My Alphas: The Complete Series (24 page)

“We need to kill the Turo pack. Then we can handle Utson. We should use planes with guns to put down those mangy dogs.”

Edon pointed the stick to the ground and Rey saw he’d drawn a crude map of their territory.

“Where will we get planes?”

Edon looked up at him and Rey saw his eyes were bloodshot.

“We’ll steal them. And more guns too. We have to protect her.”

Rey was tempted to agree with him, although he knew Edon was still under the trailing edge of the curse. But the desperation and fury in his friend’s voice was something new, something dangerous and he’d the feeling if he said yes to killing the Turo pack Edon would almost want to run off then and there to do it.

“Go inside and sleep with her. We can return in a few hours,” Rey said.

Without replying, Edon dropped the stick in the dirt and walked into the den.

Rey looked down at the map. Edon had drawn two large crosses over both the Turo and Utson territories.

Worse than that was the stick he’d been holding. It was sharpened to a vicious point.

Ready to stab.

Ready for blood.

Ready to kill.

And what did he mean about
more
guns?

*

Vara had explained to Edon what the mating curse was like for males but truly no words could capture the overwhelming power of it.

Edon had been drunk in his life, including to the point of blacking out (courtesy of a stolen bottle of high-proof brandy he and Rey had shared) but it didn’t compare to the madness that had overtaken him.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her, looking at her, touching her, wanting her. Then a gap of nothing would hit. He and Rey mated with her and in another moment he was in the forest, killing a boar. He dragged it back to the den and there was another skip and he was bathing in a stream.

Cass, her lips, her curves, the taste of her skin, the feel of her nipple in his mouth.

The days and nights had blurred together and Edon honestly had no idea how long it had been. He was covered in scratches and bites, some scarred over and healing so it had to be more than a few days.

Edon found himself sitting at the entrance of the den and Rey passed him in wolf form, growling before disappearing into the trees. Edon felt a burst of rage, as though he’d like nothing more than to peel the skin off Rey’s body, pour his blood out on the ground. Then that impulse passed but his thoughts turned darker.

Carcer, who he hadn’t seen in years, featured heavily. He imagined fighting him, snapping his human hands off between his jaws, making him beg for mercy that would never come. The thoughts darkened. Throwing him down a pit and burying him alive. Spikes and fire. A wire and a knife.

“Stop it,” Edon mumbled to himself but the thoughts kept coming.

He saw himself creeping into town and murdering humans. Finding all those werephobes and executing them one by one. Slicing their weak bodies apart and leaving them dismembered around the town as a warning.

Even as he followed these dark thoughts, some other part of him was telling him this was the last tendrils of the curse.

Some time passed and he caught himself rocking, staring down at the ground having thoughts that weren’t about Cass or dark murder. He wondered if the pack were okay and then realized he was thinking again. The calm reasonable side was returning.

Edon glanced at the map he’d sketched in the dirt.

No matter how reasonable one side of him was, it was lying.

There would be no peace without war.

*

Cass woke up feeling the intense desire to pee. She leapt out of bed and then reassessed her speed when a wave of lightheadedness hit her and the room swayed.

“Urgh,” she said, taking deep breaths.

Edon was asleep on the bed, frowning in his sleep as though his dream troubled him. As she observed him she felt a throb inside her as her bladder protested.

“Okay, okay,” Cass whispered and hobbled over to her dress in the corner. It was filthy and had a rip up the side but was the only thing she had to wear. She slipped it over her head, ignoring the smell, and walked outside into the midmorning sun.

She found a tree to pee behind and then walked back to the den entrance. The short trip had done her good, helping throw off the heavy fog that had been living in her head. For the first time in days, she could think straight and pay attention to what was around her.

She’d been out of the den here many times but was seeing it anew. There were footprints in the dirt, human and werewolf. The sky was a clear blue with a lone cloud floating by. She knew behind the trees to the left there was a stream.

With every passing minute she awoke and now it seemed muscles in her body were registering their most serious complaints. Her knees were aching and her hips were bruised. She had bites and bruises all over her. There were scratches on her arms she didn’t remember getting and she saw dots of blood on her dress.

Cass rubbed her eyes, wiping away the last vestiges of sleep and tried to remember the last few days. Vague memories of biting, her teeth in Rey’s arm, the thick meat of his shoulder, the intense desire to tear into it. Calling Edon to bed, sending Rey out to hunt. Sending Edon away, pulling Rey into her. Sending both of them away so she could sleep.

It was like trying to remember a drunken party night. She got the clear impression the Alphas were dominant, absolutely. Powerful and strong and totally in control. At the same time,
she
was powerful and strong and in control. How confusing.

Cass stood there in the sunlight, not thinking, just allowing herself to wake up and spend some moments not eating, sleeping or fucking. She looked around the clearing, hearing some distant birds chirping and then saw movement up on a ridge.

Rey, she thought and then the black wolf moved and a cold jolt went through her. It wasn’t Rey.

Cass turned on the spot and hurried inside, calling out to Edon.

*

Rey sniffed the air, catching the scent of unfamiliar werewolves and repressed the urge to growl.

They moved through their territory, Cass riding on Edon’s back, Rey scouting ahead. This time though, he didn’t run out of sight. If they were to be attacked, he and Edon needed to be together to protect Cass.

Rey counted four werewolves but suspected there would be at least six. A Turo hunting pack who were either fantastically lucky to come across them or part of a systematic search. Two black wolves, one brown and one gray.

He spotted a flash of movement ahead, gray fur, and clenched his jaws so hard his teeth hurt. Invaders in their territory! Rey didn’t bother looking behind him at Edon. He was even less calm, cold fury radiating off his body.

