The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

Randall and I laughed, it was fun thinking about my sister in a good way. It had been way too long. “Thank you for this. Randall probably told you I have a blood vow to avenge my family, and that takes priority over everything else for me, even my mate. Soon she will be avenged.”

“Randall, you keep my daughter safe for me,” his mom said. “I love you, and don’t worry, we’ll take good care of them.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he said. “I love you.” He hung up, then took my hand. “That went pretty well. My mom gets a little excited as you can tell.”

I called the pilot back and gave him the airport so he could file a flight plan. The nine-hundred-mile flight should take about three and a half hours.

They were already loaded onto the plane in the hangar by the time we arrived at the airport. “Tania,” I said as I rushed onto the plane. She was sitting in one of the leather seats, a napping Phillip in the seat across from her. I hugged her, crying a little.

“You’re mated!” She pulled my shirt aside, looking at the red bite mark. “Congratulations!” She hugged me again. “Where is he?”

“Talking to the Alpha,” I said. “He wouldn’t let me push him away.”

“Good, you deserve a mate more than anyone.” She was genuinely happy for me. “I wish I had what you do.”

“Who knows,” I said as I scratched Snacks’ ears while he sat in front of Phillip. “I think you’ll find your mate when you least expect it.”

“I’ve no wolf, so no mate,” she said. “It was taken from me.”

“Think about something for a moment,” I said. “Our mate is made to be our perfect match, both for our wolf and our human parts, right?” She nodded. “So, your mate and his wolf still have half of you they can find. Do you think he would rather find your human half that is perfect for his human half, or never find you at all?” She didn’t know what to say, so I just kissed her forehead. I quickly hugged Erica goodbye, then Aunt Teri. “Help her with this,” I asked her.

“Of course, she’ll get all she needs. Finish your vow, Talia, then come back to us.” I gave her a goodbye hug and stepped back off the plane. The pilot boarded, pulling the door up with him, and we drove out as he was starting the engines.

I looked at Randall as we drove away. “We have a plan?”

“We do. Feel like letting the Alpha Killer run amok?”

“Hell yeah, I do.” I looked out the window and smiled before looking back at him. “This time I want my mate by my side.”

“Let’s get ready then,” he said as he pulled back onto the interstate.

*****

Chairman Lewis Wolfe’s POV

The private aircraft had a television on the front bulkhead, and Kendall hooked his laptop up to it. He’d already copied the contents of the jump drives onto it, and he handed them back to me. “Let’s see what else he has,” he said as he started opening files. They were numbered, but clearly had been edited.

They watched the story of her abduction again, this time each was taking notes. Chief Counsel Lawrence Kendall was focusing on the information needed for warrants and prosecution, Lead Enforcer, Carlos Mendez was looking for clues as to who else might have been involved. I was fighting my own guilt as I watched the story.

I hadn’t been Chairman when this happened, but I had been in Tomah four years ago after this had happened. I had dismissed Tania as a runaway, and Talia as young and ill-prepared for leadership. Four years later, Tania was a shell of herself; instead of strength and confidence, she was weak and skittish. Her eyes were not bright like the photos I’d been shown, they were sad and hollowed out. My gut twisted as she told of her Beta, the man I had pushed to have mate with her sister to stabilize the Pack, had drugged her and handed her over.

There was no doubt in her identification of Alpha Justin as the man who held and raped her either. I paused the video. “Is that even possible? Can someone bring on heat in an unmated she-wolf?”

“It has been done,” Carlos said. “There were some experiments done by the Mount Shasta pack a decade ago aimed at treating mated werewolf females who weren’t coming into heat. They used a mix of human fertility drugs; high doses over two weeks would fool the body into starting estrus. They gave up because they could induce heat in all the females, but the only successful pregnancy was from a young female who hadn’t mated another yet. There isn’t a demand for fertility in the unmated.”

“Why go through all that with a young, healthy female,” Kendall said. “Why not just mate the girl to start her heat and kill her later?”

“Two reasons,” Carlos said. “You bind yourself to her during that year, and you and your wolf suffer. What if you haven’t found your true mate? Are you going to give that up for a surrogate? Go through the pain and loss of losing a mate? Could you even get rid of her after she bore you a child?”

“And the other reason,” I asked.

