Alphas Unwrapped: 21 New Steamy Paranormal Tales of Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, Dragons, Witches, Angels, Demons, Fey, and More

by Michele Bardsley

  “Yes, I think that must be her name,” I said. “Really, after everything, this should not be the part that surprises you.”

  “Her name,” he stammered. “I think I heard you wrong.”

  “You didn’t hear me wrong, Abram—you just repeated the name back me. How could you have heard it wrong?” Leering at him, I started to get a bad feeling. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He swallowed, shaking his head and turning away from me. “It’s been years. It’s been… Dead God. It’s been fifty years.”

  “Abram…” I said, trying to get more out of him. I didn’t like where this was going. “Please tell me this isn’t Satina all over again.”

  “I’m so sorry, Charisse,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I think I know why Santa came to this town.”

  Chapter 8

  I crossed my arms, eyeing Abram warily. He was pretty banged up from his fight with Santa, but whatever revelation he’d had seemed to be what was really taking a toll on him.

  “Spill it,” I said coolly. “You are not leaving me in the dark again.”

  “I won’t,” he whispered. “But we should go. It’s not safe here.”

  “It’s not safe any—”

  He lifted me off my feet and raced off, the woods too much a blur to see which direction we were going until he slowed down at the edge of the woods. He placed me down and took my hand as we started toward the Inn. I looked out at it, at the now darkened lobby.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Me?” I snatched my hand away. “You’re the one who’s beat up and darting through the woods instead of telling me what the hell is going on! Why are we going back to the Inn?” I waved my hand toward its front doors. Dudley was probably sleeping, which unfortunately wouldn’t last long. “In case you forgot, we aren’t welcome there!”

  Abram grabbed my hand again and pulled me back to him. “I need you right now, Char. I need you to put aside your anger and remember something: I wasn’t always the man I am now, and this is not news to you. This is not the time for you to get bitter about it. I have a long history of poor choices, and I’ve done things I regret—more things than I can count.”

  I softened beneath his grasp. He was right. Maybe this was the Satina issue all over again, but it’s not like I wasn’t aware he had a rocky past.

  “So tell me about Annabeth,” I said. “I need to know so we can move on from this.”

  Abram released me, maybe sensing I didn’t want his hands on me while he talked about another woman. “She was a woman I knew back in the ‘60s. A Conduit. Just…someone to have some fun with.”

  “Right,” I mumbled. “Fun.”

  His sculpted arms, corded with muscle, glistened in the moonlight as his hands balled into fists. “Annabeth wasn’t a bad person. The magic can be too much for some people, though. Not everyone has a natural capacity for it like you do.”

  I didn’t want to be a Conduit or a Supplicant, and I certainly had no desire to be a mix of both. But since I was, I might as well be the best damn one of them I could be.

  “Don’t butter me up, Abram,” I said. “Get to the point.”

  His eyebrows raised and his lips pressed together. Finally, he continued. “When studying, she was fine, but in practice, the magic went to her head. It brought out a vulgar darkness in her, and I fed off that darkness. I stoked it in her and nurtured that person.” His gaze never wavered from mine. I had to give it to Abram—he really knew how to own his shit. “After I came here, I got back in touch with the man I knew I could be and decided it was best to let her go.”

  “So you broke up with her?” I asked, stealing another glance at the Inn.

  “I told her I wasn’t right for her, that I was taking her down a path that would eventually destroy her. I wanted to set her free, Charisse, the way you’ve done for me. I wanted her to have a good life, and I knew she couldn’t do that with me. We were toxic together.”

  Abram had always described himself as a horrible person, but I just couldn’t see it. The man who stood before me now was the bravest, strongest, kindest person who ever set foot on this planet. He couldn’t have grown out of someone so horrific. It wasn’t possible.

  And yet, that was exactly how history had played out.

  I rubbed my hands over my arms, more from nerves than from the chill. “Then what happened?”

