Enchanted by Alpha

2. To Infinity and Beyond

*Samantha*

I shivered before the large oak doors decorated with intricately carved patterns and a giant Christmas wreath covering almost half the crystal panes. The doors were designed to intimidate anyone who wanted to knock on them, or better yet, to make them understand that they had no reason to do so because any request for help, participation in a survey, or providing information would be rejected.

Now, I was standing there wondering if I should even come here after so much listening to them tell me I couldn't do what was expected. I'm neither a great lawyer nor a beauty nor an exemplary, obedient woman giving birth to their grandchildren. I'm twenty-six years old, and to this day, I can't stand up to my parents when choosing my life path.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the frosty air and allowing the occasional snowflake to cling to my loose, honey-colored hair. I blew out a lot of steam and adjusted my velvet scarf to warm my skin. Why hadn't I dressed appropriately for the weather? Why had I ridiculously left the house in a half-wool coat, ankle boots, and a delicate scarf that would work better as a tissue? It had completely slipped my mind that in my hometown of Kalispell at this time of year, I should have bundled up in a down jacket, wool gloves, a thick scarf, and a hat and pulled on thermal tights under my jeans before pulling on equally wool socks and snow boots. I was too excited. Or, more accurately, I wanted to get out of my apartment too quickly so I wouldn't have to deal with Timothy. As I had predicted, as soon as I boarded the plane, my phone started ringing like crazy, showing only one name: Timmy. I rejected every one of his calls, and when I sat in my seat, I turned the phone off entirely. I am still not turning it on, giving myself time to prepare for a conversation with him. I didn't want to listen to his screams, slanders, or worse, apologies and begs to come back because, being that naive, I would have agreed. I decided that I would end this year as a different woman, so I refused to be influenced by someone as toxic as my ex-boyfriend until I was ready to stay my ground. And I would swear that I made that change on the plane. I am more confident, have my own opinion, and am not afraid to voice it. So why am I still not able to ring that bell?

I sighed again at my helplessness. These people dictated to me my whole life what to do, how to dress, how to behave, and what to think. But the worst was when, during puberty, my heart beat for one of the fabulous boys, and unfortunately, my mother found out about it. I will never forget the words she used then; they are so well etched in my memory that I cried for several nights, not believing what I heard.

They are savages. They live in the forest like some madmen. They allow their men to use their women, share them with others, and raise their offspring in incest. Nothing but misfortune will happen to you if you get involved with one of them, and this overgrown one with protruding ears is the worst of them all. He is the descendant of your grandfather's murderer.

My mother has never been as disgusted and furious as when she discovered my fascination with Archer Wellington. Her words carried so much venom and contempt that I couldn't stand that my heart had fallen in love with a man who could never be mine. He never should have been. My heart beat faster at his mere mention as if it didn't remember. As they say, the heart is not a servant. This boy will always have his unique place in him until the end of my days.

"Samantha?" A surprised voice rang out from the right side, where next to the beautifully decorated trees stood my parents' surprised cook, Mrs. Grace, loaded with bags. "Now that's a Christmas miracle. My dear child, let me hug you." She cried, almost throwing the full shopping bags into the snow, moving towards me in joy.

"Mrs. Grace, I'm glad I saw you first," I replied, walking carefully down the slightly icy stairs, trying to hug the kindest woman in the world.

"How? When? Do they know?" she asked as soon as we fell into each other's arms, hugging tightly. I shed tears as I remembered her extraordinary cooking, warm words, and soothing hugs when I needed them. My mother refused, telling me she was toughening me this way.

"Mrs. Grace," I said her name like a plea, and unable to keep these emotions in check, I burst into tears in her embrace. Unready to enter my cold family home, I pretended to be happy and fulfilled in my alienated life on the other side of the country.

"Your parents are having some meetings at the town hall. Something about replacing the lumber from the Wellington sawmill: they won't be back until at least five. Come, my child. I have goulash soup on the stove and baked your favorite bread this morning. Heaven knew my brave girl would come to us today." Mrs. Grace invited me in, leading me toward the servants' entrance just behind the garage.

"And is there garlic butter too?" I asked, grabbing my suitcase and wiping away tears, remembering how Mrs. Grace's kitchen was enlightening my every moody day. She chuckled and confirmed. I smiled for the first time in the day, walking into my home with the person I felt more like at home.

