Shifter Alpha Claim 1-6 Omnibus (25 page)

Duncan

I shake Alex by his long ears.

His braying howls are truly satisfying.

I speak through my teeth. “What part of blowing up the competition didn't you understand?”

He manages a gurgling cough and I drop him, dusting the small, nearly invisible stabbing hairs of his half-form's coat off my fingers.
Where is the damn soap when you need it?

My exhale is pure disgust.

“We
need
Talyn Phisher. She is Lanarre, and even the Lycan doesn't appreciate what that can mean to certain species.” My eyebrows rise with the significance of that fact.

Alex gazes up at me out of those ridiculously soulful eyes, blinking rapidly. “I
hate
being a donkey!”

My fists clench. “If you bray
one
more time, I'll kick those yellow cubes you call teeth down your throat.” I rake my hair back into place, and wrap it in a hair tie. “As I've explained half a dozen times, Talyn is key.” I wrap my hand in a fist. “
She
is what will make every form you have as relevant as your primary.”

“I
know
!” Alex wails miserably. “I didn't know Drake wasn't a Mutable.”

Neither did any of us.

“Yes,” I seethe. I whirl and he cringes, expecting another shake and bake. “We move. Now. While the vampires are asnooze in their coffins,  the diminutive enforcer and Lycan are the only obstacles in our way. It's war.”

“What about the prehistoric?” Alex asks from the ground.

I finger my chin, deliberating the ancient shifter sect. “I can't account for his presence.”

“Those prehistoric bastards give a shit about preserving the fairer sex.” Alex spits. He certainly isn't a fan of females. Only of their unique equipment.

I nod in response, but dismiss them as a threat. “The prehistorics are too few in number. He must have stumbled along, happening upon the location. And Drake?” I smile, joy swelling my chest like a beautiful peacock. Fairly soon, I will be able to keep that form as well.

Any
form.

Perhaps even prehistoric. The Lanarre werewolf is a chameleon. Not she herself, but a carrier of a very rare gene that can be passed on to those she is intimate with. We keep Talyn Phisher under lock and key, and Mutables take turns getting what they need.

It's really perfect.

And if a few prehistoric or vampires get in our way, then so be it. I turn my attention to Alex, still sprawled on the floor. “I have Mutables from the Pacific Northwest colony coming.”

“What about Drake?” Alex asks.

I shake my head. “He didn't look very lively from where I stood.” My eyes slim on Alex like razors. “However, he'd be much less so if the grenade had taken out the competition rather than our own kind.” Each word is enunciated to wound and maim.

The donkey flinches with each word.

Satisfying again
. Yet, I can't waste any more time on theatrics. I have Mutables to meet.

I have a dragon, Lycan and vampire to kill.

*

Noah

“If our healer puts a stitch in, your coat-of-steel will cover it within hours.” I slap Jacob's back and shrug.

He sighs, his tusks melting back into his face. When they're nubs of pale ivory they suddenly vanish. I've seen a lot of prehistorics shift but some of the rarer of us always startles.

“Weird, huh?” Jac muses.

I nod.

I lean my ass against the narrow desk that serves as work station, eatery, sleeping platform—and sometimes—though hardly enough, sex surface. I cock my head, looking at Jac. “What happened—besides the obvious?”

Jac will heal, though much of his body was burned by the blast and his tusks were charred, losing the tips. One of his eyes was half-detached.

Prehistorics are the fastest healers of all shifter species. Still, Jac sustained enough damage to give me pause.

“The fucking Mutable—”

“—the donkey?” I ask.

Jac chuckles. “Yeah. He pulled the pin.” He mimes a bomb exploding, his hands flying apart.

My eyebrows pop. “A grenade?” I whistle.

“Hard to acquire, right?” Jac shakes his head, pacing the room.

I spin, facing him. “Yes. Very.”

I can't believe a Mutable and a few of his buddies would be willing to bring that kind of fire power and exposure. Though the human news had covered it, saying the explosion was a gas leak.

Right.
And I have a tail and horns growing.
No—
there's something more. Something behind the scenes in play here. “Drake?” I ask.

Jac shakes his head. “Not sure. Too much going on for me to get a clear look.”

“What kind of look
did
you get?”

He doesn't speak for a few seconds but his face tells me. “Doesn't look good, Noah.”

“Alright.” I straighten from my perch against the desk. “The Mutables will try again, and Drake needs us.”

“Forget Drake. If he's bred the female that's great. But if he's gone—
we
need to protect her.”

“For ourselves,” I ask Jac, testing him.

He meets my eyes. “Hell yes for
us
. I don't know which one of us, but if Drake isn't her mate, and she's prehistoric—and I got that she was,” he pauses, letting his words sink in, “then we're honor-bound to assist.”

I nod and he continues, “She's already partially claimed,” Jac says.

“That's
not
good—it's the loosest of strings.”

“Agreed,” Jac acknowledges gravely. “So, the sooner the better.”

I nod. “Let's do it during the day when the vamps are nighty-night. I don't want to have to consider them.”

“What about that enforcer?” I ask.

“The female hybrid I keep hearing about on pulsevision?”

“Yeah.”

“Is she a hindrance or help?”

Jacob appears to consider. “She was acting like a protector from the little I saw.” His face gains a crooked smile. “That is, before her mate tossed her into the hall, and out of harm's way.”

“Ouch,” I say, scrubbing my face.

“Yeah, enforcer with a level ten proficient.”

I whistle for the second time.

“And pregnant too.”

My gaze snaps to his. “Really?”

He nods. “And the mates are in agreement with her working?” I scoff.

He shakes his head. “They may not know of the youngling.”

What a mess.

