The Billionaire Shifter's True Alpha: Billionaire Shifters Club #5

by Diana Seere

  Sophia scowled at the old butler. She’d never seen him in his snake form, but his venom was a legend. Its powers were usually deployed upon the drunk and disorderly on the brink of property damage, however, not in a family dispute among members.

  “Only a few minutes, sir,” Morgan said.

  “Let’s hope she’ll come to her senses before then,” Asher said, “or you’ll have to do it again.”

  Her attention snapped to her brother. “How dare you, Asher!” At least she still had the ability to speak. “You have no right to do this to me!”

  “You’ll thank me later,” Asher said, “you foolish creature.”

  “I will not thank you. I will kill you. I will tie you up and throw you in the harbor. I’ll bind you naked in chains, cover you with honey, and leave you in the rainforest for the poisonous ants to torture you to death. I’ll—”

  “Zach has fought with Tomas. He lives.”

  “How do you know that? You’re lying! You’re—”

  “I received word just as you fled the library,” Asher said. “If you’d waited a moment, you would’ve known it as I did.”

  He was all right. Zach. Zach!

  “I felt him get hurt,” she said.

  “As I said, he fought Tomas. Tomas escaped.” Asher put a hand on Sophia’s cheek and wiped away a tear she was unable to wipe away herself. “Zach has proven himself, this time at least.”

  “Of course he did,” Sophia said. “He’s my One.”

  Zach’s eyes sharpened, animal sight a gift, the rush of scent making him realize he needed to be safe. One block away from the red lights and the increasing sirens, and then he caught it—

  A wolf scent.

  Not Tomas’.

  A pack.

  Safety.

  Moving closer, tracking the scent, he crossed a small body of water, slinking behind bushes and trying to avoid the metal machines that moved swifter than his pack mates.

  Pack pack pack, he thought, the shining buildings like tall suns, the scent driving him to safety.

  Her scent made him stop and pant, the smell so distinct, his ears pounding as his legs raced to bring him closer. Her. She was there.

  There with his pack.

  The tall, silver building had a back alley that smelled like human urine and dead bones, her scent more powerful than rot, the pack drawing him closer. A door. He needed a door or a broken window, or—

  A metal rectangle opened slowly, a man looking down at him, though barely, given Zach’s size in wolf form. White jacket, black tie, no fur, hair the color of fresh snow sprouting on his head, a long, somber face.

  “Ah, Mr. Hayden,” said the man, his English accented. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  Zach was surprised to understand him.

  Slipping past the man, Zach raced to a small set of stone stairs, following her scent, her her her, the shift back to human pushing against his skin, the need to protect her making him ignore the open wounds on his legs, his back, his chest. Down, down, down he went, her Beat sudden and strong, willing him to come.

  Insisting that he find her. Claim her.

  And be hers in return.

  Forever.

  I’m here, he heard, the words clear in his head as his ribs shrank, his legs shortening, his fur fading back into his skin, eyes blurring. The bones of his face began to change, his scent tracking weakening as he lifted up on his hind legs to run the rest of the way to the Novo Club’s sanctuary.

  Buh-BUM. Buh-BUM. My love. My love. The Beat drew him to her now, a lifeline, a beacon.

  And then he stopped, grabbing the railing before the large oak door he’d never seen before but knew was a portal to the hidden club.

  Because just beneath the Beat, there was another, like butterfly wings on a rose petal, like the tail of a kite brushing against a child’s cheek, the unbearable lightness of an angel’s wings.

  A child.

  His child.

  Their child.

  Wrenching the door open with his human hand, he ripped it off the hinges, running faster than he thought possible into the dark, dim space.

  To find Sophia in Asher’s arms, limp and lifeless.

  And for the second time in the same hour, Zach charged.

  She’d felt him getting closer. With every second of his approach, her heart had thundered faster, louder, matching his own. He was frantic and afraid, desperate to reach her, and she longed to tear open doors and smash through walls to hold his body skin to skin.

