The Sullivan Clan: Sam & Alex, page 1
The Sullivan Clan
Sam & Alex
~By: Sage S. Wolf
Copyright © 2018 Sage S. Wolf
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
~1~
~2~
~3~
~4~
~5~
~6~
~7~
~8~
~9~
~10~
~11~
~12~
~13~
~14~
~15~
~16~
~17~
~18~
~19~
~20~
~21~
~22~
~23~
~24~
~25~
~26~
~27~
~28~
More books by me
This book is dedicated to my amazing friend, Helen. Thank you for encouraging me to reach for my dreams and just being awesome! I love you for always!
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This book is a work of fiction and characters, events and dialogue found within are of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.
No part of the book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, with exception of the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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~1~
Sam
"Fuck!" She cursed, slamming her laptop shut. She knew she wasn’t getting this article done before its deadline.
Why her boss had insisted that she be the one to write it she will never know. It was the first decent story Luke had given her since their breakup so she took it. She knew dating her boss was cliché. He'd just been so convincing when he'd asked her out. Telling her that nothing would change if they didn’t work out, which turned out to be a big fat lie.
He’d broken up with her with the excuse that he wasn’t ready to move forward in their relationship. He had called her needy and unreasonable but really, he was just a cheating asshole. If she didn’t love writing so much, on top of needing her job at the paper, she would have quit a long time ago.
Her best friend Lexi had told her too many times that Luke was a sneaky bastard, but Sam was too focused on getting her happy ending to listen.
Looking back, she could see that what she and Luke had wasn’t love at all, but just a relationship of convenience for them both. She was happy to be free of that poisonous relationship and could now move forward with her life. Starting with writing an article so good, there was no way that Luke could continue to downplay her talent as a writer.
Looking down at her watch, she saw there was only an hour left before her interview with the alpha of the nearby bear shifter clan. She began getting her stuff together. Grabbing her voice recorder, she tossed it into her bag and then checked to make sure she had everything she needed and headed out the door. It was a forty-five-minute drive to clan territory. She spent most of the drive mentally going over the list of questions that Luke had given her.
She had never really been all that interested in shifters or listened to what people said about them. She understood being judged for physical differences.
In school kids used to make fun of her for her size as she had always been on the short and chubby side growing up. Then finally in high school, she sprouted from 4’11 to 5’4 which helped her be better proportioned and ended the teasing. By then though, she just didn’t care what others thought and was comfortable with her own body. She knew what she experienced wasn’t quite the same as being judged for having an actual animal inside of you, but she figured the feeling of rejection and ridicule was similar.
Everything she found during her research on shifters was so intriguing. She'd asked Luke if she could add some of her own questions to the list and was told no immediately. The questions he had typed up were mediocre at best in her opinion, and a few were just not appropriate at all. He’d said that he didn’t trust her to pick the right questions.
Turning her focus back to the road, she took a deep breath and tried to mentally prepare herself for meeting a shifter for the first time. She just wanted this interview to go as smoothly as possible so that she would have enough material to finish her article. At this point what she had written wouldn’t be enough to impress Luke, let alone the higher-ups of the paper as well, which had her on edge. Add in the nerves of meeting a shifter for the first time and she was doing her best to keep calm, at least on the outside.
She just had to keep reminding herself that she could do this. Sweaty palms and all.
As she reached the small town of Sullivan, she took a moment to take in her surroundings and was in awe by how beautiful it was up here on the mountain. She was amazed by the rustic log cabin homes and all the different stores on the main road. They had every type of store they could possibly need to make it so they didn't have to travel out of town for supplies.
Parking in front of the cutest little coffee shop she had ever seen, she shut off the engine and took a moment to gather herself. She looked around, really wishing that Mr. Sullivan had told her what he looked like during their phone call. He'd said it wasn’t necessary and assured her that it wouldn’t be an issue.
"Please don’t be an asshole." she said to herself as she prepared to go inside.
Grabbing her bag, she hopped out of her beat-up Tahoe and started toward the coffee shop door, but before she could grab the handle to pull it open a much larger hand beat her to it.
"Allow me," A deep voice said, making her stomach give a nervous flutter.
She didn't know if she should look up at the voice’s source, so she stayed focused on the large hand instead.
"Thanks." She said quietly.
The door opened and she stepped inside. It was smaller than any coffee shop she had been to in the city, but it felt welcoming and warm. The owners did a good job with seating placement for the smaller space.