I walk to Jac, squeeze his shoulder. “The enforcer is ally or not. What is really important is she remains with Talyn, and surrounded by enforcers of near caliber so we must use—”

“Caution.”

I clap Jac on the back. “Exactly. Let's get our soldiers. Not too many.”

A slow smile curves Jac's lips. “I thought you'd never ask. That donkey pissed me off, he and his friends. I told you about the deer, right?”

My lips twitch. “I wouldn't tell anyone else if you don't want to spend the rest of your natural life living it down.”

Jac scowls, and I grin.

I contact the others to save Talyn Phisher—and Drake.

If it's not already too late.

Talyn

Beautiful peridot gemstones blink up at me as I take his hand. “Hey,” I say through my tears.

Drake's finally awake. This dragon that saved me from Duncan—from Donkey. I give a shaky laugh at the imagery, and realize my nervousness has no place to go but out.

“Let's get him in the van,” Adrienne says.

I remember she asked me to call her Narah, instead of Enforcer Adrienne. I blink, feeling like my thoughts are being sucked into the quicksand of my brain. “Okay.”

“Wait,” Drake says from his makeshift bed on the floor of the office of Final Enforcement. “Come here.”

I bend over him, and he pulls me against his body. It's no longer hard with scales, but merely firm with flesh covered steel.

That tongue—
it splits the seam of my mouth and only an agitated exhale from Merck keeps me grounded in the present.

Even for all my uncertainty, I feel the pull to finish what's between me and the dragon in my arms.

It's not rational. It's not the choice that the old Talyn Phisher would have made, but the impulse beats between us anyway.

“Okay lovebirds, let's shift the dragon inside here.”

I stand, moving away from Drake. My face burns with embarrassment as Narah and Merck count to three, hands fisting the blanket underneath Drake as they heave him on the final count inside a nondescript utility van.

Drake groans at the movement and my frightened eyes meet Narah's. She just shakes her head. “Let's get you guys to my favorite hidey-hole, and then we'll talk about the next move.”

Merck waits for me to get in and be seated. Narah hops in last, slapping the top of the van as our driver takes off.

Somewhere
safe
, she insists.

Hope flees, and in its place realism slides in.

*

It
seems
safe.

“Where are we?” I'd been blindfolded—Merck too, while Drake slept off his healing injuries. It felt like days to arrive. Narah says it's only been hours.

“The Hills.”

I hadn't been born and raised in Sioux Falls. I'd thought to pass through, appease my internship requirements when I first arrived. But then the place had bitten me and not let go. “Black Hills?”

Narah cocks an eyebrow. She's a hard case. Moving her jaw toward a small cabin nestled in a stand of fragrant pine trees she says, “Bunk down here. We'll figure out the rest.”

“Where will
you
be?” I ask.

Merck slides his arm around my shoulder and I melt a little against him. He and I haven't even had time to deal with having sex—the claim issue. It's all been surviving until the next catastrophe.

“I'll be around,” she says, twirling her finger.

“What about the vampires?” I ask, my eyes searching the day that dims toward night.

“They know where to find me. It's safer that you don't know where this place is. Safer for you—and anybody that might come after you.”

Our gazes lock, and I nod.

Drake steps out of the back of the van and stretches. Rippling scales swarm his form, his ears elongate, making the tri-pointed sweep he had when we first met.

“Go ahead,” Merck says in a rough voice. I give him a hesitant look and move to the other male I'm drawn to.

Drake's eyes never leave me. He opens his arms and I fall into him. “I thought you were dead.” His large hand cups my skull, stroking my hair. “I am not, as you can see.” His steady heartbeat thumps beneath my cheek as Narah slips into the woods and out of sight.

The driver hops out, giving us an indifferent glance and strolls to a nearby tree, lighting up an illegal cigarette.

The pungent odor of tobacco assaults my nose and I turn away.

Drake tugs me away from him. His eyes drill me, beautiful and spinning slightly inside a solemn, masculine face. “Let's finish this.”

Merck is suddenly there. “Finish what?”

Drake turns to Merck and the testosterone spike alone should light the forest on fire. His pupils widen to oblong discs inside his face as he glares at Merck. “You
know
what. My claim is half-done. If I don't finish it, any prehistoric or Mutable can walk in and have her.”

“Hey,” I interrupt and their angry faces turn to me. “Let's go inside the cabin and get a shower—some food.”

I don't need world war three breaking out.

Merck's expression looks as though he sucked on a lemon, and Drake's is hard, but they follow me wordlessly into the cabin.

*

I'm not much of a cook. My index finger has a callous from pulsing my takeout orders. But here in the cabin, I rustle up enough food so we won't starve—if canned fruit and stew can be called sustenance. It'll have to do.

It's what we have.

I scrounged around and found some clean sweatpants in a small guy's size and a t-shirt. My bra is being held together by a single surviving hook. I only wear it for modesty's sake. The girls do not play well with others without the prison of my bra.

I sigh, gathering my things as Merck gives me a speculative look over the top of his coffee cup, his hair still wet from a lukewarm shower.

I move down the long corridor, and literally bump into Drake.

He's naked from the waist up, my mouth lands literally between the discs of his nipples.

Oh god.

I stumble backwards.

He grips my upper arms and a little needy whimper escapes. I guess that whole heat thing hasn't totally been
dealt
with yet.

He leans forward, his nose burrowing into my neck, inhaling my scent and my knees about give out where I stand.

So good.

Drake releases me abruptly, looking at something over my shoulder.

Merck.

“Let her shower, dragon.”

Drake's lips curl. “Of course.”

I scowl at the two of them—so much for staving off a battle. “We're going to get this all worked out when I get out, boys.”

They turn to me and Drake says, “Yes, we are.”

I move into the bathroom and kick the door shut.

That's what I'm afraid of.