Taking Alpha: Greyriver Shifters: Volume Two, #3

Chapter One

Jasmine

My name is Jasmine Matthews, and I am not crazy.

Okay, so just because I have to say that to myself every morning upon waking, doesn’t mean that I’m crazy, it just means that I’m sane enough to know the difference and that is a good thing, definitely a good thing.

Most folks think that crazy people know they’re nuts, the truth is that they don’t. Whacks, as I like to call the slightly less sane members of the population, are totally unaware of the difference between what is real and what isn’t.

Unless you meet those sane psychos, like Dahmer and Bundy, then you’re just screwed, so it wouldn’t matter if you knew the difference or not. Me, I am definitely sane-ish, but I am starting to slip, and I think the problem is that no-good, dirty mutt, Harris.

Oh God, why did I come here? I ask, staring at my reflection in the mirror and pulling a face when she stares back, completely incapable of giving me the answers I seek.

I’ve lived in Greyriver for a few weeks now, and from the first day I unpacked my boxes and let myself settle in, I knew it was all wrong. I feel...restless here, as if something is going to happen.

I don’t like that feeling. It’s anticipation, only it isn’t the good kind that people associate with the word. Technically, anticipation is that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when fear hits you or you get overwhelmed with feeling.

I feel that bad kind, as if something bad is going to happen, and I just don’t know what it is. Me, I hate surprises, so you can imagine it’s not great feeling as if the shoe is about to drop any minute.

The trouble is, I think I know that the shoe is actually a piano hovering over my head, a piano in the form of Rylan Harris, and I am terrified that I won’t be able to move in time.

Stupid male. Stupid, stupid, cocky male, I think, glaring at my reflection and wondering just what it is about me that attracts the freaks. Before I moved to Greyriver to become the resident shrink, a job I did not think through at all by the way, not with the way shifters treat me around here, I lived in my home town of Fairfield with my huge family surrounding me and buffering me from the world.

Out here, I’m all alone, and if I want to make it, it’s up to me to do all the work. Unfortunately, that work involves having weekly sessions with the enforcers who work in the area and police the people.

It wouldn’t be all that bad, I guess. I mean, I can handle hourly sessions that see me watching annoyed males glare at me and wait out the hour, their silence doing nothing but showing me just how much they need me.

It’s one enforcer in particular that is killing me. Slowly. Torturously.

You’re confused, okay, I get that since I, myself, am confused by Rylan and what I feel lately. I’ll explain.

Like I said, my name is Jasmine Matthews. Don’t hold that against me, my mom had a thing for flora, and my six sisters are all named after flowers too. We have Rose, Daisy, Lily, Gardenia—Nia to everyone who wants to live— Lavender, Marigold—Mari—and then my BFF, my one and only friend, and the reason I took this chance in Greyriver...Hyacinth.

I come from a huge family. I have six sisters, four brothers, all named after a car of some sort since Dad named them, lucky bastards—Chevy, not to be mistaken with the Chevy Chase from National Lampoon’s because he has absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever. At least that’s what Mom says, as well as laughing that God needed one serious member in the Matthews clan. I think she may be right...though I’d love to see Chev’s expression when someone eventually removes the stick from his ass, without the lube. Then there’s Ford, my second oldest brother, who is a jokester like no other. Dodge is next, and as his name suggests, there’s something not right about him although we all still love him. Last but not least, is my youngest brother Lancer. Dad swears that’s the name of the car he was driving when he nailed Mom for the fourth time. I can’t argue since I don’t want to know about cars or my parents copulating.

After the boys, Mom went on a rebellious streak and only popped out girls. It happened during her four-year gardening streak...though God knows her thumb is black as molasses and just as unhealthy.

So yeah, I come from a clan that is big and strong. Besides ten other siblings, me being the last—Mom says I came out sucking the life outta her, so her uterus gave up the will to live and never worked again—I have seventeen cousins.

There’s an even-ish mix of male to female in the clan, at least I think so. I stopped trying to figure us out a long time ago. All you need to know is that I became a shrink because I assumed my family needed mental help, and I still believe it, even if none of them will talk to me for all the money in the world.

Seriously, I tried paying them to let me do my job but no dice.

My pack also does not believe in the healing power of psychiatry, so yeah, you can see why I’m here in Greyriver, the first and probably only pack that now boasts a shrink.