They’d had a brief argument back at the den. Edon wanted to fight that instant, to rush off into the hills alone and slaughter their enemies wholesale. Rey had pushed at him, holding him back from running off and then Cass had stepped in, placing her hand on Edon’s chest, moving close to him, whispering.

“Take me home,” she’d said and Edon obeyed.

They were getting closer to home, almost at the point where a good howl would bring pack members running. Rey was holding back on that though - perhaps the rest of the Turo pack were waiting for the werewolves to split up so they could sweep in and kill their divided pack.

Rey turned his head and looked at Edon, the unspoken bond between them telling the tale. Enemy ahead, I’ll deal with it. No answer from Edon was needed. Rey moved ahead, gathering speed. There could be anywhere between one to six werewolves hiding amongst the trees and bushes. No matter the number, speed helped.

By the time Rey reached the spot he’d seen the gray flash of fur, he was at full run. Despite his speed he saw the plan. The gray wolf had allowed himself to be seen, hoping to draw Rey’s attention to the right. To the left, hidden behind a boulder waited another werewolf, ready to attack from behind.

Rey sprung the trap, turning to the right and exposing his back. Instead of running into the bushes though, he skidded to a stop and without looking, kicked behind him with his two powerful hind legs. He felt the satisfying crunch of ribs breaking as he hit the attacking werewolf in the chest. The shock of it thudded through him. He heard the wolf crash to the ground and then give a short gasping breath that sounded wet. Broken ribs, punctured lung.

The barest of moments passed before the gray werewolf appeared from the trees and attacked, running at him with blistering speed. Rey lunged forward but didn’t have the speed the attacker did. They collided with an enormous crunch that jarred him to his bones and sent a burst of white stars shooting across his vision. The gray wolf snapped at Rey, catching his shoulder, sinking his teeth in. It was a poor hold though, not deep enough and not enough meat. Rey twisted, feeling his flesh split and the gray wolf had no time at all to register his shock at such a move before Rey sunk his teeth into his throat and bit down.

There was a gap then, Rey tasting hot blood and then he was standing over a brown werewolf who was gasping and coughing, trying to crawl with four broken legs and a crushed chest. Rey turned, seeing Edon in wolf form nearby, his jaws wet with blood and Cass behind him, pale and covering her face with her hands.

Then another gap, this time seeming longer and then Rey returned to thought to find Cass on his back, Nia running toward them calling out her name.

He looked around but Edon was nowhere to be seen.

Cass dismounted, half-sliding off his back and falling into Nia’s arms. Rey shifted and turned to her. She was shaking as though she were cold, her face white.

“Cass,” Rey said, reaching for her before noticing he was drenched in dried blood.

“No,” Cass cried, stumbling away, Nia by her side.

Rey turned and looked back the way they had come. No sign of Edon.

What the fuck had happened?

*

Cass could only focus on her breathing as Rey ran ahead. The rest of her was frozen, ice collecting in her veins, a cold spike driven through the heart of her.

A tiny part of her whispered
it isn’t the same
and she knew it to be true because this time she was protected by two strong Alpha werewolves but the body was dumb, a foolish thing that saw blurry outlines and declared it to be identical.

The last time she’d felt this ice was the final day she’d seen her mother. She’d been drunk in the middle of the day, pawing at
his
arm to come to the bedroom up one end of the trailer.
Him,
Kyle NoIdeaWhatHisSurnameWas. Cass at age eighteen mentally called him Kyle FatFuck and ignored him as much as she could. He was just past forty but carrying the age and health problems of a much older man. He drank and smoked and ate them out of house (trailer) and home and for some dumb reason her mother had stuck on him, the most recent in a long line of losers since her husband had vanished. Cass didn’t know how they’d met. One day life was at its usual level of suck and the next she had some asshole telling her to look at him when he was speaking. Walked in like he owned the place.

She was drunk and he was drunk (on whisky and cola) and Cass was enduring, sitting on the tiny sofa, reading some book, trying to block out his comments and to ignore his looks. He’d made her a drink and she had to drink it, get over here and drink it, it won’t kill you, be grateful. Cass had refused once and then stopped answering. But he wouldn’t stop and her mother was getting upset, joining the chorus and so she took it, gulping it down, feeling the burn of alcohol in her throat. After that he’d stood up and allowed himself to be pulled away, her mother’s whining turning into a slurred mess of words as she stumbled up the corridor. As soon as the bedroom door slammed shut, Cass put her book down and started looking for her shoes. She could endure and block out a lot but no teenager needed to hear her mother fucking. She could feel the heat of the drink in her stomach, sending out waves of relaxation.

It felt like no time at all had passed but perhaps time was already distorting, blurring with infinite speed and then slowing to painful intensity. She had one shoe on, tying the laces and then she was in agony as he pulled her up by her hair. His hand was on her body, fumbling to pull her t-shirt up and then she was falling, toppling over to hands and knees and stumbling into their small coffee table, the stink of him all over her. She stood up and saw Kyle touch the side of his face. He was bleeding from two scratches that went from eyelid to cheek.

He was gasping air, snorting it in and out like a pig, his lungs straining under the immense weight pressed atop them. He was tall and wide and the already tiny trailer seemed to shrink around him.

Time slowed then, Cass seeing him look at the blood on his fingertips and then across at her. He was blocking the room and Cass knew if she ran for the door he’d grab her and she’d never escape. Behind him Cass could see the kitchen, the door and the corridor. Her mother’s bedroom was a mile away.

There was only one other direction. Out of the lounge and down the short corridor to her ridiculous “bedroom”. Cass supposed it was meant to be an office or den or something equally stupid and enticing for those renting a trailer to fool themselves into thinking this wasn’t the bottom nor near to it because, look, it has a home office! Cass’ bed was three pieces of cut foam layered atop each other and she had to sleep curled up on it like a cat. It had a tiny window that let in a pitiful amount of light.