Page 1 of Alphas Never Hide (Willow Lake Supernaturals #5)

Chapter One

HAYDEN

Whenever someone made the mistake of calling me Alpha —with a capital A like it was my fucking name, even though it damn well wasn’t— I always corrected them. Immediately .

I was not Willow Lake’s alpha, capitalized or not. Not now. Not ever. And the people who worked for me in my own damn garage should definitely know better than that. My name was Hayden Walker . That was it. Nothing more.

“ So , what do you say, Alpha ? You coming to the pub for a drink tonight? Jeremy is teaching us about human sports.” Buddy smirked, because seriously? Supes might not know much about human holidays and traditions, but sports we understood. “ And the new kid in the kitchen is doing a steak special tonight.” Buddy grinned at me as he wiped his grease-covered hands on a rag.

I’d already corrected Buddy about the whole alpha business twice this afternoon .

This time I growled.

My other employees cringed at the sound. Most people did, because they all thought I was the damn alpha of their pack, and they didn’t want to displease me. And that thought made me growl louder.

But Buddy merely lifted an eyebrow. He wasn’t the least intimidated. The bastard knew I wouldn’t bite him. He’d been working for me at the garage the longest and had seen me through worse moods than this. That he was still here always surprised me.

And talking about the new kid and his supper special was the last thing he should have said to tempt me into coming out tonight. Of course, he didn’t know how every time I saw the new guy all I thought about was how fucked up things had gotten this past summer.

Because the new kid?

His name was Brodie . I’d learned everything I could about him without appearing too obsessed. Thankfully , Van , our hellhound Chief of Police , had given his file to me without question. And Gage , our local demon guardian, nodded approvingly whenever I went to the inn to spend time with Brodie and Dakota , the other kid who’d been found with him. Because Van and Gage , like Buddy , thought I was driven by my instincts as alpha of this place.

But they were wrong.

I’d needed to know about him and his friend because they were the ones we’d saved from my brother’s land out in the hills west of town. They were a constant reminder of how epically I’d failed, and how desperately I needed to make things right. Because if I’d been more of an alpha, those kids wouldn’t have had to be saved. They wouldn’t have even been in that situation.

Still , I was glad to hear Brodie was settling in. But if everyone was fine and safe in Willow Lake , I had other things I needed to do.

“ Why would I want to learn about human sports? Jake puts sports up on the TVs at the pub all the time,” I said. “ What is there to learn?”

“ Fuck if I know. He obviously thinks we live under a rock or have shunned everything mundane our whole lives or something, but the steaks should be good. So , are you coming or what?”

“ No ,” I said.

“ Ah , come on. You haven’t been out with us in weeks.”

“ I’m busy.” I turned my back to him and tidied my tools.

I didn’t have to see Buddy’s face to know he was rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

“ Alice is going to think you’re avoiding her,” the persistent asshole said.

Alice was Buddy’s girlfriend. She was a sweet supe who worked at the pub a few nights a week. When she’d agreed to go on their first date this past summer, Buddy had been too distracted to work. I had to stick him at the reception desk for the day, so he didn’t get himself killed. He even smiled through all the ribbing the guys gave him, because she was the one . They’d been dating a few months now, and it looked like they were on their way to becoming chosen mates. I was happy he’d found someone. I was always happy when one of my pack? —

Now I’d gone off thinking of everyone as my pack, too.

“ No , she won’t,” I snapped. “ If you don’t bring it up, she won’t notice if I’m there or not.”

“ That’s a lie and we both know it.”

Yeah . He was probably right.

At least Buddy finally figured out I was done with this conversation, because he quit pestering me. When he and the others left, I didn’t lock up right away. This place was almost as much of a den to me as the place I slept every night. The familiar scents of gear oil, fresh grease, and new tires always calmed me. And , right now, I needed calm.

This was home. My refuge when I needed one. Even before I started working here, I’d sneak over and watch the mechanics work. I’d begged Georgina , the old owner, for a job when I was barely fourteen years old.

My parents hadn’t known what to think about my passion for cars and trucks and anything with a motor, but they still supported me. All they asked was that I not let my work at the garage interfere with learning how to lead our pack.

Ha ! What a waste of time that had been. My training as a mechanic had served me a hell of a lot better.

