Alphas Unleashed 4 (4 page)

Fiona scrambled to pick the phone back up and then shoved it back in the bag before coming back to my side. "What is it?" she said, staring at me, frozen in place.

"My mating heat," I said, "I can feel it coming."

~~~

I was so consumed by need and lust that I barely even registered the four vampires that came jogging in to the little clearing that Fiona and I had stopped in.

One of them, tall and dark and severe looking, came over to me and grabbed my face, holding it steady while he looked in to my eyes.

"When did she start?" he said over his shoulder, looking towards Fiona.

"Five minutes ago," Fiona said.

I dug my fingers in to the loose, moist dirt of the forest floor, trying anything to get some relief, some escape from the hunger that was consuming me.

"Shit," the vampire standing over me muttered, "we have to get her back to the city now. If Drago has to wait another year to mate her he's going to flay our skin off."

The vampire reached down and grabbed me, but I pushed him off wordlessly. He kicked me almost casually with one big military sized boot though, and the breath went out of me. He tried picking me up again and I tried to fight him off a second time but I was even less of a match for him with the wind knocked out of me, and he threw me up and over one broad shoulder.

I noticed one of the others with a big, meaty hand on Fiona's shoulder. I hoped that she at least got her freedom out of all of what was happening. I doubted it, they had no reason to keep their promise to her to set her free, but still I hoped she got that. I didn't hate her for what she had done. She was only trying to survive the best she could, just like all of us.

Then, just as everyone was turning to go back the way the vampires had come from, there was a long, mournful howl in the near distance, answered by a second one close by, and my heart surged at that wonderful sound. My alphas were coming to rescue me.

The vampire holding me, who seemed to be the leader, threw me to the ground and rounded on Fiona. "What the fuck did you do?"

Fiona wilted under his gaze, "they must have figured out she was missing."

"Bullshit," the lead vampire said, "the two of you have only been gone an hour, there's no way that's suspicious."

"They don't let us leave the mansion," Fiona shot back, finding a bit of a backbone somewhere, "they're possessive, and they think it's too dangerous for us to be roaming around the woods."

It wasn't true, but it sounded like something that could be true, and as I looked up at the lead vampire I could see that he was buying it. He looked to be thinking. Probably weighing whether it was worth it to run, and lose his prize, and face the wrath of his master, or stay and fight, and maybe die.

I glanced around and the other three were all looking to their leader for his decision.

"Just go," I said, and they all looked at me, "if you're lucky you'll make it back to your vehicle before they catch up with you."

The lead vampire gave me another kick in the gut for opening my mouth though, and I gasped in pain. I wished so badly that I could shift right then and fight back.

"I'd rather die fighting dogs than running from Drago," the lead vampire said.

My heart sank a little.

"Besides there's only two of them and four of us," he smiled, "hardly a fair fight."

The others grinned, evidently convinced, and all six of us looked towards where the howls had come from, waiting for the wolves to come.

I almost missed them arriving. They were so quiet, gliding out of the forest on their paws, and my mating heat had me more than a little distracted. I was consumed. It was like the most intense itch ever, and I couldn't scratch it.

Slowly, warily, I watched Marcus and Connor come in to the little clearing. They were cautious, taking everything in and making certain there were no traps waiting, but when Connor saw me, saw the collar around my neck, he bared his teeth and growled and looked ready to lunge, and probably would have if Marcus hadn't stepped forward a little, partially cutting him off.

Had he endured a collar like that when he was being held prisoner all those years? If he had it would no doubt have brought back a few memories that he tried very hard to forget, and my heart went out to him. I wanted to tell them both that I was okay, but I suspected that if I did open my mouth I was going to get another boot to the stomach, and I had a feeling that there was nothing Marcus could do to hold Connor back if that happened, so I stayed quiet on the ground.

"Drago sends his regards," the lead vampire said.

At that, I saw Marcus' ears prick up a little.

