Page 29 of Alphas Never Hide (Willow Lake Supernaturals #5)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

HAYDEN

The spot in my hair with my mating mark didn’t feel any different from before, so why did I keep touching it? Every time I did, someone would smile at me like they thought it was cute. It was not cute. I was not cute. I was a grown wolf shifter, not some pup scampering along and tripping over their paws.

There had to be a few ball caps kicking around the shop. Suppliers were always giving us shit like that. I should grab one, so people would stop looking at me like they wanted to pinch my cheeks or pat me on the head while using words like adorable or precious. Except I really didn’t want to hide my mating mark from anyone. I wanted the whole world to know Ryley was my mate.

“ I can’t believe they organized this whole thing overnight,” Ryley said.

We were standing beside Willow Lake , looking out over the water. Most of the town was out here. As far as I could tell, the only people missing were the mundane humans who lived alongside us.

The only human I’d seen today was Parker , who’d been confused and, if I read his face correctly, hurt no one had invited him. Levi ushered him away. He’d texted Gage that he’d stay with Parker , so he didn’t venture out again. But was it too late? Had Parker seen under the Eternal Magic’s glamour? We’d find out soon enough. I wasn’t worried if he had, because Parker’s resistance to Gage’s magic was telling. If I was right, then Parker was Levi’s mate, and this was another sign of that. I wondered how long the big minotaur could stay away. That should be Willow Lake’s next pub bet.

Everyone else was acting like an impromptu municipal holiday for supes had been declared. Businesses were closed, including the garage. People kept arriving with dishes for a potluck. A teenager was making balloon animals for the few kids who were running around. And , in the park behind us, food of every description was sizzling on a long line of barbecues.

The weather this time of year was hit and miss, but we’d lucked out today. The temps were warm for a random day in September . The sky overhead was a rich blue with not a cloud in sight. The lake was calm, well, except for the splashing Brodie and Weston were doing as they shot through the water. I didn’t know where Henrietta and Gary had disappeared to. As soon as they’d taken their octopus forms, they sank beneath the surface of the water and hadn’t been seen since.

“ I’m a little surprised myself,” I admitted to Ryley .

Although I shouldn’t have been. Everyone was in a jovial mood after that whole alpha pack moment last night. It’d been a long time since they’d had an alpha. A lot of supes in the world lived outside a pack environment, but studies showed how supes were healthier in packs. It was something to do with the persistent stress of knowing you were on your own, always having to hide from the mundanes, and feeling like there was no one to take care of you if something went wrong. Of course, anyone who lived in Willow Lake , even before I accepted the role of alpha yesterday, should have known they weren’t alone, but having my role formalized seemed to have everyone walking with more bounce in their steps and bigger smiles on their faces.

I almost regretted resisting it for so long.

“ What do you want to do after this?” I asked.

Ryley bit his bottom lip and twisted his hands together. “ I was thinking about signing up for the hide and seek competition.”

“ Really ?”

He swallowed. “ I know the doctor said he doesn’t want you using your magic today, so you can’t participate, but I thought this might be an opportunity to…” His words trailed off and he shook his head. “ You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything. It was a bad idea.”

“ Hey , this is just about having some fun. You can try if you want to, but don’t feel you have to. Is someone pressuring you to take part?” I looked around to see if I could pick out who might bully Ryley into this. He didn’t have to prove himself to anyone. Not now, not ever.

“ Nothing like that. It’s all my idea. I haven’t mentioned it to anyone. ”

Well , that changed things. I pulled him into a quick hug, fully aware of how many people were watching us and snapping pictures like the nosey bastards they were.

“ I’m proud of you,” I said. “ You don’t have to do this, but if you do, I’ll support you.” I hated the idea of Ryley going off by himself to hide, but this was a safe and fun way for him to experiment with his magic.

He shrugged, and his cheeks darkened. “ I saw Jeremy take part in the mage competition earlier. No one cared that he sucked or that his magic didn’t do everything he wanted it to. Everyone was…”

“ Supportive ?”

“ Yeah , I guess.” He nodded and looked away. “ I’ve never seen that before. In my herd, by the time you were an adult, failure wasn’t accepted.”

I tightened my arms around him. “ Everything you tell me about your former herd makes me angry.”

