by G. Bailey
Alpha Hell © 2021 G. Bailey & Scarlett Snow.
All Rights Reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Mirela Barbu.
Contact [email protected] for further information.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Description
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
About the Author
About the Author
Afterword
Afterword
The alpha of hell is my fated mate and he rejected me.
I’m an outcast in my pack and have been since the day I was born. Shunned by most of the wolves around me, I’ve managed to stay out of trouble… until now.
Now The Alpha of Stormfire is hunting me, but he doesn’t want to claim me as his mate.
He wants me dead.
Forced to leave my old life behind, I have no choice but to go on the run. Luckily, The Demon Hunting Trials is the perfect place to hide, even if it comes with a few obstacles.
Such as their leader is a total jerk, a wolf is blackmailing me to be his friend, and I swear my new, sexy as sin partner is trying to get us killed.
With demons running amok and the alpha of hell searching for me, I hope I can live long enough to get my revenge.
18+ Dark reverse harem romance full with a sassy and sarcastic heroine who finds her match.
Prologue
Zarina Thornblood
Eighteen years ago
The Demons of Hell are hunting us.
They do not want my blood, but rather the bundle I carry so preciously in my arms; the bundle I stole from the High Demon Lord’s chamber as he slept, cocooned in his blanket of shadows that would devour anyone who got close.
My legs threaten to collapse under the strain of running, constantly running, for so long now my feet have blackened and burned against the rocky terrain. But I don’t stop. I must keep going, if not for me then for Kade. He surrendered his life to give me time to leave. I cannot—will not—let his death be in vain. If he’s right then the portal should be at the top of the tower.
This is our last chance.
Only a single staircase stands in the way of our freedom. I can’t give up now. With a shaky inhale of air, I adjust my grip on the baby and climb the first step.
Dry, molten rock burns my bleeding soles, and a choked-back sob escapes me despite the adrenaline coursing through my body. It’s like walking on shards of glass, blades that have been forged in a fire. Even if it kills me, I’ll reach the top of these forsaken stairs; my life is a small sacrifice if it means saving the sweet little bundle in my arms.
In the shadows not far below, howls and yips penetrate the darkness.
If I don’t hurry, they’ll take her from me.
No!
I adjust my grip on the blankets and raise my other foot, followed by another. They will never have her. My baby will escape this hell even if it costs my own life. My mother will take care of it. It’s all been arranged. I just need to reach the portal.
A deafening howl echoes around me, drowning out the rest of the demons. The vibrations shake the entire staircase, and I instinctively touch the wall for support, forgetting that, too, will burn me. I release a sudden gasp, and the bundle lets out a shrieking cry.
“Shh, shh, darling girl. It’s okay.” I press a kiss to her forehead, my heart breaking at the sound of her distress. “We’re going to get out of here once and for all.”
Another step and the world sways underneath me.
Almost… there… keep going…
At last the portal appears within sight, but my worst nightmare has come true: the portal is closed. There’s no light, no magic that will take me to the human world. There’s nothing but darkness, and this was my last chance, my only hope, to save my daughter.
I collapse to my knees before the portal and finally let out my screams. They tear from the depths of my being and erupt from my lips like a deep, shattering crescendo. It was all for nothing. The escape plan, Kade’s death…
“All for nothing!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
Dark tendrils of smoke wrap around me. One of them tilts my chin and forces me to look up into a set of gleaming red eyes. Flashes of male flesh, tattooed and shrined with gold bands, peek through the darkness. That’s all I can see. Everything else is shrouded. However, by his fiery scent alone, I know who he is—the alpha of Stormfire.
Guardian of the Gates of Hell and Inflicter of Pain.
I should’ve known he’d be the one hunting me.
“Your suffering has been admirable. Unnecessary but admirable.”
His power raises me to my feet. I clench my baby to my chest as fear snakes into me, coiling around my stomach like a venomous serpent.
“The High Demon Lord has placed quite the bounty on you.”
Rizer caresses me with a hand masked in darkness. I snap my head from his grasp, and he chuckles. Behind him, countless demonic eyes blink at me from the shadows.
“I am almost tempted to take you back to him,” he says, retracting his hand. “But I have thought of something much better than monetary gain.”
A single tendril lifts the top of the blanket, exposing my daughter’s beautiful little face. Her large, silver eyes look up at Rizer, and she must sense the darkness that clings to him, for she stirs and lets out a startled cry.
“In eighteen years’ time, on the night of the Blood Moon, I will claim this wolf as my mate. Until then you will have my protection and the portal will be opened for you. The decision is yours to make, but only one will offer you the freedom you seek.”
