Shifter Alpha Claim 1-6 Omnibus (11 page)

Merck

He's Mutable—and a Masker.

Would have been great info to know before I ran into his conniving conveniently naked ass in Falls Park.

Of course, where would the fun of
that
be? Leaving me to face the shifters who were hound dogging on Talyn's scent.

But he can't scent-mask in every form.

The horse thing didn't work. Sure—it got Talyn away from me, and to safety quickly. However, it's only a matter of time before my Lycan nose smelled barn and here I am.

Standing in her open back door.

I flick my eyes around the immediate environment, notice that Adrienne and company cleaned up the majority of the shitstorm we left behind and hear Arden trying to get in my change's pants.

What does she mean why she can't just stay a human? Who'd
want
to?

Stupid question. “Because you'll die,” I say plainly.

The pup gloves have come off. Arden and me are going to come to an understanding. Now.

He doesn't disappoint, reacting immediately, he lunges across the small space, talons in whatever form he's just chosen sprouting like knives at his fingertips.

“No!” Talyn screams in her throaty contralto. Her voice wouldn't carry if she tried.

I use Arden's momentum and toss him behind me.

He stabs his talons into my back and uses them like a fishhook.

I arch forward in pain, my body flushes with heat, already feverishly trying to knit damage from a shifter gang bang twenty minutes ago.

I can't.

Then Talyn is there.

Arden jerks his talons out and I slump for a nanosecond, then spin, swiping my own razor-sharp set at him.

Furrowed and jagged marks streak across his naked chest and blood pours out of the wounds.

I swing back, readying to skewer his lungs when Talyn steps between us.

I check my strike with a curse, swinging away to give the momentum somewhere to go.

“Stop this, you fucking peacocks!”

Peacocks?

“Oh—wipe that dumb look off your face, Merck—or whoever you are! This is
my
home. Not a gymnasium for the two of you to wreck everything within ten feet!”

Arden touches her shoulders and she shrugs off his hands.

My eyes meet those of the Mutable behind her and I smirk. If I were human, I'd flip him off.

But I'm not and the games are over.

Talyn Phisher will transition. I am a Changer for her flavor of supe. “Just because Arden says he can transition you doesn't mean he's the best shifter for the job, Talyn.” I say it to her while I look at him.

She puts her hands on her hips. We both track her movements.

“God, you boys are all sexed up. Great. Listen to me and listen well—I am not a boss open for taking job interviews. I'm not hearing what you're saying. I trust what Enforcer Adrienne said: that I'm some kind of hybrid. But I'll be damned if I'm going to hump my way to being a werewolf.”

I spread my hands away from my body. “Talyn, this is the way it has always been done. A Changer finds a hybrid female whose human side has covered her scent. When she begins to degrade because her Lycan side is taking over, and trying to transition, your scent—and all those females before you, begins to attract those who seek it out. It's biology, not emotions.”

Talyn crosses her arms, glaring at us. “I am
not
ruled by emotions!” she yells and swipes a tear off her cheek.

Arden and I look at each other.

“Stop doing that!” she rants and walks away.

Her feline streaks past, hissing at the Mutable and me as it does.

“Pooky!” Talyn moans with relief.

Talyn flops down on the only piece of furniture upright and covers her face with her hands. “I don't want this.”

“There's no rewinds, Tal. We can't take away what you are.”

She looks to the Mutable, and his face is closed down like a drum. At least we're together on that.

“Don't
manage
me, Arden.”

He throws up his hands in the universal gesture of
I give up
.

“Talyn,” I begin slowly, “this isn't a game. You will die unless I transition you.”

“One of us does,” Arden glares at me.

“Is that true?” Talyn asks.

“Probably,” I admit. “But the Mutable has how many transitions under his belt?”

I know this answer—but Talyn doesn't. She needs too.

Arden gives a hard sigh. “None.”

Talyn laughs. “So you were going to what—practice on me?”

I grin.

She swings to face me and I wipe my face of expression. “And you!” she roars.

I scowl.

