Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

Bonus Chapter: The Alpha

AN: I always struggle with chapter 1, so for a while I tried to open the story with this, one and only, Liam's POV chapter!

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May 2017, Boston, Massachusetts

I hope that we've finally found the Alpha, Liam prayed, as he climbed into the passenger seat of his mom's car. Or this stupid fight would have been for nothing. Hope would go out in a flash, and dear God, he needed hope more than anything else!

He rolled his head back and closed his eyes, waiting for his mom to get in and give him a ride like he was a kid again. The insides of the beemer smelled of new leather. The anemic New England rain pattered the windshield.

For a second that it took her to catch up, he was cozy. Alas, this idyll didn't last.

Her heels drummed, then the driver's door opened and slammed like a gunshot, startling him despite waiting for it.

"Ouch, mom," he complained.

If he could close his eyes for the second time, he would. Instead, his lips curled into a smile he wore as a mask. He just had to survive the drive to the airport with her, and all would be peachy.

"I don't understand why you have to go." She picked up right where they left off.

"I've told you why I have to go."

The disapproval twisted her full lips and stiffened the already straight neck. Even the nimbus of the fly-away curls didn't impart fragility on this woman. If anything, the silver coils next to black skin gave another jolt of vigor to her appearance.

"You've barely stayed two days, Liam."

He squared his jaw and repeated for the tenth time that morning, "Lydia has unearthed someone important, a genetic marvel. I have to get to him ASAP."

"Bah!"

"He could be our only chance to save Anabelle. Remember her? A sweet girl, sixteen, my half-sister?"

She started the car. "Hmph."

His teeth gritted in response, too loudly to be covered by the purr of the expensive engine. "Mom, seriously, let it be. I know you hate them, but the curse wasn't Anabelle's fault."

She shot him a dirty look to drive home that curses weren't real. "Your dad should never have married this ho Lydia."

Everything always dead-ended on Lydia with her. Like the bloody divorce was yesterday, not fifteen years ago... Dad had also divorced Lydia, but it only served to prove her favorite point that 'he'll-tire-of-that-slut-soon'.

Liam poured gasoline on this fire too, pissing off everyone he was related to by making Lydia his band manager. Everyone except Anabelle, that is. She didn't get pissed with him, because she was his baby sister. Okay, half-sister. Forget the genealogical charts! She needed him today, and that was what mattered.

He wished his mom would accept that, shut up, and drive. But noooo. A lovely lady in every respect—she fed effing robins in the winter!—when it came to Lydia, her heart turned to flint.

"The crazy slut will only waste your time with her voodoo." Did she even realize that she stepped on the gas while saying that?

"It's not voodoo. It's genetic research."

"Pfft, same difference. She's raving about werewolves and shamans. Werewolves, Liam! And she's flushing a fortune on the charlatans chasing her fantasies."

"It's her money to waste, dammit." He regretted the sharpness of his tone, but his mom taught him to stick to what was right when he was a kid. So, at twenty-one he was not going to change for the sake of her vendetta! Money didn't buy happiness, his parents were the prime example of that. However, with Anabelle's condition, money bought the most important thing right now—hope. Lydia could spend every cent they jointly made on chasing after hope, as far as he was concerned.

If only his mom saw what he had seen, she'd get him. After Anabelle's crazy transformation, werewolf wouldn't sound all that far-fetched to her. Werewolf would actually be kind of mild. But the less people who saw Anabelle in her current condition, the better. They wouldn't believe their own eyes. Or, worse, they would... 

The freeway greeted them by a cacophony of honking.

"Mom! Watch out!"

Too late. She sailed past a garbage truck that pounded his window with slush from under its tires, like a round from a machine gun. He flinched, then straightened in his seat: this was just dirty water. He wouldn't turn his face away from a real hail of bullets if it meant hope. 

"Buckle in and shut up, kiddo," she snapped, eyeing the left lane for a spot to merge.

"I'm not a..." He cut off his indignant squeal, but the triumphant pinch of her lips finished the argument for her. Only kids argue that they're all grown-up.

The wipers switched up to the frantic pace while she cut in front of the poor sod that had the audacity to occupy the lane she needed.

"Maybe I should have ordered the limo service..." he muttered.

Except that he hoped to fly under the radar, without alerting his fanbase, for once. Please, let it be different this time. No fans, no selfies, no autographs. Just a plain old flight.

She waved away his attempt to change the topic, handling the steering wheel with her knees. "Mark my words, this trip isn't going to end well. "

"Because things are so great now?" Dang, how did that slip out?

"Don't sass me, kiddo."

There was no winning with her.

He grabbed the handle next to the seatbelt, unable to take his wide-flung eyes off the onrushing traffic. "Okay, okay, okay... Just go easy on the gas!"

"Plus, if you tangle with Lydia, you won't have time to work on your new album," she spoke over his blabbering, then honked and passed some sucker on the wrong side.

"I can work anywhere," Liam replied mechanically, like interviewing while high. "The guys are on a break, and we won't start recording till September."

"Then you won't rest," she parried as if she had worked on that stratagem for hours. "Just look at you. You're so drawn."

If he looked drawn, that's because she was an energy vampire racing her beemer like a chariot from hell, but being a grown-ass man meant not whining when your mother bugged you. Yeah, adulting was overrated.

He fiddled with his phone looking for something nice. Nothing by the Buzzkill, because only narcissists use their own music for inspiration. Maybe he should pre-load a meditation mix next time he climbed into the car with her.

"Werewolves, hmm. Werewolves! I'm telling you, Liam, you're walking into an asylum." His mom's voice was powerful enough for a vocalist. Such a sad waste of talent... "A whore-house and an asylum. My hands itch to set it on fire."

Jeez, she started with dangerous driving, now it's arson? It's escalating fast.

"Mom, I'm going. Deal. And for all that is holy, watch your speed, before you get us killed. Please."

He popped the earbuds in and bumped the volume of music up. He just had to make it to the airport... then to the ranch. Because, after years of drawing blanks, there was finally hope for Anabelle.

Come immediately, Lydia's terse message had read. We've found the Alpha in Russia. Hope sparked, burned brighter, taller, but still so weak that he was afraid to expell his breath near it.