“No,” he growls as his golden eyes glow with his wolf. “We either face this with you as alpha, or we face it with me as alpha.”
“I won’t make you a beta tyrant killing people all the time, Dad,” I whisper. “You have to be the alpha.”
He nods slowly. “Your wolf is an alpha, Scar—a true alpha. The moment any werewolf sees her, even if she just rises to the surface while you’re human, they’ll know you’ve ascended.”
I nod, understanding the nearly impossible task before me. There’s only one way I can keep this secret, my father’s false ascension to alpha, my dishonorable kill, and the secret-unlawful exchange of power. “I’ll hide her,” I tell my father. “I’ll hide my wolf forever.”
Chapter Three
Lance
I sit at my desk, staring across its length at my two triplet brothers. Between them sits the letter. It’s unfolded itself at its center crease, revealing the name Jack Riley, PhD and a scrolling signature beneath it. Below that is a date a week and a half past and the address of a PO box in Eureka, California.
To all appearances, it looks just like a business letter even though it’s the furthest thing from it.
As if Aaron, my youngest brother by minutes, reads my thoughts, he leans over the table and snatches up the unfolding paper. Opening it, he reads, “After the funeral rights have been performed for Jacob Knight, the undersigned intends to have his pack participate solely in lawful and legitimate income streams and no longer expects any of the deceased Jacob Knight’s conquered packs to be beholden to the Six Rivers Pack. For an ‘I killed your brother and took over his pack’ letter, he sure is official about it...and generous. Basically...” Aaron lets out a snort of derision and throws down the letter. “Jack kills Jacob, weakens the Six Rivers pack, and strengthens the position of the packs that surround Six Rivers on three sides.” A mischievous and familiar glint enters Aaron’s red-brown eyes. “You think he wants us to attack—that he’s trying to trap us?”
Darrel leans forward, setting his elbow on the desk and rubbing the short beard on his chin. The facial hair does nothing to hide the scars on both sides of his face, but I doubt that’s the goatee's purpose anyway. Only silver blades make scars like that, meaning Darrel fought an enemy with a silver weapon, more likely than not a fae, and he won. It’s something to proudly showcase. Aside from the facial scarring, my younger triplet brothers are almost identical. Both are so brawny that adversaries often mistake them for slow-moving and slow-minded—it’s the last mistake those adversaries ever make.
“I think he’s telling us he got rid of our problem and plans to live in peace,” Darrel says in that low, smooth voice of his, so incongruous with his looks. Dropping his hand, his gaze rises to meet mine. “Also, he wants to see the backs of all of us Knight alphas forever.”
“Not going to happen,” Aaron says with a chuckle as he throws his hands behind his head. He leans back in his chair until it threatens to topple over. “So, when are we taking our pack back? I vote tonight. I’m free—I’m always free.”
That’s just like Aaron. He loves everything fast and easy, but this predicament is anything but easy.
After examining this situation, I tend to agree more with Darrel’s assessment, as I so often do. Before we were sent away at sixteen, Aaron hadn’t spent much time with Jack Riley, but Darrel and I had.
Back when I was still delusional about my older brother’s affection for me, I’d hoped to be chosen as Jacob’s beta. Jack had gladly invited me into his office to answer a long stream of questions. The werewolf professor had casually quoted Camus, Dostoevsky, and Huxley in less than an hour of conversation. He’d probably quoted others in the meeting that I’d yet to read at that age.
Jack is a scientist, a scholar, not a war general. The closest Jack would ever get to starting a war would be reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. This isn’t a power grab. No, it’s definitely something else. My older brother must have done something to finally push a man of pacifism and philosophizing to murder. There’s no doubt in my mind, Jacob earned every moment of his death, but...it makes things complicated.
“Lance doesn’t want to kill him,” Darrel says slowly, and when I raise my eyes to his, I find his battle-scarred lips slightly upturned at the edges, his version of a smirk.
“I liked the professor,” I admit. “He’s well read and can actually hold a decent conversation–something I can’t say about present company.”
My brothers smirk at that.
