's scattered willy-nilly. The tables and lamps were broken in pieces. Framed pictures of her family and friends, formerly resting on the fireplace mantle had been thrown against the walls, broken and torn up. The sheer hatred permeating the room was suffocating.

She wandered to the rest of the house and found that everything she owned was either damaged or decimated. Most of her worldly possession inside the house had been reduced to junk.

She vaguely heard the twins trailing after her and Rance, hailing her in their link. She ignored all three of them.

A powerful emotion was growing inside of Alex. The devastation of what happened was fueling a fury such as she had never felt before. She felt her blood boiling and her ears starts to ring. Intense heat engulfed her body. All she could think about was vengeance for this injustice. She felt like a dormant volcano suddenly set to erupt, annihilating all in its path. The pressure was too much and about to explode. Panting heavily, severe pain suddenly rolled through her, radiating from her stomach to her extremities. Falling down on her knees, she clutched her midsection in an attempt to contain the pain.

Her mate shouted in her head and it made her instinctively close off their mental link. The molten fire of pain spread fast; swamping her muscles and bones, precisely consuming her, and spitting her out raw and trembling.

The twins watched helplessly as she writhed on the floor.

******

Rance was frantic. He was in his study going through the pack's extensive business interests while talking to Alex. He tried to calm her when he felt the surging emotions raging in her, but to no avail. The initial agonizing pain ravaging his mate zinged through their link, making him drop the documents he was holding and scattering them on the floor. The echoes of pain made him feel like a blowtorch was setting his organs on fire. His muscles and bones felt like they were being pulled like putty. The pain was racking Alex's entire body and Rance was experiencing it with her. God, she was shifting, alone, without him there to ease her way.

He shoved off his desk. Rance staggered as he ran for the door. The ebb and flow of pain seemed to be subsiding, but Alex was unresponsive to his mental call. Ignoring everyone, he rushed down the hall while telepathically telling Damian to bring his car around. Slamming open the front door, he descended the mansion's steps in a sprint. He was rushing to be there for Alex.

Just as Damian stopped the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 in front of Rance, he heard Troy exclaimed -- "Alpha, you can't believe what's happening!" the usually calm Luc immediately mind spoke, wildly animated, "the Alpha Regina is shifting. It's unbelievable!"

"Impossible. The moon, which is not even out yet, is not a full moon," Damian said doubtfully. "Maybe you're mistaken."

Rance remained quiet as he replaced Damian in the driver's seat. He wanted to concentrate driving and not get into an accident. He felt the prickling in his skin, and knew that the twins were correct in believing that Alex was shifting. His mate needed him now, and he would not fail her.

"No, Prime, we're not," responded Luc. "The Regina is presently sprouting fur and slowly shifting into her wolf form."

"Leave! Give her privacy for her initial shift," Rance commanded the twins. "Go to the hall and one of you wait for us outside. Don't leave her by herself in the house. We will be there in fifteen minutes, God willing." Damian looked askance at Rance. There was no way that they could do it that fast. She lived at least twenty five minutes away from the mansion. When he was about to point it out to his alpha, Rance just glared at Damian and floored the gas on the Bugatti as they sped off.

Impossible as it might sound, his mate was shifting for the first time. Luna in her wisdom gifted his mate with the ability to shift without the full moon. He could only believe that the goddess had a good reason why. In due time, Rance knew that Luna would reveal it. All he needed to do was be there for Alex. She might be afraid coming out from her first shift. He would reassure his mate that everything was going to be alright.

******

Alex couldn't understand what was going on. First, she felt an overwhelming and inexplicable fury stemming from the violation of her home. Suddenly, a burning sensation, stemming from her midsection, started eating at her organs that drove her to her knees, and then, an unbearable itching underneath her skin. She heard distinct popping sounds as her muscles and bones stretch and pulled. She whimpered as her body was drawn taut and a sudden flash of bright light engulfed her writhing form, and Alex thought: Oh shit. Four legs. I will not freak out. I will not freak out. Alex repeated to herself like a mantra.

As the light slowly dissipated, there was a harsh panting and whining from the direction of the floor. Luc slowly entered the bedroom and approached the sprawled form of his Regina. He knelt by her side, bowed and bared his neck for her. He patiently waited as she recovered from her first shift.

She was a beautiful wolf. Her luxurious reddish brown tinted fur glistened with health and vitality. She was not overly huge compared to born wolf shifters, but she was perfect in every sense. Her flanks were muscled and strong looking. Her paws were tipped with lethal looking claws.

Alex's ears pricked as she picked up the noise around her. Opening her eyes for the first time as a wolf, she discovered how vivid and clear everything seemed; even her sense of smell was greatly magnified. Her nose twitched as she tried to identify and differentiate the scents inside her house. Lifting her head from the floor, she finally noticed one of the twins kneeling in front of her.

Sniffing delicately at him, noticing his clothes and serious mien, she deduced that it was Luc who was before her. Alex opened her mouth to ask Luc what was going on. All that came out of her was a gruff whining sound. Frustrated, she sat on her haunches and glared at Luc.