"He's been wondering where this hideout of yours is for a very long time. But when he learned that the two of you had acquired a new female, well he made it his mission to find you, and it turned out it wasn't that hard."

For whatever reason, the vampire held back from naming Fiona as the mole that had given us all away, and I was grateful for that, though I seriously doubted the vampire cared in the least.

"As you can see we're not surprised that you can shift in the daytime. We're well aware of what you can do, and we're not the least bit frightened. There are four of us, and two of you after all, so why would we be worried?" He grinned, and the other vampires all smiled and chuckled a little. They were confident now, even if they hadn't been a few minutes previous.

"It doesn't have to end like that though," the lead vampire continued, "you could join us. Drago isn't in the business of killing wolves, at least not ones that cooperate. You could live in our compound, keep your mate," he gestured to me on the ground, "you would be protected. Isn't that a fair offer?"

But of course Marcus and Connor were not speaking, and I realized then that probably the vampire was trying to engage them in conversation, to get them to shift back to their human forms, so that they could attack when the two of them were vulnerable. But they were smart, too smart to fall for something like that.

Instead, Marcus looked at Connor, seeming to communicate something, and then Marcus inched towards me, wary of the vampire standing over me, but obviously wanting to make sure that I was okay, sniffing the air to catch my scent.

"She's fine," the lead vampire said, tensing up as Marcus came closer, but his voice remained cool and confident. "Her mating heat has started though, no doubt you can smell that. If you agree to our terms you could be living in our compound tonight, mating with her to your heart's content. How does that sound?"

Everyone was focused on Marcus, even me, and everyone had forgotten about Connor, standing back and on the far side of the battle lines.

I saw a blur, a streak of motion out of the corner of my eye, and by the time I looked over Connor's strong werewolf teeth were already crushing down in to the soft neck of the vampire that had been standing closest to him. Then in one swift motion, before any of the other vampires could even think to intervene, Connor pulled up and ripped the vampire's throat out, and he was dead in just a few moments.

I, along with everyone else I assumed, including the vampire standing over me, had looked to see what was happening on the other side of the little clearing. Everyone except Marcus.

All I felt was a brush of air as Marcus lunged in to the vampire standing over me, his momentum carrying them both past me. The two of them struggled, the lead vampire was bigger and stronger and more of a match, but I could see Marcus' razor sharp teeth inching towards the vampire's neck as the vampire tried desperately to hold him off. He screamed for help from the other two but Connor lunged then at the next vampire on the far side and had him on the ground in seconds, his muzzle already coated in blood as he sought another neck.

The last vampire who was still unscathed hesitated between the two very one sided fights taking place, considered intervening it seemed, and then turned and ran, flying through the forest as fast as he could, and he was gone in a second. And just in time, as with two sickening tearing sounds Marcus and Connor both finished their fights.

Connor started to chase the last remaining vampire but Marcus barked at him, and reluctantly he left off and circled back to the group of us.

Marcus shifted then, back in to human form, though Connor just paced on the edge of the clearing, still in his wolf form, hackles raised, growling low and glaring at the three bodies.

"Are you okay?" Marcus said, kneeling by my side and immediately trying to remove the collar from around my throat.

"I'm okay now," I said, smiling at him and pulling him in to me with a hand around his neck. He was naked and his muscles were all bulging from the physical exertion and I wanted him right there. It was like the loss of control that I'd felt the few times I'd drank to much alcohol, only a hundred times more potent. I couldn't stop myself from trying to kiss him, even with the three bodies laying there and Connor and Fiona both watching.

And Marcus indulged me for a moment, kissing me back, clearly feeling the same thing, but with a shudder managed to push me away, and focused in on the collar again, doing his best to ignore me and my powerful mating heat hormones. "We have to get this off of you," he said.

"It's locked," I said.

Marcus found the point where it locked and gripped either side with his two big hands and pulled apart as hard as he could, the muscles in his arms and chest going rock hard, and I almost lost control of myself again right there. The metal bent a little at first, and then the ancient looking lock mechanism actually pulled apart. I couldn't believe how strong he was.