I shouldn’t have bothered with all that pack crap, because all my parents’ dreams for the future—for me, for themselves, for the town—faded away after their deaths. The only good to come from that time in my life was when old Georgina had offered the shop to me when she retired. It was like she’d known I needed something to ground me and keep me busy .

The day Georgina’s Garage became Hayden’s Garage , I’d even been happy. Almost .

From that moment forward, I’d done my best to be Hayden , the mechanic. Not the previous alpha’s heir or the guy who refused to be Alpha . Just Hayden .

Now I was skipping down memory lane again like a kid going to the ice cream shop.

I pushed the memories away. The damn things had been haunting me lately. Until this past summer, I would have said I’d come to terms with my past, but life sometimes had a way of proving you wrong. I scrubbed my hands over my face and wished I could scrub away all the shit in my head at the same time.

I turned out the lights in the service area and made my way to my office. The tiny, cluttered room wasn’t much of a space. My desk was covered with invoices and the same desktop computer Georgina had used when she owned the place. And I was pretty sure the thing had been old even then. But it still did what I needed, so I saw no need to change it.

I was adamant about keeping the service bays reasonably clean and tidy—well, as clean and tidy as a space like that could be. And I paid a local husband-and-wife team to clean the washrooms, the front desk area, and the waiting room, so those were always presentable, too. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d dragged a mop across the floor in here.

It was looking a little grungy to be honest, so I did my best not to look.

I stripped out of my stained and ratty overalls and hung them on a hook behind the office door. I should toss them, but I just hadn’t had the time to order more.

Things would settle down. As soon as I found Robbie , everything would be back to normal. I hoped.

A quick sniff of my pits told me I needed a shower, but I didn’t want to waste time. I needed to get out of here. I’d be fine for another couple of hours. It wasn’t like I was expecting to see anyone, anyway. I’d shower when I got back.

With one last cursory check of the empty shop, I shut off the rest of the lights and locked up. I exited through the back door to the fenced lot where we stored the cars we kept overnight. In the far corner, behind a stack of used tires, was the old travel trailer I called home. The thing looked like a piece of shit because it was one. The only thing I fixed and checked regularly was the caulking at the seams. I didn’t need a lot to be comfortable, but I preferred to be dry.

I hadn’t ever told anyone I lived back here, but I suspected Van knew.

I gazed longingly at the small corner of the trailer I could see from here. All I wanted was to go in there, get shitfaced, and pass out. Except no one in town sold magically enhanced whisky anymore, and the human-strength alcohol did fuck all to get me drunk. Ulric , the old owner of the pub, had sold the high-test stuff as off-sales, but he was dead more than a year now and whatever stash he’d had was long gone. I’d hoped now that Jake had found out about supernatural things he’d start ordering more again, but he hadn’t yet.

So , the only thing left to do tonight was hunt .

Since the attack on Robbie’s pack a month or so back, I’d been out every night looking for leads, trying to find my damn brother. Instinct told me I was missing something, but what? Right . If I knew the answer to that question, then I wouldn’t feel like I’d missed something, would I ? Still , I had a niggling feeling the answer was right there in front of me.

He wasn’t dead. I was sure of that because the same instinct that told me I was missing something obvious also told me my brother was still alive. I just had to find him. The drive to hunt him down was all that was keeping me going right now. I had to find him before he hurt anyone else. I needed to do it for myself, for those poor kids he’d trapped and caged, for all the people in my pack?—

Nope . Not going there. I was doing it because it was the right thing to do.

I’d planned to go out there again tonight, but my feet refused to carry me to my truck, which could only mean one thing. The Eternal Magic had different plans for me tonight.

“ Son of a—” I groaned and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. Why couldn’t she leave me alone?

I lifted my face and sniffed the area for strangers or non-magical people. No one should be able to see me back here, but I still checked anyway. Not finding anything amiss, I let a partial shift roll over me as I took on my Anubis form. I hated wasting time like this, but the Eternal Magic was becoming increasingly pissy with me. Lately , she only deigned to communicate with me when I tapped into the magic of my wolf.

When I was a pup, people said they could sense a strong alpha power inside me. It’d taken me a long time to figure out what they were talking about. My dad, who’d been the alpha of the only pack I’d ever been a part of, had tried explaining it to me. In the end, I figured it all boiled down to an innate need to take care of those in our pack, having a closer connection to the Eternal Magic through our animal side than the average shifter, and being able to merge those two things into our alpha power.

