Keeper of the Alphas - Complete (6 page)
Read Keeper of the Alphas - Complete Online
Authors: Morgan Rae
Cami drove down Argonne Drive with her foot heavy on the pedal.
She shut the door hard on her way in. Marcus jumped off the couch to his feet, though his rifle seemed glued to his hand. The fireplace cracked and sizzled in front of him.
“Settle down, killer,” she said, not in the mood to deal with him while she was doing her walk of shame. “Just me.”
“It’s late,” he said. His jaw was set in a hard line, his eyes quietly furious.
“Thanks for the time and temp,” she said and made her way upstairs.
“I told you to come back.”
Was he following her?
Wonderful. Just what she needed—a shit cherry on a shit cake.
“I’m here. I’m back. Sorry it’s not up to your standards,” she said, whipping around at the door to face him.
His eyes were stone cold. “It has nothing to do with my standards. It’s dangerous to be out there at night.”
“In this one-horse town? I think I can take care of myself.”
“In the woods.”
A flash of anger went through her at that. “I’m not Lynn, if you haven’t figured that out. I can take care of myself.”
His eyes darkened considerably. Then he tilted up and—did he
sniff
the air? “Where were you?” he asked with new grit in his voice.
“What are you, my dad?”
“At this rate? I might as well be.”
“You want me to call you Daddy?” His eyes darkened dangerously at that. Cami wanted to push it. She reached down and curled the hem of her dress under her fingers, bunching it up. Revealing the soft, creamy skin of her thighs underneath and her baby-blue panties. “I’ve been a bad girl, Daddy.”
“
Stop it.
” He grabbed her wrists, yanking them up.
Cami struggled against him, her playacting suddenly turning into full-blown insolence, and she whined, “Let go of me!”
She tried to pull away from him, but he just tugged her against him. His mistake. She was running hot, like an overheated engine stuck in neutral. She needed to drive; she wanted to burn rubber skidmarks into his hips. She kissed him, suddenly. Hard, hungry. Wanting.
Marcus grunted against her mouth and she felt him go rigid against her. The scruff on his skin was rough against her face and she wanted to cut herself on it. He gave, just an inch, and tasted her under his tongue. Nothing deliberate or practiced there, not like Jayce, just hungry, like he could swallow her whole in a single bite and leave nothing but bones. She wanted him to. She wanted him to destroy her.
He wanted it, too. She felt him hard and hot against her tummy. She bet he could make her scream with that thing and she pressed her hips against him to fan the flames, rewarded with a groan—
The kiss broke, suddenly, when he grabbed her by the shoulders and shoulders and jerked her back. His eyes glowed (her hazy imagination?) and he growled, “Control yourself.”
Control
. The trigger word. She was so sick and tired of controlling herself and she wanted him to do it for her. And now he was denying her that too. “Asshole,” she hissed, brimming with frustration and she slapped him across the face, hard. Did as much good as hitting a brick wall, so she did it again. He pulled her against him to settle her down.
“Quit it,” his low thunder roared. He was strong and his arms were all-encompassing and before she knew it, she was bunched up against him, her fists trapped against his chest. Stuck.
She breathed. He smelled warm and earthy, like a fireplace hearth.
Her eyes stung and, without warning, she began to cry. A dam broke inside of her and all the emotion she’d kept stuffed down inside came spilling out. Choked sobs wracked through her and her fists unballed, fingers gripping his shirt instead, clinging to him like a small kitten.
She cried about her mom. About Jayce. About this town and its weird, Stockholm nostalgia. She cried because she’d never get to tell her mom how much she hated her for sending her away, for making her feel insane, for making her scared to feel and lose control like that again. She cried because she’d never get to tell her mom that, despite it all, she still loved her.
“It’s okay,” Marcus murmured above her. His large hand slipped over the back of her head and he held her strongly. “It’s going to be okay.”
The fire had burnt out and now only a few remaining embers glowed, twinkling yellow-red from the ashes. Marcus watched them from his spot perched on the couch. Cami breathed deeply against his chest, having finally cried herself to sleep. Her body was soft and warm, tiny against him, vulgarly vulnerable, and the beast in him wanted her loudly.
Down boy.
Marcus exhaled slowly through his nose, tempering himself. She smelled like sugar cookies, sweet sex, tangy hair product, downy blankets. But there was something more than arousal pumping his heart an extra beat.
This girl was going to kill him.
Heavy feet padded over the ground. Sniffing, snorting, breath coming in silver puffs in the crisp autumn night.
He shoved his snout in the ground. Spicy, cinnamon-sharp honey.
He smelled her.
His tongue licked over the stones.
He tasted her.