The horror at what he’s proposing rips the air right out from my lungs.
The Stormfire alpha, one of the most ruthless wolves in all of existence, wants to claim my daughter as his mate.
It’s abhorrently inconceivable… and yet, it’s the only way to guarantee her freedom. I knew she would be hunted and special. Everyone knew from the second she was born. This fate is one I could never dream of avoiding for her.
She has a destiny I could never stop.
Staying here would be a worse fate than being Rizer’s future mate. Perhaps I will even find a way to reverse the agreement. Eighteen years is a long time in the life of a shifter.
“Your answer, she-wolf.”
I lift my head and stare into his crimson eyes. “You have a deal. Now open the portal, Alpha.”
He chuckles again, the sound laced with dark promise. “As you wish. Keep good care of my intended mate. I will be watching.”
Chapter 1
Lilith Thornblood
There isn’t enough booze in the shifter world to deal with alpha eg
os.
I take a deep drink of the red wine I stole from the teacher’s lounge at Caeli Pack Academy before passing it to my best friend. The only person in the whole world (okay, just the academy) who I like. She’s also the sole reason the alpha’s sons are walking right over to us at this lame excuse for a party to celebrate the rare blood moon. Who throws a party for eighteen-year-olds without booze?
Aurelia Winters coughs as she takes a long drink and rolls her eyes at me when I chuckle. Although she tends to think otherwise, Aurelia is ridiculously stunning, and it’s mostly down to her bloodline. She looks just like her mum, but her father’s genes are strong and make her the perfect example of a Caeli wolf. Taking another sip from the bottle, Aurelia tucks her curly blonde hair behind her ears and looks past me at the alpha’s sons with her big blue eyes. She is the perfect wolf at the Caeli Pack Academy, whereas me, on the other hand, I stand out as the outcast they put up with. I’m a red in a world of white with my dark-red hair and red-furred wolf. Other than the streak of white hair that falls down the side of my cheek, there isn’t much about me that lets me mix in with the pack I have always lived in.
The Caeli Pack is hidden deep in the snowy Mountains of Alaska, where no one ever comes because it’s too high up and the humans are afraid of us. Mostly because we’re supernatural beings who don’t mix well with them since they only see us as a means to protect them from the bad things in the world. Every pack in the world has its mission, its purpose, and Caeli’s is learning and recording every event in the world of shifters. Basically, librarians with a bite.
“I stand out everywhere,” I mutter to Aurelia.
“So? You’re pretty and unusual here. That’s not a bad thing,” she replies. “Don’t worry so much.”
Says the girl who fits into our pack better than my ass fits into these skinny jeans. I don’t hide or blend in very well. Aurelia is the opposite. At least, she is until we’re at a party like this where she stands out far more than I do in some sense. It’s all because of the mating season. In a year’s time, most females will have chosen a mate, and the males all want the prettiest wolf in the pack which is Aurelia.
Finding a mate is definitely not on my to-do list. At least not with any of these wolves.
I take the bottle from Aurelia. “I think I should just leave at the end of the academy year in two weeks. Maybe join the demon-hunting trials in the Stormfire pack or something.” Throwing back a deep mouthful, I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. “Hell, maybe I could look for my father and actually fit in there.”
Aurelia gawks at me, then snatches the bottle. “Are you freaking crazy? You could also die in the trials. That’s it. No more booze for you.”
I glare at her jokingly. “Hey, I’m not even tipsy!”
“You’re speaking like my aunt on New Year’s Eve! Have you forgotten that you could get killed trying to capture those disgusting demons? They eat wolves for fun. Why would you even want that?” She shakes her head. “You’re safe here. You shouldn’t leave.”
“My brother left.”
With a sigh, she rests her head on my shoulder for a few seconds. “But he’s a male and strong. There are like three female demon hunters in the whole of the Stormfire pack, and each of them are totally badass.”
“So you’re saying I’m not a badass?” I question with a raised eyebrow.
She laughs. “If you were brought up in Stormfire, taught to fight from a kid instead of how to read a book and study like our pack taught, we might be having a different conversation. But your circumstances are totally different. You were brought up a Caeli, and we both don’t have a clue about fighting demons or capturing them. Come on, Lilith. You know this. Please tell me you weren’t being serious?”
I don’t answer her because I know she’s right. But the thought of studying wolf history and doing nothing more than studying for the rest of my life makes me feel sick. It’s like my pack is squeezing the life out of me with each passing day, and the only way to stop is to find an escape.
“We can talk about it later,” I say, shrugging my shoulder. “They are nearly here.”
