Alphas on the Prowl (2 page)

“Don’t enjoy yourself too much, Marshall. You might have an aneurysm from all the excitement.” Trey remarked dryly from behind his left shoulder, jabbing him playfully in the ribs with an elbow. He was dressed in full batman regalia; complete with that black hat/mask with the bat ears sticking up which Bruce Wayne had somehow decided would be a suitable disguise for crime fighting in Gotham. It was nice to know there were people out with more ridiculous costumes than his own.

“I’d much rather be out patrolling. This city is crawling with demons tonight.”

Trey snorted. “And pass up on all the hot chicks here?”

Marshall rolled his eyes. “You mean the flamingo-woman standing over there?” He nodded towards a woman rubbing a body covered in nothing, but very strategically placed pink feathers, up against her partner on the dance floor. “She made a pass at me over an hour ago. I wanted to know what happened to her beak.”

“Dude, what is your problem? She’s hot!” Trey angled his head, no doubt trying to get a better view of her.

“Sure, if you’re into poultry.”

It was Trey’s turn to roll his eyes. “It’s a wonder you get laid with the attitude you’ve got. Maybe that’s why you’re so damn cranky. Oh, would you look at that. I think I may have just found someone of interest.”

Mildly interested, Marshall followed Trey’s gaze to the double doors thrown wide open at the front of the ballroom… and he froze. Stepping into the room on glittering, ice pick heels was a woman dressed in black leather. A halter-top lifted round, juicy-looking breasts, and wrapped around her torso in a series of crisscrossing straps, leaving most of it bare. Long, luscious legs were encased in leather pants that may as well have been a second skin for all they revealed of her curves. Her face was mostly obscured by the cat woman mask/hat she wore, complete with cat ears, but he could still make out her wine-red lips, glistening as her pink tongue darted out to lick them.

He inhaled sharply as his cock jerked fully erect, and cursed as he caught the scent of apples and cinnamon. A scent he knew as well as the back of his hand.

It was her.

“She’s off-limits.”

“What? Oh, come on. You haven’t looked at a woman twice so far tonight, and you ban me from this one? C’mon. She’s cat woman. We’d be a match made in heaven.”

“Off. Limits.”

“Gimme a—ohhh.” Trey’s eyes went wide, then narrowed with a crafty glint in them. “So she’s the one Maddox has been chewing you out about?”

“What?”

“Oh, come on, Marshall. Everyone with half a brain knows why Maddox took you off patrol this evening. You’ve scented your mate, and you’ve been so distracted by her you haven’t been able to do your job. Bet it’s all you’ve been able to think about lately. What I’d like to know is—why the hell haven’t you claimed her yet?”

“You know far too much about pack affairs for a human,” Marshall snarled.

Trey shrugged. “Comes from having a shifter for a sister. But you haven’t answered my question.”

Marshall sighed. “Isn’t it obvious, Trey? She’s a normal human woman who has no knowledge of our kind. There’s no way she would accept me.”

Trey chuckled. “That’s stupid, and you know it. What about Olivia and Cody? Or Griffin and Addison? We know so many shifter-human couples who are madly in love. Just talk to her, Marshall. Get to know her. Better yet, get into her pants. If she really is mated to you there’s no way she’ll be able to resist you, anyway.”

“I had no idea you were such a Casanova,” Marshall remarked dryly.

“I assure you, I come by it naturally.” Trey clapped him on the shoulder and chuckled. “Now, while you’re busy sorting out this dilemma of yours, I’m going to see if I can finagle flamingo-woman over there away from her dance partner. You’re not the only one here who’s horny tonight.”

Marshall didn’t even watch him go; his eyes were latched onto Isabella, who was being towed across the dance floor over to the refreshments by a redhead in a she-devil costume. Between the two of them they were turning male heads in all directions, and Marshall had to fight back a growl of possessiveness. Which was completely ridiculous.
She meant nothing to him.

