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

by Michele Bardsley

  “Let me take you home. The police are on their way. I can at least get you out of the cold.”

  She caught his hand before it could reach her. The moment her flesh hit his, the stench of scorched apples filled the air.

  Sludge coursed through his body. The same thick substance that rotted inside Daniel controlled Rick. Her friend. Maybe her only friend.

  She dropped his hand and fought the bile rising in her throat. “Who are you? What did you do with Rick?”

  The charming smile died on his lips. “Was it the accent? I can never quite get the southern gentleman twang down right.” He overemphasized his consonants in a parody of Rick’s speech pattern.

  “No.” Her mind cleared enough for her to remember the last few moments before the car door opened. “You’re Azazel, right? What did you do, crawl into Rick’s body and take it over or something?”

  His mouth opened in surprise. “Wow. You really know your stuff. Or maybe you’re just great at guessing. Let’s see if you can get this one, then. Where did we first meet?”

  She thought back to the parking garage. The first time she smelled apples. “You were looking for a friend in the ER.”

  “Oooh, close.” He moved within an inch of her face. A demon stared at her from the depths of her friend’s lifeless eyes.

  Fear and fury molded into a painful burning inside her.

  She thought back, but couldn’t remember.

  “You were three. Cute as a button and so ripe for destruction. I had you in my hands, and then your mom and that pain in the ass guardian of yours got in my way.”

  “My mom?” Her parched throat destroyed her voice.

  “I heard you went to live with your grandmother after her tragic death. How’s Daniel holding up, by the way? He should be turning into one of my rabid dogs any minute now.”

  She trembled with rage. Every winter holiday in her memory was tainted by his evil. “Why Christmas?”

  “At what other time in the world are the Heavenly Host busier than now? If they’re focused on misery, joy, miracles, and all the mess of religious prayers and homages, then they have little time to pay attention to little ‘ol me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. At that moment he looked so much like Rick it ate her alive inside. “What’s the matter? Did I ruin Christmas for you? Which one was it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, it doesn’t, because I’m about to give you the world on a platter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re my pet project, Ashley. Years in the making. My living weapon.”

  “I’m a doctor.” She could smell apples, cooked, not scorched, coming their way. Not for the first time she wondered why do angels smell like apples?

  “You’re a ticking time bomb, and a threat to Heaven. Once I throw you on the open market, demons and humans alike will sell everything they own to use you.”

  She watched him move. His body twitched more than before. He stayed out of her reach. Ashley narrowed her eyes at him while her brain tried to piece together his behavior. “How am I supposed to be this weapon of yours? Cut me so that your dogs kill anything that stand between us? I figure that will get you a one-time use before I’m a stain on the ground.” Her voice trembled with the effort to stay calm.

  “I thought you were smarter than that,” he sneered at her, an alien expression on Rick’s usually charming face.

  “Then tell me.”

  “You’re an angel killer, sweetheart. You can make them mortal by destroying their Grace.”

  “No way. I call bullshit.” She turned on her heel and strode back to the car.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” His demon dogs lunged from the shadows to surround them. Their eyes glowed red.

  “You want them to kill me?”

  “Don’t make me destroy you, Ashley. It took a lot of work to find the right bloodline to make this happen.” He was right behind her, a voice in her ear.

  She tilted her head toward him. “Why are you so afraid of me?”

  “You’re unpredictable. For generations, your family couldn’t control their power. Every angel they touched burned to a crisp, yet here we are. You’ve touched me multiple times and I’m still alive.”

  “You’re not in your angelic form, though, are you?”

  “If you saw my true form, sweetheart, you’d rip out your own heart to save your soul.”

  “Good to know. Tell me, what would it take to get Rick back?”

  “He died the moment I took over his body. I ate his soul, his memories, everything about him belongs to me now.”

  “You’re lying.”

  The pained scream of a man tore through night. “That would be Daniel’s transformation. Want to go watch it? It burns them from the inside out.”

  Instinct launched her at his face. She dug her nails into his skin, breaking it open. Burned apples and tainted blood spilled their scents into the air. She wanted to tear him from Rick’s body, to stop him from destroying the memory of her friend.

  Her eyes closed and she screamed as fire raced through her body. She burned with rage, with righteous fire that consumed everything around her until everything crumbled to ash at her touch.

  The dogs attacked and she fought back until nothing remained but the frigid cold and a banked fire simmering in her heart. In the back of her mind she wondered if one of the dogs had been Daniel.

  Her heart shattered and she curled in on herself, escaping to a bittersweet oblivion.

  Chapter Twelve: The Heart of a Healer

  DANIEL CRUMBLED TO ash in her hands. She woke, screaming, clutching at something wrapped around her legs. It took a moment to realize it was blankets. And the dim light glimmered on Daniel’s dark head as he dozed by her side. She reached for him and then noticed the maze of burns on his skin.

  “Daniel, oh God.” She covered her mouth.

  “He wouldn’t leave your side.” Iris stood in the shadows, quiet as ever.

