Chapter Five
Dominic had almost completely tuned out the voices in the room as he sat silently in his wingback chair, eyes fixed on a knothole on a floorboard.
The apartment above the antique shop was sparsely furnished besides the collection of upholstered dining chairs and an end table or two in between to complete the circle of congregated alphas and betas.
With Cole on his left and Hank on his right, all the other refugee wolves sat in their customary places. Wyatt was attended by his beta, Xavier, while Gage Phelps—who represented a smaller pack—came alone.
Dominic’s only purpose was to supervise and keep order, unless it had to do with his own pack or a pack that sought shelter in Tolstone. His thoughts were hours behind everyone else, totally consumed by Erica and her visit to the shop.
A photographer. He should have guessed it from the beginning.
His mind was already at work, thinking of all the families in the community, human and shifter, who might benefit from her services and how he could reach out to them in secret.
If Erica knew of the efforts, she might not take too kindly to it.
Dominic saw the way she looked when he offered to give her the sofa, and he finally realized why he craved her so ravenously. Erica didn’t need him. She didn’t beg for his help, didn’t accept his gifts with immediate open graciousness as if that’s what she had been hoping for.
As an alpha, people instinctively depended on him for protection and help.
It was part of his aura and the powerful dominance with which had been born.
But Erica didn’t gravitate to him in the same way.
She helped herself, reached out to the community first-hand, and only requested the bare minimum of allowing her to advertise in their businesses.
Dominic thought that if he ever came upon someone who clearly needed help, but didn’t ask for it, he’d feel absolutely no inclination to assist in any way.
Not so with Erica. He wanted to smash through those walls and somehow make her need him, make her beg for him.
Maybe that’s why he offered to give up the damn sofa and camera in the first place.
He ached to know why she was that way. Why couldn’t she just be approachable for one moment so he could sneak his way in and get to know her more?
When she commented on him being tired, he thought that was his chance, but she clammed up and left him perplexed and longing for more.
Yet, if her scent was any indication of her true feelings toward him, she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her.
He wasn’t so arrogant as to think himself irresistible to the finer sex, but why did she hold back?
“Dominic?”
Hank’s voice wedged its way into his obsessive thoughts, and he looked up to see most of the circle of shifters staring at him.
“What?” He felt like the kid in school who had been daydreaming during the lesson and then was called on to answer a question.
“Did you not hear anything?” Hank chided. It was then that Dominic noticed the folder open in his beta’s lap, packed with pictures, notes, and documents with red underlined passages.
“You were going over the new pack applications,” he replied, though he knew it was a shot in the dark.
Hank’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Did you hear my question?”
With a sigh, he shifted in his seat and propped his chin in his hand. “No. What was it?”
His irritated beta held up a picture from the folder.
“This is Shane Snyder. He’s got a pack of ten shifters, and four children under age.
Six singles and two families. They’re in a territorial situation in Kansas.
They’re being forced out by a bigger pack, and they don’t have the numbers to defend their territory. ”
Dominic stared at the headshot of the young alpha. His blond hair was lighter than his tanned skin; blue eyes squinted in the harsh sunlight. Behind him were expansive fields of golden crops, divided only by hedgerows of trees. “Farmer?”
“All he put was ‘field hand.’ Could be good for any blue-collar labor.”
“And the rest of his pack?”
“He has no beta. One is looking to enroll in college, so no occupation. The two married women are homemakers. The only one that specifies a preferred occupation is one of the married men. He’s a teacher and wants to stay that way.”
Dominic rubbed his brow in thought. “Are there any openings at the schools?”
This is where Cole chimed in. He knew what jobs were available, which homes and apartments were available out of their holdings, and where this new pack could be best fitted.
“Two right now. One is for high school algebra and the other for first grade.” Before Dominic could ask his next question, the sheriff continued, “Ferrin’s construction business is picking up, and he could use a few men who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. ”
Dominic nodded in approval. “Housing?”
