Ruthless Alpha

by Marcy Jacks

  

  Wolf Souls 6

  Ruthless Alpha

  Jason Kelly has to take care of his sister. After the deaths of his mother and father at the hands of crazed werewolves, he's at the end of his rope.

  Luckily, he's offered a deal he can't refuse. Sit next to an oversized, wild werewolf, take notes, cash the biggest check he's ever seen.

  Except the wolf doesn't seem wild and ruthless. It speaks to him, calling Jason his mate, and Jason knows he's lost his mind.

  His benefactors aren't what Jason thought, and when thrown in with Alistair in his human form, Jason can't control himself.

  Alistair can't remember his life, but he is now free from the wolf, and he will get his revenge on the hunters who kidnapped him and dared to use his mate. So long as he can free Jason, Alistair will become the monster the humans feared him to be.

  Genres: Alternative (M/M, Gay), Contemporary, Paranormal, Shape-shifter, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 27,678

  RUTHLESS ALPHA

  Wolf Souls 6

  Marcy Jacks

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  Ruthless Alpha

  Copyright © 2018 by Marcy Jacks

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-528-3

  First Publication: December 2018

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2018 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at legal@sirenbookstrand.com

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marcy Jacks lives and works in Ontario, Canada, with her loyal hound. She loves writing angsty romances with hot guys, playing videogames, crafting, and reading. You can get more of her work at Marcyjacks.com

  For all titles by Marcy Jacks, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/marcy-jacks

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  RUTHLESS ALPHA

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  RUTHLESS ALPHA

  Wolf Souls 6

  MARCY JACKS

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  Jason Kelly stared down at the check presented to him.

  Ten thousand dollars.

  More money than he'd ever had in his bank account at one time before. Enough to pay the back taxes and mortgage on his parents' house. Enough maybe to fix the roof and definitely enough to fill the fridge with more than just pasta and ramen.

  And he loved pasta and ramen, but that wasn't the healthiest stuff to raise his kid sister on.

  He looked to Mr. Forg. The balding gentleman on the other side of the desk smiled politely at him, and he suddenly looked like a fucking angel.

  "And this is only half?" Jason couldn't get over that part. "But…I don't think I qualify. Are you sure?"

  Mr. Forg smiled, nodding. "We have thought this over and, yes, provided you help us to do this one little thing."

  Jason swallowed. "You want me to see a wolf."

  That was a scary concept, he had to admit. But ten thousand dollars up front. Holy shit.

  His brain still struggled to be wrapped around the number.

  His sister wouldn't like it, but she didn't have to know. She was eleven, old enough to stay home alone for a couple of hours without him.

  Maybe. She still didn't talk much, but if he needed some time she was able to give it.

  "If you're concerned about your sister, we can arrange for a caretaker, at our expense."

  Jason looked at the man.

  Mr. Forg was in charge of the Humanity Now charity. A not-for-profit that specialized in helping those who were victims of shifter attacks to get back on track.

  Jason was probably one of their longest clients. He never asked, but it seemed that way sometimes.

  Now he thought he understood why.

  "How long have you known?"

  Mr. Forg tilted his head a little. He had a soft double chin and a neatly trimmed beard. He was the picture of professionalism, and somehow Jason hadn't seen it before. He thought he could get by without anyone noticing.

  Even humans tended to notice eventually.

  Eventually, Mr. Forg chuckled apologetically. "Right, well, it took some time, but when you came to us for help, there was how your parents passed on. A parent who carries the gift of the wolves can often pass that on to their children."

  Jason nodded. "Right, well, Lisa isn't like that if you were wondering. It's just me."

  Wolf Soul. That was what some of the shifters called him.

  Not that he could smell it himself, but apparently, Jason and his mother had a spicy-sweet scent that pulled shifters to them. Wolves noticed it first, but it was supposedly something that benefited most, if not all, shifters in the general population.

  That smell was supposedly the key to helping wild shifters control their powers. To get a handle on the beasts inside.

  One of those beats had smelled his mother while she and Jason's father had been walking home from the grocery store.

  Lisa had been with them, riding in the cart they'd stolen.

  The wolf had spared her. Jason didn't know why, and he didn't care, but in the year since it happened, she hadn't spoken a word.

  And now the people at Humanity Now knew what he was.

  They'd helped him to find work. They'd helped him get care for his sister and even therapy, though he wasn't sure how well that actually worked.

  They'd brought in donations in the form of money and clothing, but he was still here, still asking for more.

  And they were offering it in the form of the biggest check he'd ever seen.

