An Alpha's Storm (Water Bear Shifters 1) by Sloane Meyers

wanting to leave but not wanting to find out if her threat to involve the police was real. “I’ll leave. I know you’re angry right now, but, please, consider calling me after you’ve had some time to think about this, okay?”
    Aubrey didn’t reply. She just kept looking at him with an angry glare on her face. Brett took a deep breath and forced himself to turn and walk away. He hoped that she wasn’t going to tell anyone what she had seen until at least talking to him first, but he had no way of knowing for sure. As much as he hated to admit it, he had screwed up. He had shifted in front of a human, and not just any human—a human who was already very angry at him.
    He had to tell the other alphas. They would be furious, but they needed to know. If Aubrey did say something to someone, and he hadn’t warned the others, things would be even worse. Brett pulled out his phone and sent a group text that simply read “EAM, my apartment, ASAP.” EAM stood for “emergency alpha meeting.” The guys would all show up within the hour. Everyone knew that an EAM was never good. It would mean something serious, like the possibility that the enemy scientists had found them. Or that, as was the case here, their shifter status had been exposed to humans.
    With a heavy heart, Brett started driving toward his apartment. He had been so excited to have an unexpected day off. His head had been filled with visions of a fun dinner out with Aubrey, followed by a night of passion in her bedroom. But things had gone awry so quickly. He had never expected that he would be spending the evening calling an emergency meeting to tell his fellow alphas that he’d been caught shifting by Aubrey.
    When Brett got to his apartment, Lance and Ben were already there. Without a word, Brett walked past them and unlocked his door. As they were walking into the apartment, Ace showed up.
    “What’s going on?” Ace asked, worry etched into his forehead.
    Brett shut the door behind him. He wouldn’t mince words with this group. He would say exactly what happened, and then let them voice their anger. It wouldn’t be fun, but the sooner he tore the bandage off, the better. “Aubrey caught me shifting. She was already angry with me, and now she won’t even speak to me. I don’t think she has said anything to anyone yet, but when I tried to go talk to her, she threatened to call the cops on me if I didn’t leave.”
    Brett watched the faces in his living room change from concerned to enraged.
    “What the hell, man?” Lance said. “I thought you guys weren’t even officially dating, and you go shifting in front of her?”
    Ace crossed his arms, shaking his head in disgust. “I told you this whole friends with benefits thing was going to go south. Those arrangements never work out in the long term. And now you’ve got an angry woman who knows you’re a shifter. Great. Just great.”
    Brett took a deep breath, and did his best to explain. “I went to surprise her at work when we got the day off. I found her at the bar next to work, with another guy all over her. I got upset, because she told me she didn’t want a relationship, and yet here she was getting cozy with some other schmo. So I stormed off, and went running on a secluded stretch of beach a little bit north of here. My bear was angry, and I decided to shift and run free for a little while. I thought the whole area was deserted, but when I got back to the beach where I had left my clothes, Aubrey was there. She saw me, and got scared, and then angry. She started running to her car, and I couldn’t stop her because she had a huge head start on me. She drove off, and I followed her back to her house as soon as I could get to my car. She wouldn’t talk to me, though. I tried to convince her, but that’s when she threatened to call the cops if I didn’t leave. I don’t think she is going to say anything to anyone as long as I leave her alone, but I’m not entirely sure, so I called this