Alpha's Last Fight: A Paranormal Shapeshifter BBW Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

tool bench, I had a little square of free space under the table that itself was piled high with heavy Rubbermaid tubs I didn’t dare move. There was a couch just next to it, again, covered in boxes.
    Looking for a better source of light, I pulled over a work lamp and tilted it so it would shine underneath the table. The warm yellow light would work much better than the ugly fluorescent tubes installed in the ceiling. I turned off the garage lights and the lamp shone happily under the table, illuminating a nice small spot. It was dark everywhere else, and you couldn’t even see the mess piled up on all of the other sides. Perfect.
    Munching the grilled cheese as I went, I set up my painting spot carefully. The floor was dusty, but I laid down a half-ripped picnic blanket and put down newspapers under my painting pad. The brushes I laid out on a small terry cloth rag, in order from smallest to largest.
    As I worked, I breathed easier. It was even more cramped in the garage than in the house, but it didn’t seem like it when I was focusing on my brushes.
    I filled the plastic tub with water and brought it to my chosen spot. Ducking under the table, I settled myself in cross-legged, the paper pad in front of me. I took a deep breath and exhaled. The tension creeping up through my skin was slowly releasing. The monster retreated.
    I took another breath and let it out, then turned my attention to the empty paper in front of me.
    Most people think that artists have some kind of hidden talent, a gift from the gods. My teachers told me I was artistic, my parents too. They looked at my paintings and saw creativity, saw genius. But I knew that wasn’t true. I painted for hours after school every day, but it wasn’t to showcase my artistic genius or to put down some burning image in my brain.
    Art wasn’t about talent for me, not ever. It was only a way to push back the monster.
    When I was painting, all of my attention was outward, on the page. I focused on the materials. My hands caressed the soft hairs of the watercolor brushes. My palm kneaded the gray gum eraser into a ball as I sketched out the patterns I wanted to use. My fingertips slid over the raised bumps of the thick watercolor paper.
    That’s what nobody understood.
    The thing on the page didn’t matter at all. I didn’t even look at the painting when I painted. I looked at the paint. I watched the water flow across the page, and I saw which way it wanted to go without knowing why it wanted to go that way. I saw the paint sucked up into the brush, spreading thinly on the wet page, creeping through the swollen fibers of the paper.
    I watched, and let the paint move itself.
    Soon three pages covered themselves with color. Colors worked under my fingernails, too, rich colors that clashed against each other and muddied when they mixed. Raw sienna and ultramarine. Alizarin crimson and indigo.
    My head tilted, my body bent over, my eyes fixed on the single point where the tip of the paintbrush was sweeping long dark green lines across the ochre space in the background. The paint flowed from the well inside of the brush onto the paper, coming down through the space between bristles that stayed glued together with only surface tension.
    From this angle I could see quickly the sheen of the page, the space of seconds where wet became damp and then dry. If I’d had better paper I might have had longer to work, but these pads were two bucks each and it’s hard to beat that, especially when I didn’t care overmuch about the final product. Sure, I mean, I would have liked better paper, but I wasn’t about to cry over it.
    The secondhand paints I’d gotten from a rich friend. She’d taken a class or two at a local art supply store and quit after that. She gave them to me with a shrug and not a second glance, but for me they were as precious as jewels. Tubes full of sapphire and aquamarine and ruby.
    My eyes traced the line across the page, then again. I stuck my tongue in the