  Whatever it was they wanted him for, for the sake of his sister, to make sure they got to stay in their parents' house, didn't he owe it to her to find out what Mr. Forg wanted?

  "What do I have to do to get this?"

  Mr. Forg smiled at him, standing from behind his desk.

  "Come with me."

  Jason didn't think he would be led on a little tour through the facility. It was a simple building, a little out of the way from the rest of the city, but it was an easy bus ride to get to.

  He thought maybe they'd chosen this place to rent because the location made it cheaper. The only other businesses in the old strip mall were a shawarma house, a coffee shop, and a thrift store, where Jason occasionally grabbed dinner and some cheap shoes for Lisa if he had the extra money. Other than that, not too many people other than clients of Humanity Now came down this way. There used to be a Blockbuster down here many years back, he could see the outline from the old sign over one of the empty offices, but that was long closed.

  There weren't many cars in the parking lot, and many of the other buildings and offices remained em
pty, waiting for people to rent them out. It was like a ghost town here.

  So when Mr. Forg revealed there was a basement level, Jason was shocked.

  "I didn't know this place had a basement."

  He never knew places like this had basements at all. It seemed a little…strange, but whatever. It wasn't his business.

  Except for the key card Mr. Forg needed to even work it.

  "We've made a couple of little additions to the place."

  "You have?"

  Jason cringed when the elevator started to move.

  Mr. Forg chuckled, slapping Jason on the back. "Don't you worry about a thing. I'm not taking you into some rancid pit. This is just one floor down, you see."

  "Oh." Jason felt stupid for thinking there was something untoward about this.

  Except then the elevator doors opened, and the smell changed. So did the look.

  Gone were the walls colored with children's pictures and thank-you cards pinned to the calendars.

  It looked kind of…darker. It smelled as though there were animals down here.

  Mr. Forg pressed his hand to Jason's shoulders, exiting the elevator with him. "Jason, there are things here that we would still like to keep from the public. Certain bits of…untoward business that can get in the way of our service if the public finds out. I'm trusting you with a secret. Can you keep it?"

  Jason clenched his teeth, and he thought of the check on Mr. Forg's desk.

  "Yes. I can keep it."

  Mr. Forg smiled at him. "Good." They started to move again. "If I may, you are only twenty-five, correct?"

  "Twenty-six last week," Jason corrected, but he knew Mr. Forg would be close because he would have a lot of Jason's personal information on hand. Jason would have had to file it in order to get the donations he needed to keep his parents' little house and his sister within it.

  "Ah, happy birthday," he said. "This will certainly be a nice present for you then, won't it?"

  "I hope so," Jason said, starting to wonder what exactly he had to do to get the check. The deeper they went into the lower level, the more his mind raced.

  Mr. Forg swiped his key card again at another door. On the other side of it were two men sitting in chairs, casually. They had magazines to read and briefly looked up when Jason stepped inside with Mr. Forg.

  They also had pistols at their hips.

  Security guards didn't frighten Jason, but he had to wonder what the hell they were doing down here.

  "What I am about to show you, and what we will ask you to do, will help with our research and help to secure more funding in the future. Donations and government tax deductibles are all well and good, but there is so much more that needs to be done."

  "I didn't know Humanity Now did any kind of research." Though maybe he should have seen it coming. A lot of companies, even the non-profits had to diversify where they got their funding from in order to keep getting in donations and keep convincing patrons to support them.

  It made sense that some of that money would be devoted to science.

  "Uh, you're not going to ask to cut me open or anything, are you? Because if you want a little of my blood or something, I'm all right with that."

  He'd give more than blood to get that check.

  He just didn't want to have to give up an arm for it.

  "Well…" Mr. Forg scratched at his cheek. Was he actually blushing? "To be honest, what we will ask of you will require more than just your blood, though that is a part of it."

  They went through another set of doors, and it was getting to the point where Jason was starting to feel as though he was in a never-ending set of tunnels when he understood where they were going.

  He was finally clued in to it by the growls and snarling that came straight ahead.

  There were men in lab coats standing around a cage. Jason stopped short. He didn't have to walk a step closer to see what was in the cage. He could already make it out from over top of the men.

  Because it was that big. At first he thought it might be a bear.

  No. Not a bear. The creature looked at him, nose scrunched and lips pulled back to reveal large wolf teeth.

  The biggest wolf he'd ever seen in his life. It had to be the size of a grizzly bear. Maybe it was bigger.

  But no wolf was that huge. It wasn't a natural wolf.

  It was a shifter.

  And holy shit, even for a shifter, this was a big motherfucker.