He leaned against my chest. “ I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it for a long time. It was just the way things were. No one thought to question their bigotry and their narrow-minded traditions. After I left the herd, I’d hear humans talk about their elections and I figure it’s the same thing. They’d say, ‘ My family has always voted for that party, so I do too.’ They never stopped to listen to what was being said, to see if those promises made sense or aligned with their beliefs. It was sad. There is nothing worse in the world than saying ‘ It has always been that way, so we don’t want to change it.’”

“ I can’t imagine how difficult it was for you to leave them,” I murmured against his hair. “ But I’m proud of you. ”

His arms tightened around me.

“ When does the hide and seek competition start?”

“ I think it is up next,” he said.

Several events had already finished. A tiny mouse shifter had won the prize for being able to squeeze through the smallest opening. Isaac had won for being able to leap the highest of everyone when in their shifted form, but one of the frog shifter competitors was trying to get it overturned. He said it should be based on the ratio between how high someone could leap and how tall they were. Isaac disagreed, for obvious reasons.

Honestly , though, if any of the cat shifters had competed, Isaac would have lost anyway. After all, I’d seen Clive leap higher than Isaac when he was trying to outrun Van after nicking a fish fillet out of the grocery store. But after the cats had shifted this morning, a couple of empty boxes mysteriously showed up close to the competition site. Intrigued , the cats had investigated. They jumped in the boxes, plonked themselves down, and made it clear they had no intention of leaving again. I didn’t think the boxes were a random coincidence, but neither Isaac nor the frog shifter had taken responsibility yet.

But the day wasn’t just about sports, if you could call squeezing through tiny holes a sport. Jake and his painting ladies had set out easels early in the day and had captured the festivities in acrylic on canvas. Jake’s painting had moved me so much, I’d bought it from him. I didn’t know what I’d do with it. The canvas wouldn’t fit in the trailer, which meant it’d have to go in the shop’s waiting room. Jake showcased supes in their shifted forms, painting everything in a whimsical style. A mundane human would dismiss it as fantasy, even if it was real. I could stare at it for hours. It made me wonder what life would be like if we could live like this every day. No hiding. No fear. Just people living their lives out in the open.

Then Ryley and I watched Oak’s demonstration where he worked metal scraps into garden statues. When that finished, I’d dragged Ryley over to grab some cheeseburgers for me and grilled pineapple for him. It’d only been midmorning at that point, and it hadn’t been that long since I’d finished a big breakfast at the inn, but I was hungry. My alpha magic had expanded quickly last night, so maybe that was why I was trying to eat my weight in beef. Either that or Xander was right, and I needed the extra protein to heal my magic.

After that, we found our way to the registration table. Ash was sitting behind the table, looking bored. He was wearing one of his many pink sweaters, and I couldn’t figure out how he wasn’t melting in the afternoon sun. Beside him, Jeremy was standing on a chair with binoculars in his hand. He glanced down at something on his phone before peering through the binoculars again.

On the other side of him, but standing on the ground instead of a chair, Doc Roberts stared at the water too. As a sphinx shifter, he’d have decent eyesight, so he didn’t need the binoculars, but he shielded his eyes with his hand. I’d noticed him lingering around earlier, probably staying close in case someone got injured during the events. But I hadn’t chatted with him yet. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, not after he sent that text to the whole damn pack telling them to make sure I rested.

“ I think you’re right, Ash ,” Jeremy said. “ I think both Henrietta and Gary dropped to the bottom of the lake and stayed there. Did they forget they were in a race?”

Sally cackled. “ I bet they got frisky and decided that was more interesting.”

Jeremy looked aghast at the succubus. “ In the middle of a race?”

Sally shrugged. “ Like I said, they have stamina. How do you think they built that up? Sex . Lots and lots of sex.”

Everyone who heard that comment grimaced, and I doubted I was the only one thinking about the bakery, where, until Sally came into their lives, they seemed to spend most of their time. Surely , they wouldn’t do that as much as Sally was suggesting.

Nope . I didn’t want to think about that.

“ How can you tell where they are?” Ryley asked Jeremy as he looked out across the water. He tugged off his glasses and looked toward the middle of the lake. Weston and Brodie were at the far end, so the middle was calm. Not even a ripple broke the smooth surface.