She began to scope out the tables, trying to choose one to wait for Mr. Sullivan. Spotting the perfect one in the back corner by the window, she went to set her bag down in one of the empty chairs, then headed to order her coffee. Luckily, there was only one person in line as she approached. the same deep voice stopped her in her tracks.
"You must be Miss Archer?" The familiar deep voice sounded from behind her, stopping her in her tracks.
When she turned to see who the voice had come from, a small gasp escaped her lips before she could stop it.
Standing before her was a very tall and handsome man, with light blue eyes and shockingly white hair that she wanted to touch to see if it was real.
"I am, and you must be Mr. Sullivan?" She knew she was staring, but it really was hard to believe this magnificent creature standing before her was real.
"Guilty as charged," He gave her a sexy grin. “How do you take your coffee? Do you want anything else?” He asked as he turned to the barista who was waiting for one of them to order.
“Black, and no thanks.” Her nerves were too wound up for her to be hungry. “I chose a table over there.” She pointed toward the table where her bag sat in the chair.
Mr. Sullivan nodded his head and grabbed both coffees before she could reach for hers and headed toward the table. She followed him, staring at how well his jeans fit his ass the whole way. It might be rude, but for some reason she didn’t care.
At her seat, she grabbed her bag to dig out her voice recorder and the list of questions. There was no way she was going to remember them all with him sitting across from her. She just hoped he hadn’t felt her staring at his ass. Mr. Sullivan sat her coffee down next to her stuff before settling into a seat across from her.
“Do you always carry your coffee date’s drink?” She asked, smiling nervously at the alpha.
“Depends on the date.” He studied her while sipping his coffee. His eyes seemed to be an even lighter but brighter shade of blue now.
She took a drink of her own coffee before picking up her voice recorder. "Are you ready to get started with the interview?"
"As ready as I can be, Miss Archer." He was still studying her.
She was slowly gaining focus as her nerves calmed and her coffee started working its magic. "Please call me Sam. Now, let's get this interview started. I want to get back down the mountain before dark." She really didn't want to have to drive after dark on the mountain roads.
Mr. Sullivan nodded. "I suppose you can call me Alex then.
She smiled and started with the first question on the list. "What's everyday life as a shifter like?"
She really didn't like these questions.
"Well, Miss Archer. It is just like you normal folks’ life I suppose. Except at the end of the day, I get to shift into a bear to run off the stress." His sarcastic tone combined with the fact that he was still calling her Miss Archer, told her that he wasn’t fond of her question.
That first question was the best of them all, and that was putting it nicely. This was going to be a mentally painful interview.
~2~
Alex
Alex couldn't believe the questions he was being asked by this adorable little human. He had felt her staring at him on the way to their table and didn’t mind. Once they were seated, he found it hard not to stare at her as well. There was something interesting about her.
&nbs
He'd agreed to this interview in hopes that it would help humans better understand shifters and be more accepting of them. Maybe they could someday coexist together without so much tension.
A lot of humans seemed to think that because shifters had animals inside of them that it made them act as such. Even in their human forms. What they didn't realize was that most shifters were better behaved than humans. They had to learn self-control at very young ages since most begin to shift before they even learned to walk.
Miss Archer asked everything from what it was like to be a shifter to how their education system worked. He didn't want to assume she was asking if they were backwoods idiots, but that was how it had come off . He did his best to give calm non-sarcastic answers. She asked if they mate in their animal forms, which blew his mind completely and he wondered if this was a common curiosity among humans.
His bear wasn't happy about the questions either, but since he thought she smelled nice and was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, he let her off with warning growls. Alex held them in as best he could. They needed this interview to shine a good light on shifters and that wouldn't happen if they scared their interviewer off by growling at her every five seconds.
Finally, she stopped talking and looked confused about what to do next.
"Do you have any more questions, Miss Archer?" He wanted to be done but didn't want to rush her.
"Nope, that was the last question on my list." Sam was looking down at her paper now like more questions might mysteriously appear.
He wasn’t sure how much longer he could be nice if she started asking more ridiculous questions. He really hoped this made things better and not worse for shifters everywhere.
Taking a deep breath, he sat back in his chair. "How long before the article comes out?"
"I have to get home and finish typing everything up, and then it all has to be approved by my boss. He will then send it to be printed and I will be in charge of putting it on our website for our online readers." Sam started putting all her stuff back into her bag while he continued to watch her.
His bear was saying something, but he was still ignoring him after all his growling during the interview.
"You have my number if you have any more questions, Miss Archer." He stood and held his hand out to her. "I have a clan meeting I need to head to." After some hesitation, Sam took his hand and shook it. "Have a good day and drive safe." He walked with her to her Tahoe and made sure she was safely inside before heading to the town hall for his meeting.
