Shifter Alpha Claim 1-6 Omnibus (24 page)

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:
Corinna

Talyn escapes the Mutables to an enforcer safe house, and must decide between Merck and Drake—or does she?

Half a claim will not be enough to protect her from the Mutable who want to use her to strengthen their shifts. Can she allow a full claim and what it will mean for her future?

Or will her bid for freedom cost her more than she realizes?

Narah

I scream and Murphy winces. “Steady, love—just one,” he twists my arm and I swear blood leaks from my ears, “more moment.” He shoves the joint back into the socket as ashy tears dry on my face.

I take great, whooping lungfuls of precious oxygen as Aeslin holds me.

“Where's,” gasp, weep, swipe, “Matthews?” I hate the weak lilt in my voice.
Can't help it.

Aeslin drags a hand over his hair, ripping the strands from the hairband at his nape. “Narah...”

“Don't you
Narah
me!” I yell, staggering to my feet, my shoulder joint aching like a rotten tooth.

There's a big hole past the broken apartment door. A gaping mouth of glass, and shards of brick are crumbled around a half-missing floor.

Unbelievably, a pan of food sits in the center of the debris untouched.

I walk toward the door, and Aeslin jerks me up by my waist, before I even react we're down the steps and out on Philips. Talyn is on her back, apparently unconscious with a dragon shifter for a bed.

Matthews lays unmoving on the walk.

I jerk out of Aeslin's arms and run to him, falling to my knees.

“Don't you fucking die on me!” I scream, hitting him straight in the chest.

One eyelid pops open, squinting at me. “Stop hitting me.”

I rock back on my heels, sitting on my ass. “Don't scare me like that.”

Matthews sits up, brick, mortar and tempered glass crumbs fall off him as he stands. His meaty palm moves in front of my face and I release the shaky breath I've been holding, slapping my palm inside his.

He gently pulls me up, looking deeply into my eyes. “I don't matter, Narah.” His free hand flattens on my belly.

I burst into tears,
of course he does.

Matthews draws me close, and I grip his broad shoulders, hanging on for dear life.

I'm safe.

He's safe.

My eyes move to Talyn's still form.

Maybe not all of us are.

*

Jamie Duncan

That retard, Alex. Donkeys might be stubborn, but they aren't renowned for brains.

Can't get it right.

I push back into the shadows before one of the shifters scents me. Of course, being a Mutable is fine and good, if you can be in a form that's hard to scent. Reptile is the only one I've found that's worth a damn.

And that fucker Arden?
What a waste!
Masker and Mutable both. And he gives it up for pussy?

I shake my head. Now
that's
true single digit IQ choices there. I've got three torched Mutables, blasted by Alex's great handling of the grenade. He was supposed to take out
Drake
and the
Lycan—
the vamps would have been a bonus.

I cup my chin. Maybe himself too. After all, Alex had outlived his usefulness. If a torturer is all I need, then he's a perfect fit. Unfortunately, the larger picture is generally missed with his straw-filled brain. He and I are set to meet, it's the contingency plan if he survives.

Again.
I sigh.

Time to move.
The carnage of the street will eventually be cleaned up before the enforcer and her vamps need to be in their coffins for the day. She'll be unprotected while they rest.

A smile curls my lips. That female is definitely in the way of my purposes.

Using Talyn for what she can gain me—and other Mutables. Since she is Lanarre, she can strengthen our forms. Make each form as formidable as our default beasts.

Of course, that's a lot of sharing of one female. Just a lot of screwing by whoever needs their form spruced up.

Perfection.

I gaze down at Narah hovering over Talyn. I can hear her heartbeat from here. She's fine.

For now.

I cannot sense the beast beneath her. That makes the smile of cruelty I normally wear bloom to a full-fledged grin.

I love being me.

I move with stealth, my snake's body easily maneuvering down the back steps and out the fire escape I'd propped open earlier.

I lift the end of my tail, in case the rattles alert anyone to my presence.

Merck

I try to move. Can't.

A broken back will do that every time.

