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

by Michele Bardsley

  In a few seconds, she transformed before his eyes into the beautiful blonde he couldn’t stop thinking about. It was true. All of it. The proof was in the gorgeous creature standing in front of him. He’d watched her go from wolf to woman, and to deny the truth of it was to deny the truth of what he was becoming.

  “Lizzy,” he said. “Please don’t run away again.” He held out his hand. Lizzy took a hesitant step toward him.

  “You have to know, Coy. This life, it’s forever. If you choose to be a part of the tribe, you can’t go back to your world. Being a lycanosapien is a till-you-die gig.”

  He couldn’t hold back the sardonic snort. What the hell would he be giving up? A life of always looking over his shoulder? Always wondering, not if someone was going to kill him, but when? And staring at her pale skin and her voluptuous curves, he knew he’d gain more by staying with Lizzy than he’d ever lose in a thousand lifetimes without her.

  “And mating?” He watched her throat work up down as he waited for her to answer. “Is that forever.”

  “Yes. Our kind mates for life.”

  A scraping sound drew his immediate attention. He snapped his head toward the noise. Three silhouettes rose up from the shadows about two-hundred yards down the hillside past the caves. His vision acted like the autofocus on a camera, zooming in and out until he could see them clearly. Two tall, dark-haired men, and one shorter and stockier, with slicked back, black hair. Manny.

  “Coy!” Lizzy shouted.

  The crack of rifle fire felt like a fist to his ears. He dropped to the ground as instinct took over. The bullet whizzed past him, stirring a breeze in its path.

  Lizzy was by his side then, and she had his hand, pulling him up.

  “Follow me,” she said. She didn’t seem scared. On the contrary, she was eerily calm and purposeful.

  Manny and his guys made slow progress in the deep snow, but they had their rifles up and trained on Coy and Lizzy. “You go,” he said. “They aren’t here for you.”

  “I’m sticking by you. So here’s the deal. You’re in your underwear, and I’m naked. We’ve got nothing for long-range combat on us. They are slower than shit because they don’t know how to move. We have speed on our side. So, we can either stay and fight, possibly get ourselves killed, or we can run, and put some distance between them and us.”

  Her touch made him feel light again, giving his feet wings. Manny must have been seriously pissed to go on this revenge-fueled mission. It only confirmed what Coy already believed: someone had blown his cover. He trailed Lizzy as they sprinted through the trees.

  Manny had found him, and like a blood hound, he would relentlessly track Coy until he had him. He’d brought this danger to Lizzy. To her territory. He would only put her in more danger if he didn’t give himself to Manny and his men. He slowed down to a jog, hoping to put distance between her and the threat. But she slowed down, too, and waited for him to catch up.

  “I’ll say it again, so we’re clear. I won’t leave without you.” Her eyes were hard with determination. “If you stay to fight them, then so do I.”

  The cartel goons were getting closer, and Lizzy was being stubborn. Well, fuck it. Coy picked up speed because to slow down meant certain death for both of them. “Lead on,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

  The cartel men fired off more rounds in Coy and Lizzy’s direction, but their shouts of anger and surprise were getting further and further away. Coy ignored the pain blossoming in his side as he followed Lizzy’s path into the hills.

  Chapter Four

  AS IF TO emphasize her point, a spray of fire from a semi-automatic, too far away to harm them now, had Lizzy picking up the pace. She heard them shouting cuss words in Spanish, at least she assumed they were cussing, because the words were similar to the ones coming from Coy as he matched her stride. Lizzy knew the mountains well. She’d spent her whole life exploring every inch of the tribe’s lands. It was already dusk, and soon the darkness would give the even more cover.

  The men after them had approached from the south. Downwind. Even so, she blamed her body betraying hormones for not detecting the threat sooner. She’d only seen three hatchet men, but there could be more, and Lizzy would not let her guard down again.

  What had Coy done to make such men go to such great lengths to find him? After all, it was Christmas Eve for heaven’s sake. It should have been a silent night, even if not altogether holy. What had he said when she’d awakened next to him? Not safe. What kind of mess had Coy Vega gotten himself into? Did it matter? She knew they were already bonding. Leaving him behind was out of the question.

