Alpha's Blood

by Renee Rose

  “I don’t know. Maybe because you look just like her. You remind me how I felt when I was with her. Young. In love.”

  “Love.”

  She’s quiet so long I think she’s fallen asleep.

  “Lucius?” Selene asks in a small voice.

  “Yes, pet?”

  “What happens after? Where do we go from here?”

  “What do you want to happen?”

  I would like...there are things I would have liked to do.”

  “Kill me?” I offer, dryly.

  “There’s that...but other things too. Those shifters in cages. I wanted to save them.”

  “What if they wanted to be there?’

  “They don’t. The auctions are an abomination. I’d like to put a stop to them.”

  I want the same thing, though she doesn’t know that. “How about...you help me, and I help you?”

  “How?”

  “You remain here, as my submissive, until the end of the month.” That will give me time to flush out my enemies. “In return I will stop the auctions.”

  “And set all the other shifters free?”

  “Yes. No shifter will serve a vampire. Not unless they want to.”

  “They won’t want to,” she says.

  “You sound so sure. A shifter in love with a vampire? Is that such an impossible thing?” I ask.

  She raises her head and meets my gaze. The air charges between us. Little currents of electricity running between me and her.

  “One month,” she agrees, her voice husky. “Then it’s over.”

  “One month.” I nod and pull her back into my arms. “Now, hush. We have things to do.” I reach to the bedside table and nab the remote.

  She hides her face in my neck. “No more scening, I can’t take…”

  “Shh,” I chuckle. “It’s all right, pet. That part of the night is done.”

  I click a button and a panel over the fireplace pulls back, revealing a flat screen TV. Another button and the screen flickers on.

  Monty Python and the Holy Grail starts playing. Selene goes still.

  “Comfortable?” I whisper. She nods, eyes on the screen.

  “Good. Relax,” I order. A moment later she giggles at the ‘Swedish’ subtitles. She’s still rigid in my lap, fighting my order.

  At one point she makes to move and I restrain her.

  “I have to pee,” she pouts and I let her go on the promise that she come right back.

  “Feeling all right?” I ask when she re-enters and stands at the foot of the bed.

  “Just a flesh wound,” she says in the Black Knight’s voice.

  I open my arms. “Come,” I order her when she hesitates. “I want to hold you.” Biting her lip, Selene crawls into my lap. A second later, my submissive she wolf sighs happily. The credits keep rolling and our laughter mingles.

  It won’t last forever. But nothing does.

  Selene

  I wake at noon the next day. The bed is empty and I am bereft.

  I didn’t expect him to be this way. I didn’t expect for the kindness, hate, anger and love all tangled up. But whenever he’s gone...I miss him.

  He says he didn’t kill my pack. Who do I believe? My mentor, who sacrificed everything to give me revenge, or Lucius?

  Do I trust my head or my heart?

  “I’m such an idiot.” I rub sleep from my face. I have a crush on the Vampire King.

  A shifter in love with a vampire...is that such an impossible thing?

  He’s a vampire, and not just any vampire--the King. I’m a wolf. We’re worlds apart, far as the sun is from the moon.

  It’s no use. I’m in love with a monster. And I don’t even care.

  At nightfall, Lucius finds me pacing on the patio.

  “Pet?”

  I push back my wild fall of hair. I bathed after my babysitters left, but didn’t primp. I couldn’t bear to be inside, surrounded by his scent. “You call yourself a monster. Why?”

  “I’ve done things, Selene,” he says gently. “Things I regret. Not what you’re thinking--but I have killed before. Hurt people. But it was a long time ago.” He spreads his hands. “The world was different then.”

  Call me stupid, but I believe him. “What made you go to the auction?”

  “I heard they were auctioning shifters.”

  “You didn’t know?” Xavier made it sound like the auctions were Lucius’ idea.

