Alpha Enticing

by Rebecca Royce

  To stop the Garto called for Sacrifice. Her ancestor had traded the first females to the Garto in exchange for their land always flourishing. The daughters had died ever since. If she wasn’t capable, she’d lose Savage and some pack mates to it, too.

  The Alpha Wolf had slit his wrist and ordered the Garto to sleep. If left alone, he wouldn’t have woken up. It took a wolf to beat the Garto. A wolf who was willing to sacrifice him—or her—self for the others. None who had died before her at the hands of the Garto had known. They could put a stop to it for their family.

  Savage couldn’t save her. Her fate was sealed, but at least she could make it count for something.

  With her teeth bared, she rushed at George who darted backwards. He would protect her, but he wouldn’t fight her. Her Wolf had known. She was ahead of him in the pack dominance. The things she could understand in her canine body had been lost on her before.

  The world made sense.

  If George wanted to protect her between there and the Garto, he was welcome to try. She rushed up the stairs, banging through the door by pressing down on the handle. Her ancestors had designed the house to be wolf-friendly, and it paid off.

  She darted toward the door.

  “Hey.” Barrett rushed forward. “Stop,” he called after her.

  Like someone else she felt she knew, she didn’t stop. She was faster than they were. If they wanted to come, they were going to have to chase.

  ****

  The battle raged on. Savage landed once again on the ground and snarled as he got up. Forty-something wolves, and none of them could take him down. He saw red. There were lives lost, he knew it. He’d have to deal with the grief, the pain he knew would come, in the morning. Nothing could be handled until the fight was over.

  Old magic. The fucker wouldn’t die.

  He was ready to leap again. If he could get on its neck, he’d slit its throat. Where was Alexei? The other man had shifted sometime soon after Savage had started the fight. He was on the backside, trying to take him down by his legs. The male was strong, as was Jesse who seemingly stopped the creature from advancing toward higher ground at the lake all by himself. There wasn’t a werewolf among them who wasn’t fighting.

  Even Sydney’s family held their own.

  He stepped forward, and his foot pained him. No matter, whatever the injury was, he’d ignore it until he was dead. If it didn’t kill him, he didn’t want to know.

  A howl in the distance caught his attention, and he turned to look. A wolf he’d never seen before but would know anywhere tore down the hill, three wolves coming up behind her but not catching her. His mate. Sydney. He howled, darting away from the Garto to stop her. Was she out of her mind? What was she doing?

  She darted out of his way, weaving and pushing her way through until she’d gotten around him. Another howl caught the attention of the whole crowd.

  Everything stopped. The Garto shoved his shoulder, and every werewolf on him fell off. Sydney padded forward, whimpering once as she looked at him. Her eyes were the same—kind, loving, sure. She nudged him once with her head before finally coming up in front of the Garto. He tried to move and his legs refused to move. Lit in moonlight, bathed in it really as he’d never seen anyone before, as though the Moon moved with her, she approached the monster.

  Only Alphas could shift during Full Moon to their human form. As he watched dumbfounded, his mate returned to her human form.

  What was happening? He couldn’t move, but he’d be damned if he stayed silent. Savage pulled his change, every move of it ten times harder than he’d ever been before. Still frozen, at least he was human.

  “Sydney.” He cried out. “What are you doing?”

  She looked up at the Moon. “Thank you.” She didn’t answer him.

  “You are old, and you do not belong here.” She addressed the Garto. “You will hurt no one else.”

  “I do not take direction from you.” The Garto snarled. “You are who I am to eat tonight.”

  “No.” She shook her head. Sydney looked so small next to the Garto. Why was he frozen? Why couldn’t he move to her? What power was at play? And why the fuck was it messing with his mate? “I come to you willingly. I am not a victim, but a sacrifice.” Her hands changed, exposing her claws. Savage couldn’t do that. How the hell could she?

  “Sydney.” He screamed again. “Whatever the fuck you are doing, stop. This instant.”