I literally didn’t have any other choice but to accept the job when Nick Silverton called me and offered me the position. It’s my one shot. The trouble is it’s not going so well.

I see about thirty-two enforcers at the moment, all of whom spend their sessions glaring at me and smirking when the timer dings. Only two speak to me. The first is Lync Garrison a really smart and good-looking male, whose mate—or soon-to-be mate as he puts it—insists he talk about his time as a feral, imprisoned beneath the Alpha’s house.

I like Lync. He’s sweet and kind and only growls at me some of the time, when I try to dig too deep, too fast. Most days, we just talk about what he’s feeling in the moment, or the bits and pieces he’s starting to remember about his past life.

My second talker is Rylan Harris, the world’s biggest asshole and the reason that I won’t ever call Ford a whore ever again. My hour with him is spent trying to dissuade his non-flirting and ignore the way he licks his lips and stares at my boobs while he tells me about conquest after conquest.

I should totally have not told him that we’re Fated, I think, huffing as I use a hot curler to style my hair and ask myself why I’m making the effort when I shouldn’t want to look attractive to him and—

Oh! Stop yelling at me, I’m going to explain the Fating thing, but before I do, let me just say, don’t judge me before you know the whole story.

See, I met Rylan about two months ago, right around the time that Lync’s brother Noble found his mate, Sunny. I was invited here to help Lync talk through his issues and provide psychological evaluations on the other enforcers.

The moment I laid eyes on him, call or no call, scent or no scent, I just knew. Rylan is my Fated. My male. My one and only soulmate. Now to understand what I felt when it happened, you have to understand that I have wanted a mate and young since I was old enough to hold my bottle and babble at my mom. Seeing Rylan, knowing who he is to me, it was a surprise, let me tell ya. For like a millisecond, I was totally shocked. Rylan is hot, seriously hot, in this black-haired, DiCaprio way that made my panties melt and all but slide down my leg.

Buuuut, it’s a little hard to be happy about meeting your Fated when the asshole looks right through you and flirts with the female beside you. Top that shocker off with the way he insulted me on that first meeting, asking me if I always dress like a spinster and that is the start of a contentious relationship.

Only the start though. I wasn’t too upset by the lack of recognition although, let me tell ya, being ignored and insulted by your Fated on the first meeting is not great.

No. I’m me, and this me is a happy-go-lucky, smiley, bright-side kinda gal. My class voted me Miss Sunshine back in the day, thanks to my peppy attitude and never say die motto.

Unfortunately, there is no bright-siding Rylan. I all but told him that he’s my Fated, and you know what the asshole did? He laughed in my face and told me to go trap another male. A gullible male.

After my ego crashed and burned, hard, I made up my mind not to ever, ever want him again, but unfortunately for me, my wolf and my vagina do not agree.

They want Rylan, badly, so badly in fact that I get wet when I see him, and I practically killed my vibrator in the last two months since he rejected me.

Now, I just try to ignore the scent, the heat, and the need to murder him and bury his body under my house, and I sit through hour-long weekly sessions with him, trying to pretend he doesn’t exist.

The more I ignore him though, the more he tries to flirt—something that should not take as much effort as he’s putting in— which brings me to here and now. I’m styling my hair and applying makeup because I’ve got a new plan. I’m going to make him want me, and then I am so rejecting him.

Only...it’s not as easy as it sounded last night while I masturbated—angrily, oh sheesh my poor clit, the friction has definitely left me walking funny—and plotted his seduction. The thing is, I’m not exactly wet dream material.

I have no boobs. No, I mean it. You’re rolling your eyes at me and saying, That’s not possible, and yet, it is. So okay, you’ve seen Keira Knightley, that female in that Pirates movie? That’s me. All nipple, no globe. Well, some globe, just enough to make me wear a bra, but not enough to actually fill it.

What I lack in chest, I more than make up for in ass though. I have a bubble butt that makes shopping a nightmare, and don’t even get me started on what I have to wear during beach season.

That’s my body. The other stuff...hmmm. My eyes are a very uninspiring hazel. My hair, that shit is just all kindsa wrong because it’s neither blonde nor brown, but this funky color that once had an old female enquire about my age. Yeah, apparently, I look like I could be going grey, all at once.

About the only nice part of me is my lips. I have great lips. They’re Jolie full, the quintessential trout pout, only I don’t have all that wrinklage on my pouters and they’re so red, I don’t ever have to wear lipstick.