  Its golden eyes glimmered as it stared at him. Jason didn't move. The lab rats sure did, turning to see what had the wolf's attention, and Jason felt frozen in time before the wolf finally broke the spell and lunged at the cage.

  Only to be shocked by the electricity that kept it in place.

  "Jesus Christ!"

  He flew back, falling against the door, heart slamming, ready to run, but neither Mr. Forg, nor the scientists who observed the creature they had in their midst, seemed even remotely concerned.

  Jason couldn't believe it. He looked at Mr. Forg, the guy he'd started to think of as a friend ever since he'd walked into the man's building.

  "You have that fucking thing down here? People come into this building for help from these things! What if it gets out?"

  "I can assure you it will do nothing of the sort," Mr. Forg said, waving away the concern with that same carefree smile he always seemed to have on his face.

  As though the gravity of the situation wasn't quite making it to him. "He's quite safe as he is. That cage has kept him down here securely for about three months now."

  Three months. Jason looked at the wolf. He wondered who it was. It no longer attacked the cage, but it was still looking at Jason.

  With interest.

  Jason shivered, looking away, trying not to read into that.

  He was a wolf soul. Of course if he was put in front of a wolf, it might start behaving differently.

  "Isn't it illegal to keep people against their will?"

  "It is, but this wolf hasn't shifted once from the moment we noted his existence. Not even after taking him down here. We've tried reasoning with him, but my fear is he's been entirely lost to the wolf."

  Jason's eyes flew wide. He looked back at the wolf. The lab rats had stepped out of the way, giving Jason a better view as it lowered its head.

  As though it were studying him.

  "You mean he's stuck like that?"

  Mr. Forg nodded. "We don't have a name, family to contact, anything of the sort. Some of our staff found it out in the wild. We could hardly leave it out there, could we?"

  Jason had to give them that. Werewolves who had trouble controlling themselves were dangerous enough, let alone a monster like this who was stuck in wolf shape.

  The more he looked at it, the closer Jason wanted to get.

  He shook his head, banishing the thought and refusing the look at the wolf again. He knew better. Wolves and their eyes, they lured in their prey. Jason was not going to be one of those people. He was not going to let his mind be scrambled because that happened to be the coolest, most beautiful-looking wolf he'd ever seen in his life.

  "What do you want me to do? I guess this has something to do with my blood?"

  "A little more than that, I'm afraid," Mr. Forg said, again looking as though the entire thing embarrassed him a little. "This…may seem somewhat strange, but for your service, we would like to put you…not in the cage with the wolf if you didn't want it."

  "What the fuck?" Jason was already stepping back.

  Mr. Forg raised his hands. "I said not in the cage. Not if you didn't want to, but we would like to see what effects someone with the wolf soul capabilities really had. There are rumors everywhere that blood from people like you can help to control beasts such as these. That's why the wolves seek you out."

  "Yeah, and sometimes they kill us." Jason looked at the wolf, which looked strangely calm. It eyed him, as though waiting for him to do something.

  What, he had no idea.

  "Which is why you will
be paid handsomely for the risk. Again, you have no need to enter the cage if you don't want, but if you did, your payment would be increased."

  That got his attention.

  Damn. Jason wished he could be one of those guys who scoffed when others claimed money talked, but, well, here he was.

  "How much more?"

  "Double the amount we are offering now."

  Cha-ching.

  With that kind of money, well, fuck the mortgage. He could finish paying off the entire house itself. He'd only have to worry about the taxes, and he might even be able to go back to school on that.

  And that would be the most amazing thing in the world.

  Jason looked back at the wolf, who eyed him with that golden gaze, and then he turned his attention back to Mr. Forg.

  "I'll need to get a babysitter for Lisa. She can stay on her own for a little while, but…"

  "We understand." Mr. Forg put his hand on Jason's shoulder. The wolf in the cage growled. "We will make the arrangements. You can come upstairs and tell her now that you will be working tonight. We can send her home with one of our girls now."

  "You want me to get started now?"

  Mr. Forg nodded. "The sooner, the better, don't you think?"

  Well, when he put it that way… "Yeah." Jason glanced back at the wolf, who only seemed to stop growling when Forg took his hand off of Jason's shoulder. "The sooner, the better."

  Chapter Two

  What was this? Who was this delectable-smelling creature that was getting so close to his space?

  He watched. The man, the human, seemed timid, uncertain as to whether or not he should get close, even though a fool could see that it was possibly the best damned idea there could ever be.

  He did eventually come. He came to the cage where the wolf rested.

  Wolf? He wasn't simply a wolf. He was more than that, but everything felt…so far away.

  But the smell. A sweet scent that burned in his nose, that made everything seem clear.