The Alpha's Read online

  “Oh, my vixen, I love how responsive you are to me,” he said as he switched to give her other nipple the same treatment.

  “Then you are going to love how responsive I am when you fuck me,” Dizzy snapped.

  Xander chuckled. “You do strike me as the type of woman who is always in a rush.”

  “I am a busy woman,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Lucky for you I know how to slow down the pace.”

  “No! Please, I can’t take this. I need you, please, Xander.” Dizzy would never normally beg, but this man was playing her body like a piano, and she was ready for the crescendo.

  Xander moved back up her body to look into her eyes. “Please?”

  Dizzy swallowed and nodded at him with wide eyes. “Please, sir.” She gave him what he wanted, what they both seemed to want. It was like someone had hit some kind of “go faster” button on him. One second he was laying on her, the next he was standing and shrugging out of his clothes. Dizzy watched him reach into his jeans back pocket and pull out a silver packet from his wallet, tore it open, and rolled on the condom. God, what was he doing to her? She hadn’t even though of that. She never forgot things like that!

  Before she could focus properly, he was back. He captured her mouth in a searing kissing and ripped her underwear with one sharp tug seemingly all at the same time that he thrust into her, impaling her. He gave her just enough time to adjust to the feel of him before he started to move. With a slight twist of his hips he found just the right spot to hit that had her seeing stars.

  “Hold on, my vixen, this is going to be one hell of a ride,” he said against her ear, and he started to thrust harder and faster.

  “Oh yes!” she panted. Her climax hit her fast, pushing her into orbit, and she screamed his name.

  Xander kept going, sending her flying again, but this time he followed her, calling out his release with a howl before collapsing on her.

  “Oof.”

  Xander chuckled and moved to the side a little so she could breath.

  “Remind me to give you a Milk-Bone later,” Dizzy said as she drifted off to sleep, smiling at Xander’s half-hearted growl.

  ***

  “What did you mean ‘of all the supernatural breeds’?” Dizzy asked a couple hours later.

  “What is not to understand? Shifters are mighty, and no one compares to us.” He grinned across the table at her.

  Dizzy pushed her now empty toast plate out of the way and sipped her coffee. “No, big head, I meant how many breeds are there?” Dizzy looked at him over the top of her cup. She wore nothing but his T-shirt, and hadn’t felt this relaxed in ages.

  Xander shrugged. “How long is a piece of string? How many different nationalities are there in the full human world? The same is said of the supes, we have many, and they are varied.”

  “Wow, and do you all change into other things?” Dizzy asked. Part of her mind was screaming that she was an idiot and that she should be running for her life. The other, more dominant part of her wanted the first part to shut the hell up and focus on the many amazing orgasms she had already experienced.

  Xander scoffed. “No, only the shifters can do that. Take the bar where I met you. In that one place there were shifters, leeches, I guess most people call them vampires, time-travelers, mermen, elementals…the list goes on and on. I would lay money that the friends you were with are spread far and wide, and each is being introduced to the supernatural world. The merman saw to that.” Xander shrugged without looking up at her. The silence following his statement drew his eyes from his own toast.

  Dizzy stared at him, her mind racing, trying to remember everything that had happened before that idiot had spilling her drink on her and she’d left to go to the bathroom. “Your friend, the one with Kyla, is he like you?” she asked slowly. The calm she had felt was beginning to vanish.

  “Yeah. Logan is my beta, my second in command.”

  “Where would he take her?”

  Xander shook his head. “We have several properties around the city, across the country even. They could be anywhere.”

  Dizzy took a deep breath, trying to keep her panic at bay. She had to find her friends. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t even thought about them until now.

  Xander’s mobile started to ring. He checked the caller ID. “Speak of the devil.” He winked at her before answering the call. “Logan.”

  Dizzy’s eyes narrowed. If that guard dog had hurt her friend she was going to skin him alive.