  “I knew there were vampires with a taste for shifter blood who’d take consorts. But shifters are not our natural victims. I didn’t know shifter slavers were hunting down the weakest species and auctioning them to the highest bidder.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. I confess, I had my head in the sand. But now that I know, I’m putting a stop to it. And not because of our little agreement,” he adds. “I had planned to do it long before that.”

  “You did?” I shake my head, dizzy. Lucius isn’t the villain Xavier makes him out to be. Is he?

  “It’s not all altruism. There’s evidence my sired have latched on to a new scheme to rise up against me.” He shakes his head, looking as if he’s found a toddler finger painting on the living room wall, not a set of grown vampires plotting a coup. “A few of them got the idea that they could turn shifters, form an army to overthrow my rule.”

  “Turn shifters? How?”

  “The same way humans are turned vampire,” he strokes his chin. “Blood exchanges, followed by an exchange of heart blood that kills the new host, allowing the vampire virus to take over.”

  “Is that possible? Have you done it?”

  “Turned a shifter? No. I would never. Such a creature would be … an abomination.”

  I flinch.

  “Not fully shifter, not fully vampire. More powerful than either. If it could be done, of course. Few vampires are strong enough to create more of our kind. It takes a strong victim, and a strong sire. Perhaps that is why my sired turned to shifters. They had no luck with humans, and decided to try with a stronger species.”

  “And did it work? Is it possible?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so--at least, I doubt any of my sired have discovered how to do it.” He pauses. “There is a way to make shifters as powerful as vampires. but no one knows it.”

  I take a step forward. “How?”

  “Our blood.” He enters the patio, coming closer I try to puzzle out what he meant. He cocks his head, looking down at me. “Do you want me to show you?”

  Selene

  “Yes.” I say. I don’t know what I’m consenting to, exactly. But I’m in too deep to stop.

  “Come to me.” Lucius orders. “Closer. That’s it.”

  “What...what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to drink from you.” He pushes my hair back from my shoulders. “Then you’re going to drink from me.”

  “What? No--” I suck in a breath as his fangs sink into my neck. A small pinch and bliss,

  my body shaking with the heady feeling.

  “All right?” he murmurs.

  “Just a flesh wound.”

  “Your turn, pet.” He slashes a cut into his chest, presses my mouth to the wound. The first taste of blood is sweet, sizzling on my tongue.

  “Do you feel it?” Lucius asks.

  I gasp as adrenaline hits my veins. My limbs tingling with an excess of energy. My heart seems to pump faster, my senses sharpening.

  I am super Selene, warrior woman.

  “Race you.” Lucius points to a saguaro cactus in the distance.

  I push after him, my legs pumping--and I blur. The landscape rushes past until I stop, staggering. I reached the cactus before he did, and I’m not even tired. My body pulses with power.

  I turn my palms up and study them, shaking. “How long does it last?”

  “Depends on how much blood you drink. The effects wear off, in time. Until then, you’re as powerful as a vampire. Maybe more powerful.”

  I stare at Lucius.
/>   “Run with me.” He holds out his hand.

  I smile...and take off for the mountains. His laughter chases me and I run faster, with him hard on my heels. He might be letting me out pace him, but he’s right. I am so much stronger than I ever was. With this blood, a super drug flowing through me, I could take down a Vampire King…

  “This way,” he shouts, blurring between two boulders. I follow, ducking around rocks as we climb the mountain trail, red dust rising in our wake. The trail ends halfway, so I make my own way, leaping from rock to rock, scaling the cliff leaps and bounds at a time until we reach the peak. The stars are brighter up here, the moon close enough to touch.

  A whoosh of air and Lucius is at my back, wrapping his arms around me.

  “I can see forever,” I whisper and raise my hands to the endless blue, drinking in the silvery light until he turns me to face him, fists a hand in my hair, and claims my mouth. I arch into him with a cry, exhilaration snapping through me, making me tear at his clothes. We fall, him cushioning me before I hit the ground, rolling under and holding my hips aloft until I free his dick and drive down. The world spins and the starlight smiles above us, but even as I ride him, I know it’s not forever.