  She’d avoided attachment her whole adult life because on some level she hadn’t wanted to turn out like her mother, falling for the wrong guy, one who couldn’t escape the sins of his past. But it looked like this kind of man was a family curse.

  The bunkers were two miles away. At this speed, taking an indirect route so they’d be harder to track, Lizzy and Coy would be there in thirty minutes.

  “Keep up,” she shouted to him.

  He cussed some more but didn’t slow down. She could smell blood. His blood. “Are you hit?” Lizzy asked.

  “I’m okay. Keep going,” Coy told her.

  She nodded. There were bunkers nearby, the ones used for culling. The communal den had a medical kit. These dens were deeper inside the land and harder to find for the average human. If she could get Coy there, she would have time to could check his injuries more carefully.

  It took twenty minutes to reach the area, and they were able to slow down. Coy pressed his hand to his side. The sharp tang of blood filled Lizzy’s nostrils, fresh and hot. She paced around to his right side. Just under his arm and between his fourth and fifth ribs, a hole, one-inch in diameter gaped open. Blood oozed from the wound.

  “Jesus, Coy.” The wound was pretty nasty. His ability to run and keep up with her with this kind of injury was impressive. “I have to get you inside.”

  He nodded. “Okay.” His voice was raspy.

  Lizzy moved in front of him and pressed her ear to his chest. Sure enough, there was almost no movement in the lower lobes. The pain had to be incredible, yet he’d managed to run the whole way. The man was one tough son-of-a-bitch.

  “Goddamnit,” Lizzy hissed. “You’ve got an open pneumothorax.”

  “A what?”

  “A sucking chest wound. Air is getting into your chest through the bullet hole, and it’s not escaping very well. I have nothing to treat you with out here in the woods, and if I don’t get something over it soon, it’s going to turn into a tension pneumo.”

  “Sounds bad.”

  “It is. Trust me.” A tension pneumothorax would occlude the blood going to his heart and kill him. Lizzy felt chilled to her soul. Coy would not die. Not tonight. And not for a damn long time if she had any say in the matter. “You’re going to be okay,” she said. “I’ll take care of you.”

  The enclosure, a small meadow surrounded by tall, thick pines and lush, green spruces, contained ten small concrete dens, eight feet in diameter, and one larger one, a communal, that was twenty feet wide. They were all earth contact structures, partially buried, exposing only the front doors. It kept the area hidden from casual view.

  Lizzy put herself under Coy’s left arm and helped him inside the communal den. She set him down on a large pile of blankets and pillows laid out for shared sleeping and checked his lungs again. His right lung no longer functioned, and his throat pitched to the left. Air had gotten into his chest through the bullet hole, and the pressure was shifting his lung and organs to the left side.

  The med kit on the wall was locked. Coy’s breathing turned into quick pants.

  “Hold on,” she said, trying to keep herself calm. She held out her hand and concentrated. Her palm widened, and her fingers lengthened. Thick, dark claws replaced her manicured nails. With all her might, she punched the lock to break it loose and managed to knock the whole damn kit off the wall. Its contents scat
tered over the floor. She scrambled, sorting through the bandages, ointments, scissors, tweezers, cotton balls, safety pins, a cravat, a bottle of alcohol, finger splints, sterile gauze, and every useless-to-her item the kit carried. What she needed were a scalpel and forceps, but her species were fast healers, and rarely needed more than a bandage.

  “Hold on, Coy.”

  She grabbed a bottle of alcohol and poured some on the tweezers and dumped the rest on his wound, wincing for him as he hissed in pain.

  Before she dug around with the tweezers, she’d have to stick her finger in the hole to feel for the bullet. She prayed she wouldn’t make things worse, like killing him faster.

  “This is going to hurt.” She stuck her finger in the bullet wound and felt the edge of the round about an inch in, lodged between the ribs and against the bone. She’d expected it to be deeper. Truthfully, she’d expected not to find it at all. The bullet had hit his lung, but it had already started to work its way out his chest. His body was trying to heal itself.

