Possessed by the Alpha

by Nancy Corrigan

  My skin heats. My inner muscles ache. The sensation of acceptance—of love—wraps around me, healing me. He works his way lower, spreading my legs and settling in the space between them. The warmth of his breath caresses my lower lips as completely as his hands and his kisses chased the chill from my body. I inhale and hold my caught air and wait.

  With a long, full stroke, Kade licks me, giving me what I crave. A sound of raw pleasure rumbles his chest. Another lick followed by another and another winds me higher. The flick of his tongue to my clit tenses me. More licks and more flicks leave me squirming, trying to get away but not wanting to end this. Kade’s hands settle on my hips. He tips my bottom higher and buries his nose in my curls and his tongue in my pussy, and then he devours me.

  His tongue thrusts. His fingertips press into my skin. His stubbled chin sensitizes me. On and on, he kisses my lower lips, fucking me and exploring me in ways that leave me exposed and so close to the edge of ecstasy, my body shakes. The tightness winds within me. The pressure in my pussy builds. Every touch sends me higher. I open my mouth to scream or cry out his name or beg him for more. A small noise of pure surrender slips from my throat. I can’t manage more, but I need more. I need the heaven only Kade can bring down to me.

  Cursing, Kade turns his head, denying me the beautiful glimpse I long for. He crawls over me. The head of his erection kisses my inner thigh before nudging my lower lips. He takes my mouth—the taste of me on his tongue—and joins us.

  Body, heart, and soul.

  For this fleeting moment, Kade’s with me, illuminating me from within and sending my body up in flames. He’s right too.

  I’m beautiful.

  With my arms wrapped around him, I cling to him while he rides my body, letting every moment become ingrained in my mind. I never want to forget this or what Kade’s gifted me with. I want to hold on to this feeling forever.

  Our loving turns into a fucking with each grunt and thump. I shake with his hard thrusts. My pussy squeezes over him in a desperate bid to lock us together forever, and heaven expands around me, a mesmerizing display of gold and brown and black. Clouds lift us higher. They don’t smother us. They buoy us, ready to take us away from everything.

  Kade’s mouth over my shoulder draws us back. His teeth press into my skin, but there’s no pain. He doesn’t break the skin. He holds still. His heated exhales bathe my skin. And he waits. He doesn’t bite. The promise is there, however. He’ll make me his. Nothing will stop him.

  Except me.

  And it’s not the right time. I won’t risk Kade. I won’t risk losing this emotion. I won’t risk my chance at heaven on earth. Soon, though. Nothing will stop me. Not even myself.

  I lift his chin and seek out his lips for a slow and deadly kiss with the full feline fangs filling his mouth. The last of our joint orgasm fades, and reality encroaches.

  Kade rolls us, putting me on top of him and equal to him. I snuggle closer and rest my cheek over his shoulder, my lips inches from his neck. “Is this love? This thing I feel for you?”

  “If it’s the same I feel for you, then yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  And it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Only one question remains:

  Will it be enough?

  Thirty

  Zoe

  My arms shake, but I grit my teeth and press harder. The wall of darkness doesn’t give way, however. The more I fight, the denser the shadows become. I’m trapped. Locked in the prison I’ve created. Weighed down by a past I can’t remember. And possessed by a demon who could’ve been my twin.

  Laughter surrounds me—in my head and in the world around me.

  Hands balled, I pivot and scan the murky horizon. No glint of light. No hint of where the piece of Kade’s soul has gone. There’s nothing here. Not even a single tree or rock. The replica of the overlook where my dreams always take place is gone. Everything’s gone.

  Except her.

  The black shirt that made me snicker when I saw it on the rack of the secondhand store hangs on her almost anorexic body, a body that matches mine down to every scar and blemish, but the funny phrase “My Favorite Pussy” and the cartoon cat don’t look silly on her. It makes her look beaten down and cheap.

  “Then you shouldn’t have worn it today.” She scrunches her nose. “I’m stuck wearing what you do. Going where you go. Fucking the same animal you do. So don’t blame me ’cause you’re an ugly skank.”

