Alpha Bully (Omega University Book 4) Read online

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  Alpha Bully

  Omega University

  By: J.L. Wilder

  Click to Receive a Free Copy of Brother’s Wolf (Full length)

  Table of Contents

  Alpha Bully

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  More Books by J.L. Wilder

  About The Author

  Alpha Bully

  Chapter One

  GRACE

  Footsteps crashed through the woods.

  “Grace!” a voice yelled, hard and angry. “Where are you, Grace?”

  Grace huddled in a thicket of bushes, arms wrapped around her knees, tears streaming down her face, shaking with fear and confusion. It had happened again, and she had no idea how.

  She had tried everything she could think of. Her father wouldn’t allow her to install a lock on her door—her behavior had been too erratic for her to have earned any privacy, according to him—but she had pushed all her furniture in front of the door before going to sleep. She had been sure that it would keep her inside.

  It hadn’t.

  Her sleepwalking had gotten completely out of control, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

  And why do I always come outside naked? she wondered desperately. There was nothing that could compare to the absolute shame of being found this way. And she knew her father would have no sympathy for her plight. He would drag her back to the house fully naked, not even sparing the shirt off his back to help her cover herself.

  “Grace!” he bellowed.

  She didn’t know why she was hiding. She would have to go home eventually. But the idea of doing so was so terrifying that she couldn’t help trying to put it off.

  The footsteps came closer.

  She could see the toes of her father’s boots a few feet away from her. He was on the verge of finding her. She was just about to emerge from the bushes and give herself up when she heard another voice—one she didn’t recognize.

  “You say this has been happening more often?”

  It was a man’s voice. But unlike her father, he didn’t sound angry. He sounded interested. Intrigued.

  “Almost every night for the past two weeks,” her father said irritably. “I’m about to start locking her in the bedroom myself. I don’t have time to chase her around the woods every night.”

  Grace’s heart plummeted. She had been afraid for a long time that her father might try installing a lock on the outside of the door. If that happened, she would become a prisoner in her own home.

  “That’s not going to solve the problem, and you know it,” the man said. “If she’s coming into her true nature—”

  “She’s not. She’s just disobedient. Frolicking naked in the moonlight like some kind of witch.”

  “If she’s coming into her true nature,” the unknown voice said patiently, “then locking her in won’t do anything except ruin your house.”

  Her father grunted.

  “I think you must know in your heart what you’re up against here,” the stranger said. “I think that’s why you called me in the first place.”

  “God only knows why I called you.” He raised his voice. “Grace! Get your ass out here.”

  “Stop shouting, please,” the stranger said. He inhaled deeply. “She’s near.”

  “Freak,” Grace’s father growled.

  Terror shot through Grace. Who was this strange man? Why had her father called him? And what did he mean by her true nature?

  She started to back out of the bush slowly, hoping to slink away and find a new hiding place. She would have to go home eventually, but this stranger would as well. She could face her father, but she didn’t want anything to do with him. He frightened her.

  Before she had taken more than a couple of steps, though, a hand shot through the bushes, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet.

  Grace couldn’t help it. She cried out in terror.

  The man standing before her had sandy-colored hair and incredibly muscular arms. She tried to struggle free of his grip, but he held her easily. “Here,” he said, handing her a shift dress. “Put this on.”

  Grace felt stunned. Her father had never brought her clothes on these nights.

  “I’ll let go of you,” the man said. “But you have to promise not to run, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you believe that I would be able to catch you if you did?”

  She nodded again. It was the truth. He was probably three times her size, pound for pound, and his body was all muscle. She wouldn’t stand a chance if he was chasing her.

  He released her arm. She quickly pulled the dress over her head, wrapped her arms around her body, and stood shivering. It was a cold night, but neither the strange man nor her father offered her a coat.

  “Let’s get her back to the house,” the strange man said. “We can talk about options there.”

  “Options,” her father snorted. “I know what options you’re here to talk about.”

  “You wouldn’t have called me if you weren’t open to the discussion,” the stranger said. He took Grace’s arm again and began to steer her back toward the house she shared with her father. He didn’t pull her violently, the way her father would have, but there was nothing compassionate in his touch either. He walked her the way a man might walk a dog.

  Neither he nor Grace’s father said anything more as they made their way back to the house. The lights were all on, and the front door stood wide open.

  “Look what you made me do,” Grace’s father growled at her as they ascended the porch steps. “Damn place is probably full of mosquitos now.”

  “Can we sit down in the living room?” the stranger asked.

  Grace got the feeling it wasn’t really a request. He was already moving in that direction. He steered her toward the couch and tossed her a blanket, which she shook open and wrapped around her shoulders. He sat down in the armchair by the TV.

