The Alpha's Prey [Alpha-series (I)]

Chapter 1

"Are you sure the car is alright?", I couldn't help but ask for the third time. The engine of the old Pick-up sounded like it could explode any minute and I loved my life too much to die because of such a rolling pile of junk.

My uncle lovingly caressed the dashboard.

"She is an old lady, she is allowed to have an attitude."

"As long as her ,attitude‛ doesn't get me killed ...", I mumbled.

"I bet you wouldn't find such a beauty in the big city", he chuckled.

Damn right he was and I was glad about that.

Several times uncle Pete tried it with small talk, like really tried, yet we didn't manage to exchange more than a few sentences. As a fifty-something plumber from rural Canada and a twenty-four-year-old model from New York we basically had nothing in common except our DNA. On top of that an hour ago when my uncle had picked me up from the air-port it was actually the first time we had met. Over the last months, we had spoken on the phone a couple of times but we had just talked about my mother's condition, so we ended up settling for mutual silence for the rest of the three-hour drive to Amber Grove.

My mother had run away from home when she was sixteen, wanting to escape a mundane small-town life and become a Hollywood Starlet. A classic. In the end, she only landed some minor parts in TV-productions. Still, that's how she had met my father, the renowned – and married – actor Steve Cortega. It wasn't love, for neither of them. It was a moment of pure Lust that should never have happened, but it did and here I am. Long story short: The scandal almost ruined the career and marriage of my father and my mother couldn't handle having earned the reputation of a slutty homewrecker thanks to the media and started getting into drugs. When I was thirteen, she went to rehab, but that was only her first visit of many. In the end, her body couldn't take it anymore, her organs started to fail. Her final wish had been to die where she was born, being reunited with her estranged family at last. My uncle, her younger brother, had kindheartedly granted her this wish, that was half a year ago. I had come to Canada for her funeral.

Amber Grove was your typical rural small-town: a bunch of tiny independent shops lined the "main street" with corny names like Becky's Bakery or Shakespeare's and Company, I couldn't spot one single building with more than three levels and according to the sign exactly 1351 people lived here, which I had serious trouble wrapping my head around. It felt like stepping into a strange parallel universe, a world that to me up until this point had only existed in children's books or tacky movies. I had always been a city girl. Being born and raised in the bustling Los Angeles it was all I knew. Currently, I was living in New York when I wouldn't have a shooting at a metropolis somewhere around the globe. So to me, this trip was an experience, to say the least.

"Here we are. Home sweet home", my uncle happily chanted when he pulled in to park the pick-up in front of his garage. His house looked old but one could see it was looked after and kept in shape with love. The front porch was decorated with lanterns hanging from the roof, two rocking chairs and a couple of flower pots sending of a cozy welcoming atmosphere.

My uncle growled heavily as he lifted the two big suitcases that I had brought with me out of the trunk. Lucky for him I had decided against a third one in the last minute, consider-ing I would only stay here for three days. Originally, I had planned it to be just one night and then head back to New York right after the funeral tomorrow, but Pete had invited me to stay with him and his wife Susanne a little longer since they would celebrate the birthday of their oldest son James this weekend. The family of my father had always treated me like shit so I was quite skeptical towards this invitation at first, wanting to recline. To me, family was equivalent to rejection, insults, and sadness. On the other hand, I knew my horrible experiences in that field were not in the least repre-sentative and if I ever wanted to get over them what better way than to make some new good experiences I that depart-ment, right? Okay, those had been the words of my shrink, but they sounded reasonable so I eventually agreed. It was also the least I could do to thank my uncle and my aunt for taking care of my mother those last months even though she was basically a stranger to them.