I went to hug him, purely just from the joy of being free, and somehow it turned in to a lunging kiss, and Marcus had to restrain me, though the wild look in his eyes, and the slight but growing bulge in his crotch, told me that the impressive amount of self control I knew he had was only hanging on by a hair.

Suddenly I knew why Connor had remained as a wolf and not shifted back to his human form. He didn't have nearly the self control that Marcus did. Things would have devolved quickly in to naked lust with me and Connor together and my mating heat in full swing.

Marcus turned to Fiona, "are you okay?"

She nodded weakly, not even looking up to meet his eyes. She must have thought that I was going to tell them that she had been the one that had betrayed us all, and that she would join the three lifeless bodies laying on the ground around us.

And I probably should have told them. They wouldn't have killed her, I was pretty sure anyway, but they would have sent her away no doubt, to survive on her own without the benefit of a pack to protect her.

But I wasn't going to tell them anything. I knew in her heart that she had changed sides before the vampires had gotten there, that she would have undone the damage she had caused, if she could have. I hadn't saved her the first time around, years ago in what seemed like a wholly different lifetime, but I
could
save her this time, and I would, by pretending like she had been kidnapped right along beside me.

Marcus turned back to me, "we cant go back to the mansion," he picked me up and held me on unsteady legs as the two of us walked towards Connor, "but there's a small cabin, on the western edge of the property. We'll go there." He picked me up and set me on Connor's back, and I dug my fingers in to his soft fur.

"You'll ride with me," he said to Fiona, and then shifted in to his wolf form and lowered himself to the ground, so that Fiona could climb on after a moment of hesitation. Then Marcus stood back up and Connor joined him and together we all set off at a quick pace.

Fiona glanced over at me, looking worried, scared, the question plain on her face, 'why hadn't I told them about her betrayal?'

But I just smiled back at her and tried as best as I could with my eyes to tell her that everything was going to be okay.

On the way to the cabin, all I could think about was whether I was making the right decision by allowing Fiona to come with us. She had switched sides, I didn't doubt that, but would she switch again? I needed to make sure that I took the cellphone that was in her bag, to make certain she couldn't make any more phone calls. And she would have to be watched, for the first while at least, to make certain that she was adjusting well, that she wasn't worried about Drago, about vampires tracking us down and coming for her in the night, about a hundred other things that might play on her mind.

She had been held captive for years after all, and brainwashed enough that she was willing to trade my life for her freedom. Maybe I was being too quick to trust her, because it seemed impossible to just shrug all that painful history off in one moment of reconciliation.

Then, after a long while, we reached the cabin. Compared to the mansion it was a cabin, but everyone else would have called it a house, and a nice one at that. But it was old, and unused looking, and tucked away in the woods so well that it was hard to spot until we were almost there.

I stopped worrying about Fiona after that and started working on my speech. I was going to convince Connor and Marcus to go to Alaska. I had promised Fiona that we would go after all, and I wasn't going back on that. What had happened to me only proved that we weren't safe, and never would be. If they expected me to have a baby then it wasn't going to be anywhere near vampires, and that was absolutely final. If they didn't like it they could stay, but Fiona and I were leaving.

At least that was what I was going to tell them. Hopefully they didn't call my bluff, because if they did I didn't have a clue what I would do. I couldn't really leave them could I? Not when Connor was back, not when they were both mated to me. I was the glue that held their dual alpha status together. If I left them it would be a betrayal of that, of everything that we had built between us.

But I had promised Fiona. I couldn't go back on that, I couldn't do that to her. It would be one more betrayal of her by me, and there was no telling what she would do.

Those thoughts and a hundred others were buzzing through my head as the wolves stopped in front of the cabin and Fiona and I hopped back down to solid earth, a little unsteady on our feet after a couple hours on the wolves' backs.