  “Yeah, she is here. Okay.” Xander held the phone out to her.

  “Hello?”

  “Dizzy, hi. I’m glad to hear your voice,” Kyla said.

  Dizzy’s heart started to beat faster. “Kyla, you okay? Where are you?”

  “In the middle of Edinburgh, with Logan. I’m fine. He told me stuff, sounds all a bit extreme. I was just worried, you know, needed to talk to you.”

  “Has he hurt you, chick?” Dizzy was more than ready to kick some ass.

  Kyla hesitated. “No, he…erm…no, it’s all fine.”

  Nope, something was definitely wrong. “You don’t sound fine. Where is he? Give the phone to him right now.” Dizzy shouted down the phone. “Now, Kyla!”

  “Hi.”

  The sound of Logan’s voice set her temper loose. “I find out you hurt her, I will hunt you down, and I will have you begging for your mother before I am done. You look at her wrong, and I will know, and I will make it my life’s work to turn your world into a living hell. Now you better take care of her while I am not there, do I make myself clear?” Dizzy didn’t wait for him to answer. She hung up on him.

  “Do you have a computer with an internet connection?” She had one plan. She just hoped that it worked.

  “Sure, in the office. Why?” Xander asked as he pointed down the hall.

  “Because you may be a supernatural shifter man, but I have my own magical powers,” she said over her shoulder as she headed to his office.

  It took seconds for her to boot up the machine and hook into the program she’d created a few years ago on a dare.

  “What you doing?” Xander asked as he came to stand so he could see over her shoulder.

  “I told you, working my magic,” Dizzy said as she tapped away at the keyboard. “Do you know that address?” She pointed to where a blinking light had come to stop on the street map of Edinburgh.

  “Yeah, we have property in that building. Why?”

  “That blinking light is Kyla.” Dizzy explained as she tapped a few more keys.

  “Jesus! You have your friends on trackers?” Xander leaned down farther so he could see the screen better.

  Dizzy rolled her eyes. “Yes, mate, I have inserted trackers into them surgically without them knowing.”

  “Who is that?” Xander pointed to another blinking light.

  “That is Ana back in her hotel. There is Nico, Arielle—” she started to list off the other girls one by one— “Noelle, Tara, Nina, and Amillian.” Dizzy’s pulse pounded in her ears. “No, no, no. This can’t be right.” She checked and rechecked the program.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t find Josie. There is nowhere on this planet I can’t find her, but I just can’t a pin on her.”

  “There may be no where you can’t track, but how about when you can’t?” Xander asked putting a hand on her flashing fingers.

  “What?” She didn’t have time for this, she needed to account for all her girls. She needed to make sure they were safe.

  Xander shrugged. “I heard David mention Josie. If she is with him, then she is safe. I just don’t think you will be able to track her.”

  “Mate, I can find you if you are in Fort Knox, so unless this David can create security better than that, then I am damn sure I will be able to find her,” Dizzy insisted. She tried to stay as calm as possible. Josie had called her before that dumb ass Logan has broken her phone. What if she was in major trouble or worse, and all Dizzy had do
ne was get laid by a stranger?

  “Dizzy, listen to me.” Xander caught her under her chin, making her look at him. “David is like me, supernatural, but he doesn’t grow fur, he travels in time. If you can’t find Josie, it’s not because she is in trouble or in a bad signal area, she may be where the signal hasn’t even been invented yet. Do you understand what I am saying, my vixen?”

  Dizzy blinked at him and let the information sink through. “I didn’t even want to go to that frigging bar; I have so much going on at work right now. But they bombarded me with emails and text messages, making me promise to come. See? I knew those bloody women would be nothing but trouble,” Dizzy told him.

  If she ever got her hands on them, they were dead meat, once she made sure they were all okay. But right after she checked them, they were dead for sure.

  Chapter Four

  Xander watched the different blinking lights on the screen. Something was tapping at his memory. Something he couldn’t quite grasp.