“You're nothing but a Lycan man-whore. You sleep with any female that needs the ʻchangeʼ. I'm just a notch in your werewolf belt. Nope,” she says, walking into her bedroom and tossing a small rollaway suitcase on a bed covered in a lacy, feminine quilt, “I'm not going to sleep with my ex-BFF who can change into a menagerie. Nor am I willing to just have sex with some Lycan because he says lie down and spread ʼem.”

She punches clothes inside the suitcase.

Arden gives me a helpless look.

Okay, maybe this will work. I stride behind her, sliding my arms around her waist.

I press my mouth to the soft spot where her neck meets her shoulder.

Talyn struggles.

I bite down and she moans, throwing her head back against my other shoulder.

“Stop,” she says. The word is
no
but her body is throwing off
breed me
hormones like a freight train.

“God, stop it,” Arden says.

My eyes flick to his and sweat is beading on his face. “She's too ready. I can't hold back.”

I narrow my eyes at him.
I'm not sharing.

Arden's gaze challenges me as Talyn rubs her ass cheeks against my raging erection. I give a painful shift of my prick and it settles in the crack of her ass.

Not
an improvement. The placement makes my control worse, not better.

I growl against her shoulder, asserting my dominance as a male Alpha Lycan. It's a last resort in an effort to evoke compliance.

Her animal should recognize mine. See that I'm here to help, to ease her.

Arden moves in a blur to her front.

Our eyes meet and I growl against her flesh.

Talyn whimpers.

She's mine. I feel her animal submit. I scent her readiness. Her degradation to Lycan is near. She's ripe for the taking.

Though I need her assent.

“Talyn, look at me.”

I can't see her face but I know Talyn is responding to Arden's command when her chin dips from its perch on my shoulder.

“Let us help you,” he whispers and his hands move to cup her breasts.

She moans and our pelvises both arch toward her in response—toward her sex.

I can't take my mouth from her shoulder until she gives consent. Which means I can't tell Arden to fuck off.

The Mutable thinks he'll have a ménage à trois with my change?

He's mistaken.

“Yes,” she answers with a thready sigh.

I shudder in relief, and my teeth release her flesh. Perfect indentations mar the smoothness of her upper shoulder, though I didn't break the skin.

Stealthy creeping erupts from the hallway. Arden's eyes flash to the source.

The shifters who I gave the slip have arrived.

A languid Talyn hangs between us. Ready for transition. She would take any male in this state.

With the Mutable's help, I put her there.

A huge Lycan male crosses the threshold into her bedroom. “We'll take it from here, dogs.”

He smiles, his many rows of teeth glow softly in the dark bedroom.

I lay Talyn on the bed and loosen my hands, crouching low.

They won't have her.

I don't look behind me to see what Arden's doing, but I hear the crunch of bones shifting. Tendons snap wetly as they realign into a form of his choosing.

He'll take me out of the equation while a mutual enemy threatens Talyn.

But he doesn't. Arden charges the shifters.

As a grizzly.

I leap into the fray, fangs bared.

THE END

SHIFTER

An Alpha Claim Brief-Bites® Novelette

New York Times
Bestselling Author(s)

MARATA EROS

TAMARA ROSE BLODGETT

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2015 Marata Eros

Copyright © 2015 Tamara Rose Blodgett

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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Cover art by:
Willsin Rowe

Proofed by:
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Talyn finds herself in a compromised position—literally.

Having escaped the supernatural battle raging inside her house, she falls into the wrong set of arms, and soon finds herself alone in a prison constructed of Mutables; a group of shifters that can change into virtually any animal. They too, have a limited female population.

Talyn doesn't care.
She refuses to become the Lycan Merck and Arden insist she'll become, though her beast is clawing to escape.

But a revelation about her lineage makes becoming a Lycan a surety, rather than a choice. The question that haunts Talyn is: who will transition her? Friend, foe—or lover?

Talyn

This
is my life.

Yup.

Fighting among supernaturals while they devastate my house.

Check.

Pooky MIA.

Check.

Swollen female bits making me absolutely crazy.

Double check.

A roar fills my ears and I want to flinch, but no part of my body moves. I'm languid, as my house is coming down around me.

Plaster dust fills the air in a cloud and I cough.

Blood splatter flies over my head as it dots the ceiling above my head like paint thrown from a can.