"What an ill-mannered, impudent brute." Mrs. Grace commented, outraged, when I finished telling her why I showed up four days sooner than expected. She was the last to curse, so using the word brute was the biggest insult.

After completing my second bowl of the goulash soup and the entire loaf of bread with tones of garlic butter, I felt better. My mind stopped worrying about my parent's judgment or their most probable disappointment in me after not bringing Timothy with me, but I had Mrs. Grace's support. And right now, I felt that if they decided to scold me, I would talk back.

"Where is Mr. Jeremy? Is he still your shadow? Or did they send him away as soon as you turned twenty-one?" She asked, interested, and I felt like a horrible person not to stay in touch with her after leaving in the middle of High School. I could have called and updated her about my life, but I was so sad after being sent away without a proper reason that I clang to Jeremy as if he were my legal guardian, leaving everything behind.

"He's still with me. Although my father terminated his contract a week before my birthday, I renewed it. He's no longer my shadow but my advisor and bodyguard. Recently, he has been dealing with recovering compensation for the damage caused to me during my relationship with Timothy and his fraud." I explained as I sipped the excellent mulled wine I could taste for the first time.

"Oh, my sweet girl. Your life should be strewn with roses, not her thorns. And your parents won't make it any easier for you." She shook her head as she sipped the mulled wine with a skeptical face. The moment she mentioned my parents, we heard the front door opening and my parents' loud argument over the people they never wanted to stay in this house again.

"How can it be so hard to put them out of business? There's plenty of lumber in our area, and twice as many people are willing to take over the sawmill. Why does that i***t mayor insist they can't be fined enough to keep them from operating? This family follows us around like a plague, laughing in my face every time I pass them on the street." My mother's anger echoed as soon as the front door slammed shut. "Sweetie, sometimes I think you hate them more than I do, and I've lived here all my life." My father laughed, clearly amused by how my mother, who had kept her hands off everything during my early childhood, made it an honor to hate twice as much what my father didn't like.

"The important thing is that none of these savages managed to make any of the van der Meers fall in love with them and carry them off into the depths of their animal life," Dad added happily as if it was his most outstanding achievement.

"And to think that this simpleton asked for her hand years ago." My mother laughed, and my father echoed her laughter throughout the empty house.

My legs carried me much faster than my brain could begin to understand their arguments. I rushed into the hall like an arrow, tripping over my suitcase in front of the kitchen entrance. My entrance caught my parents' attention. They hugged so intensely that they almost fainted, wrapping their hands around each other like ivy.

"Samantha? Child, what are you doing here so early?" my mother asked first, looking at me as if she had just spotted a ghost. Her green eyes widened in fear as if she was afraid I had overheard their conversation. She was right because I had heard everything.

"What did you talk about?" I asked, fueled by the courage flowing from the intoxication of the mulled wine. I felt Mrs. Grace and her support behind me.

"What are you talking about, child?" My father cut in, straightening up, pretending their love ecstasy from a moment ago did not exist. Again, a cold and unmoved man stood before me, expecting specifics and results and not bothering him with bullshit.

"You were supposed to arrive with your boyfriend on Saturday. And here I see one suitcase, one person, and three days too early. Not to mention completely drunk, looking like a tramp." He added in a cold tone, looking at my outfit, causing a gasp from Mrs. Grace and disbelief in my mother's eyes.

"Can't you eat without getting dirty? You're almost thirty, and you still need a bib?" He asked, pointing at my stained turtleneck. It's true, I can't eat without getting dirty. That's who I am, and I fought it like a lioness not to bring them shame in public, so I learned not to be in their presence but to survive on water and some salad without sauce. That was always safe for me; no other dish allowed me not to stain my expensive and exquisite clothes.

