New World Alpha: Book Three (A Harem Fantasy)

by Nick Storming

  “We have to go, Emma!”

  “Dee?” the young woman asked, glancing around as if she were lost.

  Reaching down, I picked up Emma and cradled her in my arms. The woman went stiff for one second as fear filled her scent, but then Dee was there, pressing close and whispering in her sister’s ear. I couldn’t make out what she said over the loud crowd, but Emma sagged against me, her scent shifting to wary relief and exhaustion.

  No one stopped or questioned us as we walked back out of the compound the way we’d come in. We were a good hundred meters outside the neatly arranged outer walls when a siren and shouts erupted from inside.

  “Looks like they found the body,” Dee said with a concerned frown for her sister, who was dead asleep in my arms, her head resting on my shoulder. “I wish we could kill that bastard again.”

  “There are other bastards that need killing,” I reminded her. “Focus on the living.”

  She blinked, and I saw a series of emotions flit across her face and through her scent from hurt to anger and finally to agreement as she frowned at her sister. The frown shifted up to me and the shy curiosity was back, but added to it was a new emotion. I’d never thought to smell jealousy from Dee, but as I held the voluptuous body against me and glanced down at Emma’s flawless features, I couldn’t help but be affected.

  Chapter 23

  Movement on the dirt road leading up to our camp brought me to alert, and when I spotted Madelyn’s dirty blonde hair, I patted Ava on the shoulder and pointed. We hurried down the slope and met Madge on the edge of the tree line. The sight of her safe and unharmed released a knot of tension I’d been holding inside, and I folded the beautiful women in my arms.

  “We were so worried about you!” Ava said to her friend as she joined the hug and we turned to head up to the camp.

  “What happened down there?” I asked as Madge flashed us both grateful smiles.

  “Let’s wait till we’re with everyone,” she said, the smile slipping from her face as her scent turned troubled. “I don’t think you or Dee are going to like what I learned.”

  Five minutes later all of us were huddled around a small fire as Madelyn told her story.

  “I presented myself at the gates and told them the story I’d rehearsed, not that it was even necessary. The guards they have are no more than boys, and it was a simple thing to convince them I’d wandered in from the wilds.” The actress blushed, and I scented amusement from her as she went on. “I feared they might want something… dirty… and was about to turn and flee, knowing I’d rather die than be with another man, but they were entirely focused on some schoolgirls who were trying to join their prides.

  “After meeting a harridan of a woman and being given a mop bucket and ordered to clean up after an orgy, I was left free to wander the place where I chose.” Madge grinned gratefully when Brianna handed her a steaming mug of tea and took a delicate sip before sighing in pleasure. “That’s one thing I never thought of before, but the easiest way to go unnoticed is to look like you’re a janitor. I walked right into their command building and stood outside offices and conference rooms as they discussed all manner of things. My Russian is poor, but from what I gathered, the men in command left this morning with all of their women.” Madelyn shot Dee and me frowns and said in a soft voice, “And the last thing I heard was that a pair had forced a silver-haired woman onto the plane with them.”

  “Where did they take her?” Dee hissed.

  “I couldn’t find that out,” Madelyn said, her voice pained, and I knew this is why she drew her story out, she’d been working up to telling us. “I stayed as long as I dared… Once the sun stared to set… Those men scared me.”

  “No,” Dee said with a shake of her head and a tight-lipped smile for the older woman. “You did perfect, Madelyn, thank you.”

  The young woman stood and glanced over to the pair huddled next to one another, and I saw her face crumple in tears before she fled to into her own tent. I glanced over to Ava, and she nodded, rising, and slipped in after Dee.

  “We keep on with the plan for now,” I said to the unsure faces looking to me for guidance. “Cairo next, and then Mumbai. But tonight, let’s forget our mission for a few hours and try to get some rest.”

  “I don’t need rest,” Madelyn said with a snort of laughter. “I need a drink.”

  “Ditto!” Annie said with a bright grin, her freckled checks reddening as Shandra and Madelyn frowned at her. “Come on… don’t say I’m too young to drink!”

