Page 1 of Brutal Alpha Beast (Roseville Alphas #2)

I think about running away. The thought comes to me in the morning and doesn’t leave my mind, even when the day turns to night. It’s a crazy thought. I’ve never even stepped foot outside of the valley in which the wolf pack I live in is hidden.

Would I take my twin sister with me? Of course. But where would we go?

As a twelve-year-old witch who has to pretend to be a shifter who can’t shift—because being a witch is far worse, my options are pretty limited. I’m stuck.

“This way!” Miss Montgomery calls. It's a full moon tonight, and while my classmates around me are practically giggling with excitement, I couldn’t care less.

I know that I’ll never feel the pull to the moon that they do, at least not in the same way.

“What’s the problem?” Harry Whitmore, a classmate who likes to pick on me more than the others, taunts me. “Afraid of the moon?”

He chuckles with a few of his friends, and I roll my eyes, reluctantly shrugging him off. Oh, how I’d love to curse him with one of the spells that my grandma taught me. I’d love to watch him squirm.

I know I can’t, though, and that’s one of the things that pains me the most—I have to let them all think I’m weak. If they somehow found out that Grams, Monroe, my twin sister, and I are witches, they’d banish us—or worse.

I want to leave this stupid pack, but as Grams rightly points out, it gives us protection—it gives her protection, too, since Grams is very old.

This evening, Miss Montgomery is taking us into a small area of woodland within our pack grounds.

We’re supposed to use telescopes to get a closer look at the full moon.

We study the moon and its cycles in class, it affects the shifters a lot—and tonight is supposed to be fun.

An extracurricular activity semi-related to school work, but mainly an opportunity to talk, eat, and drink beneath the stars.

I wasn’t going to go, but Grams told me that I should.

Activities in the pack that are supposed to be ‘fun’ only highlight how much of a loser I am. No one wants to hang with the shifter who can’t shift—part of me has always wondered whether a part of them senses what I am. That I’m, indeed, not one of them.

“Okay,” Miss Montgomery claps her hands together. “I’m going to split you off into pairs, and I want each pair to first grab a sheet of paper, some pens, and then a telescope from the boxes over here. You’re going to work together to note down your observations, just like we practiced.”

“What if some of us don’t need the telescope?” Harry calls.

I roll my eyes.

Miss Montgomery shakes her head. “It’s the intimate details we’re looking for, Harry. The ones that lurk much deeper than the naked eye can see.”

She begins to call out pairs, and I let out a breath of release when I realize I’m not paired up with Harry. Thank God.

Then, when it becomes apparent that I’m the only one left, I feel worse.

“Oh, Danielle, sorry I forgot about you, dear, let’s see...” she rechecks her list. Not the first time for this to happen, I consider telling her I’ll just go home when someone else arrives.

My heart stops beating.

Ellis.

The shifter who’s predicted to be the next Alpha, and, ironically, ashamedly, my biggest crush.

“Sorry,” he says, catching his breath. “My dad had to catch me up on a few things. Sorry I’m late.”

How could anyone not have a crush on Ellis? Coppery hair, burgundy eyes, the tallest guy in our grade, muscular and lean—he’s perfect. And it’s not just his looks; he has such a commanding air about him. I’m drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

“Perfect,” Miss Montgomery smiles, relieved that she didn’t, in fact, neglect one of her students. “You’re right on time.”

Ellis and I find a spot away from the others, and I don’t dare take my eyes off him. My job is to take notes as he looks into the telescope first.

“There’s the shadow on the right surface, which I think is important.”

“So, in other words, you don’t know what it means?” I smile.

A little fear pin-pricks my stomach. I’m being too candid with someone like him. I should keep my mouth shut. I shouldn’t have let my words slip.

But as he looks up from the telescope, he grins, and I feel light again. “Do you know what it means, Danielle?”

He knows my name. My cheeks flush. How does he know my name?

“Yes, well,” I think for a moment, but my mind turns blank. My stomach feels like soup. “No, actually, I don’t.”

I grin back at him, so enamored with the way his carved face looks beneath the moonlight. I couldn’t care less about what the details of the moon mean.

He shrugs. “It’s fine, we can just make things up. I doubt Miss Montgomery is going to read this stuff anyway.”

He lifts his chin in the direction of our teacher, who is sitting on a camping chair, eating a doughnut and downing a cup of beer.

I laugh. “At least she gets to have some fun. Makes one of us.”

There’s a glint in his eye, “Oh, you mean you’re not having fun attending an after-school activity at nine pm?”

“Oh, not at all. This is totally what I planned for my day.”

We hold each other’s gaze for a second too long, and then Ellis directs the telescope my way.

“Here,” he says. “You observe, I’ll write. It’s only fair that we take it in turns.”

While I pretend to give a damn about the moon, Ellis and I discuss everything, from opinions on how our pack is being run to what our favorite things to eat at the school cafeteria are.

Talking to him feels like magic, and the time goes by so quickly.

It’s only when his friends call him over to hang out that I realize we’re supposed to be finished.

“Do you want to come with?” He asks.

“No, that’s okay, you go,” I say. “I’ll put the telescope and everything back.”

It’s almost as though I don’t want him to see how much of a loser I am when it comes to being with everyone else, although I’m certain he’s seen it before.

“Okay,” he says, and as he walks off, my stomach sinks.

“But let’s go for a walk sometime after school,” he adds, turning in his tracks. “Only if you want.”

“Yes,” I smile. “I’d like that a lot.”

And just like that, I find my reason not to run away.