  “Because of Dr. Fairchild. That’s why you’re stuck with me. Because he bonded our souls.”

  “Jeremiah’s no doctor. He’s a quack. A desperate fake! If he was a real shaman, he’d have taken me on, not played God. That’s what he did too. He fucked with both our souls. Screwed us both over ’cause he was too weak to handle me! He knew it. I knew it. But in the end, he did me a favor, and he doesn’t even know it.”

  “What favor has he done?” I’m not even touching on her belief she has a soul. Demons don’t have souls.

  “Don’t go acting like I can’t read your mind. You’re an open book. A pathetically boring open book. So let me answer the question I know you’re dying to ask, or else you wouldn’t have thought it. Yes, demons do indeed have souls. Lots of souls. We like me eat ’em up like candy.” She grins, her white teeth a stark contrast against her black lipstick, the same I’d chosen to wear today. It looks better on me. Or at least I thought it did when I got ready this morning.

  Ugh, I need to stop comparing us. She is not me. “You steal other people’s souls. You don’t have one.”

  Her smirk dies abruptly. “I was like you once, Zoe Jane Conway. I had a soul. A beautiful soul.”

  “Liar.”

  “For real.” Eyes wide as if that makes her words more believable, she nods. “I was a shaman. A very, very powerful shaman who even the heavens feared, but I made a mistake. Just like you did. And now I’m here, living the fucking monotonous life you do.”

  “What favor has he done?” I won’t argue with the demon bonded to my soul. She lies. Constantly.

  “I don’t lie.” She pouts, then gives in to the snicker she’s fighting to contain. “Always.”

  “What. Favor.”

  Rolling her eyes, she looks heavenward. The same black nothingness hangs above us as below and around us. “I’m trying to educate you, Zoe Jane. I know you’re a high school dropout and all, but you’re not a complete moron. You can understand what I’m saying. So listen. And learn.”

  “What fucking favor!” The world undulates, heaving the misty floor and tumbling both of us.

  She presses a hand into the cushiony ground. “He stopped me from eating you up. Trapped me in this prison.”

  “He trapped both of us and ended up doing you a favor. What favor?”

  She cups her ear and leans to the side. “Do you hear that?”

  “What favor?”

  “Don’t you hear him crying?” She looks at me. Her mouth forms a little O. “You don’t. Goddesses, you are the worst mother evvveer. It’s a good thing you didn’t raise that bloody hellion. You probably would’ve left him to bake in your car or something while you went and painted yourself up like some devil-worshipping wannabe.”

  “Shut up.” I step forward, leaving behind the shadowy door that had slammed and locked me inside with my crazy doppelgänger. “Do you hear me? Shut up.”

  “Why?” She leans forward, taunting me with her hands planted on her hips. “Don’t you like when I speak the truth? Would you like a lie instead?” She nods, answering herself. “Okay. Here’s a good one. Kade loves you, and he thinks you’re bea-u-tiful.”

  “Shut. Up.” I take another step.

  “You can’t make me. You can’t me go away either. You’re stuck with me. They made sure of it.” Head lowered and ass up, she backs away from me in a move that’s more snakelike than sensual. “Now they realized their mistake, and they’re panicking. Scared. Motherfucking afraid! They’re right to fear too. ’Cause I’m coming for them. Ev
ery last one of them. And you’re going to be the one to unleash me. Willingly.”

  “I can’t.” I hold my ground while the faintest echoing cries of a newborn reach me. “You’re stuck with me. Forever and ever. Even death won’t separate us.”

  She smiles. “Exactly. That’s why they’re shitting their pants, and I guarantee you, they’re regretting the deal they made with me, every last one of them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She turns her back on me and walks away. I follow. I shouldn’t. She’s messing with me, playing some kind of mind game. Or she’s actually telling me the truth. I can’t be sure, and I need to know. When she quickens her pace, I do too. When she bolts, I run faster. Trees sprout and grow at a fast-forward clip. Rain soaks us, then snow falls. Rocks make the ground under my feet uneven. I stumble and push harder, using the sloping surfaces to propel me forward. The overlook where we always meet looms ahead of us. I stretch an arm out and snag her shirt before she leaps over the edge, then spin her. She lands on the jagged rock with a smile on her face.