He watched the house in the middle of the woods, smoke streaming from its chimney.
The bear’s snout lifted. His eyes caught the cozy yellow light from the house, shimmering orange. A jagged scar ran over his right eye, stripping the fur there. He could see her through the window, curvy blonde thing, curled up next to the
other
.
He wanted her.
When Cami opened her eyes, she was still slumped against Marcus. His chest rose and fell heavily in sleep. The fire had gone out, leaving nothing but crispy ash.
Cami…
She felt it calling her. Quietly, Cami unraveled from Marcus’s warmth and stepped over the rug towards the door. Her fingers played absently over the notches in the bear’s-head bannister as she passed it.
Cami...
The crisp autumn night hit her, but Cami walked through it in her white dress as though in a trance. Grass blades, wet with dew, ticked as her bare feet padded into the woods. The moon hung high in the night sky, skewered by leafless branches.
The grizzly bear rustled behind the bushes. She could see the hunch of his back, hear his low growl. She saw a flash of orange-red eyes before the bushes shuddered with a bone-cracking snap and the bear vanished from sight. She knew this part of the dream. She stepped forward and felt no fear in her heart now.
She stepped past the bushes and saw him.
He was crouched in the bushes and cast in shadow, but she could still see the wild black hair that hung braided down his back. His beard, too, was braided, and hung long from his chin. His body, naked under the moon, was built like a Roman statue, skin desert-dust brown. She knew the scar over his eye, the notch of hair missing in his eyebrow.
Then he stood. And smiled. “Hello, Cami.”
She blinked.
Wait.
This wasn’t part of the dream. His accent was strange, gravelly, as though the words were forced from his throat.
“Who are you?” she asked, bold in the bare confidence of her dream.
His arm shot out and he grabbed her by the throat, fingers crushing. Cami gasped and struggled, legs flailing, feet kicking just inches above sweet ground.
Okay. So this was not a dream. Not a delusion. This was very,
very
real. Cami’s fingers clawed at his hand, his arm, but the bear-man’s grip did not budge.
“Someone who has been waiting for this,” he snarled. “For a very, very long time.”
Hunting for Curves
(Keeper of the Alphas: Part 2)
By Morgan Rae
The door of his black 1969 Chevrolet Camaro slammed with a thunk as Jayce climbed out of it and headed through the trailer park, feet crunching dry leaves. Fancy car for a very un-fancy kid, but like everything in his gypsy-style family, it was a hand-me-down. Passed down from his old man.
The Alastairs passed down a lot.
Cars.
Clothes.
A secret knowledge of the unnatural Beasts that lived in the woods and the tools to kill them.
Jayce had been trained from a young age how to spot, track, and kill the Beasts that haunted the woods outside their trailer park home. But as much as his father tried to, he couldn’t train Jayce to enjoy it. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on which side of the supernatural spectrum you were on), there was someone else in the trailer park with enough bloodlust for the both of them.
Pam was waiting for him in front of his trailer with a smirk cut diagonally across her round face. She had a full figure (meat on her bones, as she put it) that she hid under an oversized cargo jacket. She crossed her arms and tilted her head, accentuating the jagged chop to her hair.
“Heard you riling up the Keeper’s girl last night,” Pam said when Jayce was within earshot. “Sounded like fun.”
“Yep,” Jayce said, shouldering past her to get inside.
Pam blocked him. Coy grin still on her face. “How come I didn’t get an invite?”
Now it was Jayce’s turn to pull a humorless smile. “Only room for two in my bed.”
Pam’s humor vanished and turned into a scowl. All business now. “So?”
“So what?”
“So I know you didn’t spend all night playing hide the sausage. Is she protecting the Beast?”
Jayce looked away. “I don’t know.”
“What d’you mean, you don’t know?” Pam barked. “If that bitch is protecting her mommy’s pet, she’s gonna be a problem, just like Lynn—”
Jayce grabbed Pam by the front of her jacket and shoved her up against the tin casing of his trailer. “She’s not a bitch,” Jayce said, his voice low and dangerous. “And she’s not a problem. You get that through your head right now.”
Pam slumped against the trailer and scowled. “You might’ve had some freaky mommy issues with Keeper Lynn, but you can’t deny that she’s stood between us and the beasts in the woods for years. Now that she’s out of the picture, we have a crack at that bear. So long as her little girl doesn’t get in the way.” A smirk found its way to her lips. She reached down and began tugging Jayce’s belt open. “You better do something about her, Jayce,” Pam said, pressing her body against his. “Before her
pet
does something about us. It killed your dear Lynn. You want it to kill you too?”