  “We’re in Russia,” Madelyn said with a chuckle as she dug through her bag and came up with a sloshing bottle of vodka. “I think it’s illegal not to drink vodka if you’re here.”

  “Pour me a double,” Brianna said with a shiver. “It’s fucking freezing.”

  “Should we invite Dee and Ava?” Shandra asked with a worried frown at the girl’s tent.

  “She’ll come when she’s feeling better,” I said, taking a tin cup of strong smelling alcohol from Madge and suppressing a snarl at the toxic fumes. I had a strong aversion to ingesting the poisonous liquid, even as I craved the intoxicating effects. “You should offer Glynis and Emma cups, though.”

  The pair watched us with those dull, hollowed out expressions, but I caught a hint of something in their scents. Something that craved community and fellowship. As Shandra went over, Annie pulled out her phone and put music on, keeping the volume low so the sound wouldn’t carry.

  Lying back I tried to relax, but found it difficult, even with the alcohol and gentle music to help. My plans were in disarray, and I had no idea where they might have taken Dee’s sister, nor how to find out. The ladies kept up their pleasant chatter, Annie and Brianna teasing out details from Madelyn about her years in Hollywood, while Shandra sat with the blonde sisters speaking with them quietly as they sipped their alcohol.

  I couldn’t help but feel like things were falling apart around me, and the fear didn’t fade when Ava never left Dee’s tent and I crawled into my sleeping bag alone. As sleep took me, my thoughts drifted back to my decision to come on this adventure and drag Ava, Madge, and the rest along, and I began to wonder if I hadn’t made the wrong decision. Perhaps we would have all been safer lost in the woods.

  Chapter 24

  SCENE FIVE

  The same conference room appeared with many of the same men, only seated in different places. The director still sat at the head of the table, but he looked ancient and worn down. Bags hung under the man’s eyes, and there was a thick bandage wrapped around his head with a small stain near the temple.

  “It is with a heavy heart that I admit to our collective failure—”

  “Don’t lose faith now, Director,” Matthew said imploringly from his seat next to the old man. “We’re on the verge of achieving our dreams!”

  “Your coterie’s plans are not ours!” the man said with surprising vehemence. “You and your snakes”—he stabbed a finger around the room at the boys, not men, who sat wrapped in layers of pride and arrogance—“have undermined the faith we’ve built up with the Security Council.”

  “Greedy men with tiny vision,” Matthew said with a flick of his wrist. “Adonis has achieved a seat on the Council and will soon have them under his thumb.”

  “Again you overstep yourself,” the director said in a dangerous tone. “Adonis was to advise the Egyptian delegation from the shadows. Don’t you see, boy? Every ounce of power we take for ourselves weakens our position!”

  “And we’re supposed to let morons and ingrates rule?” Fredrick asked. The iron-haired older woman beside him hunkered down in her seat, her nervousness or fear plain around the tall Alpha. “Shizer! Matthew is right. Master Williams’s original plan of Alpha Rulers is the only way to save the chattel.”

  “Listen to yourself,” the director said with a sad shake of his head. “Alpha Rulers… Chattel… Ingrates and morons… You’ve lost your way, my son. I’m sorry to say we all have. This experiment was begun with the best of
intentions, but perhaps it is time for it to end—”

  “Don’t you say it, Director!” Sasha growled as he stood.

  All around the room, scared and nervous looks passed between the politicians and representatives of two dozen nations. They couldn’t help but sense the fury rolling off a half-dozen hot-headed young Alphas as they glared at the old man.

  All that is except Matthew, who leaned back in his seat, face composed and eyes vacant as his mind worked.

  “I hereby call for an ending of Project Enkyos and the Alpha Program,” the director said, followed by a chorus of angry mutters.

  There wasn’t an outburst, however, and much to the surprise of those who watched, the six young Alphas remained silent while the vote went around the room.

