My Alphas: The Complete Series (8 page)

He moved inside her, speeding up and the angle and the pressure and the bite soon tipped her over the edge again. She found herself gasping, her body clenching beneath him but unable to escape from his grasp. He didn’t stop but kept going until she felt his body tense above her, felt his teeth rasp against her neck as he came inside her.

Almost immediately he rolled off her, pulling her with him in a mimic of the pose she’d shared with Edon (and Nia) earlier in the day. Except, unlike Edon, Rey had his softening cock still inside her.

Cass lay there in a daze for some time, feeling parts of her coming back together. The Alpha behind her moved, slipping out of her and that feeling of disconnection stirred through her, pulling her back to wakefulness and thought.

She was far too relaxed, far too worn out to feel terror at the question beating in her mind:

What have I done?

She examined it without emotion, almost absently. She’d mated with one and not the other. They would fight. One would win.

Had she intended to mate with Rey and not Edon? She didn’t know.

“What does this mean?” she asked, feeling Rey’s hand brush down her side.

“What?” he muttered, sounding almost asleep.

“What does this mean?” she repeated, feeling herself in the repeat of every conversation every girl has had with every man since the beginning of time.

“You’re mine and Edon will leave or die,” Rey stated and then pulled Cass close to him.

She melted into his body, trying to hold on to his answer, trying to make sense of it all but soon the heat of him lulled her body and her mind tripped and slipped into sleep.

Her last thread of thought was of two men, standing in the sunlight, one with copper hair ablaze, the other black.

Two friends.

Now,

Two enemies.

My Alphas, Part Two

Don’t just go walking off into the woods!

Girls, please, if there is one thing you should take from me it is this: don’t stumble off into the wilderness in your high heels and tight skirt and think you’ll meet an Alpha and ten minutes later you’ll be his mate.

Remember, werewolves live a LOOONG way from people. Although their territory expands up to and can include human towns, werewolves tend to keep away from us. So you’re looking at a minimum three-day hike before you even get close to a werewolf.

Buy yourself some good shoes!

Audrey Reyne, author of
“Get That Werewolf!”

Rey stared at the ceiling as the first light of the morning sun slipped in the window and thought about killing Edon. He didn’t want to but it was a welcome distraction from the other thoughts swirling through his mind, centered on the human sleeping next to him.

His plan had been clear: come to her room, rip her throat out. And then…

And then some madness had come over him and instead of following his plan he’d mated with her. Instead of being turned off by her fleshy body, it had enthralled him.

They had mated and he’d slept through the night when he should be awake and now was awake as day was coming and he should be asleep.

The human had turned everything upside down.

And now he couldn’t go back.

It was as though there had been some break in his mind. Before mating he was willing to kill her. After mating he would defend her from the death. She was his.

The human moved, sighing in her sleep and Rey felt a clench deep inside him. She was soft, ridiculously so and with her asleep against him her scent enveloped him. He wanted to rut with her, to pull her hair, to bite but she was too fragile for such things. Two warring emotions: to take her again and again, to dominate her. To protect her, wrap his arms around her soft form and keep her safe.

To be so divided against himself was frustrating him to no end. His throbbing cock wasn’t helping either.

Rey knew Alphas did not regret or worry. They acted and then dealt with the consequences. Edon had tried to teach him to think more broadly about actions and consequences. What seems a good action now can narrow future choices. Leaping into the trap will get you the meat but now you have it, you’re trapped.

Or to put it another way, jumping off the cliff to catch a bird in your jaws gets you the bird but what happens then?

Rey had done such a thing as a young cub. He caught the sparrow and then landed on a thorny bush growing from the cliff. He had to be rescued and once he was on solid ground, his father had taken him by the scruff of the neck and shaken him until he saw double. Then his mother had held him, kissing away his tears and wrapping her hands around his body, enclosing him.

She had been the only human he’d loved.

Now the fragile creature next to him was stirring feelings he thought were long locked away.

Actions and consequences. He’d mated with her and now she would become Pack Mate. She would sire cubs and he and the pack would provide for her. Edon was the one who’d come up with the ridiculous idea of her choosing her mate. Rey hadn’t agreed but now the human had chosen him.

Edon would leave the pack with five females or die.

Satisfied he had a new plan, Rey closed his eyes and breathed in. Her scent was first, throbbing through his body. Fading soap, sweat, her skin. Next he could smell the furs and blankets. Then her backpack across the room, saturated with mud. Melted candles with burned wicks. Limestone. Flowers and trees outside.

The window pelt fluttered and Rey caught another scent on the breeze.

Blood and mud and wolf.

The hunting pack had returned.

*

Cass woke up, shifting from warm comfortable doze to wide awake in an instant. She opened her eyes and saw the first rays of the morning sun creeping in the window. Her body began throwing up objections as she moved under the blankets.

“Ow,” she groaned, feeling herself hurt in places that last night were all pleasure. She pulled the blanket back and saw bruises on her hips. She had scratches on the inside of her legs she didn’t remember getting.

Cass agreed sex bruises are good bruises but they were still bruises and they hurt! She touched a finger to one and remembered Rey holding her there. It hadn’t hurt at the time but he’d been gripping her with tremendous force.

Rey. The one who’d bruised her. The one who’d turned up in her room as a hulking wolf and shifted into a hulking man. She’d said, what, a sentence to him? Then he’d touched his teeth to her neck and she’d submitted to him.

Now big surprise in the morning, she was alone. No Rey. No Nia (thankfully).

