Dirty Alphas

by Alexa B. James

  I relax my shoulders and lean into him. “So, do you have to do some sort of fae magic?”

  Mack raises his free hand in the air, holding his fingers splayed. One by one, he curls his fingers into a fist. I’m holding my breath, finally expecting to see my best friend do something magical, when he reaches forward and knocks on the door.

  “Seriously?” I say with a laugh as I push him away from me.

  He shrugs and shoots me a mischievous smirk. “I didn’t know what we were waiting for. I was expecting you to knock.”

  “House number, please?” says a lilting female voice from seemingly nowhere.

  I search the area around the door but find only an uneven cliff face made up of packed dirt and rough boulders. Odd bits of vegetation, weeds, and roots grow out of the fifty-foot outcropping. Can fae communicate out of plants?

  “We don’t know the house number,” I say. Pulling out my phone, I shoot off a text to Zeezee. When she doesn’t respond right away, I continue with, “Uh, we’re here to meet my sister Zeezee Riley, who's visiting a fae who lives here, Oxonos.”

  The door slides into the wall silently, revealing an elevator big enough to fit a midsized car into.

  “Let’s leave the car?” Mack suggests as he steps into the metal chamber.

  “In case we need to escape by jumping off the cliff?” I ask with a laugh but cut my laugh off abruptly as a chilling sensation skates across my spine, making my wolf emerge from where I cage her in my mind. Her hackles rise, and I feel a strong pulse of emotion from her—something I haven’t felt in years, terror. An image crystalizes in my mind of me in the elevator with the doors closed; it's here for only a moment before it disappears. I’m left standing on the threshold with a serious sense of foreboding. My heart thumping in my ears, I rush into the elevator and slam my hand down on the “door closed” button.

  I peek over my shoulder and out the entrance as it closes, seeing only my little forest green car parked on a cul-de-sac with a row of two-story, freshly painted houses. I sense no movement whatsoever. All the vegetation remains still and undisturbed. There’s a faint smell on the wind, though, so faint that I might be imagining it. It smells like a vanilla cake mixed with a predator’s bloody breath after eating a fresh kill.

  I beg my wolf to tell me what’s freaking her out—or who, but she only backs further into my mind. A pulse of relief comes as the door slides shut.

  Strange.

  Staring past Mack at the buffed-metal interior of the elevator as the chamber smoothly slides up, I reason with myself that whoever is watching me could have been sent by my father. They could be someone I know well, and I’d be completely unaware. Ever since that night in Jacob’s bedroom, my connection to the Six Rivers Pack is nearly non-existent. Most believe it’s because I joined another pack—only my father and I know the truth.

  All that doesn’t matter—what matters is that my emotions have been all over the place today, and the feeling of impending doom that’s lodged its way into my belly could be stress-induced paranoia.

  “Scarlett...Earth to Scarlett.” Mack gently nudges my back.

  “Sorry.” I clear my throat and shake my head, trying to dispel the remnants of the everything-is-about-to-come-crashing-down feeling. “You’re going to talk to this fae for me, right?”

  Mack shakes his head slowly as his azure eyes laugh. “Sounds like he wants to talk to you.”

  “Oh, no you don’t…” I growl, but I’m interrupted by the elevator door sliding open to reveal a man who stands at about three feet tall.

  Aside from his height, the first thing I notice about the man is his folded over, pointed hat that’s dripping blood. The fresh tang of plasma threatens to overwhelm my senses, but I don’t dare risk insulting him by covering my nose. Wrinkled gray skin folds around the man’s two large yellow eyes as he blinks up at me. A beak-like nose sniffs the air and wrinkles, as if he doesn’t like the smell of me either. His white beard twitches, and I notice its amazing length covers the rest of his face and most of his body. Behind the beard, he wears what I’m pretty sure is a white tuxedo, but the shoulders of the jacket have been stained crimson, and it’s hard to tell beyond that.

  “Welcome to Cutten Cliffs. I’m Bob,” he says in a gruff voice. “I live here, down the way.” He opens his mouth in a surprisingly warm smile—if you ignore the mouthful of jagged teeth—when he pauses and his citrine eyes dart over to Mack. “Ah, you, good to see you, Your Highness.”

