The Alpha's Desire 2 (11 page)

“I honestly don’t know. Although, they couldn’t possibly think us so dumb. Maybe they are just trying to rattle us in hopes of getting the upper hand. It’s probably useless for us to speculate. As of now, though, the Royals don’t know about us, as in
us
us, but they will soon. The cleaners will report about us coming from the bathroom together.”

“What? Why did you do that, then? Why did you stay in there with me? Or even come in there with me, let us be together?”

“Doesn’t matter at this point. We already have a great mark against us, as in wolf protector to human, so I preferred we be totally honest. I should get a call soon, and I hope to plead my case. Their turmoil can only work in our favor.”

I shook my head even as my body did the same. I couldn’t stop the rush of power that surged through me. Heat rolled in my stomach and moved down all four limbs as if trying to escape me.

“Your magic grows already,” he explained. “So much so that you can feel it inside of you. I think it is us being together.”

Chapter Nine

“What do I do with this magic now?” I asked.

“Heck if I know,” he huffed out a laugh that ended in a snort. “You and I are not alike. You are a descendant of an actual sorcerer, and the wolf part may have been magic like mine in your line, but the magic part was in the bloodline you were born into. My magic was a cast spell, giving me only the ability to shift into a wolf and to feel the human I’m assigned to. Nothing special came from an ancestor. Only one of the Royals themselves would know. And, after all this time, even they may not know exactly what the potential is, but if anyone, they would know how to test it and to train you based on those tests.”

“I’m not sick,” I stated. “Tests?”

“I just meant that they could instruct you to try certain things, like beginner spells or something. I don’t know...maybe... and then they would know your potential. I wasn’t talking drawing blood or anything. Have a fear of needles, do we?”

“Not a fear, but who’s fond of them? My mind just went to those books where the government finds someone with special abilities and they poke and prod them, sometimes even dissect them to try to understand them. They spend the rest of their lives trapped in some stark white hospital-type prison with doctors in their faces every hour. Guess I read way too much.” I said as I calmed myself while I blushed a bit.

“I don’t think that is possible. I mean the reading thing, and hopefully the prison-slash-hospital thing. too,” he said with a slash of his hand at just the precise moment.

I couldn’t hold back my laugh, at not only his words and melodramatic movements, but the ridiculous look on his face that played seriousness, but showed the good-natured teasing of a boy who liked a girl.

“Don’t all parents harp on their kids to read more?” he added.

“I don’t know. My parents never had to,” I shrugged.

“Suppose not. So, what about this magic, because I feel it just churning inside of you, more powerful than anything I have ever felt inside me. Honestly, it’s a little terrifying, like you’re about to explode or something.”

“Welcome to my world. I do feel, at times, that if I don’t release it somehow, that it will release on its own, shoot from my fingers or from my eyes. I don’t know. I have no instinct to do anything with it. It’s tingling down my arms, though, heating the palms of my hands,” I explained as I looked down at my upturned palms. “Sometimes it gets so warm I think I know what women mean by a hot flash.”

For a second, I thought I could see it there. A glimmer of a shiny clear light seemed to not only hover over my palm, but surrounded my hand. Cocking my head to the side, I guessed that only I could see it, or that I’d imagined it, because Lex casually sat down on the bed beside me. I focused in hard on the power there, the warmth, the glimmer. Soon, to even my astonishment, light did form in my hand, first a twinkle that soon started to glow brighter and brighter. It didn’t shoot out or anything: it merely flowed in a circle, white, glittery, catching the light.

What remained inside me surged as my astonishment, wrapped in awe and choked by fear, grew. Not exactly fight or flight, but it felt the same. My heart raced and the light brightened. It shuddered when I took a deep breath, and I laughed, causing a brief spike in the intensity of the ball. Just my giggle shot lines of blue and red through it.

“Holy shit,” Lex exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Says the man who turns into a wolf. This is merely a light,” I said, and made a fist to see what would happen.

The light went out with a squeaky hiss, but the tingly sense of energy stayed. I grabbed at the comforter on the bed in order not to hop up and down like a hyperactive child.

“I have so much energy inside me right now that I feel like I may start bouncing off of the walls if I don’t find an outlet for it,” I exclaimed.

“Oh, well then, let me give you an outlet,” he offered.

Just as he began to move toward me, lunge more like it, his phone rang.

“It’s them,” he said, looking at the lit-up face of the phone.

“Where should I go?” I asked, looking around like hiding in the closet was a viable option.

“Nowhere. Just stay quiet,” he said as he stood.

Walking to the window, he tapped the phone with his thumb and lifted it slowly to his ear as he let out a big breath.

“Hello,” Lex said. and then waited.

