Alpha: An Urban Fantasy Novel (War of the Alphas Book 3)

by SM Reine

  A man stepped through the doorway and drove a sword into Violet’s gut.

  Violet’s mouth dropped open. Glistening blood spilled over her chin, splattered on her chest. The sword protruding from her spine was dull gray, like a thorn of iron, and the man holding it was a weedy redhead. His name was Kristian. He was Niamh’s artist boyfriend and a serpent shifter in the service of the Winter Court.

  He kicked Violet’s body off of the sword.

  Deirdre backed away from him as quickly as she could without slipping down the pitching deck.

  “I didn’t believe them when they said you survived,” Kristian said, advancing on her. The iron sword sizzled with sidhe blood. “I should have listened to the rumors.”

  Magic exploded around them again. Niamh had rammed into the wards a second time, and the spells sparked with a waterfall of shining energy.

  She was weakening the spells.

  Deirdre glanced over her shoulder at Rylie and Trevin. They had edged all the way to the nose of the airship, as far from Kristian as possible. If he’d come armed with a way to kill Rylie’s guards, it wouldn’t be surprising if he’d brought something silver for the Alpha, too.

  He didn’t seem interested in Rylie, though.

  “What do you think you’re going to do with an iron sword?” Deirdre asked, trying not to sound worried. “If a silver knife won’t kill me, I doubt that would, either.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said.

  He flashed across the deck, slamming into Deirdre. But he didn’t try to stab her.

  Kristian shoved two fingers against Deirdre’s forehead.

  His lips moved silently, as though speaking a word that she couldn’t hear.

  And just like that, he stepped back again.

  “Hope the mark sticks this time,” he said.

  “What?” She swiped at the place that he had touched, trying to clean it off. But there was nothing there that she could feel. “What was that? What did you do to me?”

  “That’s your death,” Kristian said.

  Niamh’s body crashed into the wards protecting the deck a third time. This time, she hit hard enough to punch through the magic, plow into Kristian, and toss both of them into the envelope of the airship.

  The point of the iron sword plunged into the airship, ripping a wide hole that vented gas.

  “No!” Kristian roared.

  Deirdre would have cried out, too, but the gases that gusted from the envelope bowled her over. It was like being punched by Stark.

  She flew backwards.

  Niamh had shattered the wards, so there was nothing to stop Deirdre from falling. She slipped over the railings with a cry, tumbling heels over head.

  The ground was so far down.

  One hand flung out, catching the railing. Deirdre dangled. Only two fingers clung to the damp metal.

  The airship jerked, battered by the wind.

  Deirdre’s hand ripped free.

  She plummeted toward the ground.

  Now would be a great time for wings.

  She still wasn’t shapeshifting. She couldn’t change at all. She couldn’t even summon the fire to keep her warm as she hurtled toward the earth.

  Time seemed to slow as the windows of the UN building swept past her. The airship dwindled, veiled by the clouds in which it was suspended. Its envelope vented gas in a white column.

  Deirdre wasn’t the only flotsam shaken free of its deck. Rylie was falling too, and the wolf looked so ungainly with her fur and legs lashing around her.

  It was an undignified end for the Alpha.

  Even now, Deirdre found some small hint of smugness in the idea that Rylie was going to die.

  It’s only fair.

  Deirdre flipped in the air, unable to control her descent. Her head angled toward the ground. The tourists were still gathered. There were cameras capturing her fall. Just as her fall from grace into Stark’s employ had been aired on a hundred news channels, so would her death. Seemed appropriate.

  Time dragged to a halt as she tumbled, only a couple dozen feet from the ground.

  She was about to hit.

  Deirdre’s body stopped with a jerk.

  But she didn’t die. Instead, she reversed direction, moving parallel to the ground a few feet above the heads of the tourists.

  It hurt like she’d slammed into pavement, but the arms curved around her were far more forgiving than that.