  “What happened to him?”

  “He pulled you from a burning forest. I guess you decided to go out in style.”

  “Did my touch, did I—”

  “If you did, he didn’t say. All I know is that I’m glad you’re still with us. I don’t know how he’s hung on this long.”

  Flashes of memory shot through her mind. Her hands crushed the skull of her friend’s body, shattering it to ash.

  “I killed a man.”

  “Who? Azazel? He’s long gone.”

  “He’d stolen my friend’s body.” Ashley’s fists clenched in the blankets.

  Iris stepped into the light. “Then you laid your friend to rest by burning the corruption out of him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s someone I think you should meet.”

  The rustle of wings followed her statement and a man stepped forward. No, not a man, an angel with gray wings and hair the color of moonlight. “My name is Isaac. I know a way to save Daniel. Your powers are his only hope.”

  “How will burning him to a crisp save his life?” She shouted the question and instantly regretted it. Huffing out a breath to calm her nerves, she tried again. “Azazel told me that I was bred to destroy the Grace of all angels. Are you suggesting I kill him?”

  “You misunderstand the threat of your powers, little one.” He stalked closer, wings scraping lightly over the hardwood floor as they cloaked his body. “Mortality is the greatest threat to my brothers. Azazel’s corruption attacked the Divine inside us. If he has none left…” he trailed off.

  “The infection would disappear.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Great. So how does it work exactly? Because there are only three things I can do, apparently.” She ticked off her fingers. “I can cut people open and put them back together. Merge with their bodies to stop their blood flow. Or, my personal favorite, burn them to a crisp. Now tell me, oh Divine One, which one of these will save the man I love?”

  He s
eemed to be at a loss for words. Ashley turned her attention back to Daniel. She was terrified to touch him, not believing for an instant that a normal fire had caused those horrible burns across his chest and arms.

  “What if we remove the source of the infection?” Iris sat on the end of the bed. “Where did you say it was?”

  “His wings. The bone leading into the spine, actually.”

  “Can you remove it from his body?”

  She shrugged. “Probably, maybe. It depends on what tools I have. I’m not a neurosurgeon or bone specialist. There’s no telling how the nerves are connected through there or how it will affect his motor function.”

  “Him moving and alive is better than dead and buried, Ashley.” Iris patted her hand. “His burns, this nightmare, no matter what Azazel said, it wasn’t your fault.”

  Ashley sniffed. “You know him pretty well.”

  “Unfortunately. I do.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “You remove the source of the infection and I purify the wound. Can you keep the spread of the disease at bay while I work? The chanting begins slow, but picks up power as it goes.”

  “Yeah, I can do that.” She stared at the light-haired angel. His name slipped her mind. “Pick him up. We have to prep for surgery.”

  “Tell me what kind of anesthetic you have down there, Iris.”

  “Nothing that will work on an angel.”

  “You’re telling me I have to operate on Daniel without it?”

  The angel lifted Daniel as though he were a rag doll. “How much worse could it be than being burned alive from the inside?”

  “He has a point.” Iris was entirely too chipper about this.

  Ashley’s hands trembled and the sweat on the back of her neck had nothing to do with the heater blasting through the house.

  They reached the procedure room too soon for her peace of mind.

  Iris touched her shoulder. “Remember the way he makes you feel. Stop worrying about hurting him. We’ll stop you the moment anything goes wrong. I promise.”

  “What if I can’t be stopped?”

  “We wouldn’t have made it this far to fail now. I trust Daniel’s faith in you. You should give it a try as well.”

  “But, Iris.”

  She grabbed Ashley’s hands and slapped them together. The sting shocked her. “Do you want to save my uncle? Save the man you love?”

  “Yes, with all my heart.” The truth burned in her soul.

  Iris turned Ashley’s hands so that the palms faced up. “Then you have to believe that these hands can heal.”

  “What do I do? I keep seeing everything burn.”

  “Calm down. Breathe. You’re Doctor Ashley Baker, a kickass trauma surgeon who makes miracles happen. This is a walk in the park.”

  Ashley nodded. At least the trembling stopped. For the moment. “You know, you should be a motivational speaker.”

  Iris opened the door, and Ashley saw, for the first time, the full extent of his injuries. “No way. I don’t like people.”

  Ashley breathed slowly. Believe you can do it. She’d never lacked confidence. Only patience.

  “You ready to do this?”

  “Yes.” She reached his side. Careful not to touch his ear with her lips, she whispered softly. “Don’t die on me, now. You owe me some uninterrupted quiet time when this is all over.”

  He twitched in his deep sleep.

  “You, angel, turn him over.”

  “My name is Isaac.”

  “The only name that matters in this room is Daniel’s. We have a life to save.”

  Epilogue

  “YOU SHOULD HAVE seen his face when she told him his name didn’t matter. I thought he was going to bust a gasket.” Iris chortled from her favorite roosting place at the foot of his bed.

  Ashley shrugged. “He didn’t argue after that, though, so I got my point across.”