  Grace’s father seemed to be refusing to sit on principle. He paced back and forth across the length of the living room, looking upset and angry.

  But for whatever reason, he seemed unwilling to hit Grace while this stranger was here. Grace decided that was a good thing.

  “Grace,” the man said. “Are you all right? You’re not hurt, are you?”

  “I don’t think so,” she managed. She had scratches on her arms from being pulled out of the bushes, but nothing more serious than that. “Who are you?”

  “Grace,” her father snapped.

  “It’s all right,” the man said. He turned back to Grace. “My name is Harrison Jenkins. Professor Harrison Jenkins.”

  She was dumbfounded. “Professor?” she asked.

  He nodded.
“I teach at a school.”

  She had always imagined professors as stuffy old men with wire-rimmed glasses and patches on their elbows, but Professor Jenkins looked to be in his early forties. His hair was just beginning to go gray at the temples, and he was extremely physically fit. He probably could have lifted her straight up over his head.

  “I’m here to talk to you about the things that have been happening to you lately,” Professor Jenkins said. “The nights you’ve woken up in the woods.”

  “How do you know—?”

  “Your father called me and told me about it,” Professor Jenkins said.

  Grace shook her head. “Father doesn’t believe I’ve been sleepwalking,” she said. “He thinks I’m doing it on purpose.”

  “No, not entirely,” Professor Jenkins said. He glanced at Grace’s father and shook his head, clearly exasperated. “You really haven’t talked to her about any of it, have you?”

  “This shit isn’t my problem,” her father said.

  “Well, it is your problem, because now she doesn’t know how to control it,” Professor Jenkins said. For the first time, he sounded angry. “You know, most children like her grow up knowing what they are. They learn how to make it work for them. But when you force a child to suppress her true nature all her life, it’s bound to come exploding out of her in ways you don’t like.”

  Grace was shivering. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “What true nature?”

  “It’s all right, Grace,” Professor Jenkins said. “But it’s time for you to accept that there are some things you don’t know about yourself.”

  “I can’t listen to this,” her father said. “It was bad enough the first time.” He turned and stormed out of the room.

  Professor Jenkins frowned, watching him go. “Would you be more comfortable if I went and brought him back?” he asked Grace.

  “No,” Grace said quickly. “We can talk. What does he mean by the first time?”

  “He’s referring to finding out the truth about your mother,” Professor Jenkins said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Grace, I told you I was a professor. The truth is that I teach at a school called Shifter University. It’s a place for shifters to learn about their abilities.” He paused. “People like you.”

  “People like me?” She frowned. “What are shifters?”

  “Shifters are individuals with dual natures,” Professor Jenkins said. “Half of your nature is human. But the other half, the half that’s struggling to come out now, is—”

  “Wolf,” she whispered. “The dreams.”

  Professor Jenkins regarded her, waiting for her to say more.

  “I thought it was a part of my sleepwalking,” she said. “Every time I wake up in the woods, it’s from a strange dream of...of being a wolf.” She felt herself blush. Surely Professor Jenkins was about to tell her to stop being crazy.

  Instead, he nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “And it isn’t a dream. It’s really happening. Your body takes the form of the wolf when you’re asleep. You run into the woods. And then, eventually, your human side resurfaces.”

  “And I’m in the middle of the woods with no idea what happened to me.”

  “You seem to be having no trouble believing this,” he observed.

  “I’ve been living it,” she said. “It sounds crazy, but it makes a lot more sense than the stories my father has been telling me. That I’m crazy. That I’m practicing witchcraft in the woods. That I’m trying to shame him somehow.”

  Professor Jenkins nodded. “If your mother had survived, she would have told you the truth when you were very young,” he said.

  “Did you know my mother?” Grace asked.

  “I attended school with her,” Professor Jenkins said. “She was the most desirable girl in our year. It caused quite a scandal when she ran off with a human man.”

  “My father knew what she was, though?” Grace asked.

  “Not until after she was killed.” Professor Jenkins sighed heavily. “The man who killed her was a fellow shifter, jealous that she had married a human. He meant to kidnap her, I think, to claim her as his own, but your mother was a fighter. She refused to be taken alive.”

  Grace felt numb. How could all these things about her past be true? She had never suspected any of it.

  “I’m not telling you any of this to scare you,” Professor Jenkins said. “I’m telling you because you need to know. You are a shifter, Grace, just like your mother was. Your life will contain the same risks, the same dangers. But you also have the same power.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. “I don’t know how to control it. It’s like you said. I don’t even understand it.”

