Furbitten Falls Alpha's: A Wolf Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Read online

  She had fought with other kids before, just minor scuffles on the playground about kid stuff, but I’d always got there in time to break it up before it went too far. There were times in class when I would ask her to do something, hand out books or run an errand for me to the office, and I would see that challenge in her eyes, a little flicker of light that she almost acted upon. She never had though. That was the advantage of me being alpha. Had I been an omega, we definitely would have had some trouble.

  I’d been teaching at Rippling Woods for a couple of years now but I’d never felt a connection with a kid like I felt with Emery and it scared me. I wanted to know where she had come from or talk to my brothers about any werewolves we knew with “Bridges” as their surname but I was scared about what can of worms that would open. I was probably being silly.

  I pulled into the car park and took a deep breath, trying to steady myself before the start of my day. I pushed the dream from my head and let it fade to nothing. Today was a new day, and today would be better, I was sure of it.

  2

  Brent

  “Emery!” I shouted up the stairs. She should have been out of bed by now. I’d been up to wake her, I’d made sure her eyes were open and she was getting herself together before leaving her because I knew what she was like. But she was being particularly stubborn this morning. “Emery!” I called again. “You need to get your butt down here and get ready for school!”

  “Papa! I’m busy!” She shouted back. And so it began. The challenge always began at this time of the morning when there was something more fun for her to be doing than getting ready for school, and no matter how hard I tried I never seemed to win. She would challenge, I would fight, and it would end with me bundling her into the car anyway, probably running late. If she wasn’t so completely adorable and loving I would probably find it annoying.

  The girl was an alpha through and through and while I was proud of her that it meant she wouldn’t let anyone step all over her, I could certainly do with a little bit of help in putting my foot down with her of the morning.

  “If you don’t come down here in the next five seconds, I’ll come up those stairs and get you myself!”

  Silence. Perhaps she was considering it.

  “5.”

  Nothing.

  “4.”

  Still nothing.

  “3.”

  This wasn’t going to end well for either of us.

  “2.”

  Okay then.

  “1,” I called, here we go. “Okay, Emery, here I come.”

  “No, Papa, no, I don’t want to go to school!” Something crashed in her room, a clatter of plastic toys over plastic toys, of books being pulled from her shelves, of chaos exploding all around her.

  I ran up the stairs as quickly as my legs would take me, bursting into her room to find her standing in the middle of the madness, her blonde hair sticking out at odd angles where she hadn’t brushed it, her Paw Patrol pajamas still on, her face a little blotchy and red from all the effort. She looked up at me with her adorable blue eyes, tears rushing to them.

  “Emery-“

  “No, Papa, please, playing is so much more fun than school!”

  “I thought you liked Mr. Ewen.”

  “I do, Papa, but we could stay here and play instead, don’t you think that would be fun?” she flashed a grin at me, the type of grin that probably meant she could get away with anything at school. Damn those adorable blue eyes and that cheeky little smile of hers.

  “Emery,” I repeated a little more stern. “This isn’t a negotiation, you need to get ready for school.”

  “Five more minutes?” she grinned. “Please?”

  “Emery, no, come on, come downstairs and have some breakfast.” She stayed still, having absolutely none of it. “I have all the cereal you can think of and we can mix and match, I know how much you love mix and matching cereals.” And I saw it. I saw that little twitch at the corners of her mouth that told me that I had perhaps won this round, at least for now. We were running a little later than I would like so I’d have to drive her into school, but that wasn’t a bother. If I was honest I preferred driving her than putting her on the bus because we got to spend a little more time together. Putting her on the bus felt a little bit too much like abandoning her. I was a little bit protective, but she was my little girl, she was all I had.

  I got her dressed, turning it into a bit of a game, managing to distract her long enough that she seemed to forget that ten minutes ago she categorically didn’t want to go to school. I braided her hair down her back (one thing you get super good at as a single parent is doing hair, the amount of YouTube tutorials I had watched was unforgivable) and got her downstairs where I had laid out some Froot Loops, Cap’n Crunch and Reeses Puffs. Her eyes went saucer-like and excited. Crisis averted, Emery back on track.

  It wasn’t always this easy to get her to stop being so alpha with me. There were days when she was a little worse than this and certainly days where she was a lot better. I needed help. I needed to find a way to teach her how to conduct herself as an alpha, knowing when to be her full alpha self and when to lean back on it a little and let things go. There were only so many articles I could read online about it. At some point I’d need to track down another werewolf to actually teach me how to do it. It worried me. I wanted her to grow up and be balanced and sensible, not a screw up like me.

  It didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling one hundred percent. Ever since Emery started school I’d been feeling run down and whatever it was, she was bringing home with her. I’d get all hot and bothered or feel suddenly drained. I didn’t know what it was. When I mentioned it to my editor, he said it was just that I was having withdrawal from her going to school, which sounded like something I would do. It was the explanation I was sticking with anyhow. I’d get over it eventually.