  He took a step back and squinted at the screen. The placement of the dots looked so familiar. He tipped his head to the side, and just like that, a sense of dread and foreboding settled into the pit of his stomach. Xander spun away, turning to search his bookshelf, praying that he was wrong.

  In a matter of moments, he found what he was looking for.

  “What’s that?” Dizzy asked.

  “A book.”

  “And here I am thinking it was a giant pink elephant.” Dizzy’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “It’s a book on shifter lore. They say some of the legends in here date back to Anubis, the father of all shifters,” Xander explained as he flipped through the pages.

  “That’s lovely, and any other time I would be happy to flick through your little fairy tale book, but right now we have to find my friends.”

  Xander stopped turning the pages. His breath left him in a rush. Without saying a word, he turned the book toward her.

  He could see the second Dizzy realized what she looked at. Her eyes flicked from the screen to the book in front of her.

  “What is this?” she asked in a hushed tone.

  “It’s a prophecy. It’s the one all alphas are told on the day they take power. The story goes that in the court of Cleopatra on the night of the blood moon celebrations her priests came to her with a vision. It foretold of No-Hell bringing forward the child of destiny and of destructions. The child would not walk in the sun and would cause a great war, bringing all the Hope-Filled to their knees.”

  He watched as her eyes grew wide and wider.

  She indicated the center of the drawing. “What’s that?”

  “It’s the heart, where the child of No-Hell will arrive.”

  Dizzy took a shuddering breath and pointed to the screen. “That’s Noelle’s light. Her daughter is named Hope and has a major allergy to sunlight. It’s so bad that it is killing her.”

  Xander looked down at the image in front of him. He had always thought it was nothing more than a ghost story, something to mess with the minds of the new alphas. He never thought for a second it would be real.

  “We have to find them,” he said. Dizzy didn’t argue, she simply nodded and headed off to get her clothes. Xander took one last look at the image’s center in the book—a large, encrusted jewel positioned on the open wings of a scarab beetle.

  ***

  As soon as Xander stepped out on to the porch of his cottage he smelled trouble. His fangs and claws were out before he could blink. He kept his body between the unknown threat and Dizzy, and growled low in warning.

  “Calm down, wolf,” a deep voice purred. “If I wanted you dead, then you would be, but I am not here to fight.”

  “You could try, pussy cat, but you would fail. I suggest you tell me why you are in my territory before I forget I have more important things to attend to,” Xander warned the other man.

  “Pussy cat?” He heard Dizzy’s soft question from behind him.

  “I am here to help. My name is Mau, and I have been sent to help the Chosen One.”

  “I think you took the wrong exit, cat. I am not anyone’s ‘Chosen One’,” Xander snarled. Could this get any stranger? In no time at all he had found his mate, because he was certain that was what Dizzy was, teamed up with Henri and David, something he swore never to do again, and now he had a black panther shifter on his doorstep. Panther shifters were known across the shifter world as historians and assassins. And while Xander hoped this one liked its books more than blood, the newcomer’s array of weapons didn’t bode well. He knew he could take the cat, but he also knew that time was of the essence. Fighting a trained assassin would not be quick.

  “I am not here for you, wolf. I am here for your human.” Mau smirked as Xander pushed Dizzy farther behind him. “She is the Beacon, the one who will guide me to the Chosen One, who was created eons ago to protect the Hope-Filled child.”

  “I am a beacon? Like a flashing light? How glamorous.” Dizzy sighed as she peeked around his arm. Xander narrowed his eyes. The woman really needed to learn when to stay hidden.

  “The Beacon.” Mau bowed at the waist as Dizzy stepped out from behind Xander. He waited, ready to move if the cat even looked at her wrong.

  “So basically you are going to stalk me until I lead you to some Chosen One, and then you are going to find Hope?” Dizzy asked casually as she moved closer to the cat.

  “Yes, Beacon. It is your destiny,” Mau assured her.