  But she couldn’t even stand on her own two feet. Although sensation had returned, her arms were still limp from Morgan’s venom and hung uselessly at her sides. Her legs twisted at an angle on the floor. She could wiggle her toes, turn her foot, but not bend her knees and support her weight.

  And so she’d called to him, trusting in the Beat. I’m here. I’m here. My love.

  “Sophia!”

  Finally he was there, gloriously alive, his bare skin rippling over muscle as he shoved Asher aside and lifted her in his arms.

  Zach, she answered silently. He was naked from a recent shift, radiating the power of their kind. She could see the slight shadow of fur lingering along his jaw, the hardness of his cheekbones.

  My One.

  “What did he do to you?” His voice was half growl, half snarl. His eyes were unsettled, the irises changing color as if unsure of themselves. Green, gold, brown, black.

  “A harmless sedative,” Asher said. “For her safety and yours.”

  Although she was still furious with Asher, her priority was soothing her One, easing his pain. “I’m fine, my love,” she said to Zach, leaning against him. She lifted her face to his and suddenly smelled the blood on him. How could she have forgotten the pain she’d sensed? “But you! You’re hurt!”

  “Tomas escaped. The bastard. The lying bastard.” He stroked her hair and kissed her repeatedly on her forehead, cheeks, eyes, nose, face, lips. Then he swung around and growled at Asher. “I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt her. I’ll kill you again if you’ve hurt our baby.”

  Dizzy with love, she whispered, “You know?”

  He put a trembling hand on her cheek. “Then it’s true? I wasn’t imagining it?”

  “It’s true. He’s real.” She smiled. Sensation had returned to her upper body, and she was able to lift her arms and snake them around his neck. “Kiss me. My lips still work.”

  He didn’t move. “He?”

  “I don’t know how I know,” she said, “but I know.”

  “When— How—”

  “Don’t worry, he’s yours,” she said, mostly teasing.

  His voice deepened. “Of course he’s mine.” He tightened his grip and lifted her off the floor. “As are you.”

  They gazed into each other’s eyes, silently promising everything.

  You.

  Mine.

  Forever.

  Although she felt his strong arms lifting and holding her against his chest, she was still slightly numb, unable to fully appreciate the contact. She’d heard about Morgan’s venom but of course had never experienced the impact of its unusual qualities for herself. When this was all over, she was going to have a little talk with him. She didn’t care how old he was, she was going to make the dude apologize.

  Later. At this moment, she was too happy to pursue vengeance. “You still haven’t kissed me.”

  He dropped his head and crushed his lips against hers. Flames of pleasure swept over them both, locking them in a private, sensual blaze. His tongue thrust through her lips, feasting on her, and she could taste love and hunger and fear and lust, all the animal instincts that made them most human.

  The last of her paralysis faded away, and she was able to slide down his body to the floor. Now she could feel him everywhere, heart and soul.

  “At least you had the sense to come here to the Novo,” Asher said loudly, obviously trying to break it up. “Both of you. But perhaps our instincts are strongest when we are at our most needful.”


  Zach cupped her cheek, stroking her jaw with long, lean fingers as he broke the kiss and turned to Asher. “Some people saw me,” he said. “On the street. I didn’t want Tomas to get away, so I tried chasing him but—”

  “I’ve already dispatched the staff we engage for this sort of incident,” Asher said. “A fake film crew with an Irish wolfhound or two. Their cover is a popular YouTube channel we set up a few years ago. They enjoy dressing in disguises, performing in public, and thanks to their popularity, or at least the appearance of it, they have the funding to make it realistic.”

  Sophia had used the staff’s resources herself once before when she’d foolishly shared a few details of herself with a romantic partner who hadn’t been ready for the truth. When she’d called Derry for emergency backup, he’d obliged by coming over in a head-to-toe bear costume, the wolfhound at his side, and pretending to invite her out to a local cosplay venue for their “usual Saturday night fun.” It had been embarrassing but necessary.

  “Don’t worry,” Sophia now told Zach. “They’re very convincing. Nobody will think they really saw you turn into a wolf.”