"I'm also glad to see you, father. And so I drank a cup of wine. I got drunk on the wonderful soup Mrs. Grace miraculously cooked today with me in mind. I'm almost thirty and still feel scolded like a little girl. Have you ever been proud of me? Have you ever looked at me and thought how much I love this little creature instead of God? Why did you give me such a mediocrity as an heir?" I spat out the words like venom, accumulated over two decades, feeling the satisfaction as they began to leave my body. My nerves were already well-strung, but my father, with his bullshit, added fuel to the fire and awakened in me that inferno that was waiting to erupt. "And yes. I'm f*****g alone! The guy who was supposed to love me turned out to be married. I wanted someone's affection, approval, and support so much that I didn't notice that I was falling into the trap of a fraudster taking advantage of my name's guaranteed money. And no! I don't look like a tramp but like a woman who cried for two days, deluding herself that when she returns home, instead of a cold welcome, she will find longing parents ready to listen to her and help punish the one who broke her heart." I shouted, feeling a lump and heavy tears that I had never shown to them sliding down my cheeks.

"Thank you for the warm welcome. Now, I'll go to my room and leave your sight until Saturday." I grabbed my suitcase and headed towards the stairs when my father's words rooted me to the ground.

"Without Timothy, you have nothing to do here. Go back to your place and fix what you idiotically crossed out. You have until Saturday. Until then, I'll pretend you weren't here." My father walked past me, pulling my mother by the hand towards his office on the other side of the living room. I thought I had already gone through every possible humiliation in this family, but I was wrong; my father had just shown me how little I meant to the status of the great van der Meer without a man by my side. It didn't matter that he was a pig, married and unscrupulously using my money; what mattered was that I wasn't an old maid returning to my hometown, where their status and image mattered.

"In that case, goodbye. Because I have no intention of lowering myself to being the second one, even to please you." I responded by grabbing my coat and suitcase and heading towards the door when Mrs. Grace stopped me with a scared face. "They're predicting a blizzard. You won't make it to the airport, stay." She asked, but my pride or instead anger speaking through me refused. I tore myself away from her hands, grabbed the keys that had been tempting me for a long time, and left my family home, slamming the door and staring at the wonderfully beautiful, hellishly black, and incredibly sporty black Mercedes that my father had treated like a beloved child since he bought it. I pressed the button and laughed when I heard the sound of locks opening. I threw my suitcase in before I giggled as I sat behind the forbidden wheel and turned the ignition on.

"Time to be the disappointment they paint me to be!" I screamed when I put the car in reverse and pressed the pedal. Turning on the driveway, I almost ran over the Christmas decorations displayed around it.

"To infinity and beyond!" I repeated Buzz Lightear's rallying cry and rushed back to the road at almost full speed, not caring for anything in the world. I was ordered to get back to New York; who will check if I didn't end up in Bali wasting money like Timothy on Monday shopping in Sears? With a plan in my head, I set off through the slowly snowing roads again, not noticing in the rearview mirror that the sky changed from blue to gray, rushing after me with a surprise that would change my life forever.

"Stop! Stop blowing! Please stop, I don't want to be here." I cried as I felt my car being pushed by another wave of strong wind and my windshield being covered in another layer of wet and heavy snow, making it impossible for my wipers to clear it. I started to shake in my seat with fear as the fuel gauge began to dangerously quickly approach zero, even though I hadn't driven more than half a mile in over an hour. But my father, as usual, didn't disappoint as the shitty and stingy father of the year and left his beloved car with only enough fuel to get to the nearest station and from there to his two favorite destinations; home and office. This made me more than thirty minutes after leaving the city, slowing down to a milli-hundredth of a second per hour in a furious snowstorm; I stopped on the side of the road in the middle of the forest, praying that the remaining amount would be enough to warm me up before the road services found me and rescued me.

"You're wonderful, you're persistent, and you're faithful. You won't leave me frozen at the mercy of wolves and bears." I spoke to the steering wheel as if it would help my hopeless situation, but Mercedes, like every other man in my life, disobeyed my wishes and stalled, leaving me alone to deal with the slowly burying pile of snow.

"Beautiful. I feel like Anna, although I wish I were Elsa." I grumbled, looking at the road ahead of me with horror, although I wish I were with excitement. Why do I see analogies to Disney in everything? Maybe it's because I discovered it only in my twenties when I finally decided to try everything my parents forbade me. But right now, I'd rather be a queen who loves ice than a princess who freezes at the first problematic moment.

