TIME FOR HOME

         “Hey, Kiera, where are you going? I think you’re going in the wrong direction, sweetheart. My truck is that way. Let me take you home.” Dean hated every single word he uttered. He tried to threaten her earlier to go with him. Why? Why was he screwing with her again? She’d been through enough already and she was drunk. Talk about kicking her when she’s down.

         “Alpha Duncan, would you kindly shove it up you’re ass? I’m tipsy, not stupid. Take me home.” Kiera snorted at that. “I work here to remember. I’ve heard the pickup lines. That one has the girl asking, ‘Yours or mine?’ Screw that. I’m walking home. Please get out of my way.”

         Dean was thankful she at least kept her manners while drunk, even if she was still rude about it. He had to admit it was interesting to see James’ reaction to being shot down.

         The two alphas could be mistaken for brothers they were so close in colouring and size. They were a year apart in age as well. So they ended up in the same classes at school because of where their birthdays fell. Not a straightforward task to teach two future alphas at the same time. They were highly competitive.

         “You’re drunk, Kiera. Get in the truck. You’re coming home with me.” James grabbed her arm, he stepped in close, his height made him loom over her as his eyes glowed. “It’s not safe for you to run around wild like this. Who knows who might pick you up? You know how that happens from experience. Let’s not have it happen again. I’m willing to give you a home and protection, even though dick for brains won’t.” James stared over Kiera’s head and stared at Dean. There was no mistaking him now. He was trying to take her from him.

         That didn’t make sense. She was a pack member in his pack when they’d kidnapped her and he’d done nothing to make anyone aware of how he might feel about her. What was going on here?

         “I said step out of my way. I don’t wanna go with you or get in anyone’s trunk. Because I want to walk home.” She tried to break his hold on her arm, but it took her a while to do it.

         “You’re coming with me. That place you call home might as well not have locks on it. You aren’t safe there.”

         “I’m walking home, and you can’t do anything here. It’s neutral ground. You can’t force me. Don’t make me get mean and petty.”

         “That’s it James. You heard her. She said no. Let her walk home if she likes. It’s not like she’s your mate or pack member. In fact, I believe she’s my pack member since I never gave her permission to her leaving my pack.”

         “Well, you’ve got a lot of nerve claiming that and leaving her alone to fend for herself at a time like this.”

         “You handle your pack your way, and I’ll handle mine the way I want. Now let her go.”

         James let her go, and Kiera glared at them both as she rubbed at her forearm. Who knew how long a bruise would stay there with her new genetics?

         “Maybe you two and your buddies can stay here and have that dick measuring contest. I’m going home without you.”

         She didn’t get far before all six men followed her with their eyes as she walked out of the parking lot and along the side of the road. She was definitely not steady on her feet.

         Both alphas made the same annoyed sound as they watched her trip over nothing and almost fall in a water-filled ditch. It’d rained that afternoon heavily, so the ditches in the area were full.

         She rounded the bend in the road and Dean motion for his two enforcers to get to her house and watch it. They took a truck and took an alternate route there. She’d be awhile with the way she was walking.

         James instead followed her on foot with his enforcers in tow. Dean held back because he knew it was a waste of time talking to her like this.

         He would pay her a visit and make himself clear she was coming back to the pack, willingly or not.

         Tara walked down the side of the unlit road. It was wet and slippery, still from the rain. There was moss growing on the gravel where the shade from the trees at the side of the road protected it from the sun and it stayed damp most of the time.

         She should have worn flats, but she spent so much time in high heels for work that it wasn’t comfortable to wear flats anymore.

         They were right, though; she didn’t know how easy it would be for someone to capture her again. The difference now is she didn’t have anything to lose, and she would die trying to be free. There was no one out here to mourn her if she just stopped breathing one day.

         Now she wished someone hadn’t damaged the dream realm like they had. She could have walked into her dreams or nightmares and left this all behind.

         It took a good ten to fifteen minutes to get home. But she made it. When she entered her yard, she noticed James and his wolves were behind her.