  Emery had calmed now and was all sweetness and light as i got her into her shoes and into the car. She grabbed her Paw Patrol lunch box from the kitchen counter and she hopped into the car without another word, happily sitting in back and dancing along to Baby Shark as it played over and over and over again.

  “What’s happening at school today?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking out of the window and scrunching up her face as she really thought about it. Then it came to her, I practically saw the idea drop into her head, her face bursting into a grin. “Mr. Ewen is going to be working on our Talent Show with us and I have math and I have art.” She sat back in her seat proudly, clearly pleased that she remembered.

  “And what are you doing in the talent show? Can I come?”

  “Only if you promise not to be embarrassing, Papa,” she groaned.

  “I’m never embarrassing.”

  “You cried at our Christmas show last year.”

  “I did not!” I protested, knowing full well that it was a lie. She came on the stage as one of the three wise men and I was balling my eyes out. It was super embarrassing but I didn’t think she had seen.

  “You did, so you can come but no crying this time.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Papa,” Emery squeaked from the backseat. “You just drove past school.”

  I laughed at myself and hit the steering wheel. “Don’t worry, sweetpea, I’m just turning around.”

  I turned myself around and parked up outside of the school, getting out and helping her out of the back seat. She brushed me away, hopping down all by herself. I didn’t know if that was an alpha trait or a growing up trait, showing me that she didn’t need her Papa’s help anymore.

  As I watched her go, I started to feel hot. This always seemed to happen when I got near Rippling Woods Elementary School. Just like I said, it must have been that I was struggling with her going to school, struggling to let her go and let her grow up. I didn’t think it was strange. When I’d mentioned it to one of the other parents at a parents’ night last year, they totally understood where I was coming from so m
aybe it wasn’t just me. But it felt stronger today. It felt like there was energy zipping through my body all of a sudden, like I’d just run a marathon or like I was filling with adrenaline and ready to run one, it was confusing. I was energized and tired all at the same time and it was making my legs feel a little shaky.

  I waited until she was completely out of my sight before I got back inside whacking up the AC and hoping that would have some kind of effect on how I was feeling. Maybe I was getting sick. It was getting worse, I was sure it was. I didn’t feel sick though, I just felt hot.

  I drove back from the school in a bit of a daze waiting for the feeling to subside as I walked towards my house. It was really hitting me hard today, harder than it had done for a long time. I must have been losing my mind.

  My body hurt a little as I stepped into the house. Maybe I needed to go to the gym and run this off, blow off some steam. I’d spent so much time at my desk over the past couple of weeks maybe this was my bodies way of saying “Hey Brent, do some exercise!” I’d not shifted for a while either, maybe that was it. There was so many different reasons I could give but I was none of the wiser.

  My brain felt fuzzy, lines of heat swirling in front of my eyes. I’d take a nap first, then I would start my working day. I’d been sent through some new work to do from my editor, so I could get started on that as soon as this weird feeling had vanished. I was going to be fine. I dragged myself to my room, suddenly thankful that it was downstairs rather than up, stripping down to my boxer shorts and collapsed onto the bed, curling up into the warm duvet once again. It already felt like a comfort, I could already feel it healing me. This was exactly what I needed, just an hour or so in bed and I would be fine. I would be just fine.

  3

  Jarrett

  I’d definitely had better days in the classroom. It was the first day of the New Moon so I knew that the behaviors of some of the kids I suspected were wolves in class would be a little over the top intense but I hadn’t considered quite how bad it would be.

  There was a boy named Curtis who spent most of the day practically climbing the walls until he could get outside at recess. It was like he’d gone feral and I made sure to tell him so every time I had to reprimand him. But it was hard. The more alpha these little wolves were, the more run around they were giving me.Then there was Emery Bridges, who seemed to be on another level to everybody else today. I’d hardly been in the room for a few minutes before she was exchanging harsh words with Curtis and some of the other kids. I dreaded to think what would happen if I wasn’t there. My presence seemed to be the only thing keeping her in check, a more senior alpha the only thing stopping her from taking control of the whole class.

  “Emery Bridges!” I barked as she stepped dangerously close to Curtis. “That’s enough.”

  “But Mr. Ewen he-”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupted. I knew Curtis was an absolute horror, always getting on Emery’s back but she needed to learn that overpowering him wasn’t always the way. There were better ways to deal with him.“Mr. Ewen, listen, Curtis won’t leave me alone and I was just-”

  “Emery, I said that’s enough, please return to your seat.”

  ”

  She stared me down for a moment, squaring off her shoulders, looking me right in the eyes. And there was that connection again, that little spark that passed between us that told me she was one of my kind. I totally got where she was coming from, and I remembered being like this as a kid too, not taking no for an answer if I thought I could get an upper hand on a grown up. I enjoyed the challenge and, from the little smirk twitching at the corners of her mouth, I could tell she did too. She didn’t seem like she was about to back down and she opened her mouth to speak again. I had to put a stop to this. She had to learn.

  “If you don’t knock it off, I will have to call home to your parents,” I growled. “This is your last warning Emery Bridges, I won’t have any more of this from you.”