I took a deep breath, grabbed the lapels of my coat, and pulled it tighter, turning up the collar in hopes that it would protect me from the cold. I grabbed the handle and opened the door, immediately regretting that getting out of the car had even crossed my mind. It seemed that the storm had calmed down, or at least that was what I saw in the rearview mirror, so when I opened the door less than an inch and felt it tear itself out of my hand with a force of seven on the Beaufort scale, I screamed, realizing that I had just opened a snowy Pandora's box and unfortunately cut off my safe corner. Without a second thought, I grabbed the handle of the back door and opened it, pulling out my suitcase, trudging through the thick and high snow, trying to get to the airport that, according to the GPS, should appear from behind the trees in less than twenty miles.

"Please, God, let me get out of here, and I promise I'll never return. Never!" I screamed over the howling wind, snow, and blizzard hitting my face, blinding me completely.

I was trudging through the snow, pulling my suitcase behind me, when a sudden strong gust of wind hit my right side, throwing me off the road and simultaneously ripping my suitcase away, sending it far into the thick forest on the opposite side. I fell into the snow and quickly got up, trying to run to the other side, when a sudden loud honking of a horn and the sound of squealing brakes froze me in place as I stood face-to-face with my death in the form of a lighted pickup truck trying to stop in front of me.

"Fuck." It echoed dramatically, combined with my terrified scream, as I heard the sound of metal hitting metal. Before I could open my eyes and look at Saint Peter welcoming me at heaven's door, I felt a pleasant warmth, tingling, and electric sparks stroking my cheek, warming me up in a second.

"I finally found you. Mine." a male low and unearthly erotic voice echoed around me as I stood in the embrace of death, waiting to enter heaven. This was heaven. An electrifying entrance and an announcement of unearthly adventures sprinkled with a pinch of danger stimulating every nerve in my body to life.

"Mimi. My Mimi." I froze when I heard the nickname I had heard from only one person, who at one time meant everything to me. Everything I wanted and left behind on the eve of my sixteenth birthday. I didn't believe heaven gave me a second chance, so I didn't accept this illusion as accurate until I felt strong arms lifting me from the snowy road and carrying me like a feather into a warm car smelling spruce. Only then did I dare to open my eyes, and I froze again, seeing the same dark chocolate eyes staring at me from under a curtain of dark curls, piercing me into the spot, saying you will never escape me again. And that's how I felt for the first time in many years. I didn't want to run away but to stay and discover what this boy had in him that would deceive every cell of my body, enchanting me. Not a boy. It was no longer a boy staring at me with his lustful black eyes but a powerful man with stubble on his face, wrinkles on his forehead, and s*x appeal emanating from his clothes, almost tearing at the seams. What did you eat, Archie Wellington? It didn't matter what, but it made me want to bite into his biceps and taste them. And my v****a sent an invitation, not even knowing what trouble I would get into.

"f**k, Mimi, you're more tempting than I thought. I don't know how much longer I can resist our bond." Archer confessed, his hands tightening on the steering wheel, focused on getting us out of the snowstorm.

"Please take me to the airport. I don't want to cause more problems than I should." I replied, trying to break the tension between us, even though I wanted this snowstorm to last forever, keeping me prisoner in this locked car with the man of my dreams.

"We can't. The snow is too heavy. You want to go home?" Archer asked as another gust of snow blocked his windshield wipers, blocking his view.

"They don't want me home," I replied without thinking straight. But before I could correct myself and think of a lie, Archer stopped the car and stared at me with his tongue-twisting gaze.

"Where are you going?" he asked, although his body language betrayed that he wasn't interested in my answer.

"Far from here," I replied with amusement, but Archie didn't share my joke and stopped just at the entrance to a narrow road into the middle of the forest where I had long been warned never even to try to get through.

"You want to know a secret, Princess?" Archer asked, adopting that cocky, mysterious, and appealing expression that pushed each girl into his arms, and I couldn't resist the temptation. I nodded, grabbing my belt in anticipation of the magic that would transport me back in time. Little did I know that these times would mean much more to me than just giving in to the charm of the man of my dreams.

"I'll take you as far as you wish. With me, you'll reach the clouds." He winked and swerved the car into that forbidden road, awakening that anticipation in my entire body. Yep, that was it. He was my Buzz Ligthear, and he was definitively promising the infinity and beyond.