Maid for the Alpha

Chapter 40

Thank you all for your continued support of this story. Your votes and comments mean so much to me. As a writer I am continuously growing in my craft and a part of that includes some hard lessons. As you read, you may notice a change. In previous chapters I used the word "Gypsy". I am formally apologizing as this is a derogatory term and hurtful to the various traveler peoples. For the duration of the story these characters shall be Romani. I am currently working my way backwards in the story and am unsure how long this will take. If you find any G-words that I missed, please let me know right away so I can correct it. I thank you for your understanding and again apologize for my error.

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"What the fuck am I doing out here all by myself," Jenny bitched as she paced not far from the disheveled entrance to the unknown below, "out in the middle of fucking nowhere, where my best friend, who I know needs me, is just down there and..." suddenly the ground trembled beneath her feet. "What the hell was that?!" Jenny looked to the door as ungodly sounds echoed from its dark depths.

A foreboding chill ran up her spine. She had no idea how long she stood there – shocked to petrified silence, but the moment she heard the pounding of something very large running up that stairwell, she instinctively dove to the nearest bush to hide. What she witnessed exiting through the doorway – the same doorway where Madame Corauni and her driver had entered to save Liz, was nothing that her nightmares could have ever conjured up. Her hands flew to her mouth and she bit her lips to stifle a scream. The enormous beast looked like the living dead as it moved on broken limbs. She watched as it stopped just outside the doorway, panted, sniffed the air and, with one garish eyeball, swung its head her way.

Please no! I am invisible; I am invisible, I am invisible, Jenny chanted in her thoughts. She prayed to whatever gods that existed in the Universe to help her. Anything, I'll do anything, just please help me live!

For a long, drawn-out, heart-pounding second, it seemed as if the beast would head her way. In that fraction of time, she felt like her soul would melt from her body, like her heart would burst from fear. Tears welled up in her eyes. And for the first time, she doubted her conviction that Liz was alive; for how could someone survive meeting an undead beast like this.

But then the energy shifted. Some kind of breeze or silent-sound traveled its way up the stairwell to ruffle the beast's fur and it froze, wild-eye wandering to look behind it for just a split-second before it dove away, in the opposite direction of Jenny's hiding spot.

She let out a strangled sob that she inadvertently held in. Looking up to the night sky she said a silent Thank You to whoever or whatever had just saved her. Unfortunately, her evening wasn't quite over, for more sounds escaped from below, the ground shook and trembled some more, and Jenny would have sworn she saw an otherworldly light emit from the doorway.  From the same place where her friend was held captive...and probably died at.

"Liz, what happened to you?" she whimpered.

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"What do you think happened to him?" Daniela asked Ethan.

Too many scenarios jumbled in his thoughts to be able to answer simply. He grunted in reply, his face etched into a stern scowl – his signature look when in deep concentration.

Daniela would have teased him as she had in the past; she had secretly loved that look, knowing that this giant brute with a frown was just a teddy bear in disguise. But that was before she found out that he wasn't a teddy bear at all – instead he's a giant, scary-looking werewolf and everything she thought she knew about him and the world around her was a lie. But she didn't have time to continue freaking out over it. Once this mess was sorted, she planned on moving far away from Ethan and werewolves and anything else inhuman. Until then, they were still partners and they had a job to do.