I could see every muscle in his body tighten. He wore a quite sexy pair of jeans with a dark green shirt that the cleaners had brought him. I’d gotten dressed, thankfully, when he’d gone to get food. Not that these Royals could see through the phone, but I felt better somehow, in the situation, being dressed. Ready for anything. Knowing this group, they could ram down my door at any moment and take him away from me.
Don’t worry.
Wait,
I chided myself with Lex’s advice.

“Yes,” he said in a flat tone, one devoid of emotion, I was sure on purpose.

His head made a move as if to nod a few times, and then he confirmed whatever they’d asked again.

“I can’t explain it exactly. It just happened. And, once I saw her, purely by accident, in a bar one night, something between us just clicked. It really felt like fate the way it happened. I’d left her in another’s care for a night, giving myself the luxury of performing, or, truth be told, maybe I needed a break from my emotions, and there she appeared where I was. She watched me so intensely.... We just connected. After that, mistake or not, I told her the truth. I told her I loved her. I’d kept it inside for so long, not wanting to put her at risk by breaking a rule, sure you knew better than I. Only now, I don’t think I can live without her. She says the same.”

I sat there, unable to move as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone. His free hand coiled and released into a fist, and then the fingers stretched far out, repeatedly. His chest moved up and down faster than usual.

“Yes, I was already here when the attack happened. He blamed me. He said, and I quote, that I screwed up royally when I screwed her, pardon the quote. I think he was just baiting me. I honestly don’t think I had anything to do with their latest attack, not if they attacked globally. And, I’m thankful I was already here. But, there is something else that I should tell you. The magic of her bloodline, it is active inside of her, since we met. We can feel it when we hold our hands together. And, it is growing in strength even in this short amount of time. She just formed a ball of light in her palm without really meaning to.”

After he listened a few minutes, he said, “Yes, that is all. You know everything. I will wait to hear from you again.”

A tap of his thumb hung up the phone as he turned to me. His face pale, my breaths came in rapid gasps as I waited to hear what they’d had to say.

“What! What! Tell me what they said,” I begged.

“Nothing really. They just asked a lot of questions,” he answered, staying put at the window, the fading sunlight closing another day radiated around him. “I knew they would question the cleaners about the situation, but apparently they sent someone to talk to me, too. Only, I was in the bathroom for a very long time with the girl I was to protect. Then I guided her into the bedroom in only a towel.”

He laughed then. The short, abrupt sound I couldn’t read. Amusement? Disgust? I didn’t know, so I waited for him to continue.

“Anyway, they let me explain. Then, all they said was that they would discuss the situation and us, and then get back to me. I couldn’t read anything in her voice except for when I told her about your magic. I would swear to the fact that it raised in pitch afterward. I think she may have been excited about that. Maybe that could work in our favor. Who knows? Seems all we can do now is wait it out. She did say that the cleaners are gone. We can leave the bedroom. Maybe order a pizza or something.”

“Pizza?” I asked. “Really, at a time like this, you want pizza? I think I would throw up a sip of water.”

“I’ve been getting in some good work outs here with you,” he teased, finally making his way to the bed to plant a kiss on my forehead. “We can’t lose our time together to worrying about the future. I learned that over the years in this job. Worry is just wasted time. You deal with things when they happen, not worry
if
they will happen. What good does that do anyone, rally?”

Just then my front door slammed.

“I thought they were gone?” I questioned.

“They are,” he said as he moved to the bedroom door.

Chapter Ten

“Christina,” a purposely elongated shout, with the husky tones of a sexual predator luring in his bait, came from my living room just as Lex opened the bedroom door.

The strange tone sent shivers down my spine as Lex rushed out toward the sound. I stood there in shock for a second before my feet moved me forward after him. His hand stretched out behind him, and he caught me and pulled me close. His own cold shiver of fear punched me in the gut, as did the smell of having walked into a dog pound. The touch of his hand on my arm now tingled as usual, but it held a profound, steady warmth that seemed to pulse, along with the steady thumping of our hearts.

Not only did I stand peering around Lex’s shoulder at a man in an expensive looking black suit surrounded my several wolves, but I stood in a room I didn’t recognize. Surreal, a wash of dizziness threatened to unglue me. While I trusted Lex with my life, he was beyond outnumbered here. He had to be. Plus, if the guy with the suit was any indication, they’d pulled out someone in higher ranks. That couldn’t be good. The subtle shake of my head only served to solidify my plight, having gone past a natural instinct for defense to some semblance of rational thinking.

“What is this?” Lex growled, the depth of his tone once again more animal than human. In these situations, it never got to be a more frightening warning of bad things to come than that.

“We’ve come to check in, is all,” the man in the suit answered, a snug, half smile raising the corners of his mouth.