  She twisted to see Vidya’s determined face, eyes narrowed as she flew, wind blasting into her face. The wind sang through her razor feathers. Her biceps bulged as her hands tightened around Deirdre’s waist, holding her securely as they climbed toward the clouds again.

  Deirdre tried to say, “Vidya?” The name wouldn’t come out, though. She couldn’t breathe enough to speak.

  For the first time, Deirdre was flying without the help of an airplane, though the wings weren’t hers. They rose and fell by inches every time Vidya flapped.

  They alighted on the airship dock at the top of the UN building. Only then did Vidya drop Deirdre.

  The healing fever blazed through her. She had to brace her arms on her knees, trying to catch her breath. If the OPA agents were to attack, she would have to trust that Vidya could defend her—there was nothing Deirdre could do for herself.

  Nobody attacked. Trevin materialized with Rylie at his side, holding her by the ruff of fur at her neck.

  If Deirdre had thought Trevin looked inhuman before, it was nothing in comparison to his appearance now. He was elemental. Raw magic that no skin could contain. He had released everything human about him and surrendered to pure magic.

  Even though Rylie couldn’t speak, Deirdre could see the gratitude in her wolfish eyes. She was happy that Deirdre had survived.

  Deirdre wasn’t sure she was equally happy to see the Alpha restored to safety.

  Trevin peered over the side of the dock. “Sloppy. Very sloppy.”

  The airship was still crashing. Deirdre couldn’t see Kristian and Niamh on its deck from where she kneeled, but she could tell that there was no saving the dirigible. It made a graceful arc through the cloudy morning, dragging so many OPA agents to death within its belly.

  Vidya might have been able to save them if Deirdre asked her to.

  Deirdre didn’t.

  The airship crashed into the water. The waves surged, engulfing the dirigible in steely gray arms, and it vanished into the depths of the ocean.

  VIII

  If the government was good at anything, it was doing everything in triplicate.

  The first airship had barely had enough time to sink under the surface of the ocean before the second had been deployed, and now it hovered outside the United Nations building, waiting for its important passengers to board. This dirigible was almost a twin to the first, but a few years older, decorated with generic OPA insignia, and refueling cables still dangling from its belly.

  “Isn’t there an alternative mode of transportation?” Deirdre asked, moving unsteadily onto the catwalk that led to the cabin. It didn’t feel nearly as solid underneath her now that she’d been on one as it was crashing.

  “Not to the place we’re going,” Trevin said. He had returned to a body that looked passably human, but Deirdre still couldn’t bring herself to look at him directly. She couldn’t bring herself to take the hand he offered, either. She edged across the catwalk on her own and didn’t feel settled even once she entered the shelter of the cabin.

  The pilot wasted no time. As soon as the door shut, the engines rumbled to life, and the UN building receded through the window. It was getting late, and the spindly structures caught the setting sun and reflected them in shades of flaming orange.

  “Your cabin’s this way,” Trevin said, heading to the hall. “You have time to sleep before we reach the ley line juncture for the Summer Court.”

  “Where is it?”

  “About thirty thousand feet over the ocean.” At Deirdre’s confused look, he explained. “It’s not
easy to hop between the Middle Worlds. You have to reach the right juncture and open a door. We’ve got a door on this airship, and it will take us to the juncture. Even with the engines running on full, we’ll have a few hours before we get there. Don’t worry, though. I don’t need to sleep. I’ll be watching your room all night.”

  “Really? What do you think I’m going to do? Jump off the airship?”

  “Or assassinate Secretary Friederling.”

  Trevin really shouldn’t have given Deirdre ideas. “I didn’t see him board.”

  “Nobody did. We don’t want anyone to know how many important people are on the same vessel. That’d be like begging for more assassins to attack us.” Trevin pushed Deirdre into her cabin. “Get some sleep.”

  He shut the door behind her.

  The lock clicked from the outside.

  The cabins on the airship were small, little more than closets, and the bed sheets were stiff with starch. The OPA logo was on the wall at the foot of the bed. They couldn’t decorate with homier art; they wanted Deirdre to fall asleep watched by a reminder of the totalitarian regime that dominated her life, as though she could ever forget about them.

