Alpha Breed: Werewolf Bikers (Sex & Violence Book 1) (3 page)

“I’ve heard stories that say the visions will become increasingly acute, to the point you’ll have to learn a few tricks as to how to filter it out sometimes. See when a human mates with a shifter, regardless of the genders of the two, the human has a significant chance of becoming a druid,” answered Roland before brushing the hair out of Brienne’s face to give him a full view of her eyes, “At least that’s what most of us call your kind, the name fits I think. There is power in our bond, and trust me it doesn’t happen very often.”

“After how easily you and your boys carried off three college girls from someone else’s party you can’t expect me to believe that shifters don’t mate with humans all the freaking time,” Brienne scoffed, and then playfully moved her hand down to cup Roland’s package, “No matter how awesome it was, and is about to be. I’m not done with you yet mister.”

“Fucking and being mates are totally different things,” growled Roland as his member began to rise to the occasion, “You see the knotwork of the world now that we are together, and I can smell the changes in your scent, in my own. We are mates, that goes deeper than any sexual encounter. Crazy shit like this happens with our kind, life is fast and hard, so we love just the same.”

“If I didn’t see and feel what I do I’d say that’s just a cheap line to get me in the sack again,” said Brienne as she began to work his shaft into its full hardness, “But the damage is done, and that is the fucking crazy part.”

“Damage?” asked Roland before he gasped pleasantly as Brienne crawled on top of him and guided his cock into her wet core.

“In case you forgot wolf, we went at it hard last night, and without protection,” Brienne breathed in his ear as the two of them began thrusting against each other in the growing light of morning, “Something has already taken root.”

Roland said nothing to that other than to snarl and use his arms to grip her waist and roll her over onto her back so that he could drive himself into her with more force.

“Yes wolf, I can see her growing inside me. I’m only nineteen, this should be something I’d freak out about, but I love her already,” moaned Brienne as her mate pounded her with increasing intensity.

“Life just keeps getting weirder and weirder, and I don’t want it to ever stop,” said Brienne before she cried out in pleasure, “But you’re going to have to earn it alpha. Howl.”

The shifter responded with a growl and thrust himself even deeper into his new mate.

ACT II

Brienne took a slow and deliberate deep breath and then exhaled it with intent. She was sitting up on her bed and in the process of giving birth. The druid woman was determined not to become the screaming cliché that one usually saw on television. No, she had every intention to deliver this magical child in the natural way, in the wolf way. In the large room every member of Roland’s pack was present, and in her nine months with the shifters she had grown to care for all of them.

They were a pragmatic people, deeply shaped by their life in the motorcycle club culture, and yet their wolf shifter natures shone through in all that they did, said, and thought. The druid pushed again and Iri looked up at Brienne with a smile as the baby began to emerge. Another breath and a push and the child wailed as she was brought into the world. Iri held the child to Brienne and the druid clutched the baby to her breast.

“We will now tell you, little Soren, the tale of your people,” whispered Brienne as she used a small towel and water to clean her baby while it nursed at her nipple, “It is your heritage, and has been spoken to the wolves of this world since the beginning.”

For the next several hours each of the pack members told their life’s story to the child, reinforcing their bonds with one another, and giving themselves to the baby who would grow to be one of them. 

ACT III

It had been four years since she’d been taken by the alpha shifter, and in that time Brienne had discovered she possessed powers of her own, far beyond the simple miracles of being a maiden to his desire and a mother to their child. She was a druid, one of the rare humans who manifested deep earth magic once mated to a shifter. There were only stories to guide her in mastering her powers, as it had been many years since a druid had walked among the shifter packs. She had worked hard to harness her abilities, and though they had borne fruit, the magic of the druids was at once a delicate and implacable thing.

Being the alpha’s mate was not all passionate sex and loving child rearing, though of that there was plenty, but Brienne also had pack politics to concern herself with. Their loose knit society was only bound by the control of the alphas over their packs, and no alpha was as strong alone as one with a druid mate at his or her side. The shifters called her the wolfmother, after a mythological figure from their tribe’s ancient past. Brienne assumed the role as best she could, solving disputes and issues with words and nurturing when she could, and leaving the violence to Roland when she couldn’t. So it was that Brienne found herself serving beers to Arn and his pack, who had arrived the day before, and tension was mounting the moment they arrived.

That was before the bloody insanity of the firefight…

Now she ran.

She knew that the wolf was deliberately slowing its pace so that she could keep up, and though it stung her pride, his presence was reassuring considering the foes that were stalking them. The blood on her face ran down into her eyes as she sweat from the exertion and the druid struggled to keep up as she used one arm to wipe her vision clear.