  The scorching sands of the desert whipped the cloth across my face and sent stinging needles into the exposed skin of my hands as I pulled the cloth down and tucked it back into my jacket. My heart sank as I scanned the compound for the hundredth time, noting again how little activity there was.

  We’d arrived in country several hours before and after stealing vehicles and convoying to the desert set up a small camp. The rocks that protected us from prying eyes also kept the sun from baking the women to death. An hour after arriving, Dee had slipped down to scout the compound while the pride and I watched her sisters and kept watch.

  For the last hour I’d been tightening my vision so I could focus on the tiny shapes far off, but other than witnessing a small scuffle between two men, there hadn’t been anything to see. That alone gave me pause, because at Alpha Command in the States, and the two other compounds we’d raided, discipline between the Alphas had been tight.

  “Excuse me, sir.” Brianna’s voice brought me out of my focus, and I let the enhanced vision fade as I turned to her. No matter how often I’d tried to get her to drop the honorific, it still slipped out when she wasn’t thinking. “It turns out Annie is quite skilled at hacking and computer programming and she had some good ideas.”

  My first impulse was to discount the girls because the onus was on me. I was responsible for everyone’s safety and keeping my promise. Plus, my reptilian-male brain was telling me I needed to be the one coming up with all the plans. But all of those thoughts were rooted in useless pride, holdovers of the man I had been but unnecessary to the man I’d become, I realized with relief.

  “Please,” I said to Annie, motioning for her to speak. “Don’t hesitate to offer any ideas if you have them.”

  “I just wasn’t sure… You all seem so capable and badass!” Annie’s pale cheeks heated, her freckles standing out as she went on in a rush. “I’ve been checking local networks since we left America, but nothing was working, for obvious reasons, until this morning. I know it’s a risk, but if we can get close enough for me to access a wireless network, I might be able to track their communications, possibly even find out where they took the girl from Russia.”

  Annie pushed the hair out of her face as she finished, her expression nervous, as if perhaps she’d overstepped herself, but her scent shifted to elation when she saw the grin stretching across my face.

  “You can really do that?” I asked, a touch incredulous.

  “Yeah… it’s not really that complicated actually unless their entire network is behind a VPN—Yeep!”

  The girl’s adorable little sounds shifted into peeling giggles when I snatched her up into a quick hug and pressed my lips to hers, feeling her soft body melt against mine.

  “You’re brilliant,” I breathed as I pulled back and ducked back down into the shadows.

  “No, you are,” the girl said, her eyes a little wild as her fingers clung to me tightly.

  “There isn’t time for that now,” I said, prying her fingers away from my belt and ignoring her delightful pout and the frown of disappointment on Brianna’s lips as she took her hands away from the bottom of her shirt.

  Over the past few days, the pair had been insatiable. Often pouncing on me whenever I strayed too far from camp, like a pair of cats stalking prey. I rarely turned them down, finding my own appetite for their unbred wombs insatiable as well, but there was a familiar complex aroma on the wind, and I scanned the desert until I spotted a flicker of silver hair before it disappeared behind a boulder two hundred meters below. The next sign I had of the gorgeous Alpha girl was when she stepped out from the shadows of a rock outcropping and dashed over the intervening distance to our small hideout.

  “Nothing,” Dee swore with vehemence the second she got close. “Not a single trace of my sister’s scent throughout the entire place. And what they’ve done to the women here… They’re chained up like cattle. Fed hormones or drugs so their bodies…” Her eyes took on the horror of her memories, but she went on. “There are two dozen young men, mad with lust, rutting their way down lines of hundreds…”

  Those yellow eyes found mine, and I felt the eyes of all the rest focusing on me as well, and I couldn’t deny the weight resting on my shoulders. Turning to Annie, I nodded.

  “Grab your computer.” She flashed a bright grin that faltered and fell as she saw the grim expression on my face. “The rest of you, arm yourselves.”

  Those yellow eyes never left me, and when I turned back, I saw a good measure of the horror was lifted and a softness I’d never seen from her was there in its place.