The shiny black of his suit in contrast with the stark white of his dress shirt only accentuated his rich tan. So, he hadn’t spent as much time in an office as his attire claimed. A cap of brown curls fell unruly around his face, again signaling that his clothing of choice today wasn’t his typical. Not that he didn’t appear put together, as his hair was obviously groomed to go that way judging by the sheen of hair product on it. Still, he looked like a slimy fish out of water, standing there in that get up. Which led my mind to re-evaluate his more rugged than refined stance.

Regardless, of all the mixed signals, if a girl had run into this guy on the street, they’d either think themselves lucky or wonder what was wrong with the cute rich guy. I assumed he could shift as well. Surely they didn’t have a leader that wasn’t one of them. So, the big question remained: what was their angle here?

Lex had only huffed in response to the man’s words, so they now stood at a stalemate with no one talking. The silence literally suffocated me as I held my breath waiting for that final shoe to drop and fill us in on the purpose behind their visit. Not breathing, I considered myself lucky. Not to say that werewolves smell, but that many oversized wolves in one room produced quite the odor, especially when mingled with the contaminated smell of new furniture and carpet.

The black suit guy grinned while Lex frowned. Each wolf, six total I’d counted, sat there at attention, taking up every inch of space, even in my spacious apartment living room.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” our unwelcome visitor sought to maneuver us into some inane conversation.

Lex and I stood at the small square of a hallway that consisted of two doors now at our back, but opened at our fronts into the open floorplan of the kitchen and living room. My hand rested on a nice new cream colored couch, with rich roses printed on it. I feared I’d never get a good look at it before they destroyed it, too. I held gulped-in air and then held my breath again, waiting for someone to speak. Lex could not handle seven wolves alone, if suit guy shifted, was all that went through my mind on a loop.

“You called my name,” I finally stated, having found air enough to use for a small voice. “Why?”

“I fear that earlier a few of my pack went too far. They paid for that mistake with their lives, unfortunately, and I wanted to come here to apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused you,” black suit asshole stated with a tone in his voice that spoke of boredom or thinly veiled sarcasm.

I went with the latter. Lex only tensed more, if possible, in response.

“Inconvenience? Seriously? Why are you really here?” I demanded, increasing the volume of my voice. “Don’t insult me with games.”

“Ah, you are a fiery one, now aren’t you? I heard you took out one of my pack all on your own,” he said, looking right at me, his green eyes, animal-like, glinting with gold as Lex’s did in human form.

“How would you know that if everyone here died? Did you watch? Do you have spies out there looking into my apartment?”

“Ah, you could say that. You are important to my pack, Christina. So much more important than you will ever know. Come with us, and we will treat you like the Royal you are,” he insisted, though I got the play of his words loud and clear, as Royal blood was hated by their pact.

Who the hell knew, then, how they would treat me if they got their hands on me? That sick roll in my stomach took on a new force as it edged into, merged with, that now pervasive shiver taking control of my ice-cold body. Glancing at my hands, I expected them to be blue regardless of the heat of our magic that swirled there. They appeared quite normal, though, and I berated them for such a thing as my mind fell into the insanity of panic mode. Now I knew how a hunted animal felt when the larger animal played first with its food.

He looked at Lex then, who’d been strangely quiet as I had this little interaction with the man. His fear. My fear. I couldn’t separate the two. Maybe he was using the time to plan out an escape plan. I could only hope, as I didn’t like the way the man looked at me. It made my skin crawl, and the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“She’s not yours,” Lex finally stated, his voice firm and flat.

“Maybe not in this instant,” suit guy agreed, “but soon. Very soon, we shall have her. If not today, maybe tomorrow. But, mark my words, you can’t kill us all single-handedly there, Lex. You are already clearly outnumbered. So, why not just hand her over, peacefully, and no one gets hurt? You can go off and protect another. Hell, maybe you will get lucky and fall in love with her, as well.”

“I don’t get why we are having such a conversation.” I challenged. “What is the point of it exactly? What is your end game here?”

“Why, you, of course,” he said with a grin before he looked over the wolves around him as if inspecting his crew.

“You can’t have me. I can’t do anything for you. My bloodline is too diluted with human blood now. I’m useless. I can’t shift, and I can’t do magic,” I argued. Pathetic or not, I wanted to buy Lex some time.

I sensed his franticness. Surely, he searched for a plan to save us. So, if the guy wanted to play, then I’d play. After inspecting his wolves, he looked down at his fingernails as if I’d bored him. I wanted to storm over and slap that smug look off of his face, looking as he did like he already knew he’d won the game.

“Do you always play with your food first?” I spat, letting the stupid thought that swam repeatedly through my brain out into the world.