“But,” I continue, “we can’t let Heartland forest go to the fae.”
This statement isn’t a huge revelation—it’s our reason for meeting together. Our brother was an evil, tyrannical son of a bitch, but he had been a necessary evil. Even the North American Lycanthropy Council had seen it. Heartland, the redwood forest that spans from Mendocino County to Southern Oregon, is, outside of Alaska, the most fertile and plentiful hunting ground remaining in North America. The great forest provides deer, boar, bobcat, bear, great elk, and many more types of prey.
Even when we were young boys, the fae had slowly been moving their royals into the small towns within the Heartland. There are also continuous sightings of fae throughout the forest, scouts, surveying the werewolves’ territory from all sides. When my pack or my brothers’ packs confront the teams of fae scouts, they attack and fight to the death. The fae even go so far as taking their own lives over being captured—not an easy task, as they are hard to kill.
The fae are preparing for a takeover. We all know it’s coming. It’s what my brothers and I have been fighting against since the fae were sent to conquer the surrounding packs when we were sixteen, and now we'd just lost the heart of our defenses against the fae.
Jacob had done a hell of a lot of wrong in his reign as alpha, but he’d preserved Heartland for the wolves and allowed all werewolves to hunt in it—for a fee, of course. He’d been so useful that the North American Lycanthropy Council had turned a blind eye to his side businesses and lifestyle.
“Rumor is...” Aaron says with that characteristic gleam of mischief in his eyes, “one of Jack Riley’s daughters is close with a fae prince.”
Darrel’s brow furrows as he turns to Aaron. A growl enters his voice as he says, “I’m sure you can relate.”
Aaron laughs. “Spending a hot night with one—or two or three fae—isn’t the same as being close to fae royalty.” The glee slides off his features. “My point is, we don’t know if Jack is compromised or not. What is he going to give up to these fae to keep a peaceful and legitimate pack? If Lance won’t challenge this good conversationalist, I’ll do it. Good old Sac-town is the least essential, and I’m barely there anyway. My beta can manage in my absence.”
“No,” I say before standing and walking to my window. A sudden earthquake rolls through the city, shifting it back and forth and rattling my windows in their frame. I wish I could behave as if the Earth shifting beneath us is a rare occurrence.
It’s not.
Folding my hands behind my back, I stare down at my concrete kingdom. The sun hovers over San Francisco, reflecting off the glass skyscrapers as they sway and then settle.
Long fissures of destruction run through the metropolis, but overall, the many earthquakes have left the city intact. Most cities in North America can’t say that these days. The San Francisco Pack, that I took alphaship of at sixteen, continues to be one of the wealthiest and strongest packs in North America, but at its core, it’s a small pack in a city of humans.
There are micro-populations of other supernatural species. We boast one of the healthiest populations of bridge trolls in the world, but as the troll sub-species are man-eaters, they’re closely governed by the human authorities, and relations with them rarely fall to me.
Fresh out of university at the age of twenty-two, I’d spent most of my time in the offices of human government officials. My pack is mostly self-maintaining, and I am damn proud of it. They only really gather on the weekends, where they all hunt and guard thro
ughout the Mendocino coast.
At the age of twenty-two, my life has slid into a comfortable monotony.
I can almost smell the redwood bark and feel the soft underbrush crunch beneath my feet. I remember the infinite freedom of knowing I could run for days, the trees continuing in all directions. All wolves had been allowed to return to the massive forests of the North Coast, except us Knight triplets. When Jacob had sent us teenagers to conquer the neighboring packs, it had been a one-way trip on pain of assassination. I feel a constant tug at my chest whenever I think about those endless woods.
I hear my two alpha brothers step up to either side of me before I see them in my periphery.
“We are taking back the Six Rivers Pack, right?” Aaron asks, and in his voice, I swear I can hear just a hint of vulnerability—something my flippant, jokester brother never openly shows. Perhaps he is also imagining the smell of endless forest and longing for home.
“Yeah, we’re going back,” Darrel says from my other side. “Lance is just deciding how we’re going to do it.”
