“I could break you like a twig,” he whispered, hands clenching on her body. “Destroy you and toss you away where no one will ever find you.” He nipped her neck harder, a metallic scent wafting from the bite, telling her he drew blood. Fear spiked where desire had been before. “I could crush you under my body, take everything you don’t want to give, and there would be nothing you could do about it. You are weak, so very weak, compared to my strength.”
He pushed her into the wall, his body caging her in between a rock and a hard place. Gripping her chin and twisting her face to look at him, anger clouded his gaze. There was no softness there to find. She saw his parents’ death waiting there, crouching to strike her down if she so much as spoke. He growled low in his throat, the sound deadly and dark. She was terrified, the blood draining from her face, her pulse stuttering as she struggled to breathe. She felt the wheeze before it escaped her throat, felt the tightness in her chest. Fear, anxiety, loss, they always activated her asthma. She’d be on the floor in a minute. She clawed at her captor’s hand as she struggled to get the room to breathe.
“Jezzie?” he asked, his look turning to confusion. He canted his head sideways, listening, before his eyes widened and his mouth descended on hers. Sweet, hot, blissful air powered into her lungs from his mouth. She clung to him, her hands now shackling his wrists to her body. She swallowed his air until the wheezing stopped, the pain eased, and her heart slowed. Socha stepped back, tossing her away.
“Run,” was all he said before he growled at her again.
She didn’t wait, but turned on her heels and ran from the compound as fast as she could. She knew that Zelina was safe, that no one would dare to touch the Alpha, Beta, or the Lunar. She, however, was not that safe, and she would be damned if she ever stepped foot in that compound again.
Her heart was still racing when she pulled up to her home, stripped off her clothes, and climbed into the shower. It wasn’t until she was out of the water, drying her body with a big terry-cloth towel, that she realized the bite on her shoulder hadn’t gone away.
The End
Bought by the Alpha
L. Madison
Chapter One
Angel Falls, Idaho
Wyatt
In front of me was a suburban house that looked just like a million other suburban houses. It wasn’t the same as the others on this block, though. All other houses had bickering couples, blaring televisions, and children checking closets for an early glimpse at what might later be found under a tree.
This house held evil wizards, their human cronies, and a news reporter they’d blatantly kidnapped out of my cousin’s territory and unwittingly brought into mine.
We had no idea what they wanted with the human female, but if wizards wanted her so badly they’d snatched her up in broad daylight, then chances were we needed to get to her fast. I’d tapped Nyria, one of my top fighters, to join in. My brother West came along for the ride, too, because if there’s anything he likes more than patrolling on a cold winter night, it’s killing wizards on a cold winter night. Luke was playing getaway driver and techie in the dark van parked a block away. Four of us total tasked with Operation: Save Reporter.
Images my cousin had sent me of the missing reporter showed a human woman with long red hair, a confident smile, and green eyes. Stats said she was twenty-eight years old, five-seven, one hundred and thirty-odd pounds, and was mildly allergic to wasps and walnuts. I hoped that Ms. Brigit Rayna was as poised as she appeared to be in her professional headshots, or she might not survive for much longer.
In a few minutes, we’d strip off our clothes, hide them in the surrounding forest, and attack. After shifting, we would lose our ability to talk. Seemed like a reasonable time for a pep talk.
“Don’t fuck this up,” I said to West and Nyria.
Nyria rolled her eyes at me. “Thanks for the constructive advice,” she muttered. She was always all snark until the fangs and fur kicked in. Then she was all rage. My cousin used to give me shit about letting a female shifter fight, so when he last came to visit, I gave Nyria a little heads up about what he said to me behind her back. He’d barely set foot on my territory before she’d had him flat on his back with her teeth a hair away from his throat.
Needless to say, I was no longer given shit about that.
West paced back and forth, mumbling our plan of attack under his breath.
“Any questions?” I asked.
“How many do we keep alive for information?”
“The reporter. Maybe one of the bad guys—but leave that to me. I need the two of you to just worry about the reporter.” I stretched my arms out, feeling the heavy muscles roll and clench. Soon they’d twist and contort themselves until they were even stronger, even deadlier. And then I’d hunt. Kill. Do what I needed to do as Alpha to keep my shifters alive.
We waited a few more minutes, until the neighbors on one side of the house had turned off their lights and gone to bed. The humans on the other side were on vacation.
“Now?” Nyria asked.
In response, I tore of my clothes, skin instantly pebbling in the below-freezing temperatures. Shifting hurt, but it was a sort of pleasure-pain I’d long gotten used to. Anticipated, even. It took less than a minute for me to shift, although in emergencies I could do it even faster. Next to me, two more sets of clothing hit the ground, and two more wolves appeared, sitting, awaiting my final signal.
As temperatures dropped, our fur kept us warm. As our powerful forms started stalking forward, closer and closer, our enemies dined in high spirits, secure in their little suburban hideaway and confident that no one knew they were there. They’d set up several decoy groups traveling with a fake prisoner heading elsewhere, and were painfully confident in their ruse. I stopped moving forward and flicked my tail, signaling for West and Nyria to do one last patrol.
Let them eat. Let them drink. It would be their last meal.
Three shifters versus eight.
They didn’t stand a chance.
I didn’t move a muscle as West and Nyria came back, my keen eyesight seeking any unnatural movement around in case they’d been spotted. Nothing. My brother’s fur was as black as the shadows, and Nyria’s silver as snow. Both blended in, designed to hunt. To kill.
There would be plenty of that soon.
Two sentries at the front door, two in the back. Front door had humans, the back door, wizards. Five inside—three wizards, two humans. One in league with the wizards, the other the prisoner.
The sentries checked in on their walkie-talkies at the same time, as they’d been doing every fifteen minutes the entire evening. It was half-hearted at best. There were cameras, sure, but no one monitored them. If there had been, one of the sentries wouldn’t have been napping on and off for the past half hour. No one expected an attack.
Fine with me.
Take out the sentries, break in, kill everyone except for one bad guy and the hostage. Luke, parked down the street, was ready to knock out the electricity across the whole block the second he heard the sounds of fighting. Our hearing was sharp enough that he’d be able to hear even if the humans next door couldn’t. Good thing humans were busy staying cozy indoors with the windows tightly shut, or already away for their holidays.
I bared my teeth in something only a fool would call a smile. Time to hunt.
Nyria and West took off low to the ground, writhing and slinking with the shifting shadows. I followed behind at a slower pace, ears swiveled to catch any unusual sounds. Soon I’d be sinking my teeth into enemy flesh. Feel it crunch as I hit muscle and bone. I lived for this, the thrill of the hunt, the kill, of methodically taking out one enemy after another to keep my pack safe.