Awakened Alpha

by Chloe Vincent

  “Ha ha.” Sam chuckled and got to his feet. He winced as he looked about his living room. It was a nicely designed room; a long rectangle with a sliding glass door that went out into a garden. The ceilings were high and there was a lot of light. It contained a sofa and a chair and two side tables and a couple of Arthur’s plants. “Arthur?”

  It occurred to Sam very suddenly that the room was sad. He had been sad for a long time and this was what a sad person’s house looked like. He rubbed his chin, swallowing that epiphany and letting it settle. He didn’t feel sad anymore, and not just because of Gwen. He felt like he had been given a second chance at life and he knew now, even if he hadn’t been able to accept it before, that his pride brothers would not want him to be sad forever.

  “Yes, sir?” Arthur responded.

  “We really need to do something about this house.”

  “I’ve been saying that for years-”

  “I know,” Sam said, feeling a little impatient. “Well...maybe that’s something we can talk about soon. We could at least put some pictures up or something.”

  “I look forward to it,” Arthur said, seeming very pleased. “So Miss Felici is coming over for…?”

  “Drinks,” Sam said, shrugging. “Should I have made it dinner? I should’ve made it dinner. Maybe you can put out some uh…”

  “Crab cakes?” Arthur suggested. “Crudite? Charcuterie?”

  “Sure,” Sam said. “One of those. I trust your opinion on the wine. I’m going to um…” He looked down at t-shirt and his comfy old pair of jeans. “I’m going to go think about clothes.”

  At half past eight, the doorbell rang. Sam was still fiddling with his hair and second-guessing the third shirt he’d picked out to wear. But it was too late to change his mind again. He was wearing a charcoal button down and slacks. He thought he looked alright. His hair seemed too long. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and he already had a bit of stubble but he thought it looked good on him, that it looked rugged.

  He made his way down the stairs, knowing Arthur would be letting Gwen in and then she’d be there, in his house, with her big eyes. He shook his hands out. He needed to access that slightly more aggressive side that took over when he was sure. He had been an alpha once. Women threw themselves at him.

  He caught his reflection in a decorative mirror that hung on the wall and muttered, “We got this. Be the ball.”

  At the bottom of the stairs he heard her voice in the living room and his ears perked up. She was talking to Arthur in the living room as he approached. She was smiling at him so genuinely. Sam couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she took Arthur’s hand and squeezed it for a moment and it made Arthur smile. She was so sweet and kind… He felt like his heart was swelling in his chest.

  He hovered there in the entry for a moment, just smiling sappily and admiring her. He had never seen her with her hair down, but now it was a wildly curly mass that framed a pretty olive-skinned face and those big brown eyes. She was wearing a little black cocktail dress that showed a promising hint of thigh. It had the thinnest straps over her shoulders that begged to be curled around his fingers and slipped down.

  Arthur was suddenly approaching and Sam hardly heard what he said. “Sir?”

  “Hmm?” Sam responded.

  “I’ll leave you to it, sir.” Arthur was smug as he walked away. There was wine and glasses on the table and a platter of cheese and fruit.

  “Hello,” Sam managed. Gwen smiled at him and he gestured to the couch. “Glad you could make it. Arthur busted out the good wine.”

  “I don’t know anything about wine,” Gwen blurted, as he sat down next to her. “But I like it?”

  Sam nodded and went about pouring them two glasses. It was red and it was old. He knew that much. “I normally know a little bit,” Sam said, handing her a glass. “But...it’s all left my head just now. I’m uh...distracted.”

  They toasted a cheers and sipped their wine. Gwen shrugged and said, “Well, I like it anyway. I tend to like wine and liquor more than beer. Unless it’s a cider beer, maybe? I don’t know if you like beer. I feel like guys always like beer but my dad didn’t so I guess I got the anti-beer gene. Not that I would turn it down either. It’s fine. You know, whatever gets the job done. Not that I have to get drunk, I’m not a lush or anything. Oh my God, Sam, I’m talking so much. Please stop me.”

