The Alpha's Read online

  One vampire in particular interested him. Henri. If something was going wrong here, Xander would bet his last million that particular bloodsucker was at the bottom of it.

  He followed the vampire’s aroma around a corner, coming face-to-face with the man himself.

  “Is this your doing, leech?” He growled as Henri smiled, flashing his fangs, then sneered as David stepped between them. Like this Timeless would stop him if he wanted to get his paws on that freak.

  David grinned. “Down, boy.”

  Xander shoved him back against the wall then stepped into his face. If he wasn’t already so angry, Xander might have been impressed that the other man didn’t flinch as a large shifter got into his face. “I am not a dog, Timeless. Don’t speak to me like one.”

  “Hey, if you howl at the moon and sprout fur, then to me, you are a dog. But that isn’t a concern of mine or of Henri’s at the moment. There are more important things to discuss,” the time-traveler told him.

  Xander wanted to fight and argue, but if he was going to help the women Logan had corralled, then he had to keep himself under control.

  Henri’s sneer caught his attention. “A merman.”

  Xander swallowed his shocked laugh as David asked, “A merman?”

  “It’s no laughing matter. His siren call is incredibly difficult to break,” Henri explained.

  “Josie seemed fine to me.”

  “Yes, but horny, right?” Henri asked.

  David smiled at that. “Well, of course. She was with me.”

  Xander looked at both men. Weird crazy stuff was happening, and they were turning into college frat boys. “You don’t waste any time.”

  “Pun intended?”

  “You had sex with her?” Henri asked.

  Xander remembered the woman who had drawn him to her with nothing more than a glance. Had she been affected?

  “Can you really blame me?” David’s smug look pulled Xander’s attention and had him rolling his eyes.

  “Did she come?” Henri asked. Xander frowned. Did they really have time for this conversation?

  “No,” David admitted. “We were interrupted. Why? Looking for material for when you jack off later on?”

  “Theories.” Henri mused.

  Xander had had enough of this crap. Something was going on, and they needed to find out what. Now. “Let’s find out for sure,” he said, letting his own fangs descend.

  As a group, they headed back to where the merman had last been seen. He allowed the other two to lead the way. They may be working together to sort this mess out, but he sure the hell wasn’t turning his back on them. He’d had made that mistake once and wouldn’t make it again.

  They spotted the blond man. Xander could smell the sea wafting off him. He looked so alone that Xander could feel the emptiness deep into his own soul.

  Henri moved with his freaky vamp speed. In a blink of an eye, he had the merman dropped over the bar. “Reverse the siren.”

  Xander expected the man to tremble, not to smile back and calmly say, “I cannot.”

  The fishy smell started to grow stronger. Xander stepped to the side, keeping all three in sight.

  “Morceau de merde,” Henri snarled.

  “I would listen to him if I were you. He has a passion for ripping throats out,” David assured the merman.

  Xander raised a hand to his own scarred throat, a souvenir from his first meeting with Henri.

  “I’m not afraid of a vampire or—” Xander growled low in warning— “a werewolf.”

  “Shifter!” The indignant yell was pulled from Xander. He was not some 1970s horror film character, for crying out loud. “If we kill him, it will probably reverse. I say we take the chance.” He took a menacing step forward. “End a life, end a spell. It is a fact in most witches’ cases, who’s to say it wouldn’t work now?” The need to protect the woman he had left with Logan was controlling everything he did, and he flicked a glance toward the bathroom doors. How dare this bottom-feeder mess with his woman?

  It was only a female voice that stopped Xander from pushing Henri aside to rip Fish-breath apart. “Stop! The man has done nothing wrong.”

  All four men watched the woman come closer. Xander sniffed the air, she smelled fully human. He couldn’t remember if she had been in the group at the table with his own little vixen, but she seemed clear-eyed. Did that mean she hadn’t been affected by the merman’s song?

  “This is none of your business,” Henri told the woman, retracting his fangs before she noticed. David moved to block her view.

  “You’re friends with Josie…” Xander heard David say as he turned his attention back to their prey. He could feel the tension in the vamp seconds before he went for the kill.

  The woman’s scream hurt Xander’s ears as David lunged for Henri, pushing him off the merman. David said something to Henri that somehow calmed the bloodlust from his eyes. Xander may bay at the moon, but that was by choice. Nothing held him in its grip like the lust held onto vampires.

  A movement caught his attention. The merman attempted to leave, but Xander moved quickly and dropped him to his knees with a well-placed kick. His wolf eyes flashed, and he allowed his claws to crawl out. He gripped the man and demanded, “How do we make it stop?”

  “An orgasm. If the affected orgasm, the siren will stop. But only the touch of another being will do it. The one whose heart they belong to.”

  Xander let the fish fall before raising an eyebrow at the other men.

  David smiled broadly. “And who are we to argue?”

  Xander shook his head. The Timeless was more animalistic than he was.

  Henri spoke softly to the man before David vanished before their eyes.

  Xander cast a look back at the merman and the woman kneeling by his side.

  “There is more than me to worry about,” the fish said softly to him. Xander frowned. He could only fight one enemy at a time, and right now he needed to get back to the woman.