  “You do know that Isaac was once the leader of an elite group of warriors? I wouldn’t piss him off if I were you.” Daniel held her hand in his.

  “What brought him here?”

  “He will be your new guardian.”

  “I have you.”

  “Yes, well, you both need one now,” Iris piped in. “He’s going to be around for a long time so you can ask him all the questions you want later. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll leave you two love birds alone for a bit.”

  He smiled at her as she rushed out the door.

  “I really like Iris.”

  “She feels the same way.” He played with her fingers. “Have you given it any thought?”

  “I don’t want to go back to the hospital. After all this, I’d rather stay here. I can help Iris with the wounded.” She climbed into bed with him and he pulled her close. “The war is coming, isn’t it?”

  “It’s already here, Ashley.”

  “I want to help.”

  “Then we stay and help.”

  She looked up into his eyes. A dark fire burned in them, dangerous, and enticing. He’d watched her burn Azazel’s human host to ash. The woods had burst into flames around her, and not even the wolves could reach her side. For the rest of his life he’d have those moments seared into his brain.

  This is where they would be safe. For now.

  “I almost lost you.” She touched his cheek, caressing the line of his jaw.

  Her kissed her fingertips. “That’s my line.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve been plucked and tenderized.”

  “Pretty accurate description. Do you think you’re up to something a little more risqué than a kiss or two?”

  He nuzzled her cheek. “That depends on my doctor. She’s tough on me.”

  “Let me go ask her.”

  His teeth scraped against her throat and she groaned in both pleasure and frustration. She ran her fingers up his shoulders and gripped the muscle there.

  He hissed between his teeth at the sharp pain shooting down his back.

  “Three days.”

  “Not going to happen, doc.” He kissed her again.

  “Don’t push me, or I’ll make it four.”

  “However long it takes, I’ll wait.” He grinned at the confusion on her face. A century together wouldn’t be enough to learn every nuance of her expression. “Thank you for coming into my life, Ashley Baker. I love you and always will.”

  “I love you too. Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

  “I make no promises. Angels can’t lie, you know.”

  “A shady angel once told me that. But you know what? You’re no angel.”

  “I suppose I’m not anymore.” For the first time, he understood why his brother had sacrificed everything for love.

  About Dawn

  USA Today bestselling author Dawn Montgomery loves to write almost as much as she loves to read. She has traveled the world twice over. While her days were filled with long hours and hard work, her nights were left for dark, lustful fantasies in and out of strange hotels and cities.

  Alaska and Texas are the places she calls home. She recently moved from the frigid North to Texas with her family and neurotic dog. It was tragic to leave behind the moose and bear for wide open plains and sexy cowboys.

  Dawn’s website:

  http://www.dawnmontgomery.com

  For more news and exciting releases, sign up for Dawn’s Newsletter:

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  DARK WOLF RISING

  Heart of the Shifter, Book One

  By Stephanie Rowe

  DARK WOLF RISING (Heart of the Shifter #1)

  Copyright © 2015 by Stephanie Rowe.

  Cover design © 2015 by Kelli Ann Morgan, www.inspirecreativeservices.com

  ISBN 13: 978-1-940968-21-6

  ISBN 10: 1940968216

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, disseminated, or transmitted in any form or by any means or for any use, including recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the author and/or the artist. The only exception is short excerpts or the cover image in reviews.

  Please be a leading force in respecting the right of authors and artists to protect their work. This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel or on the cover are either products of the author’s or artist’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author or the artist.

  For further information, please contact Stephanie@stephanierowe.com

  Dedication: For Denise Fluhr, who has been there from the start.

  Acknowledgements: Special thanks to my beta readers and the Rockstars. You guys are the best! There are so many to thank by name, more than I could count, but here are those who I want to called out specially for all they did to help this book come to life: Malinda Davis Diehl, Donna Bossert, Leslie Barnes, Kayla Bartley, Alencia Bates Salters, Alyssa Bird, Jean Bowden, Shell Bryce, Kelley Daley Curry, Ashley Cuesta, Denise Fluhr, Sandi Foss, Valerie Glass, Heidi Hoffman, Jeanne Stone, Rebecca Johnson, Dottie Jones, Janet Juengling-Snell, Deb Julienne, Bridget Koan, Felicia Low, Phyllis Marshall, Suzanne Mayer, Erin McRae, Jodi Moore, Ashlee Murphy, Judi Pflughoeft, Carol Pretorius, Kasey Richardson, Caryn Santee, Summer Steelman, Nicole Telhiard, Regina Thomas, and Linda Watson. Special thanks to my family, who I love with every fiber of my heart and soul

  Chapter One

  BRYN McKENZIE WOULD be dead by Thursday.

  And it was going to be an ugly, terrible death.

  It was almost two in the morning on Christmas Eve day, and she hadn’t slept yet. She just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting. Listening for the inevitable click of toenails, or a low growl, or the spine-chilling howl that would tell her that her moment had come.