  He could hear the desperation in his own voice. With no energy to shield, every Werewolf within five miles had to be able to scent it.

  “You will take my blood.” She sliced at her wrist. “Then you will go to sleep.”

  “No.”

  The Garto was transfixed as it moved toward Savage’s mate. “I will take the blood and then I will go to sleep.”

  Savage’s roar was drowned out by another sound. From behind him, a wolf leapt. Savage didn’t know who had the power to move when he couldn’t. He had to believe at least Alexei or Jesse would jump in if they were able.

  Still in his wolf form and growling the whole time, Tobias leapt at the Garto. Before the giant monster could get to Syd, her father threw himself into the monster’s mouth. Sydney gasped, falling backward with a scream from her throat.

  Savage was powerless to move as the Garto ate his father-in-law. After he finished, the Garto walked slowly, heading toward the lake. He turned once and looked at the group before he sunk into the depths of the water, his eyes already closed.

  His mate was on the ground, rolling as though she were in pain. Savage rushed to her, finally able to wrench his miserable body into movement.

  “Sydney?” There was so much to talk about, so many questions, but first she was screaming and it wasn’t in grief but distinctly a wail of pain. Her hand pressed on her stomach, her eyes closed.

  Alexei dropped to his side, looking down. “The baby is leaving.”

  He stared at the other man. “It’s too early. If she were losing it, there wouldn’t be this much pain.” Or so he hoped. What the fuck did he really know?

  “I didn’t say miscarriage.” Alexei rocked back and forth. “I said leaving. They’re taking the baby back.”

  ****

  Her mate had managed to get someone to call the Healer Prime. She leaned against the window, her forehead pressed against the cool pane. It was raining outside. The early morning had brought with it the kind of weather she’d been wishing for the day before.

  Lake had stopped her pain and confirmed what Alexei had seen. There had been a baby and now there was none. The soul had gone. She shook her head, grief settling like lead in her stomach. She’d not even been sure of her pregnancy or at all happy about it, considering Savage’s lack of enthusiasm, then to hear the powers were right to rip the baby away? Why had they done that? What had she done wrong?

  She’d been willing to sacrifice herself. Had been doing it. Savage and the others would have lived. And then her father…

  A sob choked her throat, and she closed her eyes. Her father had taken the sacrifice and saved her. In a million years, she’d never have believed it. How had he been able to when, from what she could gather, the others couldn’t move? How had she shifted? It had felt like the Moon moved her, the Moon took her offer of sacrifice and let it happen.

  Then the Moon took her baby?

  Savage barely said anything. He’d gotten her home, had Alexei call Lake, and then he left her.

  Her father was dead. What would happen to her family? He’d not always been a nice man. Yet, he’d been her dad. He had left behind nineteen unmated children and a mate who had never had to make decisions for herself.

  What would happen to all of them?

  She should be sleeping. Or sobbing. Or screaming at the Moon.

  All she could do was stand by the window and feel the coolness of the rain soak into her through the pain.

  “Sydney.”

  She turned at Savage’s voice, leaning against the frame for support. He walked toward he
r, his eyes holding hers, but his thoughts were hidden from her.

  What would happen to them?

  When he got in front of her, he fell to his knees. She gasped, ready to grab him. Was he hurt? She’d not even thought to think. He’d battled an old, powerful monster. Did he need the Healer Prime?

  Savage pushed his head into her stomach and she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him there. Her mate, the Alpha of San Francisco who hadn’t balked at the idea of taking down a Garto, shook in her arms.

  “I failed you. In so many ways.”

  “No.” She kissed the top of his head, wishing he’d look up at her. “You didn’t.”

  “I did. It’s fine for me to say so. It’s fine for me to own it. I can never make it right. I swear to you, by the faithless Moon who played some kind of game tonight with our lives, I will make you happy. I swear it.”

