Awakening the Alpha Book 2: Snatched

Chapter 2-2

Logan and his family had left the hotel earlier, while Blaze, exhausted from the flight across country the day before, slept in. He didn’t know why the Riders hadn’t waited for him because Logan hadn’t said anything about this—which seemed strange. Now, he was left on his own to decide how he should dress for the exhibit’s opening to the public. He chose brown trousers, expensive yet comfortable loafers, and a shirt with brown stripes, which alternated with white. The sleeves were long. That should be dressy enough, but not too much. It was much fancier than the faded denims and boots he wore to teach in Yellowstone country. But that was okay there because even the tourists didn’t dress up.

When he’d showered, gulped down breakfast, brushed his teeth, dressed, and combed his unmanageable hair, he slipped the lanyard holding his VIP badge over his head and climbed into the Uber cab he’d hired for the ride to the exhibition.

After many years absent, he arrived at the National Mall for the second time in twenty-four hours and the first as a civilian. The cabbie stopped to let him out in front of the east entrance to a building he was eager to see in daylight and appreciate in full.

He paid the driver, tipped big, and was rewarded with a surprised, “Thank you, sir!”

Shimmering excitement raised the hairs on his arms, and his heartbeats tripled in his eagerness to be again with this man he loved even though it still wouldn’t be in private and they couldn’t touch. Blaze continued to be stunned by the depth of what he felt for Logan Swift Rider. His chest felt so full when he saw him, he often thought he might not ever be able to breathe again. Right now, his could feel his inner wolf running in circles and leaping into the air in anticipation.

That Logan returned his love, despite Blaze’s dual nature, was a miracle, even though, like him, his lover straddled more than one world. Despite Logan’s DNA indicating a high degree of Native American, he’d spent more of his life living in the white world than on the reservation.

Blaze’s worlds included being Caucasian, a Navy SEAL, and a werewolf. He blessed the stars that last night’s reception and today’s opening of Logan’s exhibit fell in a time when the moon wasn’t full. He could remain in this form a while longer before changing again.

He paused a moment to study the outside of the NMAI. On this side, lush foliage and trees bordered a curvilinear building the color of sandstone. Its strange layers of rough stone blocks looked as if ancient glaciers, water, and winds had sculpted their unusual—and what some would call weird—shapes. Inside it last night, he’d seen how the entrance ceiling showed imaginative layers of architectural swoops and flows. In the center, the atrium rose several floors to a dome, whose view opened to the sky. It was a spectacular building. That the original people in the United States survived after being treated in such dishonorable ways by white men spoke to their determination and resilience.

Blaze realized, both as human and wolf, he’d suppressed the feelings he might have had for the land. As a SEAL operative, he’d seldom paid much attention to nature, except when necessary to rescue a hostage or complete another mission. As a sniper, wind velocity and direction, air temperature, shadows, and position of the sun were vital in setting up a shot. They registered in his brain for that reason only.

Here, it was obvious the grounds had been planned to make statements about Earth through a Native’s eyes. A naturally occurring creek running through the grounds had been directed on one street’s side by a concrete channel in a soft, gray-green color. It created small waterfalls over stones smoothed in time by its flow; rocks with sharper angles provided an interesting contrast. The pond it created at the falls’ base nourished white lilies with throats the color of purple orchids. Frogs croaked from hidden spaces, and a black mallard with iridescent, silvery-green feathers floated on it. Blaze recognized this as wetlands…one of the natural things of an Earth revered by Native Americans.

This portion of the grounds seemed to hint at a softer side of the cultures of the First Nations he knew would be represented inside the building. His heart embraced the scene before him because it told him more about what Indians valued and what this heritage might mean in Logan’s thinking and life. It could help him understand his family, too.