  “I have no idea.” Abram reached his hands out to mine, taking my fingertips against his own. “That was the last time I ever saw her, crying in her apartment in Chicago. I had always hoped she had picked herself up and moved on with her life. Maybe she had a couple of kids by now and a home with a husband who treated her the way I never could. Maybe she outran that darkness.” He swallowed hard. “But if what you’re telling me is right, there’s no way this is a coincidence. Annabeth is involved, and we have to find out how she is.”

  “Okay,” I said, letting my hands slip deeper into his palms. “I have a question for you, though, and I want you to know that I’m okay with whatever the answer is so long as you’re honest with me.”

  Abram’s dark eyes narrowed. “Anything, Charisse.”

  “I know it was a long time ago, and it probably doesn’t even matter anymore, but I have to know. Did you love her?”

  His soft expression turned into a glare. I wish I could read what was going on in his mind. One of his hands left mine and traveled to my arm, brushing it lightly.

  “I was a different person. I’m not sure I was capable of—”

  “But did you love her?” I asked again.

  “Not like I love you.”

  A weight I hadn’t even realized was there lifted from my shoulders. I felt like I could fight lions. “Okay then,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”

  *

  Getting to work involved going back into the Inn, where Annabeth was staying—if those stockings were correct. Abram was certain Dudley wasn’t going to just let us in, so he kicked the door of its hinges and marched into the lobby uninvited.

  Dudley, as it turned out, wasn’t asleep. He must have given more thought to a reappearance from Santa than he’d let on, because we found him in a rocking chair in the lobby, moving back and forth with a rifle in his hands.

  “I told you not to come back!” He pointed the rifle at us, and his finger flew to the trigger.

  Quicker than I could blink, Abram advanced on Dudley, knocked him out of the chair, stripped him of his rifle, and twisted the barrel into a dark metal bow.

  Damn that beast healed fast.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Abram said, standing over Dudley like some horrible god, eyes glowing red, fangs bared.

  “If you’re here, you’re already hurting me,” Dudley said, his face more fear-stricken than angry now. “He’ll come back. He’ll come back for me for letting you stay.”

  Abram tossed the twisted up rifle aside. “He’s coming back anyway. Where’s Annabeth?”

  “Who?” Dudley stumbled back up to his feet. “I don’t know who that is.”

  “The woman!” Abram barked. “The woman who’s staying in this hotel!”

  “You’re out of your mind.” Dudley retrieved his now useless gun and inspecting the stupid thing. “There’s no one here but me. This hotel has been empty for months!”

  Abram roared so loudly that the walls started to shake. “Don’t lie to me!”

  “Abram!” I yelled, afraid he was going to unleash the beast. “This isn’t worth it. I saw her. I know what room she’s in.”

  Abram pushed his hand into Dudley’s shoulder, pinning him against the wall. “Stay. Here.”

  “Whatever,” Dudley murmured, dropping his ruined gun back to the floor. “I was just trying to have a peaceful night.”

  Abram and I moved up the steps, and already I could feel the Conduit’s energy. This had to be her. It must be Annabeth. The energy nearly knocked me down as we settled at the top of the steps. I stumbled backward and Abram cradled my back and neck.<
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  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I-I’m fine,” I said. “I just didn’t expect it. I didn’t feel this energy the first time.”

  “It may get stronger closer to midnight,” Abram said, steadying me with his hand.

  I grimaced. “Sounds familiar.”

  “You’ll be fine,” he said, releasing me again as we turned down the first hallway. “Which door is it?”

  “The one right across from us.” I pointed to the room I saw the woman in before.

  “Of course it is,” he mumbled. “That’s the same room I stayed in in ‘65. This is too strange.”

  I nodded at Abram and followed him to the room in question. Energy flooded over me, whipping my hair backward, but Abram seemed unaffected. Of course. All the beast, none the magic.

  He reached for the handle, but I shook my head.

  “Don’t! It’ll knock you on your ass. There’s a mountain of magic around that thing.”

  He pulled back, sighing. “So how the hell am I supposed to get in?”

