Read Keeper of the Alphas - Complete Online
Authors: Morgan Rae
Keeper of the Alphas - Complete (17 page)
Jayce woke up gasping.
Cold predawn light sliced through the windows.
It took him a second to get his bearings. A ticking clock. Pinewood walls. Old china cabinet. And then it clicked. Lynn’s house. His childhood home away from home. Jayce sat up with a grunt, his hand moving to his chest. Felt bandages there, but barely felt any pain. When he pulled them back to peek underneath, he saw purple-bruised skin. But no marks.
None except for the bites on his arm. He clutched his bicep where she’d bit into him, felt a warm sting.
There was a plaid shirt hanging off the chair and he threw it over his shoulders. A little big on him and it smelled…what. Animal?
Animal. He remembered the fight from last night, vaguely. He didn’t have anything silver on him and for a moment, he felt panicked. His eyes fell on the china cabinet. Quietly, he opened up the shelf and lifted a knife. Definitely silver. He thumbed it up his sleeve where he could reach it at a moment’s notice.
Smells. This house was thick with them. He smelled meat and coffee and stumbled up to his feet, following the smell. Felt weak in his knees; his legs wobbled.
He wasn’t alone. Marcus sat at the kitchen table, hunched over a breakfast plate. Marcus glanced up at him, his long hair dusting his shoulders, and he sized up Jayce. “You survived,” he said without affectation.
“What did you do with Cami?” Jayce said. His voice shook. He hated how weak he felt, and clutched the knife tighter.
Marcus’s eyes narrowed, as though he was irritated at the very suggestion. “Nothing. She’s in her room. Asleep. You’ll be lucky if she wakes up before noon.” Marcus pushed his plate towards the edge of the table then. “You’re hungry. Eat.”
Jayce didn’t realize it until Marcus said it, but he was famished. Deliriously so. Hunger pangs clenched his stomach and nearly made him double over. Still, his eyes flickered from Marcus, to the plate, back to Marcus again.
A sneer cut over Marcus’s face. “If I was going to kill you, you’d be dead already, boy.”
Jayce pulled himself into the seat across from Marcus and began stabbing at the sausage on his plate, wolfing it down.
Marcus watched. Unperturbed. And sipped his coffee.
As Jayce ate, he found his eyes trailing outside. To the trees. Swaying softly, like enticing lovers. He wanted to be out in them suddenly. He dropped the knife at the table, stood and, compelled by some deeper instinct, said, “I have to go.”
“You’ll be back,” Marcus grunted. As Jayce pushed out the door, Marcus called, “Don’t lose my shirt!”
Jayce walked until he found his car on the side of the road. Untouched.
Thank God
. He could kiss her hood. The crisp air felt good and he rolled all the windows down as he yanked the Camaro into gear and sped off. His foot played the pedal like a pianist, wanting to go faster, faster, as the wind whipped around him.
He made a sharp turn into the trailer park. The Camaro cruised down the gravel road and then—
Jayce slammed his foot on the brakes. A wave of nausea hit him and he turned off the car and tossed himself out of it. The smell was putrid, like death, and he coughed and gagged, his hastily swallowed breakfast threatening to come up. He turned his eyes up and saw…
The silver warning line to keep shifters out. Just a hair’s breadth away. The stink was radiating off of it.
The screech of his Camaro brought company. He saw Pam quickly approaching; she even called out his name. “Jayce! You idiot, I thought you were bear lunch for sure—”
But she stopped in her tracks when she saw him. Hunched over, gagging in front of the territory line.
Her hand went for her gun. She unholstered it and pointed it directly at him. “Where did it bite you?”
“What?” he asked, dazed.
“The bite, Jayce. Show it to me.”
Jayce looked up at her and reluctantly drew back his shirt from his shoulder. His arm was marked with deep puncture wounds. “It’s not what it looks like,” he started.
“Isn’t it?” She motioned with her gun. “Cross the line.”
Jayce stood to his feet and tried to. His heart pounded in his chest.
Please let me make it.
But his legs wobbled, buckled, and then that graceless gagging.
“I like you, Jayce,” Pam said through a vicious smile. “I’ll give you a head start. Right before I hunt you down like the fucking dog you are.”