  “Yes, well, I don’t much like that idea, mate.” Xander didn’t react quickly enough to catch her arm as Dizzy punched Mau clean on the nose.

  Xander didn’t know who was more stunned: him or the trained killer.

  ***

  Dizzy stared at the man as he clutched his nose. Part of her was in shock at her actions. As a rule she wasn’t a violent person, yet in the last day, she had managed to hit more men than she had in her entire life. The other part of her, the part that seemed to be unaffected by humans who could turn into animals and the apocalyptic events they seemed to be heading toward, that part of her seemed to be high-fiving itself.

  “Now if I have your attention gentlemen”— she threw a glance over her shoulder at Xander— “let me make myself absolutely clear. I will not allow either of you near my friends until I am completely convinced you do not pose a threat. If I suspect for a second that you intend to harm them, I will end you.” Both—what had Xander called them, supes?—looked at her with mocking smiles.

  “Don’t underestimate this human, boys,” she told them as she walked toward Xander’s car. “You don’t know what I have up my sleeve.”

  Dizzy climbed into the backseat and waited. Both men seemed to be sizing her up. She only hoped her bravado held out. A few tense moments passed before both men came to join her.

  “Where we heading?” Xander asked as he climbed behind the wheel.

  Dizzy couldn’t risk taking them to her friends, not yet, but she needed to understand the danger they all seemed to be facing. “You said there was a prophecy, Mau?”

  “Yes, Beacon, one that is passed down through the ages so that my people will be ready.”

  “My name is Dora Williamson, but some call me Dizzy, so pick one and stop the whole ‘Beacon’ bit, please.” Really who wanted to be a giant flashing “X marked the spot”? “I take it you have books and information about this nightmare held somewhere?”

  “Yes, Bea—Dizzy,” Mau corrected himself.

  “Okay, so lead us there.”

  “I cannot. It is a sacred place, only those permitted may enter.”

  “Hello? Beacon here. Got to be about the best pass we have to enter the VIP area. Now you want to find Hope, and I can help, but not until you convince me that you, either of you—” she caught Xander’s glare in the rearview mirror, but what did she really know about him either if she was honest?— “aren’t a danger. I suggest you call your people and make this happen.” Dizzy sat back and waited. Mau didn’t disappoint. Soon he nodded a
nd gave Xander directions to an airstrip.

  Dizzy swallowed hard. The next time those girls suggested meeting up in an unknown bar she was killing them herself.

  ***

  Dizzy looked around the opulent building. She couldn’t believe that less than four hours ago she’d been sitting in Xander’s office. That room was a box compared to the rows and rows of books held here.

  She hadn’t known what to expect when they had arrived at the airstrip. Part of her had expected to be flown to Egypt where the story began, but they hadn’t been. Nope, Dizzy thought as she looked out of the window of the history museum. This was her hometown: London.

  “So basically you want me to go through all these books finding the information?” she asked Mau.

  The other man nodded. “That is how we learn the true history handed down from generation to generation.”

  Dizzy threw a glance at Xander who hadn’t been more than a step away since Mau arrived. He shrugged back at her. “Do you not have an Idiot’s Guide or something?” Dizzy asked hopefully.

  “No, but over the last decade we have managed to get the books onto that.”

  Dizzy looked in the direction Mau pointed and whooped, making both men start. Sitting in a forgotten corner of the room was a computer. She didn’t wait for permission, she didn’t have time.

  She had been working for what felt like hours—searching, collating, guessing as she tried to find facts on the danger Hope and Noelle were in—when she stumbled over some artwork from a book claiming to be a factual account of events from one of Cleopatra’s priests. The image was of a woman in a white robe, she was slender with what appeared to be skull tattoos on her wrists and an image of a woman on her shoulder. A nagging sensation drew at her as she leaned in closer to the screen to get a better look at the woman’s face. Dizzy realized she was looking at Josie. Impossible!