  “What are you talking about?” I repeat my demand, pushing my will into the words.

  “True mates are weapons. You’re Kade’s. And the day will come when he has to fight. When it does, you’ll do anything to save him. Anything…including”—she looks up at me from where she’s sprawled on the cold rock—“letting your crazy side out, and once I am, I ain’t never coming back here.”

  “What deal did you make?” I press the other question she evaded. Her version of the future isn’t one I want to contemplate, because I can see the scenario she painted coming true, and that concerns me.

  “That scares you. Not concerns you. Don’t lie.” She pushes to her feet and moves to the edge of the overlook. “The truth scares you because you know what’ll happen to you if you let me out.” She looks over her shoulder. “Don’t you?”

  “What deal did you make?”

  “I’m stronger than you, Zoe. Infinitely stronger. But you’ll risk everything—anything—to save your favorite kitty. Even your eternal freedom.”

  “What deal did you make?”

  Huffing, she crouches down. Inky black mist creeps over her feet and the surface of the rock she’s perched on. She dips her hands into the shadows and sweeps them through the thick fog while her mouth moves in a silent chant.

  I step behind her and shove against her shoulder. “The deal. What deal did you make?”

  “You’ll take my place in Hell, Zoe Jane. I’ll walk among humans. I’ll be free, and you won’t.” The taunting is childlike. The threat isn’t.

  “That’s the deal you made?”

  With her lip caught, she shakes her head.

  “What deal did you make?”

  She turns back to the thickening mist at her feet and lifts a baby from the depths of nothingness. The naked newborn screams. He flails his chubby arms, sucks in a hiccupping inhale, then cries. Wisps of black hair curl on his head. With his ruddy cheeks and a pudgy, smushed nose, he could’ve been a mirror image of Josh as a baby. The instinct growing within me tells me otherwise.

  This is my baby.

  “The little devil you never looked upon.”

  She holds him up with her hands wrapped around his chest. His head flops sideways, then backward. His screams turn into a shriek.

  Hands fisted, my arms shake. I hold my ground. “You need to support his neck. Let me show you. Hand him to me.”

  “Don’t be silly.” She shifts him to one hand, his chest to her splayed palm. His legs and arms and head fall forward. Panicked high-pitched cries cut through the night. He waves his arms and wrenches his head. “I’ve been babysitting for years. I know how to take care of a scrawny little rat like him.”

  “Then let me take over for you.” I hold out my hands.

  She looks from me to the baby—my baby—she’s carelessly holding. “He’s bad.”

  “He’s just a baby.” I swallow against the dryness in my mouth. “He’s not bad.”

  “He’s a killer.” She glances over her shoulder. “A child killer.”

  I hunker down, bringing myself within reaching distance of my baby. “He’s mine.”

  “Then claim him.”

  With that, she lets go. Another scream pierces my heart. I reach for him. A shove against my back pushes me forward. The ground gives way to nothingness. The crying stops, shutting off instantly. My curse replaces it. Hands grab me, squeezing hard enough to rip a horrifying screech from my throat.

  A hard yank pulls me up onto the overlook’s edge. I slam against a rock-solid body.

  Black flames fill my vision. Jarah sneers at me, a condescending look that stops my heart and fills me with dread.

  “I messed up.”

  Jarah nods. “Royally.”

  He shifts my weight, locking me to his side with one arm, then waves his other hand and wipes away the dream world where my crazy side lives. Sunlight and the muggy heat of the sunroom in Jarah’s house replaces the cold darkness. More warmth registers with the gush of blood flowing steadily from the deep gouges in my palms to the stone table, my blood dripping off the sides and collecting on the floor. Pain follows, locking my body and pulling a gasp from my throat.

  Jarah releases me, and I shuffle back, my blood dribbling onto the rough stone floor. Before I can make another move, he seizes my hands in his and holds them until the agony fades and my blood stops dripping, then all my spilled blood fades, along with the liters spreading on the ground around me, leaving the worn stone table as it had appeared when I arrived.