That’s me. All I have to offer, and then you add the fact that the one boyfriend I had never managed to want to seal that deal, and yep, you got it, I am a virgin. Ugh!

A Fated virgin, whose male laughed his ass off before walking away with the hooker he’d been flirting with and hasn’t stopped his winning-pussy streak yet. Asshole.

You are so screwed, I mutter, taking in the way my hair curls, my slightly orange face because the foundations is old and probably settled.

Or is nuclear, I can’t tell which.

My phone rings, as I’m attempting not to take my eye out with the mascara wand, and I answer, sighing when Hyacinth immediately starts gabbing.

Is today the day? Remember what I told you, you have to make him want you, with subtlety. Subtle means—

I know what subtle means! I yell, tossing the wand away with a shriek when I somehow stab it straight into my eyeball and the thing goes red, tearing up so much that black streaks ooze down my cheek and creates an inkblot effect that fascinates me.

Oh Jazz, no offense but subtle is not your forte. Meeting your Fated and asking him how many young he wants is not subtle, especially when you know the male has no clue who you are, she sighs, giggling when I curse.

That wasn’t my fault! It’s not my fault the idiot is defective and can’t feel the Fating, I defend, pouting into the mirror when she laughs.

He isn’t defective. Remember Mom said that sometimes the time just isn’t right. A Fating doesn’t happen until it’s time. Maybe Rylan just needs time. It’ll happen for you, babe, it will, you just have to cut him some slack. Males aren’t as advanced as females.

I huff, liking her new feminist outlook on life, especially if it means I get to male bash.

You do not get to male bash. I don’t male bash since I found my Fated, she grumps, making me pout and inspect the inkblot on my cheek.

It looks like a snarling wolf. Shiver. Is this an omen?

Oh my God, honestly, I don’t know how you analyze people when you talk to yourself all the time, and come on, omen? It’s a wolf. If it looks like a wolf, that’s a good sign since we are wolves.

You’re a wolf! I’m a weird mix of scraggly looking wolf-panther, I whine, scrunching my nose.

My dad is a wolf and mom is half wolf, half panther. I apparently got a portion of a recessed gene or something because when I shift I go this weird blondish color, and my snout isn’t as sharp. It looks freakish if I’m honest—

It does not! You’re beautiful in skin and fur. Don’t let what the others say bug you.

Bug me? Come on, Cinth, even Mom got freaked out last year when I shifted for the annual run. I ended up in the kitchen at home, baking a hundred and twenty pies because she just happened to remember an emergency order she needed to get out, even though Mrs. Dupree swore high and low she didn’t order anything, I accuse, my feelings still smarting from that incident.

Not that Mom doesn’t love me, because I know she does, but when your own mom lies to you to get you out of a run that will have you shifting in front of the entire pack, you know things just ain’t right.

I am not right, and no wonder Rylan doesn’t want me. Who would want a female who has to shift in secret just to avoid another Incident of ‘96.

That was an accident.

The young screamed and cried!

They did not. It was just a shock is all. Advice that every female should have before jumping out of the woods is that young tend to be skittish, she soothes.

This is Hyacinth; she always tries to excuse the bad things that happen to me and talk me up to myself. She’s my one-female cheer team, and she always has been.

When she got herself Fated to her high school crush, Mason Lee, it was almost like losing part of myself. It shames me to say this, but Cinth was my crutch, and without her at home to provide support, I just felt like I was the fifth wheel on the car, the spare that hasn’t gotten any air in it so basically, redundant.

Not that my family doesn’t love me. I mean, they do. If I have to describe my family in a way that people would relate to, I’d call us the shifter equivalent of the Irish-American family. We’re loud and boisterous, and boy, we’re mean when one of our own is hurt in any way.

Too bad for me, I happen to be the kid who everyone always had to defend. It sort of fostered this attitude that I need protecting, especially from myself. Hence the move. Hyacinth hard pushed for this move.

Some days, I wonder if she didn’t convince me to leave because she was tired of always running to my rescue. The thought is unfair to her, but I can’t help it.

When everyone is happy for you to be moving across the state, it sort of leaves an impression.

I didn’t jump; I gave a graceful floating leap, and they screamed. Mrs. Greeves chewed me out for three days because her daughter kept having nightmares. About my weird shifter face! Come on, even you know it’s true. I was hoping that coming here would be different, but it’s worse. No one talks to me besides Lync, and he pays me, so it doesn’t even count.