  This feeling can’t last.

  “Thank you,” I murmur to him, much later, when we’re tangled in his bed.

  “You’re welcome, pet. But what are you thanking me for?”

  I palm his cheek, holding his incredible beauty in my hand. “You let me into your world. It’s a beautiful thing.”

  “It is. But you’re not a creature of the night. You’re made of light.” He catches a strand of my hair between his thumb and finger, rubs it between them.

  “Moonlight,” I correct. “Lucius. I want to stay with you.”

  He releases my hair, takes my leg and eases me under him. “No,” he says as he glides inside me. My legs open wide to accept him. I couldn’t resist him if I tried--and I have tried.

  I twine my calves around his fine, flexing ass. I don’t want to resist him any more.

  “Lucius,” I gasp as he speeds the rhythm of his thrusts.

  “Selene.” He sets his fangs at my throat, and pierces as my orgasm blows up.

  When it’s over, I huddle in the shelter of his strong arms.

  “Let me stay,” I murmur.

  “I can’t,” he murmurs. “Even if I wanted, you don’t belong here.”

  Selene

  A pale face greets me in the mirror. A month as a vampire’s sex toy has left my cheeks pale and bloodless as a ghost’s, not that I’m complaining. Any exhaustion is wiped away as soon as I drink Lucius’ blood.

  I apply red lipstick--the color of blood and vampire dreams--and check the fit of my collar. Lucius has me wear it almost constantly, now. Our nights have become one long scene. Our time together is frenzied, desperate, both of us aware of the countdown towards the end. Lucius has me so well trained, I’m wet and dripping as soon as I hear his voice. He says my name and I’m on edge. He snaps his fingers and I come. We spend every waking moment together, and we exchange blood almost every day.

  In a few days, it’ll be over.

  Lucius strides past my door, looking delicious in his suit. He’s promised me a night on the town, a night of pretending to be a couple. We’ll end at Toxic, like usual. He’s opened the top half of the club, so his sired can mingle with humans and sip from the victims in the dark corners. The dungeon is still reserved for him and me. In a few days, his sired will gather and I’ll have my first public scene. Our last scene together.

  A phone rings in the house. I exit my room in a rustle of fabric, still slipping my earrings in.

  Lucius is in the foyer, on the phone. “Theophilus?” he answers and pauses. My ears prick. Lucius’ has shared the names of his sired and Theophilus is one he respects. “Where are you?”

  “At the club,” says the vampire. I hear him as clearly as if he was in the room. Werewolf ears are great for eavesdropping.

  Lucius turns and meets my eyes. He knows I’m listening and if he cared, he’d leave. He doesn’t care. In the past few weeks, we’ve shared everything.

  “You should come here, now,” Theophilus says, his voice tense. “There’s something you should see.”

  We hit the club at half past nine. The dance floor is already a crush, the bar four people deep.

  Lucius stops beside coat check. Ever the gentleman, he helps me out of my wrap, his face a stern mask as club employees rush around, eager to do his bidding.

  He guides me to a private booth overlooking the dance floor. “I have to deal with something. I’ll be right back.”

  “It’s all right,” I tell him, sliding deep into the booth. “It won’t ruin our night.” The way his jaw is clenched makes me think heads will roll. Literally.

  “Keep everyone away from her,” he tells the guard, and strides away, straight through the dance floor. He looks neither left nor right, but the crowds part for him as if by magic. As soon as he disappears, I sink back in the booth, toying with the glass of Merlot a waitress delivered, suppressing my growing sense of foreboding.

  Lucius

  “What is it?” I snap as soon as I enter my office. Most of my sired have jobs at the club, and even if they don’t, I require them to report to me in person regularly. I have a list of vampires who avoid or delay these meetings. Theophilus isn’t on it, but he better not disappoint me tonight. I have little time left with Selene, and I don't’ want to waste it.

  “It came in an unmarked package, delivered to the club’s doorstep an hour before opening. We’ve got footage of the delivery, but the person was on foot in a ski mask. Male, Caucasian, probably human. We’re still tracking him.”