  She was all pink, her chest a bit rosy above the dip of her neckline. She looked adorably embarrassed, and he chuckled and took a long drink of wine, feeling suddenly so much more comfortable. “Why would I do that?” He said, hearing the way his voice dropped low. “You’re so cute.”

  She sighed a little, staring into her glass. “Cute is okay. It’s not as good as sexy.”

  “Oh sweetheart, you are sexy,” he said reflexively. She looked up in surprise and he felt that lion inside him, wanting to claim her. He put his wine glass down, slowly and deliberately. This part he could certainly be confident about. She was waiting for him with wide eyes. He reached up and pressed the pad of his thumb to her bottom lip, tipping her mouth open just a bit. He noted the way she flushed again, her chest heaving a little. He cupped his palm to her cheek, and she leaned into it, batting her eyes.

  He kissed her once and smiled against her lips. he didn’t think he would ever get enough of the way she melted against him. “Sam,” she whispered. “Please…”

  “What do you want, beautiful?” He asked in her ear. She clutched at shoulders. “Anything you want.”

  “Anything,” she murmured. “All of you. I want you to swallow me.”

  That was a funny way to put it but he liked it. He kissed her, heated and lazy, and pulled her into his lap so she was sitting sideways. She hummed and pulled away to give him a long hungry look and nuzzled his neck. He had a couple of hidden little sensitive places that turned him to jelly and she found one quickly, tongue kissing him under his ear. He forgot what he was supposed to be doing and was pliant beneath her until she pulled away again, smirking.

  “Are you purring?” She asked.

  “No?” He turned bright red. He was. Sort of. It was a breathy thing he did that only other lion shifters he’d been with had likened to purring. But Gwen seemed very pleased by it.

  “I love that,” she whispered. “Do it again.” She kissed him under his ear and nibbled at his earlobe and again he found himself making that purring noise, though he didn’t mean to. He couldn’t control it. She giggled against his neck in that throaty way of hers and his purr turned into a determined growl. He saw the curve of her lips turn up as she leaned back, watching him. He reached over and did what he’d been thinking about doing since he had first seen her in that little black cocktail dress. He curled one of those tiny black straps around his finger. The dress seemed to have a built-in bra or something because she wasn’t wearing one. There was just Gwen and this little dress and who knew what kind of panties. She stared at him, breathing and waiting, and he tugged the strap down one side and then the other. He ducked his head and bit her shoulder before kissing it, working his way down to the neckline that was beginning to slip down promisingly.

  “Sam…” It was a plea and he couldn’t wait any longer.

  All at once he grabbed her and turned them so she was beneath him as he braced himself over her. He pulled back a little to see how she reacted. Her mouth was slightly parted, her lips wet and pink. She gazed up at him hungrily and one leg came up. He heard a heel drop to the floor and her foot slid up his calf and then his thigh. She wrapped her leg around him and licked her lips. He moved a little because her other leg was trapped and now, sure enough, she wrapped it around him. He reached down, keeping his eyes on her, and felt the back of her knee with his palm. He was hard now, and she arched, pressing herself against him. He kissed her, hard and hot, and slowly slid his hand up her thigh, delighting in that smooth skin and the sensation of that little dress going up and up and up…

  “Oh my God, I love your hands,” she breathed, her ton
gue between her teeth. “Your hands are so good…”

  “Are they now?” He whispered. He reached back and pushed her legs down and knelt over her, her dress hiked up around her waist. She was wearing a tiny red pair of panties and he bit his lip, sliding his hand up that thigh again, watching the little journey, before finally stopping to palm her. She gasped a little and bucked up against him and he pressed his thick middle finger through the silky material, feeling her slightly damp there. She pushed up against him, throwing her head back. He looked at her face; her cheeks rosy, her mouth swollen from his kisses. He pressed a little harder and she groaned, squeezing his shoulders.