  Lizzy used the tweezers, widening the pinchers so she could fit them around the projectile. It took a few tries, but she finally grabbed it and removed it. Coy winced, his whole body rigid with pain, but he didn’t move. His strength called to her wolf, and if she were truthful, it called to her human side as well. Her heart felt like it was in her throat as she watched him recover.

  As he was able to move more air in and out of his lungs, his breathing began to slow. Against all odds, he was using werewolf-healing abilities. He had a dominant wolf side. A surprise, considering he hadn’t even shifted yet.

  “Lizzy,” Coy whispered.

  She wanted to fist bump the sky. His ability to talk again was a good sign.

  She stroked his face, now slick with sweat. “I’m here.” She dressed his injury with a four-by-four gauze and taped it over the wound.

  “Give me to them. Save yourself,” he said, his face still pinched with pain.

  And, if he hadn’t already been hurting, Lizzy would have punched him in the nose. “I think the lack of oxygen has damaged your brain.”

  “I mean it.”

  “So do I,” she said with just as much sincerity. The wound had stopped bleeding, but healing enough to move would take an hour or so. “You hold still and focus on not dying. I’m going to get my phone.”

  He reached out and grabbed her hand before she could leave. “Be careful.”

  Lizzy forced herself to smile. “I will. No worries.”

  ***

  Never in his life had Coy Vega been in so much pain and, yet, so determined. He’d been shot a couple of years back by a drug dealer, but he’d passed out before the ambulance had arrived and had woken up in an ICU bed with a morphine drip in his arm. If he survived, this would be one more scar to add to the collection. When he’d dragged the wolf and himself under the tall pine earlier in the day, he’d accepted dying, welcomed it, but now he wanted to live. More than anything, he wanted to live for Lizzy.

  The old doubts crept in, as they did most of the time. He would get her killed. He was good at his job, but little else. And the predicament he was in now, made him doubt he was as good at his job as he thought. Otherwise, he’d still be in his cover apartment in New Orleans and still running with Manny’s crew.

  When he’d tried to call his contact in St. Louis, Joe Florrick hadn’t answered. Coy needed to get there and find the guy. He was in deep, and without his handler, he wasn’t any better than his made-up prison files and arrest records.

  If Lizzy were a smart woman, she’d run from him. She’d get as far from Coy as possible. His heart ached with the idea of losing her. He barely knew her, but without Lizzy, he felt like he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t live.

  ***

  At a quick sprint, it had only taken ten minutes to get to the truck, which she’d parked in a flat area just off the highway. Lizzy took her phone out of the glove box and turned it on. It blinked red indicating a dying battery. She had three missed texts from Ana.

  “Come on, now,” Ana’s messages read. “You can’t spend Christmas alone. Why don’t you join Conor and me at the gathering?” Even Ana’s texts were bright, cheerful, and happy. Marriage and being a new mother suited the newly culled woman.

  “Oh, Jesus.” If only she’d accepted Ana’s invitation.

  Then I wouldn’t have met Coy. Would that have been so awful?

  Yes, her inner wolf cried out. Yes! Lizzy might not mind living a life alone, but her wolf apparently did. She wanted a mate. She wanted Coy Vega.

  If Lizzy couldn’t get help, mating with Coy might not matter. Using her touch screen, she opened her favorites and touched Donovan Wright’s face. The phone beeped then disconnected. One-percent battery power.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she hissed.

  She dug around the seat for her charger. She rummaged through her gym bag, the only luggage she’d brought. Basically, a toothbrush, some snacks, and a change of clothes. After all, she’d planned to spend the entire holiday in fur.

  No charger.

  She pounded her fist against the seat in frustration. The phone had turned off, so she turned it on, quickly typed in a message: need help, and was able to hit send right before it died once more. She tried to turn the phone on again to see if the text sent, but it merely beeped, flashed a red light, and refused to power up.