Luc tried to suppress his amusement at seeing his Regina's obvious frustration and annoyance. A hint of a smile on the corner of his lips was the only indication of his mirth. "Pardon me Alex," he cautiously said. "If you want to talk to me, you can do it mentally."

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?!" blasted Alex.

Luc cringed since his Regina literally screamed through the mental link. Luc hoped his Alpha would get there soon. It seemed to him that their Regina had quite a temper.

"What is that revolting smell? It reeks in here." Alex was sniffing all over the bedroom. Whoever did this destruction had left a very putrid scent. She walked from one room into another, tracking the foul odor. Luc was quietly following behind. It was all over her house. There was no way that bleach could take away such stench!

"What you are smelling is the spoor left by your stalker," Luc replied aloud.

"Why? Why would a virtual stranger do this? The amount of energy expended and degree of hatred only reveals that it's personal." Alex cocked her wolf head towards Luc in inquiry. "Don't you think so?"

Alex did not wait for Luc's reply as she turned and loped into her living room. The room was a total mess. There was nothing here that was salvageable. She looked intently at the walls. The squiggly red markings on them were actually written words!

She picked her way carefully to one of the walls. Skirting ruined furniture and gingerly stepping over the red stains on the carpet, she finally reached it. She tilted her head left and right to make sense of the macabre graffiti.

Weird handwriting...almost like gibberish to me. For the life of her, she could not decipher it. She turned to Luc to ask him if he could make sense of the writing, but a gruff whine came out of her wolf mouth again. Damn! I keep forgetting that I'm not human anymore. She grimaced inwardly and hoped that she could adjust fast to this shit.

Noticing that Luc seemed to be engrossed on the writing on the wall, she sat her hairy butt beside him. After she deemed that he had enough time to puzzle through the graffiti, she nudged the leg nearest to her with her snout.

"Any clue as to what all this writing is about?" she finally remembered to mind talk.

"Hmmm? Oh!" Luc was startled out of deep thought. It seemed that the perv responsible for this desecration of his Regina's home and for the murders were one and the same. It was another crumb of clue to the mystifying murders. The writing on Alex's walls claimed responsibility for all the murders and the destruction wrought in her home.

Although written in an obscure ancient text familiar only to scholarly shifters, Luc had no trouble deciphering it. It was to their benefit that he was highly interested and had extensively studied everything arcane and ancient that he could get his hands on.

"It is written in one of our ancient writings. I have translated it as closely as possible to the literal meaning..."

"And?" interrupted Alex, hearing the hesitance in the beta's voice.

"It doesn't make sense to me. It's like the rambling of a crazy person."

"Well, duh! Who else in their right mind would come and trash my house but someone crazy?" Alex pointed out. She huffed out a breath and tried not to be overcome by fury again. She had no idea what might happen next if she did. She could become one of those monstrous looking werewolves depicted on t.v. and might start eating any human in sight! Eeew gross! She shook off that nasty thought.

Apparently she was not thinking quietly enough, since Luc shot a look of disbelief her way. The amused twinkle in his eyes belied his cool tone when he spoke. "Ah, we don't normally go around eating humans. But yes, you can shift into your hybrid form. Mostly we reserve it for battle. And for your information, I haven't eaten any humans... yet." He winked.

Alex was about to deliver a witty comeback when she heard the screech of tires outside her house. The sudden opening and closing of car doors made her jump up and walk in front the closed front door.

She sensed Rance before she even heard his deep, rumbling voice. The fast clatter of footsteps heralded the men as they burst inside. Rance was at the very front, followed closely behind by a dangerous looking man and Troy. When Rance saw her, he stopped in his tracks. Alex tried to glower at him, but did not think she quite pulled it off in her wolf form.

Casting a wary eye on his mate, Rance evaluated how Alex was feeling. He could not clearly tell how she was feeling in their bond. She was getting better at masking her emotions from him. He felt rather proud of how fast she was mastering her new abilities. Although a little ambivalent as to how she would receive him, he still approached her - slowly. Goddess she's beautiful! Rance thought. She was a stunning wolf. He had never seen coloring like hers, ever. The fading light outside made her fur shimmer luminously and cast mystery to her grey eyes. She stood majestically before him, unafraid and emitting an aura of dignified aggravation. He wanted to howl proudly at how regal she appeared. He eagerly looked forward to running with her in the woods -- he couldn't wait to show her his world.

Rance felt humbled by Luna's gift. Alex was everything he could ever need and want from a mate. How he needed to hold him in his arms, to show her how much of a blessing she truly was to him. Right. Crazed stalker, mayhem, and destruction first, nuzzling her all over and taking his mate in their wolf forms later.

"Hello Alex," he smiled down uncertainly at her. "I'm truly sorry I was not there for your first shift, little one." He continued to come near her until he was right in front of her wolf. Kneeling on one knee so he would be eye level with his mate, he drank in her beautiful form. Alex sat down and tilted her head at Rance.