  “Put your hands up,” he murmured, and with his other hand, he took her wrists and gently set them back over her head. She kept them there and he looked her up and down, painfully hard in his slacks. He tugged down the neckline of her dress, exposing her breasts and she gasped again but she smiled, staring at him, willing and wide-eyed. He pressed yet harder and ducked his head to kiss and lick a breast as he fingered her through her panties, teasing and torturous.

  “How are my hands now?” He whispered. “Tell me.”

  “Good,” she mumbled, and abruptly, he pulled her panties down just far enough to get his bare middle finger inside her and she jerked and gasped much louder. “Ah! Good! Oh, Sam…” He mouthed at her neck and furiously now, sucked and licked, as he found her clit and played it like the master of an instrument. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this good as he brought fascinating little sounds out of her and she lay there, willingly helpless beneath him, bucking up into his hand. She had small but such pleasingly pert breasts. He returned to them now, taking as much of one as he could fit into his mouth, raking his teeth, hungrily suckling. She was about to come apart for him, he could tell and she was pleading for him now.

  “Sam, Sam...please, I want you…”

  He had a condom in his pocket and there was a slightly awkward scramble as he rolled it on, wincing, his cock big and hard and throbbing for her. When he slid inside her, everything seemed to stop. They stared at each other as if shocked, the connection between them thrumming.

  You’re my mate, he thought, as if only just realizing that the sky was blue. She wrapped her legs around him again and squeezed him to her and he made a little whimper of a sound that would have embarrassed him, if he were coherent enough to be embarrassed. But he was inside her and she was hot and tight around him and seemed to mold so perfectly to his body.

  “Gwen,” he whispered, as if only realizing fully that she was there with him.

  “Yes.” She beamed at him and her eyes were shining. “Yes, Sam, yes…”

  They were still and now he experimentally rocked in and out of her and just that made her cry out. He quickened his pace, kissing her, as they found their rhythm together. He found himself half picking her up off the couch with one arm and she clung to him as he took her apart a bit at a time until she was crying out the tremble of her as she found her bliss, sending him over the edge too and he collapsed back on the couch. He felt oddly as if she were inside him as much as he was inside her, the ecstasy of it making him shake as he absently mouthed at her neck until they were both still again.

  It took him a while to come back to Earth. He was sure he must be in up in the clouds somewhere with her. He had intended, he now remembered, to take her to his room if it got to that.

  Oops.

  He realized he might be crushing her a little and sat up. She came with him, straddling him and hugging his chest, still catching her breath. He wrapped his arms around her and held her there.

  “You didn’t take off your shirt,” she said, her voice husky as she laid little kisses along his throat.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, chuckling. “I wasn’t… I guess I wasn’t really thinking about it.”

  “Hmm…” She fiddled with his top button, flicking it open, and raised her eyes. “May I?”

  “Yes?” He murmured, kissing her hair. She unbuttoned all his buttons and grinned at the sight of his broad, sculpted chest, spreading her hands along his pectorals. “Good gracious.”

  He laughed at that and she blushed, falling against him, and he held her there for a while, the two of them basking in the aftermath of bliss.

  13

  Delilah

  What a cake walk, Delilah thought.

  She was lying on a deck chair, having snuck into the pool area of a swanky hotel not far from Sam’s house. The scantily clad and too beautiful people frequenting the place were all drinking mimosas and looking at her funny, perhaps because she was lying on a deck chair in a leather jacket and boots. Although she was also drinking a mimosa, and like the pretty people around her, she seemed awfully pleased with herself.

  The mission had seemed so difficult at first, but the only real complication had been the coma and that hadn’t even been very difficult to solve. Her targets had just done the deed and more than that, they were clearly crazy about each other. She sighed happily and took another sip of her champagne and orange juice, the combination of which was making her a little sleepy as she lay there in the sun.

  A server came around with complimentary shrimps and Delilah took several and dropped them in her lap. She was pretty sure she had crashed some kind of event, but she didn’t care about that. She thought she deserved a drink and some shrimp after her little victory, as long as it happened to be there for the taking.

  “Well, look at you.” Katz plopped down in the deck chair next to her and Delilah grinned at him.