  “I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.” Zach caught her face in his hands. “I have you.”

  “Not quite,” Asher said. “You have much to learn before you can even dream of laying claim to my sister.”

  “She carries my child.”

  “The ability to ejaculate when aroused is no achievement to boast of,” Asher replied. “My sister deserves much more than that very low bar.”

  Sophia dug her nails into her palms. The urge to punch her eldest brother was again overwhelming. “He passed your test with flying colors. You set him up to fail, but he did not. He almost died fighting Tomas—a man he’d known as a colleague—and for what? To defend us. The Stantons. The ones who took away the life he wanted and turned him into one of us, a fate he…” Her throat tightened, and she had to force herself to go on. “He hates.”

  Just as Asher opened his mouth to argue, Zach swept Sophia into his arms, lifting her off the floor. “Never say that. Never say I hate this fate.”

  “But—”

  “I was stupid. Confused. But now I understand.” He lowered her to the floor and captured her hands in his, bringing them to his lips. “I’m the luckiest man alive. My fate is to be with you. My fate is to father your child, our son. My fate is to love you. And I do. I love you, Sophia.”

  You. The Beat had been pounding beneath the surface of her thoughts since before he came into the room. Now it flared like thunder, deafening her in its rhythmic blast. “I love you too, Zach.” She said the words aloud, although—

  Shouldn’t he be able to hear her if she spoke them silently? Like they had before? That couldn’t have been a delusion, not with everything else coming true, following the steps of fate in an ancient dance written eons ago.

  She believed the Beat had united them, she did. But if he doubted…

  Would that doubt slowly eat away at the bond they shared so that someday it weakened, frayed, and broke?

  Would the trauma of that land on their children—the son they expected today and the ones yet to be imagined?

  She had to be sure he heard the Beat. He had to be sure.

  “Asher is right,” she said, pushing him away, walking to her brother’s side. She ignored the arrogant nod of Asher’s head.

  “No!” Zach reached for her. “He’s not!”

  She raised a hand, palm up, and met his gaze. Finally, chest heaving with the effort, he lowered his arm and waited, visibly ready to pounce, his eyes blazing.

  “What we share is more than the urge and ability to mate successfully with each other,” she said. “I hear the Beat. I have from the beginning. Even if you don’t hear it as I do, you must believe in it as I do. I hope you will. I believe you will. But until then—”

  “I do hear it, Sophia.” He reached for her, catching her this time, and pulled her away from Asher’s side. Something warred in his eyes until he said, “I always have. I was afraid to admit it.”

  Part of her was elated. That part sang with joy. The other part was seriously pissed. “You lied?”

  “Or he’s lying now,” Asher said coldly.

  “No! I’m not. I hear it. I love you. Your heart pounds inside my ears. It’s crazy. I hear it morning and night. When I’m sleeping.” Zach dragged his lips across hers. “Right now.”

  “You’d be a fool to believe him,” Asher said. “You’ve told him what you require, and he’s telling you what you want to hear.”

  Zach’s fingers tightened over her arms. “I’m telling you the truth.”

  Sophia believed him. Or she wanted to believe him. No, of course she did. He was her One. She was his.

  “You can see she doubts you even now,” Asher said. “Imagine how she will feel as the years unfold. When difficulties strike?”

  Zach gave her a look of such longing, such pain, she caught her breath. “He’s right,” he whispered.

  “No. No, Zach.”

  “I have to prove it to you,” Zach said. “You can’t have any doubt.”

  And then, to her amazement, Zach fell to his knees.

  Chapter 21

  Covered in tiny cuts, dirt, and filled with so much adrenaline he was certain his body was pulsing hard enough to conduct a symphony, Zach pulled himself back up slightly, focusing on the shifter proposal ritual he’d read in the ancient text Sam had given him the other day.

  Right knee.

  Before her menfolk.

  Seven generations back.

  Frog tears.

  Well… he had some of it right. The rest he’d have to improvise.