A deep howl carried through the misty laden forest and suddenly turned to a yelp of pain as several shots rang out in the night. Brienne came to a halt and leaned against a nearby tree to catch her breath as the wolf halted to sniff the air. She dared not speak to him, for fear that one of the hunters who pursued them would take notice. They had attacked so quickly and mercilessly that neither Arn’s pack nor Roland’s were ready for the death that came crashing through the doors.

Brienne had been in the main clubhouse with the rest of the two werewolf biker gangs, playing the part of the gracious host. Arn’s pack had arrived the day before, making a stop to pay their respects to Roland and Brienne. Brienne had learned that the shifters were at their core a nomadic tribe, most of them simply living on the road while the occasional pack, like Roland’s, planted shallow roots in one place or another for a few years before moving on. Partly this was out of a sense of pragmatism, as they were not only supernatural creatures that wished to remain only myth and legend to the mundane world of humanity, but also they were bikers.

Whereas Roland and his pack made their livings mostly as mechanics and custom bike builders, most of the other packs were part of the ‘one percenter’ motorcycle criminal culture. The outlaw life was well suited to shifters, as it turned out, the modern incarnation of wandering gypsy caravans and mercenary companies. Arn’s pack was a textbook example of that lifestyle, as they typically made their living smuggling various contraband. Brienne had to hand it to them, when Arn explained their business, it was a good racket and had an acceptable risk and reward relationship.

The main pack itself lived the outlaw life in broad daylight, and while the local authorities paid attention to the gang other members would drive non-descript sedans to haul contraband to and fro. They were never out of each other’s sight, though any highway officer or checkpoint staffer would be so fixated on the big scary biker gang that the sedan would slip right through. Roland did not approve of any of it, though he had his own pack to worry about, so kept his opinions behind closed doors.

When Arn had first arrived he and his pack claimed that they wanted to pay respect to the new parents and their shifter daughter, Soren, as she was a beacon of hope for many packs out there on the open road. Shifters could not breed with each other, and had to take human mates. Even then, most shifters and humans found it extremely difficult to conceive, as such Brienne and Roland’s daughter was quite the miracle. On the second day Arn asked for some custom work on his bike, which was a mixed message as far as Brienne could tell. In one sense, it was a token of respect that he wanted Roland to modify his bike, trusting the other alpha to take good care of his ride. On the other, according to Roland, it was an excuse to stick around longer.

That night Brienne could tell that conflict was brewing between Arn and his pack, and that tension threatened to spill over to Roland’s pack. Brienne had learned that it was never good to get a pack of shifters all riled up and hot blooded, because in general shifters liked a good fight and barely cared about the the who or the why. Brienne’s presence, especially now that she’d taken the time to harness her druidic gifts, had made her a kind of wolfmother to the pack. Arn looked to be having trouble controlling his people, and she began to wonder if the custom bike job was more a ploy to buy himself some time before being back on the road, as no shifter would challenge him for the alpha spot while on Roland’s turf.

The druid had put herself into the mix in the hopes of diffusing some of the energy, and for awhile that worked. The impromptu feast had resulted in bellies full of meat and mead, the clubhouse was awash in live music and bawdy storytelling, and in many ways Brienne was reminded of her first night with the shifters four years ago. Apparently Arn had been also, and the two of them found it difficult not to stare at each other, each catching the other doing it as the night wore on.

Soren had gone home several hours earlier with Tasha, a young female shifter who shared a motorhome with Roland and Brienne. The druid had a hard time at first living in various RV parks these last few years, though she had since come to appreciate the ‘tent city’ style vibe that such places had. She also did not worry so much about security and safety, as it only took Roland’s pack moving in to turn the RV park into their territory. Nobody, regardless of how criminal they might or might not be, was about to mess with the bikers. The pack had four motorhomes that they shared, so when they showed up they created their own little neighborhood wherever they went. That left plenty of money for the shop, bikes, and everything else.

When the first explosion hit and took out the front door nobody had a chance to react before the exit was blasted open. Armored men came crashing in through the windows to join those pouring in through the smoking doors, and all of them were pumping round after round into the shifters packed into the clubhouse. Brienne had been behind the bar pouring another round of mead for herself and a few of the shifters, so was able to reach the lever-action shotgun Roland kept duct-taped just under the counter. The druid didn’t hesitate, and the first round caught a gunman in the chest to knock him off of his feet despite not penetrating his armor. The second shredded the unarmored thighs and groin of another, who collapsed in a bloody heap.

Faster than she could believe Arn tore one of the hunters to pieces and hauled Brienne around the waist while he ran past her. Though the shifters were a race of supernatural badasses, they were expected to fight only in that they must flee by any means. From pack to pack this was one of the few laws that shifters universally recognized. They had to keep their existence from becoming a widely known fact, better to stay in the shadows of fiction and superstition.