  “We can leave your sisters here—”

  “We’re coming,” Emma said, her voice rough with disuse but surprisingly strong as she stood and looked down at her sister and reached a hand out.

  The heavenly angel looked up at the hand, then reached up and let herself be drawn to her feet. Her face was still flat, eyes still hard, but a measure of the vacancy was gone and there was anger crackling beneath her raw emotions.

  “Right,” Ava said. “Madelyn will be on reload duty, pass all empty weapons to her if we’re under fire. Otherwise, it’s everyone’s responsibility to load their own. Grenades are to be thrown by Donatella or CT and no one else. Make sure your vests are on and everything is strapped down…”

  As Ava calmly took charge of the pride and Dee’s sisters, Dee stepped up beside me.

  “Thank you.” She meant it for more than just this decision, by the heaviness in her tone, and I nodded, unsure what to say so stayed silent.

  “My sister isn’t in there,” she said, her tone flat and emotionless, belying the deep hurt she was feeling.

  “I think you’re right,” I said. “And the failure is mine… If I hadn’t wasted our time going to the lab or thought I could come up with the plan alone—”

  “Stop it,” Dee said. Her words were harsh, but the hand that gripped mine was warm and soft, the touch gentle. “You were right to go there, to try to learn all we could before fighting back. It’s been my impulsiveness that’s gotten us into trouble.”

  “We both have flaws, and we both have strengths.”

  “The opposite ones.” Dee chuckled, then glanced up at me, her fingers tightening on mine, and I saw she was about to speak, but some hesitancy or fear held her back.

  “These women may be my pride,” I whispered for her ears alone to hear, feeling as though I stepped off a cliff without a chute. “But they love and respect you as much as they do me. From now on we go forward as one. One mind…”

  Dee gasped slightly, her mind finishing the thought as I scented the finger thin thread of her hesitancy. Almost in relief, I relaxed my grip on her hand, our fingers sliding along one another’s gently as I reached up and cupped her cheek.

  Dee stood there frozen as if I’d hit her with the fear scent again, those yellow eyes looking golden beneath the Egyptian sun.

  “I love you, and will wait until you’re ready.”

  Her lips worked soundlessly as I placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, but as I pulled back, she drew in a deep breath and a smile worked its way onto her lips. A shy smile with a hint of vulnerability in it that I’d never seen from her before.

  A smile for me alone.

/>   Chapter 25

  Buoyed by the sudden feeling of hope, I turned to find my stepmom’s blue eyes practically glowing with pride. She pressed a heavy bag into my arms with a wink, then went back to giving orders.

  The position of authority was strangely suited to Ava, who commanded respect from other women by sheer presence alone. She’d never wanted it in her previous life, often avoiding applying for management positions that came up at the plant, even when the added income would have eased our lives.

  She mentioned once that she didn’t feel comfortable being in charge, but as I watched her check over Brianna’s M4 and body armor with a critical eye, I realized she might have excelled in management or even the military. It’s often those who don’t want authority who are best suited to it.

  “You’re staying near me,” I said, plucking at Madge’s shoulder as she hurried past. “I want you close by when the shit hits the fan.”

  “Oh, thank goodness!” the actress said in a tone that feigned great fear. “I’m about to pee my panties!”

  Madelyn flashed me a grin to show she was joking, though I could scent the thin thread of her fear. She wasn’t the trembling leaf she had been a few weeks before, and I took heart that she was able to joke still.

  We’d stolen two vehicles near the airport, a Land Rover and a small pickup truck. The Land Rover was in excellent shape, but the truck would hold all of us in the back. Brianna climbed behind the wheel when we were all ready, and her excitement and fear mingled with the rest of my pride’s.

  Glynis and Emma huddled in the back, clutching their M4s with white-knuckled hands as Dee spoke quietly with them. Double checking that everyone was on board and ready, I slapped the cab’s roof and Brianna started the truck up.

  “When we get in there, Donatella and I will lead. The rest of you find cover as soon as you can, and if you see a man or woman who is armed, don’t hesitate to put them down.”