  She pushed out from him and knelt in from of him instead. “I swear the same thing. I’ll make you happy Savage. I don’t know what this was. And my father….” Well, she couldn’t go there, not yet. “But I’m so glad it’s over.”

  He kissed both her eyes. “Me too.”

  Chapter Twelve

  His mate was out cold. He slipped out of bed, rolling her gently onto her side. She was cold to the touch, and he wrapped the blankets closer around her. Lake said Sydney would be fine. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to have discomfort for a while. He had things to do. Way too many and his pack was starting to shift from their Full Moons. They’d all be out cold for hours.

  He pulled his phone out of his pants. Texting Hayden hadn’t occurred to him with the crisis happening. Things would have been much worse if his brother hadn’t realized the Garto could talk. He deserved to hear what happened. With a quick run-down, he gave his brother the basic details. More would have to wait forever.

  Savage walked down the stairs and stopped short. The last sight he’d ever thought to see was Barrett and Alexei sitting together across the kitchen table, and neither one of them seemed to be threatening the other.

  Alexei glanced in his direction, and Savage made his way over. He sat down at the table.

  Barrett spoke first. “How is Sydney?”

  “Sick. In pain. Heart breaking. Not good.” All his fault.

  “I think….” Alexei started and stopped speaking.

  For once he wanted to hear. “Go on.”

  “I think the baby leaving. I think that is on me.”

  Well, that had come out of left field.

  “Babikov, I blame you for a lot of shit. The baby being ripped form my mate’s womb forty-eight hours after it came in? I don’t see how you played any kind of role.”

  He’d never believed he should be a father. So why was he suddenly so…sad? He rubbed at his head.

  “I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was sent back to life with instructions not to meddle in the destinies of those around me. Believe it or not, I try to stay out. But you reached out to me. I think of it as permission. If someone comes to me….” He waved his hand in the air. “The places I come, I tend to drag the other world with me, the one where the Moon exists. My presence makes things shift. If Barrett here really died and came back too, then I imagine he does the same.”

  “Yes.” Barrett laced his fingers together in front of him. “But the Moon told me to come.”

  Alexie rubbed his chin. “When Sydney was sleepwalking, she spoke to me using Lily’s voice. That happens sometimes. One time. Cyrus’ mate did it too. She doesn’t know. Neither does he. Sometimes random women in hotels. It’s …disconcerting. She basically warned me off, and I told her to go shove it.”

  Savage didn’t like thinking of his mate as any kind of conduit. He knew all kinds of spiritualists in San Francisco. When he got home, he’d look into some kind of talisman to keep the otherworld out. “All of that is very interesting. You being the reason we had the baby taken away? I don’t see it.”

  “Do you know how sometimes Hayden’s mate sees many destinies? Many lives? In some of them they were together, sometimes he hated her. Sometimes one of them dies.”

  Savage drummed his fingers on the table. “How do you know?”

  “He talks to me.”

  That was news. “Go on.”

  “I don’t know if tonight would have gone as it did if I hadn’t been here. If I hadn’t brought the book or been with you. I think…I think you would have died tonight. On the field. When I cautioned you it was old magic, I interfered. You were still belligerent but maybe less so because of me.”

  He hated this shit. “The point is what?”

  “The Garto kills you. Your mate is left alone but not.”

  Savage’s whole body vibrated. “Because the baby was, what, some kind of consolation prize?”

  “Listen….”

  Savage wanted to hurl something. “Do you know any of this shit or are you making it up?”

  “There are things I can see. Not everything. I’m not a prophet. But there are things….”

  Barrett nodded. “I’ve not been at this as long as he has. The ability to know what you shouldn’t know…it’s real.”

  “Well, then fuck all of it.” He didn’t give a shit if he was shouting. “The Moon, Lily, whatever, they can all take their fucking destiny and blow it out their asses.”

  Alexei’s brows furrowed. “Savage….”