  “I take it you found yourself a little treat too, leech.” He spoke to Henri as they moved from behind the bar, backing away from the merman. Xander would have been more concerned for their safety if the fish hadn’t been looking at the woman like she was about to dice him up in to shark bait. After all, who would take a supe who was afraid of a human woman seriously?

  “And that is your business, mutt, because…?” Henri asked.

  Xander shrugged as they made it to the door leading to the bathrooms. “No reason, just wanted to point out you only got her when she was affected by the siren, though, didn’t ya? Seems you have lost your allure, leech.” Xander grinned at the vampire’s glare as he walked into the restroom and straight into his woman once again, hooking his arm around her waist to prevent her from leaving.

  “Get off of me!” she yelled as he spun her to face him. “You!” she snarled as she caught sight of Xander.

  “Name is Xander. You can fight all you want, but I have to get you out of here, and that is exactly what I am going to do,” he told her, easily avoiding the fist she threw at him. He caught sight of Logan, who came rushing out of the bathroom, hot on her heels.

  “Logan, grab the other one and get out. Get somewhere away from here, somewhere safe, and then call me,” Xander instructed as he started to walk away with her still in his arms.

  “We are not going anywhere with you. You can either put me down, or I can make you put me down!” she warned him.

  Xander ignored her as she glared at him. She started to raise her knee to hit him in the most sensitive area on a man when he turned, pinning her against the wall with his body. Feet dangling off the floor, she was nose-to-nose with him.

  “Will you be okay?” Logan called from the fire exit door where he was holding Kyla who was purring and nuzzling into his neck.

  “I will be fine. Go.” In seconds, they were alone.

  The door closed behind Logan with a soft click. It took all of Xander’s strength not take her there and then, but he couldn
’t resist the urge to lean down and breathe in her scent.

  “Are you sniffing me?” Dizzy asked as she tried to lean away from him.

  He groaned. “Hmm. You smell good enough to eat. What’s your name, vixen?” He nipped at the pulse beating in her throat.

  “Dizzy, and I am not a snack.”

  Xander pulled back and looked down at her. “No? Then how come I want to eat you?” He caught one of her thighs and wrapped it around his waist, pulling her core tight against his raging hard-on.

  “Oh!” she gasped. The color was crawling up her throat, but he didn’t miss the desire in her eyes.

  “Mmm, you like that idea, don’t you, my vixen? You like the idea of my mouth on you, getting you off.” His voice dropped low, allowing more of his wolf to shine through.

  Dizzy took a panting breath before she shook her head, denying his words. Xander reached down and swatted her ass, exposed by her raised thigh.

  “Don’t lie to me, my vixen. I will punish you,” he warned. Her eyes went wide as she stared back at him.

  “I can smell your arousal,” he said as he reached between their bodies and cupped her pussy through her trousers. “You want me, don’t you?”

  Dizzy shook her head. Xander spanked her again.

  “I told you want happens when you lie to me,” he growled, seconds before he crushed her mouth under his.

  He ground his cock against her, pulling another moan from her. Dizzy wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to drag him closer.

  Xander smiled against her mouth before he pulled back. “Tut-tut. I told you if you lie, you get punished.”

  “No, please, Xander.” She tried to drag him back down again, but Xander refused to budge.

  “You call me sir.” He carried her out of the door Logan had gone through.

  “Where are we going? I need to check on my friends.”

  “Your friends are safe, if I were you, I would be more concerned about myself,” Xander said as he opened his rental car and placed her on the passenger seat. He snapped her seat belt into place and turned to look at her, allowing some of his animal through. “If you try to get out, the punishment will only get worse,” he told her. Dizzy just nodded as he stepped back.

  Xander walked around the car and took one more look at the bar. He had found out some things in there this evening that would change his life, thanks to the merman. He just hoped that they—he, Dizzy, and his pack—were all strong enough to survive it. With that thought, he climbed into the car and drove his most precious vixen away from the danger.

  Chapter Three

  Dizzy knew that she should be fighting him, demanding to know where her friends were, what had happened in the bar. She knew that, but there was something in her, something primitive and animalistic that wanted this man, she looked into his eyes and knew, deep down, that when he had said her friends were safe, he was telling the truth.

  He drove her out of town, farther into the country than she had ever had time to visit herself. At the start of the journey, he had tapped her legs apart and told her to leave them that way, then had rested his hand on her leg, occasionally stroking her inner thigh.

  They pulled up to a cottage in the woodland less than an hour later.

  “My company owns this and several other places around here,” he told her as he led her from the car.

  “Bit of a random place for a company to own.” Dizzy tried to keep the pant from her voice.

  He shrugged. “My people like the open spaces.”

  Dizzy frowned. People? What does that mean?

  Xander opened the door and let her precede him in to the cottage. She had barely heard the door shut when he pushed her back toward the wall. With her hands braced against it and the hot man behind her caging her body, she could barely breathe.

  “I can feel how wet you are for me,” he murmured into her ear as he ran his hand into the waistband of her trousers, then under her lacy thong to stroke a single finger over her pussy. “Do you deserve my cock?” he asked as he ground his steel-like hard-on against her.

