Alpha’s Revenge
By N.J. Walters
This book was previously released in 2009 by another publisher under the title of Sweet Charity. It has been revised and updated for rerelease with Carina Press.
A war reaches its endgame, but the heat between two unlikely lovers could set fire to all that Resistance forces have achieved. Don’t miss the final installment of the Project Alpha trilogy by New York Times bestselling author N.J. Walters.
Adrian is a flawless Alpha assassin and avenging enforcer of the Resistance, devoted to the destruction of the oppressors. The first rule of empowerment? Never trust a stranger.
Then comes Charity, a woman desperate to relinquish her heart and secrets to the cause, and just as eager to surrender her body to its rebel leader. She’s more than proved her loyalty—she’s become the most desirable and valuable weapon Adrian has.
Charity Caruthers, daughter of the inner city’s brutal General, risked her life to escape into the underground. Now she’s Adrian’s last hope to infiltrate the tyrant’s lair and blow it to hell.
As her feelings for Adrian turn deeper and more dangerous with every move they make, it becomes clear. The greatest defense they can stage? Love.
This book is approximately 42,000 words
Edited by Kerri Buckley
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise! Find out more at CarinaPress.com/RomancePromise
Dear Reader,
I was supposed to write this letter in August. I procrastinated it to September. Because I didn’t want to think about December—holidays, shopping, baking, cleaning, shopping, shopping, cold and snow. I don’t know about you, but just thinking of the business of the holidays makes my chest a little tight with anxiety. And you’re probably reading this right in the middle of all those busy times! So it’s a good thing we have a few escapist reads for you this month, to help give you a respite from some of the stress of the season and take you away on a mental vacation!
Jade A. Waters brings all the sexiness in her debut erotic romance, The Assignment, first in her Lessons in Control trilogy. After freeing herself from a troubled past, independent Maya Clery explores her wildest sexual fantasies with playful, dominant Dean Sova in a dynamic that challenges her inhibitions—leading her down an intoxicating path of passion, pleasure and true emotional freedom.
Wattpad author and Harlequin’s 2015 So You Think You Can Write winner, Lauren D.M. Smith, returns to Carina Press with her next fantasy romance. In Enveloping Shadows, monsters, thieves and demons might stand between Terrwyn and the princess she’s sworn her loyalty to, but it’s the mysterious Zel who could be the most dangerous. Make sure you check out The Emperor’s Arrow, the book that won the SYTYCW contest and started Lauren’s publishing journey, available now!
We have two—yes, two!—exciting releases from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Dane this month. In the Cascadia Wolves series, we follow the Warden siblings as they find their mates. Fall in love with Layla and Sid in Reluctant Mate, and then meet Lex and Nina in Pack Enforcer. Watch for more Cascadia Wolves books in the coming months!
Adrian is an Alpha, a genetically and computer enhanced assassin who has spent years plotting revenge. The only woman he wants is the daughter of his greatest enemy. With war looming and people’s lives on the line, does he trust Charity, does he f**k her or does he kill her? Alpha’s Revenge by N.J. Walters is a futuristic erotic romance sure to heat up your holidays (and beyond)! Other titles in the Project Alpha trilogy, Embracing Silence and Assassin’s Awakening, are now available for your holiday shopping checkout-line reading!
If you love the darker side of romance, Devil’s Slave, an American Monsters erotic male/male thriller romance, is going to send your socks up in flames, not just knock them off. To save his niece and help stop a human trafficking ring, former detective Hugh Kincaid offers a rich, dark and scorching-hot dominant everything he has—himself. Dark, dirty and more than a little forbidden, this love affair from debut author Lola Hale has all the hallmarks of what readers loved about Captive Prince, but in a contemporary setting.
In the third installment of Jade Chandler’s down-and-dirty Jericho Brotherhood motorcycle club series, two hard cases deny the beyond-carnal bond that forms between them…until it’s almost too late. Deny: A Dark, Erotic Motorcycle Club Romance is sure to get all motors revving! Read the other two scorching romances in this series, Enough and Release, now available!
Don’t forget Shannon Stacey’s Holiday with a Twist holiday novella, which released last month, and we also have a full backlist of holiday titles, if you’re in the mood for some romance with a holiday flair. Visit CarinaPress.com and find reads like All She Wants for Christmas by Jaci Burton, Lone Star by Josh Lanyon, Believe by Lauren Dane, A Christmas Reunion by Susanna Fraser, Breath on Embers by Anne Calhoun and dozens more!
Whatever your celebration, wherever you are, this season the Carina Press team once again thanks you for your continued love, enthusiasm and support of our books and authors. We hope you’re surrounded by all the things you love this holiday season, and we wish you, as always, a month of reading books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
Angela James
Editorial Director, Carina Press
Dedication
Thank you to all my readers. Your unconditional support has allowed me to go on this amazing writing journey.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Excerpt from Embracing Silence by N.J. Walters
Author’s Note
Also by N.J. Walters
About the Author
Chapter One
Earth 2133
Her father was a monster. Charity Caruthers had always known he was evil, but even she hadn’t realized the true depths of his depravity until this moment.