“You’re already mated,” he said. “Let’s assume for a moment that Alpha Justin did this. He can’t screw the girl without his mate feeling it.” Cheating on your mate was unheard of because there was no hiding it. The act made you uncomfortable, and your mate suffered like her insides were being burned out. “He can’t mate her without putting his Luna away first. The motivation is obvious, they’ve been mated a long time and no heir, the Pack was getting nervous. The lack of an heir makes the Alpha vulnerable to challenge.”

“And he did have sex with her,” Lawrence said. “If she’s telling the truth, Luna Rhoda was in on it.”

“How do you hide this? It’s not like the Pack can’t smell her if she’s pregnant, or doesn’t see her that way.”

“True. That’s something we will have to follow up on when we get there,” I said. We continued to watch as she detailed her captivity. “If she got pregnant within a month of capture, when would she have given birth?”

We did some quick calculations on a 40-week gestational period and came up with May to early June, three years ago. “Phillip’s birthdate was recorded as May 20th,” Lawrence said. “Right in range.”

I went to the next video, it was describing her time after her baby was taken, starving and left alone. Her wolf had healed her, then the man killed her wolf and left her as a weak human. It was a cruel fate for a born werewolf, forever missing their other half. No wonder she looked so lost. I took note of the description of the man, and nearly came out of my chair when she talked about being sold into slavery. The video ended with her picking a photo out of a lineup, identifying the Beta of the Copper Mountain pack as the one who had given her over to the humans.

Not only was this cruel, it was dangerous. Tania knew everything about our kind, including where the major Packs were located and their leaders. No wolf meant no Pack loyalty and no Alpha command. She was a loose cannon pointed at our heads.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“Thank Luna she’s back with a Pack,” I said. “Imagine if she had talked.” There were werewolves who had their wolves killed; it was a last resort, usually after the loss of a mate. They were kept with a Pack for support and monitoring. I turned off the screen as the interview ended. “Thoughts?”

“I’ve only got enough for warrants on three people, and two are Alphas,” Lawrence said. “Let’s look at the other evidence he sent.” We pulled up the statements; most of it was circumstantial, but in aggregate they looked guilty as hell. I’d seen enough by the time we were crossing Nebraska. “Lawrence, issue the warrants for the arrests of Alpha Justin Heranus and Beta Jack Meoffe of Copper Mountain and Alpha Todd Aldridge of Tomah. Send Todd’s to Alpha Clark and to Carlos, he can forward it to his team leaders.”

“What about Luna Rhoda?”

“Not enough evidence to show she was involved yet,” Lawrence said. “If we get other evidence to show she was aware of the kidnapping or aided in it, we’ll arrest her too. After we get her back from the Alpha Killer,” he said.

“Not much of a chance of that,” I said. “Do it.”

Minutes later it was done. In an hour we would be landing. Once we had linked up with Carlos’ men, we would travel to the Copper Mountain Pack and arrest their senior leadership.

It was time to clean up.

Tania’s POV

Somewhere over Iowa

“Ladies, this is your pilot. We are now passing over the Quad Cities area at our cruising altitude of 14, 000 feet. Flight time to Clarksville is two hours and fifty minutes, weather is expected to be good. Enjoy the free peanuts and thank you for flying with Bob.” I had to laugh, the Cessna 425 we were flying was small enough he could just turn around and talk to us. I looked at the safety manual in the pocked of the seat in front of me and reviewed the exit procedures. It was a small, twin-turboprop plane with a single pilot and eight seats. It wasn’t tall enough to stand up fully inside, but the seats were wide and comfortable. I’d flown a few times when I was younger, and this was way more fun. The windows were bigger, and the flight was lower and slower. I unbuckled my belt and moved across the narrow aisle, checking on my boy.

MY boy.

He opened his eyes when I put my hand over his. He looked around, confused. “Mommy?” He looked back and forth.

“I’m here, Phillip.”

“NOT MY MOMMY! I WANT MOMMY!” My heart broke as tears formed in his over-tired eyes and spilled down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Phillip. Your Mommy is gone now, but I’m here. I love you too,” I said. He kept crying, and as I knelt by the side, I felt overwhelmed and helpless. What the hell was I even doing? He didn’t know me, I’d taken him from a mother and father who loved him and had cared for him since birth. How could this be the best thing for my boy?

I was selfish and cruel.

I moved back to my seat, sitting heavily and I buried my head in my hands and cried my eyes out. I felt fur as Snacks pushed his head in, moving between my thighs and my arms. His cold nose bumped against my cheek before his pink tongue licked my neck and jaw. “I’m a horrible person,” I told him as I hugged his neck.