  Professor Jenkins nodded. “That’s why your father called me, although he may not realize it,” he said. “When your mother died, when I heard what had happened to her, I came to explain to him why she had been killed. He deserved the truth. I also warned him that her daughter would likely have inherited the shifter gene and invited him to contact me if it ever began to manifest. I gave him my phone number.”

  “He must have thought he wouldn’t need it,” Grace said. “Nothing happened when I was a child.”

  Professor Jenkins nodded. “That’s something that happens sometimes when a child doesn’t understand what she really is. It’s especially common in omegas, like you—you repress your wild side.”

  “Omegas?”

  “That’s something you’ll learn more about at school, if you decide to come,” Professor Jenkins said.

  “Wait a minute.” Grace felt like her mind was running a marathon. “You’re asking me to come to the school where you teach?”

  “That’s right,” Professor Jenkins said, smiling. “It’s the best way for you to learn about what you are and how to control it.”

  “But don’t I have to apply?” Grace asked. “And do I have to pay for it? Because I don’t have any money, and I don’t think my father’s going to be wild about the idea of paying to send me to shifter school when he could just put a lock on my door.”

  “You don’t have to pay,” Professor Jenkins assured her. “We’re trying to grow the shifter community. We’re small enough that we can’t afford to turn people away. Enrollment is low right now, and we’re actively recruiting. So to have you join us would be good for us as well as you.”

  “What kind of school is it?” Grace asked.

  “It’s like a college,” Professor Jenkins said. “Most of the first-year students are about your age, although there isn’t a hard and fast rule about that. You’d be attending Omega University, which is all young women. It’s a very safe and nurturing place to learn about what you really are.”

  “And they teach...what? How not to get lost in the woods at night?”

  Professor Jenkins smiled. “They’ll be able to teach you how to control your shifting, for one thing, so that it only happens voluntarily.”

  Grace’s heart beat faster. “Really?”

  “Am I right in thinking you’d like that?”

  Grace didn’t know what to say. If she only shifted voluntarily...it would change her life completely. She would never have to worry again about that horrible, disorienting feeling of waking up naked and alone with no idea where she had been or what she had done.”

  “I want to go,” she said.

  Professor Jenkins laughed. “Just like that? Your mind is made up?”

  “You want me to go, don’t you?”

  “I do,” he admitted. “The school needs more students.”

  “And you think it’s what my mother would have wanted me to do?”

  “She went to school there herself,” Professor Jenkins pointed out. “In a way, it would be like the two of you were sharing something. I know you were just a baby when she died. She never got to see the woman you grew up to be, and you never got to know her. This could be a way for the two of you to bond, even though she’s no longer around.”

  Grace nodded. That
was a tempting thought. She had always wanted a way to connect with the mother she had never known.

  “When can I go?” she asked.

  Professor Jenkins smiled. “I was hoping you would ask that,” he said. “Pack a bag. The fall semester begins in two days. We can leave first thing in the morning.”

  Chapter Two

  Three Years Later

  JONAH

  “Dude.” A punch landed on Jonah’s arm. “Get up.”

  Jonah had been half asleep, the sound of the river lulling him into a relaxed state, but he came awake quickly, as he always did. He rolled into a sitting position. “What’s up?”

  Alex, who had been sitting to the left of him and rolling cigarettes, was now on his feet. “We’ve got company,” he said. “Gabe. And he brought friends.”

  Jonah groaned. If it had just been Gabe by himself, he would have told Alex to run him off. Gabe might have been an alpha, but he was definitely one of the weaker alphas at Shifter University. Even a beta like Alex would have been capable of getting the better of him in a physical matchup.

  But he couldn’t let Alex face off against three shifters by himself. He got to his feet. “What the hell does he want this time?” he muttered.

  “Same thing as he wants every time, probably,” Alex said.

  “He’s deluding himself,” Jonah said. “You up for a fight?”

  Alex grinned. “You just say the word, boss.”

  Gabe and his friends had come within shouting distance now. Jonah recognized them. Josh and Dan. They weren’t betas. They were fellow alphas, and unlike Gabe, they were near the top of the class when it came to physicality.

  But they were stupid. And you couldn’t rise to the top of the alpha class at Shifter University unless you had brains and brawn on your side.

  “What’s going on, guys?” Jonah called out. Maybe this situation could be diffused without getting physical. He wasn’t optimistic about that, but he had to try.

  Gabe grinned, showing all his teeth. “There’s a bonfire at Omega University tomorrow,” he said. “We wanted to make sure you’d heard about it. It would be a shame if you were to miss it.”