The man hanging in chains from the interrogation wall looked as though his skin had been peeled from his body, one small piece at a time. His hair was matted with blood and sweat. It was impossible to tell what its original color was. Blood and urine pooled around his manacled ankles. Charity swallowed hard, trying desperately to keep from vomiting as the horrible smell coated her nostrils and throat. Sweat clung to her skin and she shivered with dread.
She would have thought him dead if it weren’t for the occasional gasp as he tried to pull air into his starving lungs.
Charity pitied him even as she acknowledged there wasn’t much she could do to help him. He was too far gone and would be dead in a few hours, maybe less. She nervously glanced over her shoulder. There were no guards about. After all, this was a secure federal building and the prisoner was in no shape to mount an escape. But that didn’t mean one of the guards wouldn’t be back soon.
She crept closer, taking care not to step in the puddle of his blood, which was growing larger with each passing second. “Sir,” she whispered. His head rolled to one side and he emitted a long, low moan. She bit her bottom lip and shot a look at the door. It was still clear.
Swallowing hard, she reached out her hand to touch his face but drew back. There was nowhere to touch him that wouldn’t hurt and she didn’t want to add to his misery and suffering. “Sir, is there anyone I
can get word to? Family? Friends?” It was the least she could do for him.
His eyelids fluttered and his cracked lips moved slightly. Charity leaned in closer. “Dreeann.” The words were hardly more than a puff of air.
She frowned. “Who is Dreeann? Where can I find her?” Or was it a him?
The dying man licked his lips but didn’t speak. He was quiet for so long, she was afraid he’d died in between one tortured breath and the next. She started to leave but the man moved. Amazingly, he raised his head and opened his eyes. He seemed lucid in spite of the excruciating pain he must be feeling.
“Adrian. Not safe. General. Attack. Three days.” The effort it took to get those words out seemed to exhaust him. His head rolled to one side.
Charity’s heart stopped and then resumed beating at an alarming rate. “The General is going to attack in three days. And I need to tell someone named Adrian.”
The corners of the man’s lips turned up in a gruesome smile. “Wish I could be there to fight.”
“What’s your name?”
“Manuel.”
His breathing was laboring now and blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. “I’ll tell him. I promise.”
He stared at her with startling clear, green eyes. She thought he must have been a handsome man before her father and his goons got hold of him. He nodded once. His eyes closed and he released a huge sigh. The chains around his wrists and ankles tightened as his body slumped forward. Manuel was dead.
Taking a deep breath, Charity backed away from the ghastly scene and hurried to the door. She’d been summoned to the government building by her father, only to be told by his assistant that he was busy and had no time for her today. As she was leaving, she’d overheard a conversation between two security police, talking about the prisoner her father was interrogating.
She knew every inch of this place, had played here as a child, and knew exactly where to find the interrogation rooms in the bowels of the building. Something had pulled at her, urging her to find out for herself exactly what was going on. Maybe it had started out as simply wanting to know what had kept her father from meeting her. Whenever he summoned her, which thankfully was rare, it usually meant he wanted something. And whatever he wanted, it was never anything good.
Bringing her attention back to the present, she focused on her escape. There was nothing more she could do for Manuel. She glanced up and down the hallway, closing the door gently behind her before skittering toward the stairs. Sweat made her clothing stick to her body. She could barely hear above the pounding of her heart. The stairs seemed to go on forever but she kept going, putting one foot in front of the other.
If someone caught her in this prohibited part of the building, she wasn’t certain she had enough wits about her to talk herself out of trouble. She straightened her spine and hurried her pace. The only option was to not get caught.
She calmed a bit when she reached the main level of the sterile government building, not really seeing its gray walls and tiled floors. The image of the poor man who’d just bled to death before her very eyes was burned into her brain. It was a sight she’d never forget.
She nodded and smiled at several people who knew her and kept walking. The front door of the building seemed to be miles away. Charity kept going, hoping no one would notice anything unusual about her. She felt changed somehow and thought that must show in her appearance. But no one seemed to perceive anything amiss. Not the people she passed or the guards who waved her through the security checkpoint. Thankfully no one stopped to chat. She certainly didn’t think she could manage to stop and talk, not if she actually wanted to have a coherent conversation.
The walk home was a nightmare. Sweat seeped from every pore of her body and she ground her jaws together to keep from screaming. Every second that ticked by she expected a security patrol to stop her and drag her to her father—General Benson Caruthers, aka the General.