Arriving a few minutes early, he decided to look over the paperwork and get a head start on what was going to be discussed for this week's meeting. They had what was called an 'open complaint system' for all citizens of the town. That allowed anyone with a problem or suggestion to get in touch with the alpha in charge without issues. Anyone who filed a complaint was encouraged to file it under 'Urgent' so that it would be passed along for discussion during the weekly meetings. The suggestions were looked over by his beta, Brock and then passed to their secretary to file in the system for Alex to go over on his own time.
He knew his clan was run differently than most. That was because the alpha was also responsible for the whole town on top of it, so things could get a bit complicated. It was the way things had been since his grandfather had started building this town a little over a hundred years ago with his mate and a small clan of twenty.
Now the town of Sullivan’s population was reaching almost two hundred and wasn’t just occupied by bear shifters anymore. Other types of shifters had started to come from all over. Having a town big enough to provide steady jobs for everyone was what brought most shifters here. Causing their little town to continue to grow and thrive. Other alphas had started to follow their lead and were building their own towns all over the country.
His dad handed leadership over to him six months ago and he thought everything was running pretty smoothly thus far. A few of the counsel didn’t agree with his dad's decision to step down, but Alex hadn’t had any issues with them other than the occasional grumble and dirty look.
He'd been watching his dad run things since he was a cub, so taking over hadn’t been too big of a transition for him. His dad had always had a no-nonsense attitude that caused some tension between them in his younger years. Alex was starting to understand now as alpha that it was a necessary attitude to properly run a town full of shifters.
His mom had always been his greatest supporter and he knew he could call her whenever he needed advice.
His only complaint with his parents was that now he had become alpha they were hinting at wanting him to find a mate and give them grandcubs. At thirty-five he figured if he hadn't found his mate yet then good chance she didn't exist, or she lived somewhere that he would never go.
His bear stirred inside him and growled, "Sam is our mate." That couldn't be true. Other than being physically attracted to Sam, he had felt nothing else for her except annoyance at her questions. Though maybe his annoyance had thrown him off. He needed to find a way to get a second meeting with her to see if there was indeed something there as his bear was insisting.
Opening the file in front of him, he started to read through the list of complaints. Right away, he saw that one seemed quite concerning. He skimmed through it trying to get as much detail as possible before everyone else arrived. It looked like someone had been stealing money from the clan by masking it as increased taxes to at least three different businesses in town. The employees were starting to take notice.
This needed to be taken care of as soon as possible. He waited impatiently as the clan council started to arrive one by one and took their seats. The last to show up was until his beta, Brock, who took his seat beside him. Brock was always one to try and make an entrance or get on his last nerve, whichever you prefer. Even when they were younger, he liked to push Alex’s buttons. That was one of the reasons Alex kept him as a friend all these years. Everyone always wanted to be friends with the Alpha’s son. They hoped to get on his dads’ good side, thinking they would be able to ask favors. It made it hard to find true friends.
He knew Brock was a true friend from the beginning because he was never afraid to disagree with Alex or bust his balls. Everyone else would just go along with him like mindless zombies. When his dad asked him to pick his own beta, he had immediately picked Brock.
He wouldn’t say he didn’t trust his dad’s beta, but he was never a fan of the way Harry Carter looked at his father when he thought no one was looking. There was no mistaking his jealousy, so Alex replaced him and gave him a place on the council.
He cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "Thank you all for coming. We have much to discuss tonight. I found something that is extremely concerning while reading over today's list, so I want to make that the focus of today’s meeting.” He looked around to make sure he had everyone's full attention.
“If this complaint is true, then someone is stealing money from the town." There were some gasps and some not so subtle accusing looks his way. "I would ask that all of you give me any information that you may have, as well as names of anyone you think may be a suspect to this crime so that we can catch them as quickly as possible.” He was trying to see if any of them looked like they might know something, but it was hard to tell. “Brock and I, will be investigating this concern until it can be proven or disproven. We won't stop till we have gotten to the bottom of this."
Harry cleared his throat, making sure to have everyone’s attention before he spoke. “How do we know that it isn’t you stealing the money and trying to use this as a cover-up to pin it on someone else?”
Alex tried not to let his irritation at the accusation show in his voice. “I guess you don’t know that, but you should trust me as your alpha and know that I would never steal from this clan or our town.” Harry stood with a scoff and left the room. His bear let out a low growl. “Any other accusations or helpful info?”