  “Hello, Bob,” Mack says with a twist of his lips, which clearly hides mirth. Obviously, something here is hilarious, and I have no idea what.

  “Come on out…come on, now,” Bob says, gesturing to us. The moment we’re out, he continues talking. “So, I used to be homeless. Did I tell you that, sir?”

  “You’ve… mentioned it,” Mack says as he leads me from the elevator with a hand at my back. “Congratulation on your change of fortune.”

  “Thanks.” Bob shakes his head. “Woke up with hip pains again, and there was an abscess the size of my foot there. I almost considered naming it Bob Jr. I guess that’s life though, huh?”

  “That’s life,” Mack says, even though I’ve never seen so much as a pimple on him.

  “Are you—who we’re here to meet? Mr. Oxonos?” I ask even though I’m pretty sure Bob isn’t Zeezee’s type, make that very sure, but I’ve been wrong before.

  “No, no, no, I’m just here.” He waves at the many times patched road beneath him. “I like to greet people.”

  I tug Mack, who seems more than content to stay chit-chatting with Bob. “Oh, well, it’s nice to meet you, then, but we really have to go.”

  “Did you go to the doctors?” Mack asks as we scoot past the short man and walk backward down the paved road so as not to be rude, as Bob clearly still wants to talk.

  “Oh no, no, I don’t complain or go see doctors. That’s just not me, Macklin.”

  “Well, you should,” Macklin says as we continue to back away.

  The elevator dings, and a thrilled smile lights over Bob’s features again. He turns back to the now-closed elevator door before spinning back to us. “Make sure you say hello on your way back through. I’ll be here.”

  “We’ll come say hello,” I tell him, though I’m not sure we have any choice in the matter anyway, as he seems to be standing guard in front of Cutten’s main entrance.

  “Bob the over-sharer,” Mack mutters softly as we turn back to the road. “He’s not your usual redcap.”

  “Oh...”

  I’m thankfully saved from further delving into this when my phone dings with a text from Zeezee. It simply has an address, which, thank all that is holy, we find two blocks up and don’t need to ask Bob the over-sharing redcap about.

  The sprawling blue and white Victorian mansion takes up nearly a block and a half. Very few of the old homes have survived the decade of storms, but the ones that did came at a mint. Obviously, Zeezee’s boss was rolling in it—which is weird because up until now she’s been telling me she’s working at a Food-Mart.

  “I knew I should have checked on that one,” I mutter aloud, earning a quizzical look from Mack. “Nothing, just berating myself for getting into this mess, especially since you seem oh, so willing to let me deal with all your weird fae friends without your help.”

  Mack gestures in a wide sweep at the house. “I’m not friends with Oxonos. He’s boring. He can turn into this giant armored swamp worm—and he somehow even makes that uninteresting. But he’s completely harmless—at least in this form. Fae 101. Just give him a time limit, and please, keep your sister with you. Do not thank him for anything. Don’t eat anything—drinks are fine as long as it’s not wine. He can’t lie.”

  “I hate you,” I shoot back as I hurry up the walkway. “And why do I have to keep Zeezee with me?”

  “It’s very important.”

  “I’m thinking it’s not!” I call back.

  He replies with a long stream of rapid-fire Portuguese I c
an’t hope to understand—but it sounds like he’s telling me exactly why I have to keep Zeezee with me and away from him.

  The door opens before I get the chance to knock, and my sister stands framed in the doorway, breathing heavily. The thing that sucks the most about my sister is that she looks just like a taller, brunette version of me. Almost identical to my own, Zeezee has sharp, angular features and a heart-shaped face. Her lips always look a little bee stung, though right now they’re red and swollen. Her cinnamon-brown hair has obviously been tousled recently, and I’m not surprised by the slightly musky smell of sex wafting off her. Looking at her is like looking into a distorted mirror and having no control over the stupid situations my alter ego gets us into.

  Plugging my nose, I say in a nasal voice, “Seriously, Zeezee?”

  “I didn’t know you were going to get here so quickly.” She rolls her eyes dramatically in a way that makes her look thirteen rather than nineteen years old. “I thought I’d smooth the way for you.”