Just because she was his daughter didn’t mean she was immune to his cruelty. Her hand went to the left side of her face, her fingers tracing the jagged scar that ran from the outside corner of her eye all the way to her mouth. Her father hadn’t given her this particular scar, but he’d been responsible for it. After all, he was the one who had forced her into marriage with a man twice her age in order to gain political support and favors.
She hadn’t had a choice. Like the man chained to the wall in the interrogation room, she’d been trapped. Her father had beaten her, drugged her and dragged her to the mockery of a wedding ceremony, which had been over and done before she’d even realized what was happening to her.
She dropped her hand back to her side, stuffing it into her pocket as she hurried up the walkway toward her small apartment. She’d moved here after she was widowed. The government had seized her husband’s wealth after his suspicious death, leaving her once again at her father’s mercy. No one would hire her because they feared the General’s wrath. She lived on a small stipend he provided.
Her fingers shook as she put the key in the lock and let herself inside. She didn’t stop but went straight to the bathroom where she promptly threw up her breakfast.
Dropping to the floor in front of the commode, she clasped the white porcelain in her hands as she cried and heaved. When the worst of the storm passed, she grabbed the side of the vanity and stood on shaky legs. Turning on the faucet, she rinsed her face with cool water before grabbing her toothbrush.
A few minutes later, she felt better, if not quite stable. She raised her head and studied the pale face staring back at her. Her skin was so white her freckles stood out on her nose and cheekbones. Her curly brown hair was in disarray. But it was the resolve in her eyes that steadied her.
She had to get out of this place. She’d been widowed for nearly a year now. There was nothing she could prove, but Charity was sure her father had played a role in the death of her husband. Not that she missed Martin. The mere thought of his name made her nauseous. He’d been a sadistic son of a bitch who enjoyed the pain of others, but especially hers.
Lately her father had been hinting that it was time for her to remarry.
She’d rather be dead.
Charity made her decision. She was leaving the inner city and venturing into the world outside the Gate—a high tech, impenetrable shield that protected the enclosed city from contamination from the outside. A hundred years ago, war, natural disasters and disease had transformed the planet. The population had been decimated. When the dust finally settled, the world was divided into two sections. The rich and privileged lived inside the climate-controlled, protective confines of the Gate. Outside the barrier, everyone else resided in poverty, filth, disease and lawlessness.
But living inside the city came with a price: freedom. The Ruling Council had it. Everyone else followed the rules or soon found themselves dead, imprisoned or outside the Gate.
Charity would rather take her chances out there than remain here any longer. She was twenty-five years old and it was time to take charge of her destiny. A man had died at her father’s hand today and she owed it to him to grant his dying wish.
But it was more than that. This was a chance to do something important, to warn people of an impending attack by her father. She hadn’t been able to save Manuel, but maybe she could save the people he cared about. And in saving them, maybe she could save herself.
Galvanized into action, she began a mental list of what she’d need—a knapsack to carry food and clothing, a container for water, and a blanket or two. A knife. And probably a gun. She had one. It had belonged to her late husband. She’d never fired a gun in her life, but she could point and shoot. It was better than nothing.
She faltered briefly. Sheer terror swamped her at the thought of facing the unknown beyond the Gate. Straightening her shoulders, she took a deep breath, pushed away from the vanity and strode to her bedroom. There
were hours before the sun went down and she could make her way to one of the exits to the outside world. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to manage to get past the security guards who manned the Gate, but she’d figure it out when the time came.
Right now, it was enough that she had a mission. Whoever Adrian was, he and the people around him were in grave danger. Manuel had used the last of his strength to give her the message. That meant whatever the General had planned was big. People would die if she didn’t pass on the warning. Her father ruthlessly crushed any rebellion, both inside and outside the Gate. She shuddered at the thought of this unknown man falling into her father’s grasp. Her father was a monster, one who had to be stopped.
In the fourteen long months she’d been married, she’d eavesdropped many times on private conversations between her husband and father. In the past year, she’d learned even more about the General. He wouldn’t rest until all the rebels outside the city were dead.
Adrian. She knew that name. Charity sat on the side of the bed and tried to pull it from her memory. Something she’d overheard.
She shrugged. It didn’t matter. Whoever he was, she’d find him.
* * *
Adrian stared out into the night. It was dark, but with his enhanced vision, he could see as well as if it were midday. The back of his neck tingled. A warning. An omen. Something was in the air. Trouble was on the wind.
Sighing, he rubbed his nape, trying to ignore the nagging feeling of impending disaster. He was tired. Not an unusual state for him. Being the leader of the Resistance was time-consuming. There were never enough hours in the day to do everything that needed to be done to keep an operation this size running.
There were people to feed and clothe. They all needed shelter, medical supplies and weapons. Then there were the constant patrols against the security police to plan and implement. For what felt like the millionth time, Adrian wondered how the hell he’d ended up in this position.
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