Fucktastic.

Why did I let myself relax? Why didn't I smell those Mutables? Lots of
whys
there.

Talyn's a distraction,
is the answer. I had her in sight, bred her—hell—I'd claimed her.

I'd even started to soften toward Drake—his role in this mess. Mainly because he was making sense. And, though I hated to admit it, she was safer with the two of us. I couldn't deny her blood origin. That she was both Lanarre and prehistoric.

But look where all my
reasonableness
had gotten me. Flat on my back in the middle of Philips Street. Waiting for the morning rush hour to squash my ass.

I scan the vicinity, just making out the shadowed hole of my apartment. A metal piece of window trim tips over the jagged edge of what used to be my floor before falling to the sidewalk below.

Moon.
This is so bad.

I grit my teeth against the healing fire as my body feverishly knits itself together. Gradually, I begin to feel my legs again. First my toes, then shins, knees and lastly, my thighs wake up with what feels like a billion pins and needles telling me that by Moon, I'll walk again.

Sirens wail in the distance like mournful wolves.

People start to come out on the sidewalks from the high rise, luxury apartments above the first floor commercial spaces. It'll be my luck that Turners and other supes will take this opportunity to do a little housecleaning.

Like dragging off a half-healed Lycan, and finishing the job.

I roll over, slapping my palms onto the gritty asphalt, and wheezing through the pain of moving before I'm fully healed.

I manage to position myself on my hands and knees. I automatically search for Talyn, remembering Drake doing a superman move through the glass. Tough bastard, I'll give him that. There, about ten paces from my position, low voices drone.

A knot in my chest loosens as I catch sight of Talyn. She is just sitting up, hand to head, weaving a little.

The rubberneckers converge. Humans in various states of dress with bright curious eyes, and no sense of self-preservation, begin to mill around, gawking, pointing and—taking out their pulse devices.

Can't have that.
This shit will be on PulseTube in about three minutes. The humans know about the vampires. An arm, full of scales that shine with dull rainbow fire, is trapped half-way underneath Talyn.

Humans aren't ready for the prehistoric.
I need to get him changed back to full human, and in a hurry. Even my quarter change form, which is about all I can manage with the amount of healing I had to undertake, is still noteworthy.

I sit back on my haunches, take a deep breath, and using my hands on my knees, I launch myself to my feet. My back shrieks, and I gasp through the pain. The fire of my healing feels like a cracking whip inside my body. Healing hurts sometimes worse than the injury.

I command my limbs to walk to Talyn, and beneath her—to where Drake lies.

I watch the enforcer, her mates and her partner try to convince Talyn to get the hell out of here.

She needs to. Like yesterday.

Talyn's light gray eyes, silvered by her partial change find mine.

“Merck!” she cries and suddenly my pain melts before the tone in her voice. All my body hears is its mate calling for help.

I stumble through the last vestiges of real healing and kneel beside her. My hands cradle her face.

Enforcer Adrienne meets my eyes. “She's sort of disoriented.” The enforcer looks like shit. Narah Adrienne also looks like she's been through worse. Tough broad.

“I say we leave this wanker behind.”

I look at the vamp. Tall, dark hair—black eyes. British. New vamp for sure. And my nose tells me he's somehow tied to the enforcer.

Adrienne turns to him. “Don't get a fang out of place over this, Murph. He laid you out to get to Talyn. No male is in his right mind when a vagina's in the equation. Everything goes to shit.”

I snort, the vampire mates chuckle.

True.

Adrienne glares.

Their laughter sort of dies like a strangled duck.

I move between them, and Narah silently moves away, I grab Talyn, lifting her off Drake.

Scales aplenty. “Let's get Drake out of here. We've got eyes.”

“Ah, don't mind that,” Murphy says, facing the crowd.

Human eyes stare at him.

Murphy stares back.

“Don't scoop out their brains, Murph,” Enforcer Adrienne says dryly.

Murphy turns around, winking. “Wouldn't dream of it.”