         “Oh, this is ridiculous. James, don’t make me get my gun. I will shoot anyone who steps on my property. I have witnesses who saw you threaten only minutes ago.” He’d lost her polite nature about half a kilometre ago. Kiera unlocked her door, pulled out the shotgun she kept in an umbrella stand by the door just for this type of occasion.

         She kept it loaded and cocked it. Okay, so it was illegal in several ways to keep her gun like that. But it’s not like pups or anyone visited her to find out.

         James was at least smart enough to back up, as did his wolves. “Now, Kiera, I just wanted to make sure you got home safely. You don’t have to go over the top like this. Just go in and pack a bag. We can be home in less than an hour.”

         “I am home. Go away. I’m sick of the two of you using me for shits and giggles. I’m not your toy and I’m sick of having to struggle because one of you always has to be superior to the other. Go away or I’ll call Sheriff Morton to arrest you. See how it looks in the morning when he’s got to call NARC on this.

         NARC or the North American Ruling Council, was like a federal government for supernatural creatures. They’d only recently come forward and made their presence known to the human authorities. Now they were all trying to work together to keep the peace. So far, so good. The discovery of the Lycans and how they came to be is how the human population discovered the true existence of supernatural creatures living with them. The world was in flux as it came to grips with this new paradigm.

         James sighed, finally resigned to the fact she wouldn’t leave. “I’ll be back tomorrow when you sober up and we’ll talk about this then. Go sleep it off, Kiera.”

         She snorted at him. “Don’t bother. The answer will be the same.” Kiera backed into her cottage and locked the door.

         She took the gun with her to the bedroom and kept it with her. At least, one more visitor was what she expected. She hated it.

         It hurt every time she saw Dean, and it wasn’t fair that he wouldn’t believe her.

         She would never tell him how she felt because they were compatible anymore. Or so she was told by the healer that patched her up. She was something different now and not a wolf shifter anymore.

         Oh, she shifted, but she now possessed two forms. One was a monster much like the wolfman form from popular movies, TV, and books. The other was a throwback, some scientist got a hold of valid dire wolf DNA or genetic material. Then they messed with her.

         She stripped down to her T-shirt and underwear before she just threw herself onto her bed. Sleep would not come easy tonight, even with all she had to drink.

         That meant her eyes were wide open when movement outside her window caught her eye. It was too large for a wild animal. So she was up and at the window with the gun pointed out the window.

         There they were. Dean’s minions. She knew their names, but didn’t care to use them right now. She wanted to be left alone.

         Could no one get that? She didn’t want to deal with anyone. Kiera couldn’t trust them.

         “That’s it boys. Run home to papa like good little pups before I fill your butts full of buckshot.”

         “Kiera, he just wants to know you’re safe.”

         “Right, I’m fine. You aren’t now go away or I’m calling Sheriff Morton and he can sort it out.”

         “Fine, but he won’t be happy about this.”

         “I don’t care if he’s happy. He’s not my alpha. Leave!” She closed the window with a bang. Luckily, she had propped the gun up safely when she did it.

         Finally, she tossed and turned enough to fall asleep.

         The next thing she remembered was getting a glass of water from her tiny bathroom and as she returned to her bed half asleep, the sound of breaking glass rudely startled her fully awake from the kitchen.

         “Great, now, which one has gone too far this time?” Kiera picked up her shotgun and moved to the door of her bedroom as quietly as she could. She crept down the hallway toward the kitchen. It was the only room with windows in the back of the cottage other than the bedroom and bathroom. She knew it didn’t come from either of those.

         When she finally entered the kitchen, Kiera found the glass window of the backdoor shattered and the door was wide open.

         It confused her because she would have had to pass anyone who entered her home by this way. Now she wished they hadn’t messed with her sense of smell. Kiera missed hunting and tracking. She’d hoped at one time before her kidnapping to train as a tracker and maybe work for NARC on behalf of her pack. But that was a pipedream now.

         Her eyes caught movement outside her shattered door and she responded by pointing her shotgun and fired off a couple of shots.

         Her ears were ringing from firing it in an enclosed space, but she heard something come in contact with the floor behind her. Before she could turn to defend herself, something struck her from behind in the temple and everything quickly faded to black. Who? What? Where? She didn’t have time to debate any of it.