I try to come to myself but I'm numb.

All I remember is Merck's teeth in my shoulder—Arden's hands on my breasts.

Paws.

I giggle, and on some level I understand I've moved into hysteria. Any woman would be after what I've been through in the last day.

Tonight I found out I'm sort of a werewolf. And a human. And a counselor.

Like a tootsie roll with a gooey yummy center.

I bark out a laugh and get a case of the hiccups for my trouble.

Pooky sprints into the room, hopping onto my chest. My breath whooshes out of me and I'm fighting.

Fighting for my sanity.

Fighting the new instincts that rise like vapor from a boiling pot deep within me.

A raspy tongue runs over my nose. Golden-green eyes blink raptly into my own.

I wake as though from a dream.

Growls, and a horribly wet sounding, rubberband-like snapping has me sitting up in my bed squinting into the haze of dust and debris.

My nipples tingle, my crotch feels like a soaked donut.

I need to get out of here.

Fur flashes in my peripheral vision and Pooky lets out a squalling meow that lets me know she's ready to vacate.

I scoop my cat, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and eye the window.

I stand carefully, inching along the narrow space between my bed and the wall that holds the window, praying that all the shapeshifting zoo behind me is too busy to notice their prey is making a getaway.

Half-changed bodies blur in my periphery, talons slashing into torsos with mottled hair and shredded flesh.

I gulp back my fear.

I turn my back on the melee, flipping the latch and open the double-hung window. It slides up and I punch the screen out.

Pooky accidentally claws me as she escapes through the hole I just made.

Thank God—
she's safe.

I don't bother to wipe the blood from my arm, scooting through the opening in the brittle screening.

A hand latches around my ankle and I kick back with everything I have.

I connect and a howl erupts, the grip vanishing.

The urge to pee suddenly burns. I scoot out, tumbling into the shrubbery. Thorns embed themselves and I wince, thrashing my way out.

Scrambling out of the bushes, I lurch forward. Sighting the fence, I  race for the six foot tall slats of wood like shadowed soldiers bordering my property.

I never even consider the gate. I grab the rough wood and hook my toe on the cross member, ungracefully heaving myself up and over. The fence groans at the abuse but holds.

Unfortunately, I don't fly over the top, I fall—the sidewalk rushing to greet me.

But strong arms find me instead.

Jamie Duncan gazes down on me with a look that cannot be classified as anything but triumphant.

“Gotcha,” he says softly.

A beat of time thumps between us then I'm smashing my elbow into his nose.

He drops me, and I crab walk on my hands and knees.

Can this get any worse?
Whacko stalker
happens
to be outside my house while the shapeshifting zoo beats the beejezus out of each other?

I can't make this shit up.

I flip over and begin to stand. His foot plows into my ass and I fly forward, chin hitting the cement in the rawest abrasion I've ever suffered.

“Ow!” I cry, my hands covering my abused chin and shredded cheekbone.

“Bitch,” he seethes from behind me.

I roll onto my back as his hand looms over my neck in an effort to drag me to him.

My foot slams his nuts and Duncan goes to his knees.

I roll to my side, shoving off and struggle to my feet. My blood litters the ground like dark polka dots on the pale concrete.

Staggering, I don't look behind me, and begin a limping jog down the street. My eyes latch onto the barely lit Family Dollar Store sign like a beacon.

They're always open.
I'll just plaster myself to the front door. Maybe all the shapeshifters will take pause.

Instead, I fall like a felled tree, someone's arms wrapped around my legs.

I manage to arrest my face bashing into the concrete again my a millimeter.

Jamie Duncan roughly throws me on my back and cups my sex, brutally squashing the tender area.

My raw scream shatters the night.

“Shut the fuck up.”

His slap slams my face into the concrete, conveniently chewing up the unmarred side of my face.

Great, didn't escape the Beating by Cement after all.

I groan, my vision tripling.

Harsh panting is all I hear. His rancid breath fills my nose.

I cough, trying to beat him back with my fists.

When he hits me again I can't hang onto consciousness, my vision swimming from the dual blows.

Like grabbing for smoke, wakefulness escapes my grasp.

Blackness moves in, swallowing me whole.