  She had to get back to Coy. Already, she missed him, ached to be near him, and worried that every second she was away he might be dying. Her fear made her feel ridiculous. She was a big, bad ass werewolf. The need she felt for Coy, the desire to cling to him, to never let him out of her sight, pushed all the wrong buttons for her. Ugh. Why? Why was she getting mate called now? And with a human stranger, no less? It was as if the world suddenly developed a sense of humor, and she was the butt of its joke.

  Lizzy sat the phone down on the seat, since there was nothing more she could do, grabbed her duffel bag, and headed back to the den.

  Please, let him live, she prayed. And while she’d never believed in them before, right now, they needed a Christmas miracle. She had a feeling it was the only way they would survive the night.

  ***

  Coy breathed a sigh of relief when Lizzy walked back into the room. She looked anxious and worried. He tried to sit up, but she rushed to his side.

  “What are you doing? Lie back down.”

  “You’re upset. What happened?” he asked.

  “My crappy phone crapped out, and I forgot my craptastic phone charger.”

  Coy studied her grim expression then burst out laughing. Which was foolish on his part, because a) it hurt like a bitch, and b) Lizzy expression grew even darker.

  “Ow,” he said when the coughing fit subsided.

  “Serves you right,” Lizzy said. “Jesus, you’ve coughed up some blood. Damn it, Coy. You need a hospital. If I thought I could move you without doing more damage, we’d already be on our way.”

  “No,” he said. “No, hospital. They’ll have to report a shooting injury.”

  “You’re the victim.”

  “I’m going to be the dead victim if those men find me.” He looked around. The room they were in was concrete on all sides with the only way in or out through the metal front door. “Is this place easy to find?”

  “Unless they have blood hounds, they could search for days and not find our dens. We designed this place for extreme privacy.”

  “Good,” he said. He took her hand and put it on his chest. Even that much skin on skin contact with her made him feel better. “You make me calm, mi tesoro.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Coy smiled. “My treasure, because now I am richer for having found you.”

  Lizzy snorted. “You mean for having hit me with your car.”

  He still found it hard to believe she was the wolf he’d clipped. “You’re a beautiful wolf, but an even more beautiful woman.”

  Her cheeks pinked up with a fresh blush. Her scent had been a
cidic with anxiety when she’d come in moments earlier, but now her aroma was sweet like crushed berries. His words had pleased her. It made him want to please her over and over.

  “Come here,” he said.

  She leaned her head forward.

  “Closer.”

  She moved near enough for him to reach up and caress the soft fullness of her cheek. “Besame. Kiss me.”

  “Coy,” she said, suddenly shy.

  “Kiss me,” he said again.

  She nodded, and when her mouth pressed against his with a gentle brush of lips, his whole body tingled. The pain, again, lessened.

  “Veo las estrellas quando te beso.” When she lifted her brow quizzically, he said, “I see stars when we kiss.” Which was not an exact translation, but close enough.

  “I’m going to have to learn Spanish.”

  “I have a few phrases I’d like to teach you.”

  Lizzy laughed, and it was music to Coy. Magical.

  “I’m sure you could, but for now, let’s focus on not aggravating your injury before it can heal.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe how quick you’re recovering.”

  “Can you tell me more about lyco...werewolves?” He wanted to know everything about Lizzy and this incredible world he’d stumbled upon. “You said you were born one, but I have been made into one. Why haven’t I changed into a wolf? Is it a full moon thing?” He knew enough about the fiction to know a few legends. “And how come a regular bullet almost killed me? Shouldn’t I be able to survive if it isn’t silver?”

  Lizzy shook her head. “We’re mortal. Just very long-lived. Bullets can kill us, just like lots of things can. We are immune to human illness, which is a nice perk, but there are a few lycanosapien specific diseases. We don’t need a full moon to change to wolf. You’ve already seen me do it twice. Although transforming into a wolf does help us to heal. As to why you haven’t changed yet...” She paused. “I think it’s because I didn’t really cull you. I’m not sure what’s going on. You had my bite, but I didn’t give you my blood.”

  “When the car hit you, you had blood on your fur. Some of it got on my jacket when I carried you. I was putting my jacket over you when you bit me. Do you think some of your blood might have transferred from the coat to the bite? Would that even be enough?