  He smacks my cheek, demanding I face him, not the portal I’d created to my demon’s prison. Then he catches my gaze. “What. Did. I. Tell. You?”

  “Demons lie. Always.”

  “Exactly.” Jarah lets go.

  I turn my hands over. No sign of my injury shows. He told me I’d be able to go to Mira’s baby shower this evening and then to the alpha party tonight without anyone knowing I’m learning to dabble in dark magic, just as he told me to expect to be manipulated by the demon inside me. For a moment, I believed her lies, however. She told me what I wanted to hear, but the truth is…

  “My baby’s dead.”

  “So is the man you loved.”

  “Before Kade.” I let Jarah see my determination. “I loved BJ with everything I was then, but Kade’s my future. He’s the man I love now. He’s the man I’ll love forever.”

  “Then be ready to fight for him, because right now, it’s you, zero, and your crazy side, one.” Jarah leans close, the scent of night flower wafting from the oil he rubbed into his skin. “And come tonight, all it’ll take is Asa getting this close to you, and you can kiss your free will goodbye. He’ll draw forth your demon just as I have done, but he won’t pull you back from her as I did. He’ll let you fall deeper and deeper into the realm she commands until you won’t be able to find your way out. Then, she’ll lock you in and take over. Forever.”

  “I won’t let that happen.” Kade needs me to be a woman strong enough to stand by his side tonight, tomorrow, and for eternity.

  “You’re underestimating Asa’s skills. Where I dabble in the dark arts, he’s become an expert.”

  “Then I’ll just have to be a super expert.”

  Jarah shakes his head, but his small smile hints at a complex and fun personality hidden behind his deadly exterior. “We have an hour, two at the most, before you need to get ready for Mira’s baby shower and I have to help your true mate secure the Black Widow for tonight’s party. The surplus of Shifter Affairs agents promised to us has been cut to a tenth, maybe less.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s been a category three event in Washington, DC, at the main Shifter Affairs building.”

  I suck in a breath. “What happened?”

  “Active shooter. They’re actually thinking it was unrelated to the shifter world, just a human angry over the dismissal of a female agent, but tensions are heighted.”

  “An
d that leaves us…”

  “Scrambling to fill the void.” The hard press of Jarah’s jaw draws out tendons in his neck. “Don’t worry. As always, those loyal to us will step up. All will be well.”

  “But the party and the alpha meeting…” A party where I’ll be presented as Kade’s future soul-bonded mate and, in the eyes of likely all those in attendance, his greatest weakness.

  “Will go on as planned. It’ll be okay.”

  “Famous last words.”

  Jarah shrugs. “Not mine. I have no plans on dying. Ever.”

  “Me neither.”

  Fear doesn’t chill me today as it did last night over the unknowns and possibilities of life as Kade’s other half. Kade’s arms around me and the depth of his emotions spreading outward from my soul chased the debilitating anxiety back. The determination replacing it is stronger than ever. We’ll conquer our enemies. We have to.

  I head to the small table and pick up the ceremonial dagger that reminds me of something out of a museum, with its bone handle and the carvings etched into the blade. “Then let’s stop wasting time and try again. She never did tell me what deal she made.”

  “She’s going to lie.”

  “I know that. The point is to get her to obey me.”

  Jarah wraps my hands around the dagger so the metal presses into my unmarred skin but doesn’t bleed me. With his hands covering mine, he looks into my eyes. “The point is to possess her, not command her. You need to own her.”

  “I need to turn her into my bitch.”

  “And make her beg.”

  Nodding, I curl my hands, the sharp pain stealing my breath. Blood flows, dropping onto the stone table. With each plop, dizziness grows until I feel almost drunk. Once my blood covers the table, I ease my grip on the blade and wipe the sharp edges on my shirt, red blood smearing the cartoon kitty.

  The chant Jarah taught me is on my lips, the ancient language rolling off my tongue with an accent I can’t claim is mine. And then…