  It seemed highly doubtful that she would be able to sleep, but Deirdre stripped down to her underwear to climb into bed. A wooden box clattered to the floor. “Where’d you come from?” She patted down her coat and found that an inner zipper had opened, allowing her surprise cargo to escape.

  Deirdre stooped to pick the box up. It had a hinged lid like a jewelry box.

  There was a single glowing blue cube nestled within.

  “You asshole,” Deirdre whispered, tracing her forefinger over the hard edges.

  She hadn’t been missing the lethe until she saw that cube.

  Stark had given her a couple of hits since they left the asylum—enough to keep her awake and running while they tried to get their act together. And he’d been thoughtful enough to make sure she wouldn’t go through withdrawal after she left him.

  Deirdre sank into bed with the cube of lethe, rolling it between her fingers. She wasn’t wearing her intake bracelet. She couldn’t take it unless she wanted to break it open and snort it off of the desk or something, which would have been a perversely amusing use of government furniture.

  The air in her bedroom shifted before she could make up her mind. It wasn’t the HVAC system turning on—it smelled faintly sulfurous, and the breeze that swept over her body was too hot.

  Deirdre set the lethe on her bedside table, eyes narrowing as she scanned the shadows of the tiny room.

  “Melchior,” she said.

  He emerged from the corner by the door, all glittering scales and gorgeous menace. “Hello again, Deirdre.”

  She wasn’t surprised to see him. She had known from that last look they shared that he was going to come for her—the only question had been when. She still felt a thrill of excitement to see him. An Alpha dragon. “How did you get past Trevin?”

  “Ley lines,” Melchior said. “The sidhe can go anywhere they want.”

  “You’re not sidhe. You’re a shifter.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Stark had thought so. He had been emphatically certain of it. Deirdre didn’t have an opinion of her own yet. “What do you want?”

  “Don’t look so afraid,” Melchior said. “I’m not here to drag out that exhausting game of politics we were playing at the United Nations. I came to help you, sister.”

  She lifted her eyebrows at him. “Sister? Excuse me?”

  “You and I walk the line between shifter and sidhe with our fiery blood, and that makes us family.”

  “I have no family, and I don’t want you as a replacement for what I’m not missing.”

  “So unfriendly. What poison has Ever dripped into your ear?”

  “He didn’t have to say anything about you. I’ve got enough personal experience to form an educated opinion.”

  His eyes raked down her body. “Yes, you do.”

  Melchior’s throaty tone took her back to the night that they had met at Original Sin, when she had kissed him to save her life. If she hadn’t distracted him, he would have shot her in the gut, and Deirdre would have gotten a chance to find out that she was a phoenix much sooner.

  He seemed to be conveniently forgetting the part where she tried to bite his tongue off during that kiss.

  “Okay. Are you here to finish the job that Kristian and Niamh failed to do?” Deirdre asked. “Because we can crash airships all day and night, but I don’t think you’ll kill me.”

  “Kristian wasn’t trying to kill you. He was marking you so that something far deadlier can kill you. I am here to remove you from Earth before that happens—and I think there are a few other things we can enjoy together while we’re at it.” He smiled. His fangs were so long that they left indentations in the curve of his bottom lip. “I know what you are. You came back to life and you burn with flame—there’s only one thing you could be, little bird. Have you been enjoying riding the night with wings of fire?”

  Her hands clenched into fists on top of her knees. “No, because I haven’t done it. I’m still an Omega.”

  “The existence of Omegas is a myth,” Melchior said. “You just need the right guidance to learn how to change into your form. Someone like…a brother.”

  Her heart accelerated. “You know how to change me?”

  “I know how I change, and I can impart that knowledge upon you.”

  “What’s the cost?” Deirdre asked.

  His eyes glimmered with dark mischief. “Does the price matter?”

  It didn’t. She would have done anything for her animal.