Adrienne rolls her eyes. “I'm grabbing dragon stud and we'll regroup somewhere else.”

Nighttime blankets the city, but it's soft, dawn is only a promise.

The vampires nod and without another word, Narah grabs Drake's arm and hoists him up. Three hundred plus pounds of dead weight.

Each one of Adrienne's mates take an arm. Adrienne nods in my direction. I lift Talyn, following them.

I spare a glance at my apartment, satisfied that my belongings are like those of everyone else's. They'll appear human.

We walk away just as the ambulance and fire truck arrive.

Murphy feeds the crowd what the story will be. Instead of the story it was.

Talyn

“Where's Drake?” I ask.

Merck shakes his head, practically carrying me as I'm tucked underneath his arm. “Enforcers have him.”

Is that even good?

I crane my neck, trying to locate Narah. I witness Drake being hauled by two, bad-ass looking vampires.

I remember my prejudice against the fanged ones from just a couple of weeks ago. Like everyone else when they found out about vampires, I was leery—prejudiced.

That'd all bled out the instant I was thrown into their world. Or—the world I knew about.

Now I
know
that we've been carefully “fed” the illusion that vampires are the only species besides humans. If humanity only knew what lurks around? It'd be chaos.

We're not ready.
I'm
not ready. Not that my emotional well-being matters. I am one now. Acceptance and belief aren't relevant.

I try not to think about Pooky—my office. Patients that need me—now what—shuffled to a partner who doesn't understand their history?

While I screw a werewolf and let a dragon lick me.

I'm the one needing to be committed.

“I smell your frustration, Talyn.”

I can only nod. I'm frustrated alright. About many things. Things that make me gnash my teeth because I'm not in control of my own life's path.

And these Mutable guys can't take
no
for a damn answer.

*

“Looks like we missed them.”

I gaze around the ransacked Final Enforcement office and tip my head back, letting it fall where it may. A stiff metal cross bar supports me and I'm fine with it. Just don't move me.

“Talyn?”

“What?” I say to the ceiling.

“Drake's going to be fine.”

I still don't move my head, rolling my eyes to the sprawled dragon. Thankfully, that skilled tongue of his is currently inside his mouth. I don't really need to be thinking about where it's been at the moment.

I shut my eyes.
All this is my fault.

Enforcer Adrienne walks over, her face looming into my line of sight. “This isn't your fault.”

My eyes snap open.
Telepathy?

Her luminous silvery-grayish eyes hold mine. Tears run down my cheeks, and all I can do is shrug.

Nah, just empathy. Maybe one in the same.

“Listen,” she sinks to her haunches, giving a look to the other vampire enforcer who's still here that clearly says,
don't say anything.
She pats me on my arm.

“You're not the best at this comfort thing,” I comment in a dry voice.

She smiles. “Yeah, but I like to give it a shot.” Her eyes shift away then come back to mine. “Like I said before, penis plus penis
plus
vagina equals problems.”

My laugh chases away the tears.

Adrienne smiles. “See? You need to look at it with more simplicity instead of taking this entire hybrid thing on as something you could have avoided through decisions or choice. There just isn't any.”

“Speaking from personal experience?” I ask.

She gives a grave nod, her tattered braids swinging forward. “Absolutely. And it sucked. I wish I'd had someone who told me what was what.”

“Narah?” the vamp calls.

Adrienne narrows her eyes. “What? Can't you see I'm trying to—”

“Make things worse?” the vamp asks.

I come to her defense, “She's okay...”

“Murphy,” he supplies.

“I just need to know that Drake will be okay, Murphy. And I'd like to go home, and see my cat—figure out my job.” I twist my hands together, hanging on by a thread. Just mentioning all those things that were familiar and comfortable puts a golfball-sized lump in my throat.

Adrienne's hand squeezes my arm and I wince.

She gives me an apologetic expression. “Sorry, keep forgetting my own strength. There will be time for that. The cat's at my place.”

“I'm sure those mates of yours love the feline,” Murphy says.