  “Helloooo.” She was, perhaps, just a little bit buzzed from the mimosa. “Have you seen my lovebirds? They can’t keep their hands off each other.”

  “Yes!” Katz said. “Good job.”

  “Why, thank you!” She drank the last of her mimosa and sighed, sitting back in her chair. Why hadn’t she spent more time in Southern California back when she had been alive? She now wondered. She was rather enjoying it now.

  “So what’s your plan to take down Basil?” Katz asked, squinting at her.

  Delilah frowned at him and shook her head. “Basil? Who the hell is Basil?”

  “Basil is the dark wizard who cursed Sam in the first place,” Katz said. “I thought maybe you would have figured that out already.”

  “Oh.” Her nose twitched. She tapped her fingers on the arm rests and then nibbled on a shrimp, just to have something to do. “The dark wizard. Right.”

  “Oh geez, Delilah,” Katz said, sighing. “You forgot all about the dark wizard, didn’t you? It’s in the dossier-”

  “I didn’t forget,” she said (except that she had). “I just didn’t know his name was Basil.”

  “Yes, his name is Basil and Sam and Gwen need to defeat him. And quickly.” Katz looked at his watch which seemed more for effect than anything else. “Time is running out. The last time Basil tried something, Sam just barely stopped him from subjecting all of L.A.’s political leaders to mind control. He’d have got up to no good in the last year with Sam being out, but there are still a few other guardian lions around to stop that kind of thing.”

  “Well, how long do I have?” Delilah asked.

  Katz only shrugged. “Not long.”

  “Katz!”

  “You’ll be fine.” He patted her on the head. “I’m sure of it.”

  With that, he disappeared, and she moped for a few minutes, eating the rest of her complimentary shrimp and wishing for some cocktail sauce. She would have liked to laze by the pool with Katz for a bit, but he never stayed long when he visited on Earth. At least though, when the mission was over, they could go to dinner again. Maybe she’d get him to take her to Marilyn Monroe’s Bookstore? That was motivation enough to complete her mission, and the thought made her smile.

  The lovebirds, from what Delilah could tell, were certainly wrapped up in each other. But they didn’t seem to care much about catching dark wizards. Sam would have been normally, but he was dizzied by love, she figured. She made her way back to Sam’s h
ouse in the middle of the night when she knew everyone would be asleep. She climbed a drainpipe up to Sam’s bedroom window and peeked in. The bit of moonlight shining through the parted curtains revealed Gwen happily snuggled up in Sam’s arms.

  “Perfect,” Delilah muttered.

  All they needed now was a little reminder of the enemy they needed to be fighting. Sam, she knew, often got up even earlier than Arthur, to have a coffee by himself before the morning really began. She didn’t know if he would follow that routine when Gwen was sleeping over, but a subtle clue for him to find in the morning was worth a try.

  Delilah found a ground level window cracked open and slipped inside the house. It wasn’t surprising to her that Sam’s house should be so easy to break into. In her experience, the toughest shifters practically begged for someone to break and enter, as if always hungry for a fight. Though if the house been well secured, she would have found her way in anyhow.

  Delilah found herself hopping down into the basement and she landed quietly. She was in Sam’s home gym and she raised an eyebrow at the excess of equipment.

  “Torture devices,” she muttered, grimacing at one machine that featured a series of mysterious pulleys. She trotted up the stairs and found her way to the kitchen, casting a side-eye at the drab white walls and lack of personality in the place. “Wow, he really does need a woman.”

  In the kitchen, she attacked the cabinets, searching for a spice rack. She found it hanging from the inside door of a pantry and she scanned the rack of spices that seemed to be organized by color, which seemed like a silly way to organize spices.

  “Aha.” She took the little jar of basil from its place and closed the pantry.

  She set the basil on top of the coffee maker where Sam was sure to see it in the morning, assuming he beat Arthur out of bed. It seemed like a clever way to remind Sam and Gwen of the enemy they needed to defeat. She just hoped it would work.