  “Call home,” she shrugged. “See what happens.”

  But she returned to her seat all the same, leaving Curtis be, and I didn’t hear a peep out of her until recess was called and I was sure she was one of the first ones out of the classroom. Maybe it would have scared her into making a change, at least for today. Perhaps it would be worth talking to her parents anyway. Even just a little nudge to let them know that her alpha behavior was becoming a little more pronounced might change the way they did things at home and, therefore, change how she was in class. It couldn’t hurt to at least try.

  I finished up my planning for the afternoon lessons and headed to the staffroom to get some coffee. My friend Holly was there but was deep in conversation with another faculty member so I didn’t want to disturb. Instead, I grabbed my cup of coffee and headed out onto the playground to get some air.

  It was sort of a ritual that I took. I lived for the outdoors, as you might expect with being a werewolf, and didn’t get nearly enough of it being cooped up in my classroom all day. I missed running in the wilds, in the further reaches of Furbitten Falls. That was my happy place. The little snatches of fresh air I could get over the course of the day were a godsend. If I knew the kids wouldn’t complain about being cold, I’d keep the windows in the classroom open.

  A few teachers passed me by and we had snatches of conversation, talking about how their days were going, what they had planned for the afternoon, but nothing truly in depth. It was as I was left alone, not another teacher in sight, that I saw the commotion on the far side of the playground.

  One of my kids appeared at my side, Kimmy, a sweet little girl who looked absolutely terrified. She pointed over at the commotion and looked up at me. “Emery and Curtis are in a fight, Mr. Ewen,” she stammered. “I didn’t know what to do so I-”

  “You did the right thing sweetie,” I said, trying to keep my voice level as my blood ran cold. This wasn’t what I needed. And it was kids from my class, which definitely wasn’t going to reflect well on me. I downed the rest of my coffee and handed my mug to Kimmy, telling her to take it to the staff room immediately.

  I broke into a run and rushed over to where Kimmy had pointed, to where Emery and Curtis were facing off against one another.. It was probably nothing but something in me, something instinctual, sent me into a panic as I saw Emery standing so close to Curtis, Curtis with his hands on Emery’s shoulders, pushing her back..

  “Break it up! Break! It! Up!” I shouted. But Emery either didn’t hear me, or decided to ignore me. I knew that when I’d gotten into fights you couldn’t have broken me out of it with a megaphone let alone one man’s voice across a playground.

  She shoved Curtis off her and practically threw him to the ground, leaping on top of him so she was on all fours, pinning Curtis to the ground. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. What really caught my attention were the claws stretching out from her fingers, the canines she bore, the growl in the back of her throat, and the smatterings of fur puffing up on her arms.

  Craig looked completely horrified.

  That confirmed it then.

  “Emery,” I barked. She looked up, the fur vanishing in that instant, the claws retracting. “Get off him, immediately.”

  She stood, letting Curtis scurry away, and looked suddenly innocent as anything. She almost looked scared. Perhaps she didn’t yet realize what she was capable of, the damage she could do if she really let herself go. She watched Curtis go and then turned her eyes back to me. She was out of breath. Shifting could really take its toll on a body, especially on one so young. I needed to handle this carefully.

  “Are you alright?” I said, not wanting to step any closer to her. There was that connection again. But, in that moment, it felt like more than that. Why on earth couldn’t I put my finger on it? It was so frustrating.

  “I think so, sir,” Emery squeaked. She suddenly seemed so meek, like she wouldn’t harm anyone. Maybe she really had frightened herself. “I just feel tired.”

  “Why don’t you hea
d on to the nurse and take a nap?” I said. “If any of the other teachers ask you why you’re inside, tell them I said it was okay, alright?”

  She nodded, rubbing her eyes, and wandered back towards the classroom. The rest of the children had dispersed now, going back to playing as if nothing had happened. Even Curtis looked fine at this point, like all had been forgotten. Perhaps it had. Oh to be young.

  I headed back towards the school and into my classroom, sitting at my desk and taking my phone from my top drawer. I turned it on, searching for the contact sheet in while it booted up.I ignored the texts from my brothers that came pouring in, more stuff about Main Street probably, and dialed the number of Emery’s father, Brent Bridges. We’d not had a chance to meet yet, the first parents night not for a few weeks yet. This wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to introduce myself but I guess this was just how it needed to be. I had to talk to them about Emery before she got herself into some real trouble. They were werewolves, they would understand.

  “Hello?” A bright voice answered the phone. It pinged through the phone and right into my brain, suddenly making me nervous. I’d never had to make a call like this before, no wonder I was getting a little panicked. “Hello?” The voice said again and there was that little ping in my brain, something that told me I’d heard this voice before.

  The wolf in my chest stirred and started prowling through my veins, my body suddenly tense, a sweat suddenly breaking out on my forehead.

  Talk Jarrett, talk! I told myself. Say something. Be a professional!

  “Hi, Mr. Bridges, it’s Mr. Ewen calling from Rippling Woods Elementary School,” I said. “I just need to speak with you about Emery.”