Love ‘em and leave ‘em.

The dull ache down below reminded her what she’d done last night had nothing to do with love.

Cass felt different body parts complaining as they woke up. Coupled with the slight physical discomfort was something else. What feeling was that? Regret? Anxiousness?

Cass assumed out of the two Alphas she preferred Edon. He was serious but kind and gentle. Still strong but civilized. Rey was… Rey was the epitome of bad decisions made in the dark of the night after one too many drinks. The bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks who you knew was bad for you but you went back anyway to his poisoned well. The next day you’d be sick but once you recovered, back you’d go again.

He was vicious, feral practically. A beast who would turn into a man but lacked any kindness or caring altogether.

So why had she submitted to him? If she preferred Edon, why did she sleep with the big bad wolf?

Cass felt her mental judgment coming down on herself and Rey and knew it was unfair but she didn’t care. He’d seduced her in some weak moment and she’d dived right in. Give everyone a big dollop of blame and move right on.

There were bigger things to worry about. Those problems she’d thrown up in the air yesterday would come crashing down today.

She’d mated with Rey and now the outcomes were simple:

Edon would leave or die and she would be left as Pack Mate to a brute.

Edon would kill Rey and take her for his own.

For about five seconds Cass let herself imagine that when she walked out Edon would be there, smiling at her and telling her Rey had decided to leave of his own accord. Now they could be together forever. The five seconds ended and Cass swatted that stupidity away.

She would have to endure. It was a lesson she’d learned early on with her parents. Endure the suffering, endure the pain and humiliation and eventually you’ll get through it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel - even if the tunnel goes from birth until your eighteenth birthday.

She’d chosen to sell her possessions and trek out into the wild. She’d chosen to find the werewolves who’d saved her. And Cass knew despite never telling herself aloud, she’d chosen to become the mate of one of them.

She’d slipped at the finish line and mated with the wrong werewolf.

“Just take the time to talk to him Miss Judgmental McBitchypants, okay? You don’t even know him,” Cass said aloud to herself.

She’d barely spoken to him. Maybe he wasn’t a brute. Maybe not a vicious killer, a thuggish lump. Maybe he-

A bloodthirsty roar echoing down the corridor pulled Cass out of bed, her sore body forgotten.

It was Rey.

He was going to kill someone.

*

Edon led the hunting pack back to the den thinking his way through the equation of food and wolves. The hunt had gone terribly. They had caught a boar and one scrawny deer. All told they had forty mouths to feed and this paltry amount of meat wouldn’t suffice. Winter was approaching and game would become scarce but Edon had never seen it as bad as this before. Between Arctos, Utson and Turo packs they shared and fought over a territory that provided more than enough food for all of them.

There was something happening and Edon didn’t have to leap far to blame the Turo pack. Last night about ten miles out come across the dead man dumped by the Turo pack. He’d had this throat slashed open and his blood had soaked into the ground. Although it had taken time from the hunt, Edon instructed two werewolves to carry the body back to Hinton. They had an arrangement with Sheriff Harmony if they found any dead bodies in their territory they would return them to a specified location. Although Edon considered Sheriff Harmony an honorable man and understood the heartache of a missing person was sometimes greater than the knowledge they were dead, he was starting to think all he was doing was proving werewolves killed humans. When push came to shove, Harmony would have to obey his masters.

So game number one was dead bodies dumped on their territory. This was one of the most puzzling actions - humans were notoriously indiscriminate when it came to dealing with werewolves. The Turo pack were putting their own heads on the chopping block.

Game number two was Werewolf Safe World advocating culling the Arctos pack and using the dead bodies as reason.

And now game number three was starving them out somehow? Perhaps humans with guns were killing the boars and deer, driving them away from their territory?

Edon leapt over a fallen tree, his paws thudding to the ground on the other side and considered how well the conversation would go telling Rey they needed to obtain human money to buy human food so they wouldn’t starve. It would be a disaster.

I will hunt, Rey would say and once he failed to find food he would blame Utson and Turo and start open warfare with one or both.

Everyone would be dead within the month Edon concluded.

Edon let his thoughts move back to Cass and the problem she presented. He was sure Rey would come around soon to the idea of letting her choose between them. He was becoming increasingly certain she would choose him over Rey.

Whether Rey would leave without a fight was another matter.

And no matter if he left voluntarily or they fought and Rey died, it still meant the Arctos pack was weaker and then Utson or Turo would attack.

Utson in particular were notorious for waiting until an Alpha was challenged before sweeping in. Their Alpha, Huri, was shrewd but in recent years seemed content to hold their territory rather than expand it. The Turo pack under their Alpha Navcer seemed bent on Arctos destruction and Edon knew Navcer’s son Carcer was far more vicious than his father and things would get much worse once he assumed control.

Edon knew as lone Alpha he could take on and prevail against Utson or Turo. But one after the other? It was doubtful.

He dismissed these thoughts and leapt over some tree roots crossing his path, speeding up. They were almost back at the den and the early morning sun was rising, promising a beautifully warm day. He wanted to spend time with Cass and not just so she would choose him over Rey. Since he’d first caught her scent he’d felt a deep relaxation come through him, like a piece long missing had been replaced. No matter what happened and no matter how severe the problems Cass caused by appearing in their territory he felt a rightness about it.

For too long they had ignored taking a human mate but like all buried problems it eventually came to the surface.

Edon passed the scouts and shifted at the door to the den, eager to get inside. He slipped through the narrow corridor, feeling his happiness increase with every step he took toward his future mate.