Taking Down the Alpha

1 Walk of Shame

"Jessica!"

A commanding voice roughly jerked me from my slumber. My wolf perked up in recognition, but I couldn't quite identify the source with the disorientation of waking. It didn't smell right here. It wasn't a bad scent, hovering somewhere between strange but familiar. Where was I?

He repeated my name again, and I opened my bleary eyes to the dawn light streaming in the window. The brightness was jarring, but far worse than the light was the rugged male body I discovered lying right next to me, my brain disjointed as it took in the awful discovery. It was a horribly familiar male body that I was more accustomed to seeing fully clothed. His short light brown hair was far more unruly than when we were in the pack office. Finally I forced myself to look into blue eyes that looked back at me coolly.

Oh shit. Shit shit shit, shit shit!

"What are you still doing here?" Alpha Hudson asked without even trying to hide his annoyance, his voice still gravelly from sleep. He was way too close beside me, bare upper torso more on display as the covers fell off when he shifted in the bed, rolling to prop himself up on his elbow and raising an eyebrow in silent disdain.

My mind raced. How had I ended up in his bed? Naked!? I pulled his sheets up to cover my chest more firmly. Vague memories of the previous night started rushing back on a river of excruciating mortification. I flinched at how little of my body I had left to hide from him after the previous night's activities.

What had I been thinking!? I was too smart to have been that stupid! How could I have let myself be charmed by this moron for even one moment? I was going to murder myself for making such a fool error.

Right after I murdered him.

"Jessica!" he snapped, calling my attention back to him. "Get going."

"What?" I asked, still trying to get my bearings. His words hadn't quite been an alpha command, but they were enough to make my wolf want to submit and obey our strong rightful leader. Not only was it the natural order of the pack, my job working directly for him as his personal assistant had trained me to follow his directives, no matter how frivolous they might be.

"Come on, you know the drill. You're not my mate." He flopped his muscular arm over his face to hide his eyes from the light, confident that I would quickly see myself out.

I couldn't be more thankful that I wasn't actually his mate. What a living nightmare that would be. "I am well aware of that fact," I responded, matching his frigid tones even as fiery indignation started to burn inside me.

"Good. Then get out of here, I want to get back to sleep. We both know you're smart enough to know how this works. I'll link you the next time I need you."

My temper, which was at a constant low simmer every time he opened his idiot mouth, flared up. I only barely just grabbed onto my wolf to stop myself from doing something stupid like attacking my own alpha. If I'd been in any position to think about it, I would have noted her aggression was strange. My animal side had always been annoyingly compliant to his will, but apparently this outrageous disrespect was finally enough to stiffen her spine.

Her new spark of rebellion would have been even better if I could beat him in a challenge. If I had even a hope of winning, it would be worth the risk to knock him out of his position as alpha. But unfortunately, there was no hope of that. The one thing our incompetent leader had in spades was brute strength.

That, and enough sex appeal to worm his way past my rational defense against his rampant arrogant stupidity.

Then and there I made a vow to myself that the former night's mistake had been a one time thing. Fool me once, shame on him, fool me twice, shame on me. There was absolutely no way I was ever going to let myself get played by the sexist ass again.