He's an Alpha: She doesn't Care

CH 9

Jared

His flight was delayed coming into landing, due to the storm that was going on out there over San Francisco. The pilot had just announced that they were finally given permission to land almost an hour after they were due to land. He apologized for the long delay, and they were on the ground 15 minutes later.

Thankfully, Jared only ever brought carry-on luggage with him, he had everything he needed in his suite in the packhouse. So he always traveled light. He breezed through customs, seeing as this was his home country and city, just stated he was returning home from a business trip.

Then made his way to the car rental place to pick up the organized car for him to use. He could see it was absolutely bucketing down, and he made a quick call to Dwane to state he’d finally landed. But it was chaos here at the airport. He was going to be late, it couldn’t be helped.

He stood in line and listened to the car rental people persuade their travelers to get insurance due to the wild weather and reported accidents out there on the roads today. He finally stepped up to the counter and gave his name and booking number, and it was looked up. He held up a hand to halt the man on his insurance spiel. “Enough, just give me the premium insurance, I’m in a hurry. I’m going to be late for my brother's wedding, and your incessant chatter about insurance with everyone before me, and which I accept, is holding me up even further. I don’t need all the finer details, just charge my card and print out the paperwork,” he’d told the man.

Who’d then gone on to ask about whether he was bringing the car back fully fueled or not? “Bill me for the gas.” He’d leaned on the counter “and please hurry it up.”

He’d stopped and picked up an umbrella before stepping out into the downpour. He was going to need it and not just for himself, but for this, Wynta Morgan she-wolf he was to pick up at his father's insistence. If he didn’t have an umbrella, her dress would surely get soaked and likely ruined. He didn’t need his father blaming him for her disheveled appearance on arrival.

He found the hire car, tossed his bag in the back seat and climbed into the drives side, closed that umbrella and got very wet. In the few seconds it took him to shut it and get in the car and close the door. He ran a hand through his now wet hair and slicked it back and kicked the car over, his shoes and socks were wet, there had been several puddles getting to the car.

He took a moment to lean over the back and pull a towel from his luggage and run it over his hands, face and hair, over his clothes where he could. Got his phone out and punched Wynta Morgan’s address into the GPS; Near the office that was good for him, he could get from the airport to the head office without assistance.

He'd only need it when he got closer. Though it looked pretty easy, almost a straight line from the office, he mapped it in his mind and left the airport.

It was already three thirty, and he was an hour behind his schedule now. He should have picked her up already and he knew it. His estimated time to pick her up had been two-thirty, but an hour late, she should at least be dressed and ready to go, no holdups on her end; knock on the door, state who he was and put her in the car. Two minutes tops, he thought to himself.

Though he was still 30 minutes out from her place, give or take a few minutes due to the heavy downpour and traffic. And then they had another hour to get to the pack. He was doing the math in his head. They should get there by 5pm, and the cut-off was 6pm, so all was good at this point.

His father had told him he had to see this Wynta Morgan right into his office inside the packhouse, that he needed to see her prior to the Luna Ceremony starting, and informed him that she had never once set foot inside the pack before and so needed an escort to his office.

He got held up in traffic just ten minutes from the airport, there was flooding along the road, and the traffic was being diverted on to a detour. As he turned on to the detour he could see it wasn't just water on the road, but some of the embankment had collapsed and was laying across the road. There had been a small landslide.

He did know it had been raining for nearly a week now here in San Francisco, likely to see a fair bit of those he thought absently as he followed the predetermined detour that everyone else was also now on, and it was slow-going, having to merge and let others in and then take back streets.

Jared closed his eyes and pushed his annoyance down. No one could do anything about mother nature, but as he drove slowly like everyone else out here, taking into account the weather and the road conditions, the traffic was at a crawl and it took him 25 minutes to get back to his destination route that would take him to the head office and then to her apartment from there.

The wild, windy weather did not let up once, some areas of roads were being directed by police the power appeared to be out in certain parts of the city. That also slowed him down. He looked at his watch as he finally pulled up out the front of the apartment complex, a three-story building, and it was now four thirty a normally 20-minute drive; had taken him an hour.

He was now two hours late. Jared parked right out the front in the no-parking zone, uncaring of getting a ticket, he didn’t think the parking police were going to be out in this weather. He hurried across the footpath and pushed into the building. It was old but looked clean, and he wondered why a she-wolf would live there.