As always, Darrel can read me like a book.
“I already know the best way to do it,” I say slowly. The words give me no joy, but I know they have to be said. “But it will take time—time the fae might not give us. And it will take patience.” This part I direct at Aaron, giving him a pointed look.
Aaron raises his hands in surrender, his eyes alight with glee. “For this, I’ll learn how to be patient—or I’ll attempt to distract myself with lots of sex and fucking and be ready when you need me.”
I’m pretty sure sex and fucking are the same thing, but I really don’t want to ask him for an explanation. The less I know about Aaron’s overactive sex life, the better.
“Two-and-a-half years,” I say. “Give me two-and-a-half years from now, and then we’ll return home.”
Chapter Four
Scarlet
Two and a half years later
Balancing on one foot, three shelves up in the Meadows supply closet, I reach up toward the cursed plastic drain snake on the top shelf. I’d obviously decided to torture myself and tossed it up there after the last time I used it. It’s almost in my grasp when my phone blares out the melody to Fae Sex Addiction by Elvira.
“Damn you, Macklin Banrigh,” I mutter, cursing my best friend who decided to secretly change my phone ringtone yesterday. I’d been cursing him all day, as I hadn’t had a single moment to figure out how to change it back to the default.
The upbeat rhythm of Fae Sex Addiction has officially become the bane of my existence. Especially when no less than thirteen of the tenants of Meadows Apartments have called me with supposed emergency repairs. The rest dialed in when the hot water heater pilot light went out, three calls came in when someone tried to put armor in the communal washer, and I got one very apologetic “don’t fine me” call when a dragon shifter flew through their window—while the glass was still closed.
When I let my phone go to voicemail, Fae Sex Addiction immediately rings out again.
“You’ve reached Scarlet at Meadows Apartments.” Propping my phone against my shoulder, I climb up the next level of the shelving unit, ignoring the metal mesh shelves’ creaks of protest.
“Hey, baby,” my boyfriend Zane rumbles into the phone, sounding like he just woke.
“Uhm, love, I’m a little busy. Can I call you back in thirty?”
“Scarlet.” Zane’s voice changes, sounding more like a growl. “Are you doing something dangerous?”
“Uh, of course not,” I say as I stretch and wrap my fingers around the red, plastic drain snake, grab it, and leap off the shelves. Somehow, in the upper feet of the basement, there must have been a pocket of fresh oxygen because cold, stale air hits me anew as my tennis shoes hit the frigid cement of the basement floor.
“I heard you land, Scar,” he says in a low growl. “You know you don’t heal like a normal wolf. I’m going to talk to your father about having a male from the pack run the apartment complex.”
“Uh, no, you’re not,” I snap as an old anger reignites in my chest.
But damn it, I got this job on my own. I don’t know where Zane gets the idea that anyone has the right to simply replace me with someone from the pack. It’s my job, has been for almost a year, and I’m keeping it. My anger flares hot, waking my wolf within me. For just one moment, black claws extend from my fingers, but I squeeze my eyes closed and slowly count to ten.
What is wrong with me?
I can’t let my wolf slip like that.
Not now.
Not ever.
“I’m sorry I yelled,” I mutter into the silence on the other side of the phone. “I know you’re just looking out for me because you care.”
“It’s fine,” he says, but from his tone, it’s not. “Are you coming by our apartment? The drain is clogged again.”
Meadows Apartments probably last updated their tiny little pipes during the turn of the twentieth century.
“Uh, yeah. Do you need something other than a drain snake?” I ask, but I only receive silence on the other end.
Lovely. My boyfriend is pissed about nothing. Just what I need today.
Walking back through my office on my way to the interior of the apartment building, I sigh as I look longingly around at the room full of Christmas boxes. This is what I’d planned to do today. Yes, it’s only the first day of December, and Arcata has been unseasonably warm, but is it too much to ask for a woman to get a little Christmas in her office?