  Zeezee logic—it’s a language I can’t begin to understand. I don’t do what I want to do and shout at her that this fae is actively blackmailing her; instead, I wave behind me and say, “Mack wants you to tell him all the non-sexual details of what’s been going on. Make sure you don’t leave anything out, no matter how much he protests; it might be important. But, please, please, please, don’t hit on him again. He’s not interested, and he’s too nice to flat out tell you.”

  She shrugs. “Sure, whatever.”

  With that, we hug—whilst I still plug my nose, and then we skirt past each other.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me in there to protect you?” Zeezee calls when I’m halfway in through the doorway.

  I turn back to find my sister shooting a fierce look my way, her green eyes sparking with caged violence. That’s my sister. The dichotomy of her two personalities never ceases to amaze me. She could literally screw me over and then be willing to die for me in the span of five minutes, never thinking there’s anything weird about that.

  Behind her, Mack makes big, sweeping gestures, clearly indicating I should take Zeezee up on her offer. I give him a look and say, “It’s cool, Zee. I’ve got this.”

  Nearly fifteen minutes later, I find myself sitting in a parlor any dog-obsessed senior citizen would be proud of and guzzling tea from a dainty china teacup while Oxonos Hyposis continuously whines about a pair of dance shoes. No, seriously, dance shoes. Across a carved wooden table, laden with finger foods, Oxonos sits ramrod straight, his blue eyes distant as he explains exactly why Queen Titania has no right to take his dance paraphernalia. He’s a pale, willowy fae. His face is handsome in an unreal way—like a glossy model on a magazine ad. Unlike Zeezee, his impeccable suit and long, flaxen hair show no sign of their recent sexcapade, and he smells more like fresh grass than anything more carnal.

  The hands on a ticking cuckoo clock behind him seem strangely sluggish, as if this guy managed to slow time to stretch out his story. My gaze fixes on the secondhand without my consent. No less than three earthquakes hit while he speaks, and he doesn’t even miss a beat in his story.

  “She really has no right. As I said, I made them myself out of the heart of my fallen beloved hunting hounds…”

  “And that’s time,” I say, jumping from my seat. “Fifteen minutes of my rapt attention in exchange for any and all copies of my sister’s sex tape.” I hold out my hand, stretching my fingers.

  He steeples his hands, making no move to hand over the recording that sits beside him. “You weren’t even listening.”

  “Yes, yes, I was. Want me to paraphrase? You punished a stripper for continuously showing up to work late and high by convincing her to strap on your dance shoes to keep her job. The dance shoes wouldn’t let her stop dancing for forty-eight straight hours, by which time she injured herself. Human rights groups got involved, and your queen punished you by taking away your shoes.” I pause to shake my head because the story sounds even worse in a short and succinct manner. “If you were a werewolf, you’d get the shit kicked out of you and you’d lose pack status. You’d be cleaning toilets for months in the packhouse...if you were lucky. Sounds like you got off easy because you’re rich or powerful or something, and I’m not going to say a word to Macklin about it.”

  With that, I cross the room and grab the USB stick from where it sits on Oxonos’ table, and I leave the fae blustering as I walk out of the house. When I exit back into the day, I find my sister talking to a very frustrated looking Mack. I raise the USB drive.

  “Let’s go...like, now.”

  “Oh, thank the gods,” Mack mouths as I run up toward them.

  When my sister reaches for the USB stick, I jerk it away from her. “No way. This, I keep.”

  “You’re screwing with me, right?” She bares her teeth.

  “Not at all. This is insurance in case you ever think about working at the Full Moon or visiting this freaky fae again.”

  “It’s the only strip club!” she says, eyes wide, confirming what I suspected. Zeezee is planning to keep doing the nasty with Mr. Dance Shoes.

  “Zeezee, I have much bigger problems to worry about than you right now. And for reals—the guy has painted pictures of dogs in every room of his house I saw, but no dogs.” I don’t know why I fixate on this fact, but because of the reasons behind me being there, the décor really freaks me out. I hold up the data stick. “I will post werewolf porn on the Internet of you if you ever go see this guy again, so help me.”

  Her shoulders slump, and her eyes lower to the ground. Submissive stance.

