The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

He moved back, tugging at my arm. Leaning across the aisle, he put his head in Phillip’s lap. The boy buried his face in his fur, his little arms pulling him tight. Just like with me, Snacks settled him down.

“It’s pretty smooth, probably a good time to take him out of that seat and hold him,” Teri said from behind me. “I’ll get him for you.” Snacks moved out of the way and Teri got up. She unhooked his harness and picked him up as he reached for her. “It’s all right, little man,” she said. “Sit with Mama and look out the window!”

She passed him to me and I sat him on my lap, letting him look out the big window. “See how high we are,” I said as I held him on my knee.

“Clouds pretty,” he said as he looked out. There were puffy cumulus clouds above us.

“Very pretty. That looks like Elmo,” I said as I pointed.

“Elmo?” I nodded. “That looks like boat.” He settled down as we played our game, and when he tired of that he sat in my lap and leaned back against me. “Why you mama?”

“Well.” How to ruin a boy’s life in thirty seconds. “I’m your mama because you grew inside my tummy for nine months. You’re my baby boy,” I said as tears went down my cheeks.

“I’m your baby boy?”

“You are,” I said as I gave him a hug. “I love you, Phillip. I have always loved you.”

He looked at me, looked down at my belly then back to my face. “Mommy?”

“I couldn’t take care of you when you were born, and your Mommy and Daddy kept you. I never stopped loving you and thinking about you. You’re my love,” I said. I wished I had my wolf, she would have been able to reach his wolf and bond him to me. I didn’t know if he felt anything. I was jealous of Teri for having a family bond with him I couldn’t ever have.

“I’m hungry.”

I kissed his head. “I think Aunt Teri might have something. When we left that gas station, it looked like a kid had found a hundred-dollar bill and had been let loose in the candy section.” I smirked as she tried to defend herself.

“I got more than just candy, but don’t drink too much. This plane doesn’t have a restroom.” She reached into a bag under her seat and pulled out some food. “How about some cookies?”

“COOKIE!! COOKIE!! Mumm mm mmm COOKIE!” He held out his hands and she handed him an open package of miniature chocolate chip cookies. “Fank you.”

“You’re welcome, baby.” She showed me the bag, I picked Twinkies. “You could have FOOD, you know.”

“I like Twinkies. Got anything for my Snacks?”

She pulled out some Slim Jims and took one out of the plastic. Snacks was already looking up at her with begging eyes, and when she handed it to him, he snarfed it up in about two bites. She quickly fed him the other as Phillip and I laughed. He pointed at him. “Shift, puppy, shift!”

Snacks just leaned over and licked his face.

“We can’t do that around humans,” I reminded him quietly.

“You’re human,” he said with a huff.

“I used to have a wolf like you, but I got sick and my wolf died,” I said. “I miss her, just like I missed you.”

He looked at me for a minute, then hugged me around my neck. “Wolfy says he loves his mama,” he said.

“I love him too.” There was no stopping the tears now.

I held him until the pilot told us to buckle up because we were going into turbulence. Teri put him back as sat in my seat and watched. She was so good to me, so good to him. I could sense how badly she wanted a child of her own.

We landed in Clarksville and taxied to a stop outside the terminal. The airport wasn’t busy, and when the pilot put the stairs down a woman was waiting for us. She was dressed in a white sundress and wide hat and looked like a human in her forties. Snacks bounded down the stairs and ran to her, licking her and rubbing against her legs as she told him to settle down.

Phillip put his arms up for me, and I unhooked him and lifted him to my chest. He hugged me around the neck as I walked down the stairs. It was hot and humid, uncomfortably hot, but I didn’t care. I stopped a few steps from the stairway, letting Luna Teri go first.

“Welcome to Texas, Luna Teri,” the woman said as Teri reached her.

“Thank you for hosting me, Luna Patty. Can you believe it?”

“I know, it’s so exciting! Come over here, dear, you’re safe with us.” I moved closer to the woman, who pulled me into a hug. “I’m Randall’s mother Patty. This must be the little boy I’ve heard so much about?”

“It is, Luna Patty. Phillip, can you say hello?”

“Hi,” he said before burying his face back in my shoulder.

“Come on, let’s get into the Expedition before you guys melt from the heat.” She led us over to the red SUV and loaded us up. She helped with the car seat while the pilot and Teri got our bags and loaded it. When we were all in place, she put the air conditioning on high and drove off. “It’s about forty minutes to the ranch, but I bet you guys want to eat and use a bathroom,” she said. “Anyone for a steak?”

Snacks raised his head off the seat and barked, making us laugh. “No dogs allowed,” Teri said. “I’d love some dinner if you don’t mind.”

Dinner was good, and Phillip was sleeping again by the time we arrived at their house. The place was huge, but no one was around except her husband as we walked in. They showed us to a room, and it had a bed for me and a small bed next to it for Phillip. I got him undressed and laid him down.