Rylan talks to you!

He comes in and tells me about all the dates he’s been on. How is that talking? Besides, I don’t want to hear about it, and he knows it because I told him so.

I also told him that it hurts me to see my male out with other females, and that it would really be nice if I didn’t have to tell my future young what a horn dog their dad used to be.

Okay, I admit it, that was a little strong, but come on! How was I supposed to know that he doesn’t sleep with them? Not that he wouldn’t, he made that abundantly clear, but apparently that horn dog image that I had in my mind is not quite accurate.

It seems I have found the one male alive who doesn’t treat females like sexual meat. Too bad the one female who’d like to be sexual meat is apparently so hideous he’d rather pass.

Oh poor me! Why, why is my life so shitty?

Your life is not shitty...and stop referring to yourself as sexual meat. It’s gross. Now stop. Just stop feeling sorry for yourself and grow a pair of lips. You are a strong, smart, beautiful female, who has found her Fated. All you have to do is lure him in and play hard to get. That’s it.

Hard to get? I don’t know how to play hard to get. The one male I dated for a few months basically didn’t even have to ask me out. He approached me, I yelled yes before he could get a word in edgewise, and to this day, I don’t know if I should believe him when he said all he wanted to do was ask me to borrow a pencil.

I kinda choose not to believe it since he said all those things when he broke up with me. Sour grapes, I say.

Cinth sighs, the sound carrying through the line, and I cringe, sucking my lips in to stop from having another verbal breakdown. She must be so sick and tired of hearing me whine, and it shames me to admit that lately that’s all I’ve been doing.

Listen to me, Jasmine, you’re going to be okay. Forget your past experiences and everything that happened in the pack. This is a fresh start for you, one that’s already started with a bang, a good bang.

More like a bullet to the heart, I grumble, giggling when she snorts.

What happened to bright sides and being peppy? Aren’t you always the one telling me that everything has a good side? This is good. Rylan isn’t sleeping with anyone, you see him regularly, and he’s a good male, you said so yourself.

I know. Ugh! He is. He’s kind, and he’s best friends with Mercy, Lync’s mate, so I know he’s not just some pig with no morals. I just wish the regular visits were dates, and that I actually had a shot with him. To make it all worse, I’m meeting his parents tomorrow because I’m part of the integration plans to normalize the merging of the Harris and Greyriver packs. I’m so freaking nervous, Cinth. What if they don’t like me? What if I make a fool of myself? You know what happens when I get nervous, I say, my pits breaking out in a torrential sweat at just the thought of screwing this up.

Maybe I should see a shrink. That old saying doctor, heal thyself or whatever it is, obviously has irony stamped all over it because if I have to describe the most screwed-up person I know, it would be me.

I’m balls to the wall, and yet I’m a mess. I get too excited about things and make a muck of it all, and then I keep going because don’t cha know, Jasmine Matthews never quits. Oy freaking vey.

As things stand, I have a practice that consists of me playing solitaire on my phone while males glare at me and wait for time to run out. My house is, well it’s practically empty because I have no money to decorate yet, and I eat Ramen four nights a week unless I get off work early enough to go hunting. Not that I do it that often because running to the Canadian border to avoid shifting near people is exhausting.

In short, this new life I have, the one that was going to be so different and perfect, sucks. And I can’t leave, because even if I wanted to, my wolf won’t let me. I’m Fated, and unfortunately for me, that means staying with my male, no matter what.

Am I destined to watch him live a life while I wait on the sidelines? I ask myself, my flair for dramatics kicking in with a healthy war cry. Ugh!

I gotta go. Tell Mason I said hi and kiss that young for me okay, I say, blowing a kiss down the phone.

Don’t be nervous. If you get nervous, take one of those pills that new doctor gave you for panic attacks. It will all be okay, she soothes.

Love you, Cinth.

Love you too. Now get your ass out there and seduce. Remember! Sex isn’t just about the body, it’s about the mind. You’re a shrink; that’s your forte.

I grunt, ending the call and sigh, as I stare at my reflection. Mind. I can do mind.

I think.

Chapter Two

Rylan

I hold in a laugh when Jasmine strolls out of her office, the skin-tight pencil skirt telling me exactly what type of session today will be. For the last few weeks I’ve seen this female veer between sulking, silent treatment, angry glaring, and on the rare occasion, she whips out the sexy, or what she thinks of as sexy.