“Oh, I just love you,” he laughed.

Lex’s back literally rumbled.

“You are feisty,” he continued, ignoring Lex. “You think I play? Why, I’m just enjoying this moment and enjoying your pathetic attempt to save yourself with lies.”

“Lies?” I asked, taking on his same know-it-all tone.

“You do have magic. And, I’ve been told by one who practices that it can be nurtured until you grow into a full-fledged sorceress. Then you will be my pack’s salvation. We’ve waited for years for one of your protectors to screw up, to become emotionally attached. Now that he has…”

“Who’s lying now?” I interrupted him. “Lex loving or not loving me has nothing to do with your plan. You are just mean enough to use that against him. Your pack is weak, and for whatever reason, the timing of this has to do with you. You have something now that you didn’t before or you wouldn’t have chanced showing yourself to me, unless you were confident enough to get me or someone else like me. You really think that we don’t know that you attacked on a global scale yesterday. So back off the dumbass remarks about how we feel about each other, you ass,” I spat until my throat burned.

My voice fell short at the end as the truth of my words hit me again. Something had changed for them, and they were sure of victory or they would not have exposed themselves. Each one of us involved knew this for fact, even if we had no clue what the change had been. Unfortunately, they didn’t want me dead. I’d only wish I were dead once they took me, I was more than sure. If I had to mate with suit guy… the thought fell short with the turn of my queasy stomach.

“You are ever a smart one. I am going to enjoy having you for my own. Yes, we do now have something worthy of exposing ourselves for, a sorcerer finally fit to make one of you into our savior. Otherwise, yes, you are right, we wouldn’t have risked all of this. We had to be sure of the abilities of our guy before we started a full-out war with your people. We’ve searched a long time for such an ace in the hole, but before it has just been fun to toy with your wolf’s kind.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked, shaking my head at the gravity of my situation.

At this point, I wanted Lex to start talking more, or moving, or something. I touched his back, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he just stared ahead. Scared frozen, I couldn’t believe. Surly he was formulating some sort of plan to save me, us.

“Many things, my dear, and only you can fix them,” suit guy added.

With a mere wave of his hand, his wolves lunged at us in unison. Lex pushed me back into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. Stunned, I’d actually stumbled back and fallen on my amply padded rump. Angry now, sweating actually, I stood up to run toward the commotion I heard in the other room.

Opening the door, the fight seemed a mere game. The wolves had Lex surrounded in the middle of the room. They’d already tossed aside the new furniture so they could circle him. One jumped in at that moment, and Lex now showed himself as a wolf, too, and attacked back. Just as Lex gained the upper hand, another of the wolves jumped on his back and bit him. Not hard, but enough to soak a little blood into his fur. My wolf shook that wolf off, only to have another jump his way and roll him to his back. This wolf also got a bite in before my wolf threw him off.

I stood there, sick and helpless as they took turns taunting him, biting him, knocking him down, but always two on one. If he lunged to hurt any of them, there were four more to knock him back down or injure him in some way. Finally, at one point, my wolf looking tired but at the breaking point, he threw off one wolf into another wolf in the circle.

My wolf, fearless, dove on them both, and in seconds ripped their throats out. Two other wolves came and tossed him off. Before I realized what had happened, the wolves had divided us up. Down to four. Suit guy leaned against the wall, still human and seemingly uncaring. One of his wolves blocked me so the only place I had to go was back in the bedroom. Another had come to stand by the suit, using his body as a shield to protect the guy in charge. And, two stood on either side of Lex, making an angle with their bodies so he’d have to take them out to get through.

“What is this?” I screamed, startling even myself. It didn’t matter, though, as my heart already beat hard, and my entire body already trembled with some lethal mixture of fear and rage. My body’s reactions I swore would end me before they even got the change. I’d go down of a heart attack or breathing event before they could get what they wanted from me. I have to admit, the convoluted theory had some appeal, if only to make suit guy lose.

“Well, we thought it would be amusing to take your wolf with us, as well. You see, he has killed enough of our pack now that a little vengeance would be more than warranted, healthy for the continued moral of my pack. Which leads me to the start of that plan.” The man in the suit said as the wolves arranged themselves, keeping me and my wolf apart as this man walked to me.

I watched, trapped in my corner, as three of the wolves jumped on mine. He went down, pinned beneath their weight alone, so outnumbered, and so weak from loss of blood, as they had teased and played with him first. I hadn’t exactly understood the game then, but they’d meant to wear him down to a physical exhaustion born of numerous injuries, as well as exertion. All the bites, all the blood loss, all the fighting... he looked practically dead already even as his body continued to jerk to fight his way free with whatever he had left in him.