Deciding that right this very minute is my lunch break, I set the drain snake on the floor and resolve that I will decorate three boxes' worth before I go back to work. I lean over the first, open the cardboard, and smile at the glittery contents within. That’s when a huge-ass spider scurries out of the tinsel and straight up into my hair. Looking at the swollen body of the brown and black arachnid as it vanishes into my curly locks, I let out a scream completely unbefitting a twenty-year-old werewolf with a second-degree black belt. I throw my head forward, bend, and shake my hair over the floor.
“Hiding in a Christmas box like a shitty present? Are you kidding me?”
“Excuse me?” someone calls from behind me.
I freeze, peering between my legs at two pairs of heavy boots and a set of very nice dress shoes. It’s then I realize my ass is in the air and pointing straight at the incoming group. I stand abruptly. Well, shit.
“Are you dancing? And was that you screaming?” an amused male voice asks me from behind.
“No—I mean, yes to the screaming. Sorry, just one second.”
Finger combing my strawberry-blonde curls back down, I try to make myself look somewhat professional as I check for more eight-legged stowaways. It’s a little hard to smile, but I manage before turning to face the newcomers. My heart skips a beat, and I blink my eyes slowly at the three men who stand among the sparkly mess of Christmas decorations, hoping they’ll disappear.
Considering the amount of bad luck I’ve experienced in my twenty years of life, I shouldn’t be at all surprised that Jacob Knight’s triplet brothers—the scariest alpha males this far north of Los Angeles—are standing in my office with forced expressions of congeniality on their deadly-attractive faces.
My wolf immediately fights me, attempting to claw her way out of the tight confines I keep her in, but like always, I wrestle her back. Crossing through open boxes to my massive wooden desk, I sit and ignore the images my wolf pushes at me, demanding we jump to our feet and stare the brothers down. It’s true that a sitting position puts us at a disadvantage, but I gently remind her we can still stare them down in this position, and my legs won’t collapse under me. It will make them think I don’t see them as a threat even though they’re the looming axe that’s been hanging over my family and pack’s heads since I killed Jacob Knight.
I reinforce the wattage on my smile and lean back in my chair.
Not a damn care in the world.
“Hello. Welcome to Meadows Apartme
nts.” Raising my gaze for the first time, I meet the hazel eyes of the man nearest my desk. I recognize Lance Knight immediately; I recognized all of them immediately. There’s no way I couldn’t. They grew up as the pack’s golden princes. Popularity is too small a word for what they held in our pack. Before they left, they were celebrities. After they conquered the surrounding packs while they were each just sixteen, they became something else altogether—legends, maybe even a bit godlike in the eyes of my packmates. But I don’t let any trace of my recognition show as my gaze continues to lock with Lance Knight’s sharp eyes.
He’s taller than I remember, maybe six-two or three. Unlike his two brothers, who wear leather jackets and jeans, Lance wears a collared shirt and suit jacket. Black tattoos peek out of his collar and cuffs. In one of his hands, he holds a crisp looking paperback. One finger holds his place halfway through the book, as if I just interrupted him sitting down to read. When I continue to hold his gaze, he raises a dark brow.
“Maybe you don’t recognize us. We used to be part of your pack when you were young.”
Without breaking from our stare-down, I shrug. “Twelve isn’t that young—especially as you three were sixteen when you left. Is there something you wanted from me? Sorry, I have drains to unclog and an office to decorate.”
Suddenly, I feel my wolf push forward with a determination she rarely exhibits anymore. Squeezing closed my eyes, I break from Lance’s gaze—though I regret it immediately. Determinedly, I push her back down.
When I feel confident enough to look over to where Aaron and Darrel Knight hang a few steps back, I find them both considering me. Aaron’s russet eyes hold a glint of humor, while a wicked smile sits on his lips.
Aaron freaking Knight.
I don’t blush easily—but as his wicked gaze meets mine, I can literally feel my face flushing. I blame my younger sister Zeezee, who stalks Aaron on social media and constantly insists on sending me memes women share under the hashtag #anightwithaaronknight every time a new one pops up. It’s like sexual energy just radiates off the man. He has high cheekbones, a James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause haircut, and a short stubble beard.
Dirty Alphas Page 3