Jayce was already on edge, his engine running hot, and his breath caught when Pam’s warm hand began rubbing over his briefs. This was a dangerous cat-and-mouse game they played, and Jayce could never really be sure around Pam if he was
predator
or
prey
. “No,” he murmured between breaths.
He knew just as well as Pam did what the Beast had cost him. His mother, long ago, a hunter like the rest of his family, ripped to shreds. Just another dead trailer trash hick, meant nothing to the town police. That’s what they got for living in a trailer park in the woods, as far as the local PD was concerned. But Lynn, the Keeper, a so-called “model citizen”…that was something new.
All signs pointed to Marcus, the Beast of Tyburn.
They’d almost had him, too. With Lynn dead, there was no longer a Keeper to stand between the hunters and the Beast.
Until Cami showed up. Cami, who had Keeper blood, just like her mother. And the power to shield the Beast from hunters like Jayce and Pam.
“Get close to this new baby Keeper,” Pam murmured, her breath hot against his face as she stroked his cock until he was nice and dumb and hard, “and
convince
her to let us take a stab at her pet. Be her knight in shining armor.” Pam nipped his jaw and said, “Y’can do that, can’t you?”
Jayce nodded, though his insides twisted with guilt at the thought of double-crossing Cami. No. Not double-crossing. Just…not giving her the
whole truth
.
It was for her own good, really. She was in as much danger as Lynn had been, living under the same roof as that Beast. The sooner they got her permission to kill the Beast, the sooner Cami would be safe.
No more killings. No more bear attacks.
For the greater good
.
“I wanna hear you
say it
,” Pam hissed.
“I can do it,” Jayce grunted, his voice low.
Pam’s sneer drew back into a smile. “Good boy. Don’t forget where you came from.” She pulled his briefs down—
just enough
—and gave his dick a squeeze. “That Keeper bitch leave anything in there for me?”
Before he could get in a word edgewise, Pam was on her knees in front of him. She swallowed his cock down her throat immediately and Jayce hissed and pressed his palm against his trailer to steady himself. Never mind that they were still in the open, barely covered by the metal bodies of other trailers. When Pam wanted something,
she got it
, then and there, and right now she wanted to feel Jayce’s cock bobbing in her throat.
Jayce groaned and felt his thoughts scatter, body still buzzing from the previous night’s encounter with Cami. Pam knew his cock well—too well—and she knew how to drive him crazy fast, unraveling his self-control effortlessly. She popped him out of her mouth and ran the flat of her tongue slowly up his length. He gasped, growing even harder as she licked her way to the top, tip of her tongue following the veins in his cock, until his skin was tight as a drum. She swirled her tongue over the head of his cock until it began throb in her mouth, ready to burst.
His moans were all the encouragement she needed. Satisfied that she had him right where she wanted him, Pam pulled away from his dick and left it hanging, red and frustrated and bobbing in the cool air. Then she straightened up and tucked it back into his briefs, zipping his pants back up as he groaned.
“Pam—” he started, but she cut him off. She grabbed Jayce by his hair and pulled him into a hard, possessive kiss, tugging his lower lip between her teeth, as her leg hooked around his hip.
“I know it’s
hard
for you,” she murmured, grinding against him. “I know what that girl means to you. But if she’s a Keeper like her mama, she’ll be dangerous. Do it for your mom. And Lynn.” Her breath picked up and she added, heatedly, “Do it for
me
. C’mon, give it to me, baby…”
She rubbed against him harder, faster, until she heard his telltale moan and felt him shudder against her. Smiling, victorious, she hooked her arm around his neck and held him there.
“Fuck, Pam,” he grunted.
She gave the side of his face a hard little pat, and then said, “Keep me in the know, sunshine.” With that, Pam unwound from him and left Jayce catching his breath, pants stained.
Great
. He pushed away and tried to regain control of his limbs. Jayce stepped inside his trailed and closed the screen door behind him.
His heart was thudding. He changed out of his pants, cleaned himself up, and flopped down on the edge of his mattress. Memories of Cami still stained his bed. He drew his hand over the sheet, flattening out the wrinkles she’d twisted into it.
He remembered her taste. The way her legs had trembled around his head. He thought about being inside her, wet and wanting. Remembered the way she’d gripped his sheets when she came, screaming.
Her girlish laugh. The warmth of her body. The
familiarity
in her kiss, the way it reminded him of a time when things were
simpler
, when he was just a boy and she was just a girl and visions of a wild man-bear didn’t keep him up at night.
His fingers reached the top of his sheets. There were black, charred marks where her hands had gripped. As though they’d been seared through with a flame.
Perhaps Pam was right. Maybe Cami was dangerous after all.