  “So what was the package? A bomb?”

  “No. This.” He holds up a jump drive. “We’ve already done a virus scan and it’s clean. Empty except for one video.”

  “Play it.” I cross my arms and turn to the blank TV at the end of the room. To the side of my desk, a row of screens give me a view of the entire club via security feed. People gyrate on the dance floor, human and vampire alike. It’s impossible to tell the vampires apart unless you are one yourself. By midnight, the vampires will have chosen their victims and herded them into a private booth to enjoy a drink in private.

  “Sire,” Theophilus calls my attention to the main screen. The mysterious video starts with a flash of familiar white blonde hair. Selene strides on screen, dressed in fatigues and a black sports bra. She’s barefoot, unarmed, except for a wooden stake in her hand. Someone off camera must direct her, because she nods and turns, heading to a man chained down on the floor. She grabs a hank of his hair and draws his head back far enough I see his fangs. He’s a vampire and she has a stake. In one movement, she plunges the weapon deep into his heart. She cuts off his head and holds it up for the camera. The shot ends, and another begins. Same set up. This time, the vampire is female.

  “Your Majesty,” someone calls. Theophilus waves them away and closes my office door, muffling the sounds of the club, people having a good time. The security feed shows bright-eyed, happy horde of humans, laughing, talking, dancing on silent repeat. I want to destroy this office, burn the club to the ground, with everyone in it. Torture Theophilus for being the messenger, for witnessing my humiliation.

  Instead I remain still and silent, watching my lovely pet staking vampires. Again and again and again.

  The video ends with a close up shot of Selene’s perfect face. She’s younger, cheeks flushed and hairline sweaty from exertion, but it’s her. She looks straight into the camera, a defiant expression that’s all too familiar.

  A garbled voice breaks the silence. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Selene.”

  “What is your mission?” The camera zooms in further.

  “Find Lucius Frangelico.”

  “And then?”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “I’m going to kill him.”

  Selene

  Ten minutes
without Lucius, and I’m bored out of my mind. Watching vampires try to seduce unsuspecting humans isn’t my idea of a good time.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I tell the guard.

  “Frangelico says you stay here.”

  I roll my eyes. “It’s either that, or I pee on the seat.”

  The guard touches his earpiece. “We’ll clear it first,” he says. Good call.

  The bathroom they clear has a luxurious sitting room attached to the room with the stalls. There’s a couch and huge mirrors. The sinks are set into fancy marble topped vanities with gold faucets. I primp and freshen up, feeling a little bad that there are women waiting in the hall to pee while I have the entire room to myself. Lucius is paranoid about security, seriously. It’s not like anyone can get to me and even if they could--

  “Hello, Selene,” a deep voice makes my head snap around. A whimper escapes my throat as a giant shadow pushes open the door and enters.

  Xavier.

  “What are you doing here?” Any minute my guards should burst in.

  He prowls to my side and sets down a glass filled with amber liquid on the fancy vanity.

  “Drink,” he orders. “You’ll need it.”

  I’ve swallowed half the glass before I realize I’ve obeyed without question. Old habits die hard.

  I finish off the drink and set it down.

  “You can’t be here,” I whisper. I stare in the mirror at my own reflection. Xavier’s doesn’t show, but I feel his eyes on me all the same.

  “Frightened for me?”

  I start to turn and he grips my neck.

  “Have you forgotten who you are? What he did to you?”

  “I’ve...gotten to know him. He’s not like that…” I feel stupid even as I say it.

  “He’s a monster.”

  I blink as Xavier uses the word Lucius so often uses to refer to himself.

  “He killed your pack with no remorse.”

  “Is there proof?”

  “You’ve seen the photos. What more proof do you need?”

  That’s not proof, I want to say. But vampires can’t be caught on film, so if there is any proof, it’s lost. “Why did he do it? He can lure any victim he likes. Why would he need to massacre an entire pack?