“ The contestants have trackers so we can make sure they hit the marker before swimming back,” Jeremy said. “ They are on loan from the Willow Lake Police Department . They ordered in a bunch of new ones after the one Simon sent through the portal with Morgan malfunctioned. These are their old ones.”

“ Will you use them for the hide and seek competition too?” If that was the case, it’d ease a lot of my worries about Ryley going off on his own.

I wasn’t sure why that worried me so much. Everyone in town was here, so I couldn’t see anyone, not even Robbie , trying anything with so many witnesses around. Was this anxiousness about separating caused by our mating?

“ That’s the plan.” Jeremy nodded. “ I’m the only one who can see them, and I won’t let anyone else use the info to cheat. This is important research. I won’t have the results messed up because someone had insider information.”

“ I thought it was all fun and games,” Ash teased his friend.

“ Ha ha,” Jeremy said, sounding anything but amused. He looked through his binoculars again. “ Looks like Weston and Brodie are on their way back. It is going to be a close finish, I think.”

We all stopped to watch the two shifters cut through the water. As they neared the finish line, which was a yellow ribbon held between two canoes, Brodie inched ahead. Then he was through with Weston crossing the line after him, no more than a foot behind.

I’d seen Weston swim enough times to know he hadn’t pushed as hard as he could to cross the finish line. Merfolk were sprinters. They lived in shallow areas close to the shore where they regularly needed to hide from humans. But kelpies were creatures of the oceans and built to endure enormous distances. There was no way Weston should have lost in a small space like Willow Lake .

But no one would hear that from me.

Brodie neighed when he realized he’d won. He lifted his head in the air, shook out his silvery mane, and leaped through the water, kicking up enough waves and water to make the canoes rock wildly. Weston smiled fondly at the antics of his competitor. Huh . Brodie’s interest might not be as one-sided as I’d thought.

Weston had a reputation for sleeping around. I hoped he didn’t think he could treat Brodie that way. The kid—okay, he wasn’t a minor, but he still felt like a kid to me—wasn’t like Weston’s other conquests. I wanted to say it wasn’t my business, but Brodie felt like my business because of how we’d saved him from Robbie . Weston would never intentionally hurt Brodie , but when Weston inevitably moved on to his next lover, Brodie would be devastated.

They shifted and staggered out of the water. Weston clapped Brodie on the back, congratulating him on his win. As soon as Weston touched the kelpie, the kid froze like he didn’t want to move or say anything to make Weston take his hand away. Then someone shouted at the merman, which pulled Weston’s attention away from Brodie . The merman’s face lit up, and he accepted a consolation kiss from the guy who’d called his name.

“ Hide and seek is next,” Jeremy said as he jumped off the chair. He looked down at his clipboard. “ We have six contestants who have agreed to hide?—”

“ Seven ,” Ryley said quickly.

“ You want to sign up? That’s great!” Jeremy scribbled Ryley’s name on his paper. “ The way it’ll work is that a competitor will hide, then we’ll time how long it takes for them to be found. Then the next competitor will hide.”

“ Where are they hiding?”

Jeremy looked around at the park. “ I’d originally thought we’d do it here, but there’s a lot more people than I expected. Should we move this up to Winslow Park ? We’ll need to go over there anyway for the Sisyphus competition.” Jeremy flipped through his papers. “ Although we don’t have many people signed up for that one yet.”

“ Go figure,” Ash muttered. “ Rolling a boulder up a hill is supposed to be a punishment.”

“ If someone goes into the woods behind the park, they could run for miles,” I said. “ Those woods go all the way to the mountains.”

“ Supes can always tell when they cross the town boundary, right?” Jeremy asked. “ We’ll just say they can’t go past that.”

The back of my neck itched at the thought of Ryley going into the woods, even the ones within the town limits. No one else seemed bothered by the idea. Was I overreacting? Gage would know if anything bad was happening in Willow Lake . And Jake would have received a message from the Eternal Magic if this was a problem. Neither of them had voiced any concerns.

So , yeah, I guessed I was overreacting. A new mate problem. Or maybe that itchiness meant something else, like I had a sunburn.

I hoped it was a sunburn.