“Pam—”
“Five minutes.” She cocked her gun. “That should be enough to get you on the road.”
Jayce knew that look in her eyes.
Bloodlust
. Right before she put some sorry animal down. He backed away, then got into his car, throwing the door shut.
The Camaro skidded down the road. He drove it faster and faster, feeling its wheels eat tarmac. The smooth speed got under his skin, made his teeth clench until his jaw ached. Sixty miles per hour…seventy…ninety…
It wasn’t enough. He pulled the car over, swerving it onto a clump of dirt. Then he shoved out of the car, falling to his knees. He felt it, deep in his bones, the need to
escape
, to run.
Pain
, hard, unshakable pain as his bones cracked, broke, and shifted. He felt the front of his face lengthen, felt his arms and legs snap and his teeth sharpen.
He leapt onto soft, damp dirt. Soothing cold under the pads of his paws. He ran, zigzagging through the trees, slicing his way through the woods. Not sure
where
he was going, just that he needed to run, to burn this feeling inside of him. He ran until the trees broke, until he was climbing red-dirt rocks, sharp nails clicking. At the top of a rocky overhang, he could see the vast woods spread out underneath him. Miles of trees, of earth, of animals. Animals like him. He could see the bright fingers of the rising sun on one side, the shadow of the falling moon on the other. As though the world itself was split in half.
The grey wolf lifted his heavy head and howled.
Cami was already wide awake in her bed when she heard the howl echo through the trees.
She shuddered at the sound. Sounded agonized, tormented. She didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about shifters or hunters or Keepers or
any
of it.
Craved the comfort of a padded cell, suddenly. White walls. Happy pills. Sleepy pills.
Life-managing
pills.
But then again. She lifted her palm for umpteenth time that night and focused her energy. Thought about the wolf, about Aldric, about her selfish, micromanaging mother. She felt hot, boiling anger and let just an inch of it skid through her veins, up her arm and into her hand.
Small orange flames licked the skin of her palm. She drew a finger from the opposite hand over the flames and felt nothing but a soft heat, like she was invulnerable to it.
Yeah. Things had just gotten
a lot
more complicated.
Double Her Mate
(Keeper of the Alphas: Part 4)
By Morgan Rae
Little twelve-year-old feet pattered quickly up the winding staircase. The sound of a bedroom door slamming shut followed soon after.
The fireplace
whooshed
. Lynn lifted her head—bun tucked neatly behind her—and set aside her book (
A Complete Guide to the Anatomical Structure of Canis Lupus
). She let it drop from her fingers and rose from the couch, leaving the fireplace to settle down to a crackle. Lynn moved up the staircase and went to her daughter’s room, marked by the glitter sign that spelled out
CAMI
.
“Camilla?” Lynn asked, knocking gingerly on the door.
“Leave me alone!” The young girl’s shrill voice shook with broken tears. Something crashed—a casualty of the little girl’s big temper.
Lynn took a breath, centered herself, and pushed inside. A little pink handcrafted jewelry box lay smashed to pieces on the ground. Cami had her face planted in her bed, swallowed by her oversized cable-knit sweater.
Lynn perched her legs over the edge of Cami’s bed and wordlessly curled her fingers in Cami’s thick braided hair.
“Maggie called Jayce a trailer trash punk,” Cami said, words tumbling out without invitation. “So I pulled her hair and got in trouble for it.”
“That wasn’t very nice, Camilla,” her mother said.
“I feel wrong,” the young girl wailed and tightened her fists on her mother’s pleated black skirt, sobbing into her lap. “I’m just so mad. What’s wrong with me?”
“Shhh.” Lynn pulled Cami’s bangs back. “Close your eyes, dear. Count to ten.”
Cami sniffled and shuddered out a breath. “One…” Another sniff. “Two…”
Lynn pressed her hand on Cami’s forehead. Cami’s skin felt hot, but Lynn’s cool palm smothered the heat boiling inside of her daughter.
She was able to tame her. For now.
“Three…”
But how much longer?
“You’re a what?”
“I’m a
Keeper
,” Cami said with an exasperated sweep of her arm. Led Zeppelin wailed over the speakers and the bartender refilled her shot glass.