Today, she’s in a skirt that is tight but long enough to make me think of Mormons and cults, and the shirt she’s wearing, while unbuttoned enough to show off her cleavage, is the color of green puke.

So yeah, I guess her definition of sexy and mine isn’t on the same page, or in the same book. Not that I don’t think she’s sexy. She is. Jasmine has the most unusual hair I have ever seen in my life, and if I had to describe it, I’d liken it to the color of ashy caramel. Yeah, I know, it’s uninspired, but I’m no expert here. All I know is that it’s not brown or blonde, but this palest of browns that shimmers in the sunlight and has highlights running through it.

Her eyes are hazel, an unusual color for shifters since most of us have variations of green, blue, or grey. My friend Banner has—honest to God—gold eyes.

Jasmine’s eyes are hazel, a deep shade that holds the smallest hints of red and make me think of liquid chocolate and warm coffee. She wears glasses, the result of a chemistry accident that didn’t quite heal, and while she can see okay without them, the glasses just help.

So yeah, I get to spend an hour every week staring at the fantasy girl, hot doctor, naughty teacher type of female, who makes my dick hard but melts my heart enough that I refuse to hurt her.

And I would. Whatever fantasy she’s running of us being Fated, I won’t play into it and get her hopes up. So every week, like clockwork, I come in here and tell her about a date that didn’t happen and lie through my teeth about what a horn dog I am.

The truth is that I just don’t feel anything lately so getting into sex hasn’t been possible. My job as an enforcer is taking its toll, and while I love it, I am also slightly burned out.

I work forty-hour weeks, train recruits from other packs two hours a day, and I have my parents to look after ever since Dad started weakening as a result of the scentless drugs that our pack was given as an experiment.

Dad isn’t sick, he’s not dying, it’s just that he’s never going to be the Alpha he once was, hence the merging of our pack and Greyriver. I’d have argued, taken up Alpha position, but the truth is, I just don’t want it. Most males with Alpha blood would have snapped up the opportunity to lead early, but all I felt was a sense of being trapped whenever I thought of leading.

It’s just not me. I want to do my job, get home, and just live. Most days, I go home to the place I built on the lake and just lay out on the deck with a six-pack of beer and some music.

To me, that is life. Just being and enjoying the moments. Lately though, I’m so tired after work all I can manage is a pizza and face planting into my mattress.

Life has become...bleh. There’s no meaning, no excitement. Even seeing my best friend, Mercy, and her family doesn’t make me feel anything but exhausted.

I’d worry that the scentless drugs that my pack was given is starting to sicken me too, but I’ve been checked out by the pack doctor, Althea, and she assures me the cure they came up with cleared the drugs out of my system.

With nothing to explain the sudden apathy I feel, it’s down to these weekly sessions that I’ve decided are going to fix me. Instead of feeding Jasmine some bullshit about dating, I’m going to tell the truth and try to let her help me.

I know that most of the males Nick is forcing to see Jasmine don’t talk at all. They laugh and brag about spending an hour giving her the silent stare, and while I am proud as hell that she doesn’t back down, just sits and patiently waits, it pisses me off.

Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m doing this now. Partly for me, but also for her. It can’t be easy for her to have moved all the way over here to be met with hostility and outright sneers.

We shifters, we don’t do head shrinks. If we have an issue, we work it out for ourselves, usually violently and in a way that involves shifting to our animals and attacking something.

I’ve tried it all. Working out till my arms are lame, running in the woods, shifting and going on the hunt. Nothing helps, so I hope to God this female knows what she’s doing or I’m in deep trouble.

Mr. Harris. Please come through. Becky, why don’t you run down to the bakery and get something sweet and then make us some tea, she says softly, smiling at the small female who’s been her secretary for a week now.

It’s a miracle that anyone applied for the job. I was certain that the ad would go unanswered, but Becky Slater is a female I am positive will stay the course. She’s originally Harris pack, and one of the meanest females I ever met. I guess that’s understandable since she has eight of the cockiest brothers who ever lived.

You want the tea before I run over? she asks, rising to grab her bag and the money Jasmine holds out to her.

No, that’s okay. By the time you get back and get the kettle boiled this session should be done. Don’t rush on my account.

The female nods, scrambling out to go see her boyfriend, Cain, no doubt, and I grin as I follow Jasmine into her office, closing the door before striding over to take my usual seat on the one