Narah gives him another look of borderline dislike, and he tosses his palms up in mock surrender. “Jesus, girl—relax.”

“You have Pooky?” I ask, biting my lip.

She turns back to me and nods, snuffing out the ghost of a smile. “Yes—Pooky is fine.” She sends another dirty look to Murphy. “And for the record, your job
will
be there. But we need to agree that humans aren't ready for the rest of the supernatural world. I can barely keep up on the illegal humans. However much I'd like to personally toss the information out there anyway. I say let the humans figure it out. I'm fucking tired of keeping secrets regulated from the top from people who don't understand it.” She sighs. “Honestly,” she stands, pacing a few steps away, “I almost said no to your case. It was your hybrid status—which we won't be able to keep under wraps much longer—that made me say yes.”

“And now you wish you'd said no.”

The enforcer dips her head and gives a single nod. “Sort of, can't lie—it's been a bitch. But if we can pull the dragon through, and your Lycan here,” she jabs a thumb at the silent Merck, standing by the window in apparent guard-mode, “and can get you somewhere safe, my services won't be needed and I can close this case.”

“A relief for all,” Murphy mutters in the background.

My brows pull together, and I gather myself together, sitting up. “What's keeping it open?”

Narah gives a pointed look to my borrowed and ruined guy wardrobe. “You're not safe. You're being pursued. That Jamie Duncan moron is behind a lot of it. Now, if someone could give me answers about why a partially mated hybrid Lycan female is still being sought—I'd love that. Because it doesn't make sense.”

“Arden could have,” I reply softly, and I can't stop the quaking of my lip this time. His death is too new, too fresh. His absence is a void like a wound that won't close. Drake was the vehicle for his death but Arden was the driver. Wrong place and wrong time for him were inevitable.

Those facts don't make it any easier for me to cope with his loss.

Narah studies my expression. “I know he was—killed. We had the best cleaner on that thing. Can't have the human police catching wind of an entire hive of Mutables.”

Unmarked grave.
I jerk my face up, fighting weeping. “They refer to themselves as a colony.”

Adrienne shrugs a shoulder, flipping her charred braids behind her shoulder. I notice the abrasions along her arm that make it look like chewed hamburger and swallow my gorge. “We use hive for those guys.”

“Drake isn't a Mutable,” I whisper.

“He was trying to pass—see if he could sniff out a prehistoric female before a Mutable could use her,” Merck adds, never taking his eyes off the glass and the window he looks through.

“I need to get out of here, Narah,” Murphy says anxiously.

Narah sighs, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Yeah.”

“Where are the two other vampires?” I ask.

“They went home. Dawn is coming.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You don't have to?”

“I don't go to ground. I'm actually human enough to withstand sunlight.”

“I am
not
, however,” Murphy raises a brow.

Adrienne purses her lips. “Use the basement Murphy.”

He wrinkles his nose. “I loathe the smell.”

She stares, Murphy lowers his eyes. It is the strangest interaction I've ever witnessed. This tiny woman ordering around the huge male vampire.

“What's your relationship with Murphy?” I ask, and immediately understand censoring my curiosity would have been more polite.

Adrienne doesn't care about polite, apparently. She folds her arms, planting her boot clad feet wide apart. “I'm his sire. He was almost killed, I turned him by accident.”

That gets Merck swiveling to stare at them. “That's painful.”

“You have no idea,” Murphy comments with frozen neutrality.

Adrienne waves it away. “It is what it is.” Her voice is low, tender, and I give her a swift searching look, but her eyes are for him. “I didn't want to live without ya, Murph. So I guess that was in my mind when I sunk fangs. Can't take it back now,” she quietly recites.

She looks away as though uncomfortable with the confession, and Murphy comes to her, wrapping his arms around her. “You're a porcupine, love, but I do adore you.”

Adrienne wraps her hands around his huge biceps and they stand there for a few moments, hugging. His dark head bent over her platinum dread lock braids.

Merck and I look at each other across the room, over Drake's healing sleeping body.

He turns back to guard the window, and the street beyond without another word.