Aurelia raises her head and straightens her tight, sparkling yellow dress that shows off her long legs. I cross my own covered legs, the movement straining my jeans and knocking mud off my heavy boots. Aurelia decided that we both needed to dress up and come to this party at one of her friend’s houses, something that I would never attend before now because honestly, parties are not my thing. I’d much rather be drinking this bottle of red wine on my own back in my room, but I can’t always be unsociable when my best friend is a big extrovert. I need to compromise sometimes, even if that means leaving my bedroom. C’est la vie, right?
The alpha sons stomp over from the dance floor that we can see at the end of the corridor we are sitting in. The blasting music vibrates through the room, shaking the floor almost from the noise of it, and pop song comes on that sings about humans shaking their asses. Another reason I tend to avoid these things. Why does the music always suck? I’d much rather they played some rock. Hell, if they put on some Guns N’ Roses, I might even bust some real moves. None of this swaying, grinding nonsense.
Beside me, a dancing Aurelia knocks my shoulder as she sings the song word for word. I can’t help but smile at her. I thought I could hide back here with her, but now the alpha’s twin sons’ shadows hang over us, I’m thinking my hiding skills need work.
This was a really bad idea.
They’re both looking at her like she’s the answer to their prayers, the very air to their lungs, while their mating scent invades my own lungs so much that I nearly gag. They never stop staring at Aurelia even as they finally come to a stop, and I know why. Everyone knows she’s going to be an alpha female at some point because her wolf is strong, a born leader, and her human incomparably beautiful.
All the things you need to be on the alpha’s sons’ radar.
As for me? Everyone knows I’m only ever going to be the outcast. It’s because I really, really don’t belong in this pack. Caeli is all about reputation and utmost control, of unrivalled intellect and centuries-old knowledge that are the very bones of our existence. Each pack in our world has its own unique purpose. Caeli’s is record-keeping and the continuous search for better, more proficient pack medicine; something that has been installed into me since I was a pup.
Learn for the Pack—the motto every wolf here lives by.
Every wolf except for me.
As my mum puts it, I’ve always been too wild, too uncontrollable, and in general too nosy for my own good. I’m sure that’s the sole reason most of the teachers at this academy absolutely hate me and most likely the reason that my adopted brother sometimes pretends I’m not really his sister. Being an embarrassment to the shifter world is weirdly something I can live with. But being an embarrassment to my own family is the only thing that’s kept me from running away.
Damn, I need more wine if I’m going to think about my family.
The alpha’s sons, Dumb and Dumber as I’ve nicknamed them, just gaze with wide eyes at Aurelia. Their expressions are almost panicked. Aurelia watches back and sighs. It always makes me laugh how the simple fact she stares down future alphas who will no doubt one day fight for the chance to be pack leader, and subsequently, choose her as the alpha female if she chooses them, too. But I don’t know if she will. Aurelia is picky about her guys, a lot like me. Not that many have been interested in the girl who doesn’t belong here. Beyond their curiosity, I’m usually too different for them to look at twice.
The alpha sons may be handsome and muscular, both of them built like dump trucks, but for as strong as they are, there’s not a lot going on upstairs under their thick, white-blond hair. My point is proven when they both stumble for a second on what to say to Aurelia. They scratch their heads, no doubt in search of a cheesy, overthought chat-up line, and then one of them says something that surprises even me a little.
“Would you like to come and danc
e to the song that is playing? I heard you say it was your favourite once.”
And for whatever reason in the world, Aurelia appears almost happy that one of them noticed she likes the song that’s playing.
She looks at me, and I nod. “Go. I’m going back to my room with the wine.”
“Okay, see you back there later,” she replies with a big smile.
The two of them quickly wander off down the corridor, and I hear her laugh a while later as I take another long drink of the bottle. A warm buzz floats down my body, the wine finally kicking in, but then I notice I’m left alone with the other alpha’s son who I can never remember the name of. Every girl at this academy, other than me and Aurelia, has got their names memorised and written down in their diaries with love hearts. I know she doesn’t do silly stuff like that just because we share a room and have done since we both came here when we were eight, like every young pack member. Their names come back to me now I gaze at them; Mathi and… Dammit, I can’t remember what the other one’s name is.
I stand and fake a big yawn before trying to walk away. But Mathi reaches out and grabs my arm, stopping me. I knew it was never going to be that easy. These alpha-holes rarely ever take a hint.
I narrow my eyes on his brown ones, a big contrast to my light grey. “Let. Go.”
A smirk slides over his lips. “No. Why should I?”