Except that wasn’t true. Ever since he’d first lain eyes on her he’d harbored an unnatural obsession for Isabella Jameson. Something inside him had tugged and latched itself onto her when they’d locked eyes, and try as he might, he couldn’t make it let go. She was like a virus in his system—he thought about her every waking moment, and even more so in his dreams, which involved her deliciously naked, as he pounded his cock repeatedly into her while she screamed out his name, begging him for more…to never, ever stop. Those dreams never ended well, and he always woke with a raging hard-on that defied cold showers.

He could try to deny it all he wanted, but he knew Trey was right. His body wanted to do nothing, but claim her. He’d spent many nights on patrol wondering how she would react if he were to show up on her doorstop, intent on claiming her as his own. And then his mind wandered to her every move; how did she look when she was sleeping? What did she wear to bed? Does she wear those silky nighties, with those spaghetti straps that would fall so effortlessly off the shoulders? Or would her bare limbs be wrapped in nothing, but sheets, making it even easier for him to slide in behind her and wrap his arms around her as he slid his cock into her tight, wet pussy?

More than once he’d found himself unconsciously heeding his desires and heading back in the direction of the apartment complex, and had to forcibly pull over before he made it there. He had been foolish to think his Alpha wouldn’t notice just how damn distracted he’d been lately, and pull him off duty until he cleared his mind and actually did something about this…
problem.

He shook his head, watching Isabella talking to her friend by the bar. He never thought fate would choose a human to be his mate—he’d seen it happen to other werewolves, but no one in the history of his family had ever taken anyone other than another wolf for a mate. It was just his luck that he was going to be the first one in his family to break that line and choose a human mate.

Except it wasn’t exactly his choice.
  She was destined to be his, and no matter what he tried to do, nothing would ever change that fact.

“What the hell,” he muttered, setting his martini glass aside unfinished, and making his way towards her, closing the distance. “She’s mine. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

* * *

“I don’t think this was such a good —!” Isabella was cut off abruptly as Sandra shoved one of the chocolate cupcakes, decorated with orange-frosting jack-o-lanterns, into her mouth. She bit cleanly through it and had to quickly reach her hand up to grasp it so the other half didn’t fall onto the toes of the mile-high heels that her friend had given her to wear with the outfit.

“Sandra!”

She was
so
going to kill her when this night was over. Providing she could walk after all was said and done. Her arches were going to be killing her before this night was over.

“You’re ruining my moment here. I’m in awe. Just look at this place!” Sandra replied, her eyes wide as she scanned the room.

Isabella had been stunned by the beauty of the mansion, and hadn’t been able to stop staring ever since she’d set foot inside. She’d known whomever was hosting this party had to be absolutely filthy rich, but seeing was truly believing. It was a Grecian-style mansion, complete with Greek columns, and a pigmented gable that sat on a sweeping lawn overlooking the East River. It was something she’d expect to see on a Georgia plantation, not in the Upper East Side, and so her jaw had dropped when they’d stepped from the cab that she had shared with Sandra. She’d barely remembered to shut the door as they’d made their way up the path and into the house.

The inside of the mansion hadn’t been any less stunning. She’d had to grip Sandra’s arm as they’d crossed the marble floor of an elegant foyer, terrified she would slip and fall, or even worse break one of those icepick heels. She’d followed her friend up one of the sweeping, double stair cases that curved around the room, her hands gliding on the smooth wooden rail, and then went straight through a large, opulent pair of filigree brass doors into the ballroom.

She felt as though she’d been dropped into the middle of an historical novel, set in Greece—one that was into paper streamers, fake cobwebs, and decorative plastic lights. Chandeliers hung from the arched ceiling, casting a spectrum of colors over the black-and-white checkered floor. Eight-foot-tall bay windows lined the far wall, and there was at least two more sets of double doors, smaller versions of the one they entered through, flung open so guests could enjoy some fresh air out on the balcony. The space had to be at least four-hundred square feet—large enough to host at least five wedding parties, and it was crammed full of guests, all dressed in masquerade costumes—some elegant, many sexy, and a few that were downright ridiculous.