I could do this, I told myself. I’d survived everything they could do to me and dammit, I was going to start living again.

Alpha Justin Heranus’s POV

Mount Shasta Pack Clinic, McCloud, CA

Six Years Ago

“Alpha, Luna, the Doctor will be with you shortly. Luna, please put the gown on and hop up on the exam table.” The nurse left, vitals and history complete. I helped Rhoda into the gown and up on the exam table. Then I held her hand as we waited for the obstetrician/gynecologist to see us. There were only a few dozen Medical Doctors trained in the human and werewolf world, and Doctor Tara Himen was the only one specializing in fertility.

“I don’t know if I can do this again,” Rhoda said as she looked down at her toned stomach. She was still as fit and beautiful as she had been when we mated almost sixty-five years ago. She was everything I could have hoped for in a mate; strong, compassionate and loved by the Pack, supportive and loving with me. All those decades had passed, and we’d never been able to have a child.

It had all started normally. We mated, it kicked off her first heat and we hoped we would be one of those lucky couples that were blessed on their first try. She was disappointed when it didn’t catch, but we knew we’d be able to try again in a year. The next year, nothing. After twenty years of disappointment, a year came where she didn’t come into heat, then the next year it was back.

The failure to get her heat became more common, until it stopped altogether. Her last naturally-occurring heat happened in 1992. She was only a hundred and ten years old, way too early for a healthy Alpha female to reach menopause. After ten years of nothing, we were referred to Dr. Himen.

We had returned every year since then. Blood tests, X-rays, dye tests, nothing showed anything abnormal that would explain the lack of her cycle. Whispers started to travel among the Pack females about whether their Luna had been cursed to be barren. She withdrew into herself, avoiding social events and avoiding her friends.

We were getting desperate by the turn of the century. An Alpha couple that had no heir after this long was looked upon as being weak or defective, and challenges to my authority became more common. I’d defended my title more times in the last twenty years of my rule than I had in the first fifty. No matter what I said, Rhoda took it as her personal failing to not give me a son.

She tried diets, vitamins, special herbal teas and potions brewed by local witches. She tried working out, not working out, sex all the time, no sex, anything she could think of. Finally, ten years ago, Dr. Himen started experimenting with use of human fertility drugs to try and initiate a heat cycle for her.

It took a few years to find a treatment schedule that worked, and in 2008 she had a heat. I took her to a remote cabin, and we screwed like newlyweds. She would sit with her legs in the air for a half hour after every time we made love, then we would do it again.

She didn’t get pregnant, but we had hope again.

The next year, the same thing happened. Then the next. Only once did she not get a cycle, but she never got pregnant from her cycles. The strain of it all was wearing her down, and was tearing us apart.

There was a knock, then Dr. Himen came in. She was a small werewolf female, only about five-two and was in her forties. She was very intelligent, and her Alpha had sponsored her college and medical school. She worked at a clinic in Shasta and held office hours at the Pack. “Alpha Justin, Luna Rhoda, how are you feeling today?”

“Disappointed,” she said. “The pregnancy test came out negative again.”

“It did,” she confirmed. “The blood test was negative. Are you feeling any lingering effects from the treatment?”

“I’ve been having pains in my ovaries, but they are getting better.”

She nodded. “That’s not uncommon, as you know. It’s a side effect of the stimulation the fertility drugs give you. Let’s check them out to be safe.” She wheeled over an ultrasound machine as Rhoda laid back on the table. A few minutes later she turned it off. “The treatments are taking a toll on your body, Luna.”

“I can handle the pain,” she said.Exclusive content from NôvelDrama.Org.

“I’m not questioning your motivation or your toughness, I’m telling you that your body is telling you to stop. I’m also telling you that the study is coming to an end.”

“What do you mean,” I said.

“You aren’t the only she-wolf in these trials. The results have not been what we hoped for. No mated female has had a successful pregnancy since we started a decade ago. Last week I presented my results to the Alpha Council and our Pack Doctor convention, and the decision was unanimous. We are discontinuing the trials.”

“THEY WERE MY ONLY HOPE,” Rhoda cried. I moved over to her, comforting her as she saw her chances dwindle to none.

“I’m sorry, Luna.” She didn’t say anything for a while as I calmed my mate down.

“Is there any other option,” I asked. “We are desperate, we have no heir and the Pack is becoming unstable.”

She sat back in her chair. “The trials were not a complete loss. We did have a few unmated females, younger ones, who were able to use the treatment to initiate a cycle leading to pregnancy.”

“A surrogate?”

“Not in the way humans look at it, no. We don’t have the facilities or access to do in-vitro fertilization. No, the successes we had involved females who wanted to remain unmated but were willing to be impregnanted by another male in order to provide him an heir. Two were sisters to the deceased female mate, while the other was an Omega who volunteered.”