From what Roland had told her there was a mega-corporation known as Raytheodyne, which in addition to being a major defense contractor for the United States military-industrial complex also held several subsidiary companies that operated as bio-engineering firms. The company had become aware of the existence of the shifters only in the last five or six years, and had decided to keep it quiet. According to pack lore the company seemed intent on capturing a live shifter, likely to exploit their unique DNA for one product or another. For whatever reason the unique shifter biology became inert upon death, and so a dead shifter was just another human corpse. This meant that the company had to take one alive in order to exploit the species, and to date they hadn’t been able to manage it. Attacks were few and far between, as the company seemed not to have yet found an effective tracking method, though when they happened it was a bloodbath.

No one wanted to imagine what the fate of any captured shifter might be, and as such it had become shifter law to avoid it at all costs. Capture was worse than death to a shifter, and as Arn carried Brienne and bashed aside another gunman the druid could see many of the shifters make their choice. Most fled, as the building was wide open thanks to the broken windows and blasted doors, so it was a mad dash for their bikes or the safety of the night. A small few, those already engaged, fought like berserkers to the bitter and bloody end.

Once they were in the hallway leading to the rear exit Arn let Brienne down and they ran for the open door. Womack was behind them, firing a semi-automatic pistol into the fray as he kept pace. Brienne knew it was hard for him to leave Iri behind, just as it was for her to leave Roland, but it was the shifter way. When the three of them emerged into the night a gunman who had taken cover behind one of the bikes fired on them. Womack took the brunt of the blast as the cloud of silver buckshot tore into him, though one did strike Arn in the meat of his forearm. Womack’s body was thrown back against the wall as Arn fell to his knees. Brienne fired once with the shotgun, though at the distance her shot pattern was spread thin thanks to the chopped barrel of her weapon.

The return fire did distract the gunman, who crouched back behind the bike, giving Womack enough time to empty his clip at the fuel tank of the bike. The man and the motorcycle went up in a ball of fire and shrapnel that knocked everyone to the ground. Womack was lying on his back and digging in his own flesh with a switchblade, and his screams were inhuman and deafening. She could have opened herself to her druid powers and done something for him, perhaps even saved him, though such things took time that they did not have. The sounds of battle continued inside, mixed with the roars of engines as shifters from both packs fled the scene. Arn groaned and Brienne helped him to his feet. The two of them fled into the path of forest just behind the shop. Once inside the tree line Arn had shifted rapidly into his wolf form, and the two of them pushed deeper into the dark woods.

Someone had just died out there, thought Brienne to herself as she silently attempted to remember how many shots she fired and what she had left. As it was she did her best to take slow and deliberate breaths, keeping the noise minimal as she relied on her training to intentionally lower her presently thundering heart rate. The wolf’s breath misted in the cool night air, and she saw his ears perk up and he jerked his head to the right as he bared his teeth in a silent snarl. Brienne followed the wolf’s eyes and saw that one of the hunters had been rushing to flank them, and though she could tell that the armored man had not seen them, he soon would.

The hunter was dressed much like the three others that Brienne and the wolf had made bloody corpses of back at the clubhouse before taking flight. She had no idea how many of them might be out there, considering the chaos they’d left behind. Likely many of them would be rushing to remove as much evidence of the recent battle before local and federal authorities arrived. The wolf’s hackles rose and he began crouching low to the ground, prompting Brienne to do the same, and then he began to slink towards the hunter. The man was wearing night vision goggles, though Brienne knew that such technology had its limitations, and though the man could see in the dark the wolf was a master of stalking prey. Brienne dared not move from her position, camouflaged as she was by a thick clump of wide-leafed ferns, though she began to draw upon her powers in preparation.

Druid magic was slow to rise when compared to the savage ferocity of shifter magic, though once in place it became as powerful as any other force of nature. Her body was like a hollow reed and the energy of the earth filled her as she called out to the land. The power crackled at her fingertips and she felt as if she was breathing pure light as the magic rose to meet her desire. As the wolf crept closer to the hunter Brienne used her mind to call up the symbols that would help her shape the raw power she now struggled to contain. The druid’s mind swam with visions of Celtic knotwork, symbols within symbols, and into that network she poured the energy. It had taken years of study and training to call the knots, to learn which symbol would channel the energy to what manifestation. Plenty of druids through the ages had burned out or gone mad because they had not learned the humble patience required for the deep magic of the earth. Brienne had that patience, even if she still struggled with the humility part.

The hunter began stalking in her direction, his face obscured by the night vision goggles and the matte black face covering that matched his modern body armor. In his hands the hunter wielded an ugly looking combat shotgun, and from recent experience she knew that it would be loaded with silver buckshot. While the hunters seemed ignorant of the druid, they had certainly come prepared to engage with the pack of biker werewolves.