Shaking her head, Isabella swallowed the last of her cupcake so she could have her say. “Sandra, this place is too much for me. I’m not part of this world, and I don’t run in the same circles as you do. I’m an overworked, underpaid receptionist who has carpal tunnel and bad posture in her very near future. I feel like an total idiot.”

Sandra leaned an elbow against the bar, ordered a cocktail from the bartender, and Isabella shook her head as she studied her for the thousandth time with jealousy-green-hazed eyes. Squeezed into a strapless dress that came halfway up her thighs and were met by a pair of red leather boots, she was literally red-hot. A pair of horns was perched on top of her red curls, and a pitchforked dangled from one hand. “Honey, you have nothing to worry about,” Sandra assured her after she’d taken her drink from the waiter and sipped from the cocktail glass, nodding in approval. “There are so many men ogling you right now it’s no small wonder eyeballs aren’t rolling across the floor in our direction.”

“That’s just ridiculous.” Isabella replied, with a smirk. She was seriously glad for the pasties, though. If she hadn’t been wearing them, all those men supposedly ogling her would be seeing her stiff nipples pressing up against the supple leather of her outfit. Which brought her back to the real reason she’d agreed to come here tonight.

“Isabella, seriously, you should go introduce yourself to some of the eye-candy out here. You really need to get laid tonight, honey.”

Sandra didn’t even know the half of it.

“Sandra, baby!” A man, decked out in all black, swept toward them, a smile plastered on his tanned face. She pegged him as a Zorro by the wide-brimmed hat, the eye-mask/bandana that covered a good portion of his face, the black cape swirling around him, and the rapier sheathed at his side. It leant an air of mystery to what was already a relatively handsome man.

And despite the fact that she had a serious case of raging hormones, he did nothing for her at all.

“Oh, Pete! Is that you?” Sandra exclaimed with a flurry of hands that she threw around him. “That’s some costume you’ve got there!”

“You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Pete, this is Isabella, my dearest friend. Isabella, this is Pete, who we have to thank for getting us into the party tonight.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” Staying in character, Pete grasped one of Isabella’s gloved hands, pressed his lips to it, and then turned back to Sandra. “Care to dance?”

Sandra giggled. “But of course. I’ll be back,” she told Isabella with a grin, before following her masked man out onto the dance floor. “Get out there and have some fun!”

Good lord, but the woman worked quickly.

Suddenly, a large hand was resting on Isabella’s shoulder, and she felt a sudden jolt of heat.  The stranger’s touch was almost painful, shooting instant, debilitating need through her body. She gasped in shock as her knees threatened to buckle, wondering who it was that was causing such a similar response to what she felt whenever she saw Marshall. She quickly turned to face him.

He was tall. At least six foot one, with a built frame covered in a black waistcoat, white shirt, slacks and polished shoes. Over it all was a crimson cape with gold leaf design around the color. Of his face, she could only see firm, sculpted lips—a pasty-white mask hid the rest.

“Phantom of the Opera,” she murmured aloud.
Was she to become his Christine?
She shivered at the thought of him kidnapping her and taking her down to some dark basement, where he could spread her legs and have his way with her. Another rush of liquid heat pooled between her legs, and she had to bite her lip to keep from moaning at the very thought.

Marshall looked down at her and sucked in a deep breath as he was hit with a wave of pure, unadulterated lust. That proved to be a mistake, as her alluring scent of apples, cinnamon, and woman, only intensified his need for her. Worse, he could smell her arousal; the knowledge that her body was instinctively responding to the mating call made it hard for him to resist simply tackling her to the floor, stripping her clothes, and claiming her in front of the crowd. As it was, he knew there was no way he was going to be able to keep his hands off her tonight.

Just forget about the idea of self-restraint.  You’re claiming her tonight.

“Would you like to dance with me?” he asked instead, his voice nothing more than a growl that caused goose-bumps to crop up on her skin.