  Shit.

  I check my wolf, but she’s still back in the mental confines of my mind where I always keep her—meaning Zeezee is submitting to my human side, which is weird. Again, that creeping sensation skitters over me, as if eyes are drilling into my back, but when I survey the street, I see nothing.

  “What?” Mack asks as he too peers around the darkening street.

  Shoving the USB drive in my back pocket, I whisper, “Nothing. It’s nothing. I just have to get back home before my boyfriend breaks up with me.”

  ... and three alphas challenge my father, defeat him, and realize he’s not truly the alpha of the Six Rivers Pack. Which would mean the whole world of Lycanthropes would discover I murdered Jacob Knight on our wedding night and covered it up with my father. Even if my father survives the challenges, neither of us will survive the swift justice the North American Lycanthropy Council will bring down upon our heads.

  Obviously, I don’t tell Mack or Zeezee any of that, but it’s exactly what I’m thinking as we rush back toward all my real problems.

  Chapter Nine

  Scarlet

  Looking up into the bleachers of my high school, I crawl on the grass after Mack. Thankfully, no one is under here because I’d be giving them one hell of a show, crawling around in my little dance skirt.

  Feet shuffle over us as the crowd watches the last few innings of the football game. A cheer erupts from above, and I can’t help giggling a little at how rebellious this feels. I never do rebellious; I leave that shit to my sister.

  Mack pauses when we’re halfway through the bleachers and turns back to me, his eyes glinting with laughter.

  “What is this, eighteen presents for eighteen years? You’ve done enough,” I say as I catch up to him.

  “I said I want to give you something, querida, not that I wanted to give you another present.” With that, he tackles me.

  “What are you doing, you jerk?”

  Laughing, I grab him around the arms so I can stop him from pinning me. Instead of wrestling more, Mack pushes his hips gently between my thighs, leans down, and kisses me.

  For a moment, I’m frozen with shock, but the soft feel of his lips and immediate pleasure spreading through me overtakes my surprise. His hands thread through my hair and cup the back of my head. He tastes like dark cherries and caramel, and I suck on his lips, savoring him. A tingling, warm sensation starts low in my
belly, and as Mack’s body pushes against mine, between my legs, I can feel my inner thighs slickening, my panties soaking.

  Mack leans away for a second, giving me a little smile as his hand slides up my dance shirt to cup my breast.

  A cheer rises from above, and I look up to stare at my classmates’ shoes, realizing if someone looks down, we’ll be caught. For some reason, that just makes my core tighten and pleasure surge through me with a spike of adrenaline. I’m hyperaware of where his thumb brushes slow circles over my hardened nipple, and I kiss him harder while pushing my chest against his fingers.

  Faintly, I recognize this as the moment where we get interrupted. This is the last moment I ever get to kiss Mack, this stolen moment, but instead of Chloe, a fellow dance team member, sticking her head under the bleachers and yelling for me, Mack rolls me on top of him.

  “Now I have two free hands,” he whispers as his other hand slips under my skirt, pushes my underwear aside, and slips a finger into my sex. Pleasure thrums through me as his fingers move in and out while his thumb rolls over my clit.

  “Scarlet, you okay?” whispers a voice that most definitely isn’t Mack’s.

  What the...? Head muddled with the pleasure running through me, it takes me a few moments to recognize the voice. Zane. My boyfriend. I blink furiously, only to have sleep slowly fall away.

  Awareness of my surroundings comes slowly as I wake. My familiar bedroom surfaces around me, gray and white walls with black and white photos of Zane and me enlarged throughout the space. A sleepy face I recognize hovers over mine.

  “Scarlet,” Zane whispers. “Wake up. You were tossing and turning. I think you were having a nightmare.”

  I most definitely was not having a nightmare. My body is thrumming with lust, but a second later, realization hits and heat flushes up my face and body as guilt and humiliation wash through me. If Zane knew I was having a sex dream about Mack while lying next to him, he would be absolutely crushed. My platonic relationship with Mack has been the center of so many of the problems between Zane and me. I’m relieved when Zane gives me a gentle kiss, mutters that he has to get ready for work, and then heads into the shower. Feeling like a louse, I bury my head in my pillow.