Alpha power was some woo-woo shit the Eternal Magic gave to us to help us look after our pack that essentially made us a conduit for all things magical. If a shifter had trouble shifting, we could help them access their magic and shift. If a shifter was anxious, we could help them connect with the powerful calm of the Eternal Magic . Any time someone needed to tap into the Eternal Magic , alphas were your one-stop shop solution.

Not every wolf had alpha power. It wasn’t something you could learn. The Eternal Magic either blessed you with it or she didn’t. At least that was my interpretation of what my dad had said when I was a pup. At the time, it made me feel special. Of course, it also made my brother jealous, but I hadn’t figured that out until it was too late. What was it they said about hindsight?

And the other thing I’d discovered over the years? The Eternal Magic hated when her gifts were ignored. But she could fuck off because I didn’t want to be alpha. She’d accept it, eventually.

I daydreamed about the Eternal Magic finally accepting defeat and stripping me of this ridiculous alpha power and giving it to some other wolf. Then she could start pestering someone else for a change. Alpha power was more of a pain in the ass than anything else.

And , no, the back of my neck wasn’t getting itchy at the thought of someone else becoming Alpha of Willow Lake and stepping in to take care of the pack. I’d be perfectly fine with it. Happy even. Seriously . The true alpha, whoever they were, would come soon and take over. I was a stand-in until they showed up. A stand-in. A pale imitation of what the real alpha would be. I swallowed around the weird lump in my throat.

I hoped I wasn’t coming down with anything. It’d be just like the Eternal Magic to mess with me by giving me a cold, like a weak, mundane human.

Whatever . I didn’t know why I was thinking about all that, anyway. It didn’t matter right now. A new alpha wasn’t about to step into the role tonight.

I pushed all the wayward thoughts from my head and concentrated on the message from the Eternal Magic . Damn it. It looked like I wouldn’t be driving out to the hills west of town tonight like I planned. My obnoxious alpha instinct, which I wished I could scrape out of my head, insisted I stick closer to home.

This would be yet another wasted night.

Why couldn’t I catch a damn break and finish this whole thing with Robbie ? Oh well. What the Eternal Magic wanted, the Eternal Magic got. She was a whiny, demanding tyrant.

I let my partial shift drop. I cast one last look at my truck, before resigning myself to checking the perimeter of the pack lands—not my pack lands, to be clear. Just the pack lands .

I would like to pretend I was obsessing over the whole alpha crap tonight because Buddy had stirred things up at closing time, but the truth was, I’d been obsessing about all this for months now. It was like a virus I couldn’t shake or a persistent rash. Unfortunately , Doc Roberts didn’t have a cure for this ailment.

All right. I’d wasted enough time already. Tonight was going to be an absolute waste, but I needed to finish this so I could get back and get rested for tomorrow night’s hunt.

I stretched until every bone seemed to crack, and every muscle screamed in protest. A yawn tried to slip free, but I smothered the damn thing. There’d be time to sleep later.

I crossed the back of the lot. As soon as I was through the gate, it swung shut and locked automatically. I’d long ago planted thick, evergreen shrubs back here to protect the area year-round from curious eyes, but I still sniffed the air to make sure no one was close.

Shifting and heading out to the perimeter would be a lot easier if I developed the land I’d purchased a few years ago on the outskirts of town. I’d be closer to the woods and further away from mundane neighbors. But I couldn’t make myself do it. Instead , I had to hide behind an evergreen shrub to shift and hope no do-gooder human shot me as I trotted through town on my way to the woods. I could imagine how excited they’d be to take out the big, bad wolf like they were in a children’s story.

Honestly , human stories were the bane of supes everywhere.

Once I confirmed I was alone, I let my full shift wash over me. My transition to my wolf was more sluggish than normal, but it still came faster for me than most shifters. It was all part of being the almost alpha in Willow Lake . Usually , I hated yet another sign of the Eternal Magic’s fingers in my life, but right now I appreciated it. I needed every advantage to deal with my brother like I should have done all those years ago.

I shook out my fur and stepped away from the long shadows of the thick shrubs and into the early evening sunlight. This time of year, the days were getting steadily shorter, but sunset was still hours away. Having longer days, even at this time of year, was one of the perks of living this far north. I appreciated those extra hours now because by the time solstice came around, it’d be dark damn near all day. That’s what it always felt like anyway.