  “Please.” She didn’t know what she was asking, her mind was complete mush. All she wanted was him pounding in her over and over, to send her into the biggest climax ever, a climax that he had kept out of reach since he had dragged her out of the bar.

  He pulled down the zipper of her trousers to let them slide to the floor. “Again. Say it again.”

  She shuddered as she felt him move back slightly and heard his own zipper being pulled down. “Please.”

  A stinging swat landed on her butt. “’Please what?” he asked.

  “Please, sir! Oh God, please.” She didn’t care anymore, she needed to feel him inside of her any which way she could get him. Dizzy shuddered as he pressed his hard cock against her lower back.

  “No.” He said the single word softly against her ear.

  Dizzy froze for a second before she shoved back against him. “Bastard!” She shouted as she tried to push him away from her. Her temper was raging. How dare he? How dare he touch her, work her until she could barely think, and then refuse to close the deal? She had never been a tease and she would be damned if he would tease her.

  Xander laughed as he caught her around the waist and lifted her off her feet. “Calm down, my little vixen. I didn’t say I would not let you come. I said you didn’t deserve my cock, and you don’t. I don’t like liars. People who lie to me get punished.” He ran a hand around her waist and slowly down her body until he could move aside the lace covering her from him.

  Dizzy stopped fighting and moaned as she pushed her hips upward, begging for his touch.

  “Mmm, my vixen is a wanton little girl, isn’t she?” Dizzy felt his smile against her neck. If she wasn’t a bag of pent-up horniness, she would snap at him for that comment alone, but she didn’t dare. She was so close to that orgasm, she just needed him to touch her one more time…

  He slipped a finger into her wet folds. “Now show me what a good little vixen you are and come for me.” He stroked his finger once, twice over the hidden bud of nerves, and Dizzy exploded. She screamed her release, her body shaking from the enormity of it. Yet he didn’t stop touching her, pushing her into another bone melting reaction.

  Dizzy’s entire body throbbed as she started to come down from the most exquisite orgasms she had ever had. Her head leaned back on Xander’s shoulder as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Wow,” she managed to say.

  “Hmm, yes, couldn’t have put it better myself.”

  “If that’s your idea of punishment, then I can see me being bad again.” Her laugh was cut short as she was suddenly airborne, flying across the room to land on an overstuffed sofa.

  She didn’t have time to do more than squeal before he was there, straddling her hips, pinning her hands over her head. When Dizzy looked up at him, her heart stopped. His eyes had changed to a more golden brown, and dear God—she swallowed hard—were those fangs she could see?

  “Oh my God, you’re a vampire!”

  “I am not!” Xander yelled. If she hadn’t been held down on his sofa, half naked, in a cottage in the middle of the Scottish country side, Dizzy would have found the indignant look on his face amusing.

  “Mate, funny changing eyes, superman strength, and fangs? If it looks like a vampire and smells like a vampire, it’s a vampire.” She attempted to shrug even though her arms were over her head.

  A low rumble vibrated against her chest. She should have been terrified out of her mind, pleading and begging for him not to hurt her, but all she wanted to do was beg and plead with him to finish what he had started and use the impressive cock she could feel pressed against her.

  “I am not a leech! I am a shifter,” Xander told her with a look of indignation.

  “A shifter?” Dizzy frowned up at him. “Oh, you mean a werewolf.”

  “I am not a werewolf either. I am a shifter, the mightiest of all the supernatural breeds!” he said with such a stuck-up, pompous ai
r that Dizzy couldn’t help herself; she started to laugh.

  Xander growled deeper. “Carry on, my little vixen, and I will be forced to spank you.”

  His threat stopped Dizzy’s giggling and caused her to gasp, her arousal drowning her.

  “Hmmm, seems my vixen likes the idea of a spanking.” Xander licked his lips before he leaned down and nipped the tender skin just below her ear.

  Dizzy ground her body against him, letting him feel how hot, how wet she was for him. “If you think you are man enough to try, you are more than welcome, sir.” She added the last with a teasing purr.

  “Oh, vixen, you forget I am not simply a man, I am a wolf, and trust me, when I am done with you, there will be no confusion.” Xander smiled a toothy grin, then bended to nuzzle into her.

  Dizzy moved her head to give him better access. Oh Lord, were those his fangs she could feel against her neck, scrapping over the sensitive skin there? She wrapped her legs around his waist, grinding herself against him.

  Xander pulled back to look down at her. “Do you really think you can rush me?” he asked. “This body is mine to do with as I wish, and right now I want to explore it.”

  Dizzy groaned in frustration. She flexed her fingers. If she could just get her hands free from him, she knew she could persuade him to use that impressive hard-on.

  “For instance what is under here I wonder?” He gathered her wrists in one hand. Using his free hand, he stroked it down her body until he reached the hem of her top. Slowly he started to push it up, higher and higher, until he exposed her lace bra. “See what you find when you explore?”

  He winked at her before nudging the lace aside. Dizzy watched his every move, and he knew it. With slow intent, he licked his rough tongue over her erect nipple, pulling a moan from her. He must have enjoyed her reaction, because he did it again, dragging a whimper from her this time.