Dominic owned several apartments and homes across Tolstone, which they leased out to refugee shifters. Many were already paid for with no mortgage, though they still required the shifters to compensate for their stay in Tolstone after they left the area.
“The two single girls could probably board together, and so could the single guys,” Hank said. “We have a new trailer on the edge of town that the larger family can take up.”
“How long have they been on the waiting list?”
“Two months,” Hank replied.
At this, Dominic felt a bit of his dominance slip, a powerful force of will that could be felt by all the shifters in the room. “Two months with an aggressive rival situation, and you didn’t tell me earlier?”
The room keenly felt his alpha presence and even Wyatt, an arrogant son of a bitch, slunk in his seat.
This was what set him apart as Prime Alpha.
His natural-born dominance was stronger, purer than other alphas.
Betas were also born with this quality, but not nearly as refined.
Their strength lay in their ability to intimidate rather than command obedience.
Even an older wolf could be put in his place with a stern look and a tiny leakage of dominance from a true alpha.
It wasn’t Dominic’s style to reprimand his beta. Usually, it was the other way around, but Hank instantly saw his blunder. After years of serving under Malcolm Beaumont, Hank should have known better.
“You’re right,” Hank admitted, and Dominic reeled in his dominance so the other shifters could breathe again. “I suppose I was waiting for a smaller pack.”
“Are there other packs that have been waiting for longer?” When Hank shook his head, Dominic gave his final decision. “As long as we have room, let Shane know that he and his pack are welcome. Hopefully they’re still there.”
Dominic remembered more than a few occasions in his childhood when his father came home, completely dejected.
It was only later that he found out it was due to a pack applicant no longer in need of refuge.
He had been too late to accept their pleas for help, and they paid for it at the hands of a hostile pack or potential hunters.
It was moments like this when Dominic came to realize, as much as he hated the responsibility, as much as he hated babysitting the town, that he cared deeply.
He cared more than Hank, Cole, or any of the other shifters would ever realize.
His workload was just too much right now for him to fully express it.
The snapping, the eye-rolling, beneath it all, Dominic still cared.
Maybe he was getting a little burned out, like Cole said the night before.
Hank stood up from his chair, closed his folder, and made his way down the stairs to make the call.
Dominic turned to Cole. “I want you to get their information and, in the morning, go ahead and send out job applications and arrange for whatever housing is available. I want them to have a place ready and waiting by the time they arrive.”
Cole nodded his affirmative. They hadn’t spoken a word about what transpired the night before on the way to Larson Caves Park.
Dominic was thankful for his discretion.
If Wyatt learned that he had skipped town for the night, the hypocrite might have made some snide remark about how he would handle the stress of being Prime Alpha better than Dominic.
Dominic not only had to be cautious about showing his slipups to lesser shifters, but also to other alphas who wanted his title.
Such comments enraged him, even if they were right.
Wyatt had watched him like a hawk ever since he arrived in Tolstone, paying more attention to the Prime Alpha than to his own pack.
Dominic might not have been perfect, but seeing someone else neglect their pack made him want to beat the man into the ground with dominance until he came to his senses.
“I heard there was a new girl in town,” Gage remarked as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his dirty mechanic’s shirt. “Anyone seen her yet?”
Quite possibly the most accomplished mechanic in town, Gage had come with his two other pack members after their alpha committed suicide.
The tattooed wolf had all the dominance of a born alpha with the intimidating factor of a beta.
They had come to Tolstone in search of someone who could mold his natural talent into something that resembled leadership.
So far, Gage had been a less than willing pupil.
Dominic stiffened at the mention of Erica, and he could feel Cole’s gaze hot on him, as if the sheriff expected him to volunteer more information. Wyatt and Xavier only seemed half as interested as Gage, whose mischievous green eyes watched and waited for an answer.
“Her name is Erica,” Dominic replied. His heart pounded harder at the utterance of her name. “She’s taken up the old Donaldson place next to mine.”
Wyatt leaned his elbows on his knees. “Oh? What’s she like?” he asked in his smooth Chicago accent.