Now that I’d fully shifted, the itch to check the territory was worse. It didn’t feel like a threat, but something wasn’t right. I lifted my face to the sky. It would be so damn easy to howl and call the supernatural Willow Lakers to me so we could investigate it together. Instead , I trotted through the back alleys of Willow Lake alone. It didn’t take long to hit the tree line on the outskirts of town. Willow Lake wasn’t that big.

My paws crunched over dry, brittle plants as I followed the familiar route. Most of the grasses and forbs had burnt up under the heat wave earlier in the summer and had never fully recovered. Now , with fall invading the landscape, there was no hope for soft green growth again until spring.

In the few days since I’d last run this path, we’d had a couple of hard frosts, and the change of season had become more pronounced. I used to wonder what it’d be like further south, where fall lasted longer, and frosts didn’t come in September . But I’d come to appreciate the beauty of this place. It was my home.

The warmth of the late afternoon heat still hung in the air, but it was fading fast. The scents of dying plants and rotting leaves had grown stronger over the last few weeks and most of the larch and aspen trees were changing to golden yellow, a stunning contrast to the dark green pine trees. Those vibrant colors never stayed for long here, not like they did in other parts of the country or further south. Pretty soon a big wind would crash down the mountainside and yank all these pretty yellow leaves off their branches, then in the blink of an eye, snow would be dumping down on us.

In the summer when I’d first started hunting for Robbie , I didn’t think it’d take this long to find him. Now , I wasn’t sure everything would wrap up before winter came. I grimaced. I really didn’t want to keep doing this through snow and blizzards, too.

Wolf shifters didn’t share all the traits of our animal counterparts, but even our wild animal comrades would agree curling up in front of a heater while listening to the wind howl outside, knowing you were safe and warm under a heap of blankets and all our fur, was pure bliss. When I was a pup, my parents would wake up Robbie and me whenever a blizzard hit. They’d bring us back to their bedroom. Dad would build a fire in the hearth while Mom made a cozy nest in front of the fireplace from the blankets that smelled like my parents because she’d stripped them from their bed. When everything was ready, we’d all shift and settle in to sleep, with Robbie and me safe and warm curled up between our parents .

I wasn’t sure I’d felt that warm in years.

And I sure as shit wouldn’t be warm this winter if I had to keep going out hunting for my asshole brother. If Robbie had taken off for the winter, I’d never know. I could be out there for months with nothing to show for it. I didn’t think he would leave, though. As much as he pretended to be better than the rest of us, he was as connected to this land as I was. It was how we were raised, although the lessons had become a warped and twisted mess when they hit his head.

I prayed Mom and Dad had never found out what he’d become before they died.

Shit . Why did I keep thinking about my parents tonight? Robbie , yeah, I knew why I was thinking about him , but the dead should be resting.

Pain squeezed around my heart, and I pushed into it, letting it wash over me. It reminded me I was alive. That I had a purpose. One I’d put off for far too long.

When I finished the perimeter and hadn’t come across anything, the Eternal Magic urged me to turn away from town. I wasn’t done yet, it seemed. I ran another circle along the perimeter, and then another. Each time, the circle got wider, and I was further away from my territory, but my damn alpha instinct kept prodding me on. The sun had disappeared long ago, slipping away beyond the tips of the mountains in the west. And now a starry sky twinkled overhead.

If it was closer to the full moon, maybe the moonlight would have shown whatever the Eternal Magic wanted me to find. But we were on the eve of the new moon and starlight was as good as it got .

When I reached the most westerly part of the route for the fourth time, I couldn’t go any further. I flopped down with a huff. My paws burned and my muscles quivered. I had half a mind to curl up and sleep out here for the night.

Why was the Eternal Magic making me do this? Was she toying with me? Punishing me?

Robbie’s old burnt-out pack lands were further to the west. I should have been out there, not here. I had absolutely nothing to show for tonight.

Not a single fucking?—

The scent of blood stirred through the air. As battered as my paws were, it wasn’t my blood. I lifted my nose and inhaled deeply. The injured person? Animal ? Whatever it was, it was to the west of me. It had to be close, given that the wind was pushing most scents away from me.

I rolled to get my feet under me again, but I kept low. Adrenaline swept away my fatigue. I inhaled again, dissecting the scent for more clues. I couldn’t tell if I was smelling a person or an animal. The scents were all mixed together. Staying crouched close to the ground, I crawled forward slowly.