  As he rested on bent knee, his hand holding Sophia’s, two shadowed figures came into view from the catacomb-like hallway to his right. A wall sconce’s light was blotted out by the enormous shoulders of Derry Stanton, his wife Jess tiny in comparison. Derry held a tumbler of amber spirits and wore a confused expression.

  Zach ignored them and cleared his throat. Two brothers would have to be enough to meet the proposal ritual, he figured, speaking in a loud, confident voice. “Do you, daughter of Tobias, by the light of the—”

  He frowned, struggling to recall the lunar cycle.

  “—gibbous moon take me, Zachary Patrick Hayden, son of Paul, grandson of Howard, great-grandson of Martin…”

  “What on earth is he doing?” Derry asked with a booming laugh, his frown deepening as Jess elbowed him hard in the ribs.

  “Shhhh! He’s… proposing!” Sophia chided, eyes returning to Zach, who realized quite suddenly that she glowed. Warm brown and topaz, all golden love, she was his bundle of joy.

  In more ways than one.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Zach saw Asher Stanton cross his arms over his broad chest and—no. Impossible.

  Was that a smile he saw on the man’s face?

  “Zach, old chap! What are you doing?” boomed Derry.

  “I’m proposing to Sophia. Am I getting the ritual wrong?” He patted his naked hips. “I don’t have frog tears or a torn pocket from a witch’s cloak, but—”

  “That is not how you propose to a shifter,” Asher said, suddenly severe. Zach wasn’t sure whether the man was joking or not. “First of all, wearing clothing is generally recommended.”

  “Would you all shut up and let the man ask for my hand in marriage?” Sophia said, exasperated.

  “Shifter,” her brothers said simultaneously.

  “And you are forgetting one very important tradition,” Asher said dryly.

  “What’s that? The prenup?” Derry asked, earning himself another ineffective punch from his new wife.

  “Asking the patriarch of the family for her hand,” Asher declared.

  Sophia hip-checked him, making Asher’s opposite arm move, the rest of him remaining rigidly in place.

  “Isn’t this the proper form for asking a shifter for her hand in marriage?” Zach asked again.

  “For the 1400s, mayb
e 1500s,” Sophia whispered. “If you keep going, you might get two cows and a goat out of Asher as my dowry.”

  “Three cows. Two goats. Anyone who will take her off my hands deserves more,” Asher declared, the room suddenly filled with joyous male laughter.

  Zach didn’t care.

  “It seems this is a more modern process than I thought,” Zach said, standing to look down on his love’s sweet, enraptured face. He opened his spare hand and placed it flat on her belly, the baby’s heartbeat quick and fierce. He was naked in a room filled with clothed shifters, a strange position to be in but one no more or less odd than any other he’d experienced over the past year.

  This was his new reality.

  And Sophia was his One.

  Forever.

  “I don’t have a ring,” he began.

  “Or underwear,” Derry helpfully noted.

  “And you’re bleeding!” Sophia’s voice went high with worry, her eyes darting to Morgan. “He needs first aid! Is there a shifter doctor nearby who can—”

  Shutting her up with a kiss, Zach pulled her into his arms, weeks of frustration both diminishing and growing as the kiss quenched so much of his longing at the same time it stoked internal—and eternal—flames.

  “Does this mean I don’t need to make a frog cry to convince you to experiment with the rest of your life and give me your heart?” he said against her mouth, Sophia’s thrilled laughter the only answer he needed.

  Placing her hand over his, the two sets of fingers entwining over the baby growing inside her, she whispered, “I would like to see you convince a witch to give you a piece of fabric. They’re quite stingy.” She sniffed, then frowned as their eyes met, hers filled with more than enough love to last a lifetime.

  “Will you do me the honor of being my wife, Sophia?” he asked simply, her hands reaching around him, fingertips resting lightly on his bare ass, the feel of her in his arms so grounding, so complete.

  “Yes. Oh yes, Zach. I will!”

  “Another human in the family,” Asher groaned under his breath as Jess gave him a raised-eyebrow look of astonishment.