  “I’m supposed to be dead? My mate should be alone? I should never have known my kid? What the fuck? I don’t just have to be concerned with lunatic humans going after werewolf babies? I have to worry those we worship want them too?”

  He stood swiftly, knocking his chair over. “What am I supposed to tell her? I’m sorry they ripped the baby out of your belly, babe. You can only have one if I’m rotting in the ground.”

  Savage needed out. He stormed out the front door. Was he living on borrowed time? They’d given him a mate and intended him to die a week later? That didn’t work for him, not even a little bit. If the Moon could be that cruel he didn’t want anything more with her destiny. Not. One. Damn. Thing.

  ****

  Sydney woke slowly. The sun was low in the sky. Was it afternoon? Had she been unconscious all day? Her stomach rumbled, and she sat slowly. She hadn’t even dreamed. Just utter and complete nothingness for hours.

  Where was Savage? His scent wasn’t strong. He must have left a long time ago. She stood up on unsteady legs and managed to get in and out of the shower without falling over, a triumph considering her present state of confusion.

  She dressed, which was still weird since she no longer had her long skirts and blouses. Black pants and a pink t-shirt would have to do. She needed food and she wanted Savage, not necessarily in that order.

  Sydney had made it halfway down the stairs when she saw George. He walked fast to her, determination in the set of his brow, and pulled her into a big hug. She let her friend hold her for a second.

  He wasn’t Savage, but he was pack. Family. The feelings of the night before hadn’t waned. “You ran up those stairs and I thought…in my wolf way… I’d lost you.”

  “I’m sorry. I was feeling …driven.”

  “Obviously there was something happening beyond all of us.” George let her go. “And you’re fast as hell. Two Alphas lost you. That’s pretty amazing.”

  She shook her head. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. Where is the Alpha?”

  “I’m not sure. Max lost track of him this morning. No one has seen him. They’re pretty upset. I’m sure he’s fine. The danger is all gone. All of the Alphas left. And most of our pack is over at the main house boxing things up.”

  George’s words didn’t make sense to her tired brain. “What?”

  “I’ve got it George.” Savage plowed into the house. His posture was stiff, his eyes hidden beneath his Alpha mask, and she might be mistaken, but it looked like he might have applied more dark eyeliner than usual. Either that or his gaze was really shaded. “I’ll explain.”

  He walke
d in front of her but didn’t reach out to touch. George nodded and stepped away. She didn’t know why Savage hadn’t instantly hugged her. After the night before, she’d thought they were okay. They’d held each other for hours.

  She didn’t think she could take any distance. Since he wasn’t going to come to her, she grabbed onto his arms and tucked them around her waist. Savage stayed stiff, long enough for her to absolutely confirm something was wrong, and then warmed against her, pulling her close. She breathed him in, her Mate. It had meant everything before Full Moon and somehow, even though she’d have thought it impossible, even more since the shift. Hers.

  “Have to catch you up on some things, love.”

  His weariness ate at her skin, made her feel itchy.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “No. I’m not hungry.”

  The living room had emptied in the minutes they’d been speaking, his pack giving them space.

  “Let me feed you something.” She pulled back. Closer, she could see he wasn’t wearing any extra makeup. He was…exhausted.

  “I have to tell you some hard things. It’s turned my stomach.” He glanced toward the couch. “Can we sit?”

  “Sure.” He must really be exhausted. Savage sat and pulled her onto his lap. Whatever distance he’d placed between them when he’d first come in was gone now. She wanted answers and knew she’d have to wait for them unless she wanted the space to return. “Did you sleep at all?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Let’s start with the here and now. Your father’s death…I can’t express to you how sorry I am. If I could have done something. “

  “Savage.” She nuzzled his neck. “Don’t.”

  “I can’t say I’m not actually relieved. If he hadn’t suddenly sacrificed himself, it would have been you in the creature’s mouth.”

  His body shuddered, and she held him closer.

  “I was filled with the knowledge if I didn’t do something, you were going to die.”