  “You’re not supposed to get in,” I said, cracking my knuckles. “I am.”

  I closed my eyes, searching myself and letting my emotions run wild, the way I always had to if I wanted to tap into the magic that literally ran through my veins.

  I had been through so much, even in the last few hours, that it wasn’t hard to get myself all worked up. Blood started pumping so furiously through my body that I could feel my heart beating in my ears and the magic humming in my veins.

  And then, like a switch flipping behind my eyes, the magic unlocked. Opening my eyes, I saw the energy that moved back and forth in this place like cars on 7th Avenue in rush hour.

  With a flick of my wrist, I pushed it aside, creating a path through the magic leading right to the door.

  “Be careful,” Abram warned as I reached for the handle.

  “You be careful,” I said, grabbing the knob and turning. “I got this.”

  As I pushed the door open, even more magic poured out toward me, but I moved through it, beating it back until all that remained was a flicker or two of energy. The room was clear now. We could walk in.

  Abram went before me as he always did, and I had to hold back a snicker. In our relationship, he was top dog, but in the battlefield? Not so much. I guess walking through doors first made him feel better about that.

  I could always feel it when something like this happened, a hint of guilt that he couldn’t do everything that needed to be done. He was an old school man, a traditionalist. He wanted to protect me. He wanted to take care of me. And he wanted my existence to be as sweet and easy as possible.

  Okay, so he was a bit sexist, but in a way I found it hard to fault him for.

  The room we entered was pretty bare, bare for a twin bed with a floral throw and ratty pink pillow, a dresser with a single black and white photo on it, a Christmas wreath hanging from a nail on the far wall.

  Standing in the far corner of the room was a small woman with ink black hair, big eyes, and a face of porcelain that was equal parts beautiful, fragile, and honestly, a bit creepy.

  “I can’t believe you came,” she said in a small voice. “How long did it take?” She shook her head. “Has it been a long time since we’ve seen each other?”

  She looked tired and a bit stir crazy. Her wide eyes were rimmed with black circles and she clutched a black throw across her shoulders. But she hadn’t aged, it seemed. She looked every bit the young woman that Abram described. Nature of the Conduit, I suppose, myself apparently excluded from that.

  He stepped toward here, blocking her from my view. “It’s been fifty years, Annabeth.”

  I side-stepped to look around his hulking frame. Tears pooled in her big eyes.

  “Fifty years already?” she asked. “It’s a new century, isn’t it?”

  I rolled my eyes. “It has been for a while.”

  She looked at me, her eyes narrowing. “Who is she?”

  “This is Charisse Bellamy,” Abram said, his voice even and calming. “She’s a Conduit.”

  “That’s what she is, Abram. I asked who she is.” Annabeth looked at me, pain etched into her expression. “You certainly do have a type, don’t you?”

  “Annabeth, you have to stop this,” he said, taking another step toward her. “You’re hurting people. You’re killing them.”

  Her hands clenched tighter around her throw, and she jutted her gaze back to Abram. “You think I did this?”

  Abram spread his hands, his shoulders sagging. “What would you think if you were me?”

  “Yes, I’m responsible, but that doesn’t mean…” Tears slid down her unblemished cheeks. “I came here after you left me. I wanted to see what the big deal was. Maybe if you found yourself here, I could, too. But I didn’t. I got here, and all I found was stupid mountains and cheery people who had no idea what I was going through.” She wiped the tears from one side of her face with the back of her nightgown sleeve. “This place took you away from me, and I wanted to make them pay. I wanted them to pay for everything they had taken, everything they had done.”

  Abram’s hands were balling into fists at his sides. I placed a calming hand on his shoulder and came to his side. “Annabeth,” I said gently, “what did you do?”

  “I summoned something,” she whispered. “A true demon. But I didn’t know… I didn’t think... The power was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It took over, ripped me up, did everything but split me in half.”

  The muscles in my forehead pulled tight. Damn it, this dumb bitch was gonna give me wrinkles. “Santa’s a demon?”