  “Tell me,” Deirdre said, excitement thrilling through her from fingertips to toes.

  “I’ll show you.” Melchior stretched a hand toward her. His fingernails were more like blunted claws, hard and red, as though he were always on the brink of taking his dragon form.

  “You people killed me,” Deirdre said.

  “Niamh killed you at Rhiannon’s command. She may be my mate, but I’m not Rhiannon’s dog. I have an agenda of my own, along with other…urges. I won’t hurt you tonight.” He smiled, exposing those many sharp teeth. “Dragon’s honor.”

  That meant nothing to her.

  Still, Deirdre knew when she was overpowered. If he wanted her head, he wouldn’t bother taking her somewhere else to do it.

  So she gave him her hand.

  Warm, scaly fingers engulfed hers. He was as hot as she was. Melchior wasn’t kidding when he said that fire flowed through his veins.

  Melchior pulled her against his chest. The sheer size of him was intimidating. Deirdre wasn’t a short woman, nor was she weak, but Melchior made her feel pathetically small. “It’s time for you to spread your wings, Deirdre Tombs,” he said.

  And he pulled her through the ley lines.

  IX

  Deirdre’s first encounter with the Winter Court had been when she approached the door that Niamh had kept in the basement of No Capes. The wind that had blown out of that door had been cold enough to repel Deirdre and quash any urge she’d had to visit the Winter Court.

  That wind had been nothing compared to materializing in the midst of the Winter Court in the depths of night.

  She stood on top of a hill, sinking waist-deep into crystalline snow. The sultry sky was a blue so deep that it was nearly black. Naked trees thrust branches into the air, icicles dangling from their tips, crystals of frost glimmering from each twig. The ice caught what little light there was in the Winter Court and magnified it, making the trees sparkle as though covered in Christmas lights.

  The sky was filled with stars that seemed so close that Deirdre should have been able to touch them. But she didn’t want to reach up. She didn’t want to be there at all.

  So cold.

  “Melchior?” she asked, teeth chattering, turning to look for the dragon.

  He radiated light and heat behind her, a pool of golden warmth among the
frosty blueness of the world. He wasn’t bothered by the snow. His scaly skin steamed.

  There was a portal hanging open in the sky beyond Melchior. It was a black passage unrestrained by any doorframe—a hole that led back through the ley lines.

  That would be Deirdre’s route to Earth, warmth, and relative safety.

  She couldn’t get to it without passing Melchior, and she doubted he’d let her run as soon as she arrived, no matter how cold she felt.

  “What do you think?” Melchior asked, the corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk.

  Deirdre shivered hard as she searched for signs of civilization—a city, a road, anything where she might find heat. She saw nothing but endless rolling forest and ice. The Winter Court was nothing but uninhabited, frozen desolation. “It’s horrible.”

  He engulfed her in his arms. His heat was enough to stoke hers. Where he touched, fire lifted on her flesh, dancing with flaming feathers. “Better?”

  Deirdre’s eyes fell shut at his touch. “Better.”

  He was so blissfully hot, thawing Deirdre’s frozen innards. She couldn’t help but react to him. It wasn’t even that she was attracted to him.

  Okay, she might have been kind of attracted to him.

  Really attracted to him.

  But who wouldn’t have been aroused by a shirtless, muscular dragon shifter sheltering her body from the chill? Deirdre was only human. Or phoenix. Whatever.

  With his warmth to protect her, she took another look around at the Winter Court. The forest terminated somewhere on the horizon, bordered by a thin line of black that could have been darker sky or a body of water. But she didn’t see any artificial light.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  “The unseelie want you dead,” Melchior said. “I thought it best to bring you into the world far from the queen’s castle.”

  “Does Rhiannon know you’re even talking to me?”

  “What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. We can only have this conversation in the Middle Worlds, and you’re safe in the Winter Court as long as you’re with me. I promise you that.” His hands slithered over her shoulders. “If you transform on Earth, the assassin would find you immediately.”