He located her apartment here on the ground floor, and realized the power was out here too. It was quite dark in this corridor. He knocked on her door and then pressed the doorbell twice and stood waiting. He got nothing in return and frowned, put his hearing to the apartment. There was nothing coming from it.

He banged his fist on the door three times and still nothing. He waited only a minute before calling out her name as he banged on the door again. “Wynta, it’s Jared, open the door.” He called out.

“Hey man, stop with the pounding already.” A man came out of the apartment next to hers. “She’s clearly not home.”

“Did you see her leave? I’m here to pick her up,” Jared asked right back.

“Nah, man, but she’s a bit of a workaholic. If she ain’t here, try her office,” he stated, “Stop the banging already, this place has got thin walls. If she was home, she’d have heard yah.” He muttered and returned to his apartment.

Jared sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose, had she given up waiting on being picked up, he was two hours late and hadn’t had her number to call her. Though he had told his boys he was late, and surely they’d have relayed it to his father, who would have relayed it to her.

He stood and stared at the door. She could be in there, just ticked off he was so late and ignoring him, he supposed. He debated with himself for half a minute about whether he should pick the lock or not, but he needed to know if she had maybe gotten a cab or a lift of some kind as well. Pick the lock it was.

He couldn’t be out here hunting for her. He had to be gone from the city in 30 minutes, or he was going to be late to that Luna Ceremony and be seen as he didn’t care or was disrespecting of his brother’s new Mate Bond, and end up on the bloody shaming post getting lashed. He wasn’t having that.

The moment he stepped into her apartment, he was hit with the scent of a rogue, and his heart kind of stuttered inside his chest at the possibility that she’d been taken because he was late to pick her up. Two steps into her apartment, and he could see the entire place; It was a shoebox of an apartment.

His wolf, Creed, breathed in deeply to scent how many rogues ‘only one, and it’s female.’ Creed told him as he turned Jared’s head to look about and breathed in the tiny bathroom and kitchen, he was standing in. ‘Everything scents of rogue.’ He was told and then Creed receded. Jared frowned at that as he understood what was going on.

Wynta Morgan was a rogue she-wolf, though no one had ever told him that, though he did recall his father stating he’d been struggling to bring her into the pack. Needed Jared to do it himself. That was now odd to him. Most rogue she-wolves would want pack protection.

He saw there was a blue dress laying on the bed, it kind of looked like it had been taken off and just tossed there, and the shoes by the bed weren’t neatly laid out either. His eyes scanned the rest of the room, and the small closet door was slid open, and he could see several suits in there and the empty space where one would hang.

He picked up the dress and, yes, he could smell her scent on it quite strongly, so she’d given up waiting and likely gone to the office, seeing as there was no power here. It was quite cold in here without heating. Though that shouldn’t particularly bother her, she was a she-wolf. The neighbor was going to be right.

He bagged the dress and shoes and left, locking the door and heading for his car. Seven minutes wasted, he shook his head as he drove to the office now, he’d driven right past it on the way to her place. He pulled up in the underground car park and asked the garage attendee if he’d seen a Wynta Morgan come in this afternoon as he got out grabbing her dress bag.

“Sorry. I don’t know who that is,” he answered, “No car space registered to her that I know.”

He’d nodded to the man and gotten in the elevator. She was in marketing and knew she worked on the 7th floor. He had seen that in her company profile.

“Wynta,” he called, stepping out of the elevator, her wolfen hearing would pick it up, regardless that he was down the other end of the building. He walked right to her office, and she was sitting there at her desk, ignoring the fact that he was looking for her, “Wynta.” He rapped out her name, annoyed by her lack of acknowledgment.

Her eyes moved towards him as he strode over to her desk. “Up, we’re going to be late.” He stated flatly and when she still just sat there, he grabbed onto her arm and pulled her up from the chair. “You have got 10 minutes to put this on.” he held out the dress bag to her “We need to haul ass or be in trouble from father.” He kept it to human terms, her team was out there listening to him, and he knew it.

He gave her a push to get her moving and out the office door. “Go, get dressed in the ladies room.” He looked about and nudged her towards it and she kind of went with a bit of a stumble, and a frown on her face.

“My handbag,” she stated.

“Go, I’ll get it.” He turned away from her back to her office.