  “Of course not!” She spit at me. “This isn’t Santa, but true demons don’t have an identity. They just exist as paragons of pure evil. It searched my mind. It searched this place, and that’s the identity it came up with. I suppose I should be happy. The damn thing is contained to one night because of its perceived identity. But even that’s too much.” She wiped the other side of her face now. “I tried. I tried for so long to stop it. But it was too strong. After a while, I tried to leave, but it has me pinned here to manipulate my power. So I cloaked myself, made myself a ghost in this place so people wouldn’t ask questions. And then I watched. That’s all I do. I watch every year as that horrible thing kills whoever is unlucky enough to land on that list.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, not wasting any energy trying to sympathize with this selfish wench. “Well, check this out.”

  I held up the list, which still held Abram’s name.

  “No!” She gasped and, though Abram had told me he didn’t love her, I had no doubt that she still loved him.

  Abram put his hand on mine to lower the list. “You have to stop it, Annabeth. You have to send it back where it came from.”

  “Don’t you think I would? I told you! I can’t do a damn thing with it! It’s going to kill you, Abram!” Her wide eyes wouldn’t settle their gaze and she rocked slightly where she stood. “It’s going to tear you in half like all the others.” She rocked harder now. “You have to undo what you did. You have to make right all your wrongs or it’ll kill you. It’ll kill you and then there will be no one left to stop it.”

  Chapter 9

  Abram stood there, his eyes filling with something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Whatever it was struck me as old, certainly older than me. It hit me then with saddening clarity. I would never really understand him, not the way I’d understand a regular man. Abram had lived one hundred and fifty years. He had watched the birth of the automobile, saw regimes rise and fall, witnessed the world go to war two times, and likely fallen in and out of love more times than years I had been on this earth.

  Whatever he was experiencing now was something I could never understand, and that hurt me more than I cared to admit.

  “I can’t do that,” Abram said flatly. He shook his head, though not frantically the way Annabeth now was. He was calmer, more matter of fact. “You know the kind of person I was, Annabeth. You saw me a
t my worst. And even that was just a snapshot. I was not kind. I was not considerate. I’ve hurt more people than I care to count in my long life, perhaps even more than I could remember if I tried. How am I supposed to make all of that right in one hour? Most of the people I hurt aren’t even alive anymore. What I did…who I was…it takes lifetimes to atone for that.”

  The gallop of hooves against the roof bellowed through the room. Just like in the diner. He was here. Santa had returned.

  “That’s not the right answer,” Annabeth said. Her hands wrung together. Her lips pressed into a thin, worried line.

  “Abram,” I said, my heart jumping. “We have to do something.”

  “We will.” He turned to me, locking my knees with his a steady gaze. “We’ll do what we always do, Charisse. We’ll fight, and we’ll win.”

  “That’s not what we always do,” I said, more in anger than fear as I thought about Amanda and the way that poor woman died on our watch, and then again to what happened in the woods. “Now’s not the time to be stubborn, Abram. Now’s the time to play the game. You need to find a way to fix this. You need to get your name off of this list.”

  “I don’t negotiate with terrorists, Charisse,” he told me, clenching his jaw. “If this sonofabitch wants me dead, he’s going to have to kill me. I’m not about to cry, whimper, and plead for my life. And I sure as hell won’t make it easy for him.”

  His face twisted and contorted as he spoke. I glanced out the window, unsure if I should be thankful or concerned by how close it was to midnight—how close to the surface the beast was.

  He had been the beast last time, and that hadn’t ended well. No, for this, we needed a different approach.

  “You wanna be proud?” I asked. “You wanna have a pissing contest with Santa Claus? Be my guest. I’ll be right behind you until it’s over. But your name’s not on that list for no reason. You said so yourself. You’ve done horrible things, and while I know you’re not the person you used to be, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to make good on what you did badly.”

  “I told you Charisse, that’s impossible. There’s not enough time.”