“Uhuh. What’re you keeping?” Her loaned ear was a nearly seven foot tall man who had to hunch over on his bar stool to talk to her, bulky, with a grin so wide he bared his eyeteeth. Tall, dark and handsome.
“Beats me. The animals in the woods. The hunters. Everything. I’m supposed to keep them from killing each other.” The bartender no sooner finished topping her off then Cami knocked back the whiskey. It didn’t burn anymore, a bad sign, a stop-drinking-now sign, but she pushed on regardless. The kind of determination her mother would’ve been proud of, Cami thought, if it had been applied to something like schoolwork or professional work or anything other than draining the bar.
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your shoulders,” Blake said—or was it Drake?—and reached over to slip his hand over her shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. He unraveled a couple pinched nerves and Cami groaned, dropping her head. Thought about how that same grip might feel on her breasts or between her legs and it made her thighs squeeze.
“You have no idea. I mean, I barely understand the war in Iraq. How am I supposed to stop a war on my own?”
“You mean between your werebears and hunters,” Blake/Drake said, smug, amused grin on his face, like she was some wildly entertaining riddle. “Are you sure this bear of yours isn’t a burly gay man?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s not gay. And wolves,” she said, lifting a finger and nearly spilling her drink in the process. “Don’t forget the wolves. I wonder how many animals in the woods are weres. Like, are there werecanaries? Weremoles?”
“Anything’s possible.” The man kissed her shoulder now and slipped his hand promisingly down her side. “You’re ten kinds of crazy, Cami,” he said.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Cami gasped when she felt his fingers grip her thigh.
“Then enlighten me,” he purred, his voice like dark chocolate.
“That won’t be necessary.” The voice—faraway rolling thunder—sent a shiver down Cami’s spine.
Marcus loomed behind her. A beige sheepskin coat draped over his hunched shoulders, coupled with a thick, frowning beard and cold blue eyes.
Cami spun around and squeaked. “Marcus!” She looped her arms around his shoulders and felt his strong chest against hers. “You’re out of the house! Since when is that a thing?”
“You didn’t come home,” he said. “With everything that’s going on, it didn’t seem wise to leave you to your own devices.” The low rumble of his voice sobered her up quickly and Cami felt her initial spike of giddiness at seeing Marcus out of his element start to drop rapidly.
Uh-oh
. She was in trouble.
“This guy giving you trouble?” Her man du jour seemed to think that he had a horse in this race.
He didn’t, but Cami threw herself beside him to use him as a human shield. Casualty of love and war. “This is Marcus, the guy I was telling you about.”
“Ah, yeah. She said you’re quite the grizzly, man.”
Marcus shot her a look.
Whoops
…she adjusted her dress over her ass, as though that would protect her from getting spanked ten ways to Sunday.
“She’s got a vivid imagination.”
“Marcus, this is…” Cami gestured to the man, hoping he’d fill in the blank.
“Andrew,” the man said, extending his hand.
Andrew? Wow, she was way off.
Drinks
. She needed more drinks. She snapped her fingers at the bar and said, “Marcus, join us. What’s your poison?”
“Silver,” Marcus said, and before Cami could ask if he wanted his Silver neat or on the rocks, he grabbed Andrew by the wrist and twisted his arm back, exposing the glint of silver knife up his sleeve. Andrew swung, hurling his considerable weight into Marcus’s face, but Marcus deftly avoided it and bodily slammed Andrew up against the bar.
Cami squeaked and scrambled out of the way as the two large men knocked over bar stools in their skirmish. Marcus tugged the knife from the man’s sleeve and pierced it through Andrew’s hand, pinning him to the bar. Andrew shouted in pain as his hand twitched on the bar like a stuck beetle, coating the lacquered polish with blood.
Marcus grabbed an empty bottle by the neck and lifted it. The crowning blow. Before he could split open Andrew’s head, Cami found her voice. “Marcus!” she shouted quickly.
He stalled. Her voice seemed to yank him backwards, as though he were compelled by puppet strings. The bottle fell with a clatter when he dropped it. Marcus grabbed Cami by her arm. “Come on. We’re leaving.”
“But—”
“
Now.
Before we attract any more hunters.”
Cami knocked back her shot in a single swallow right before Marcus tugged her out. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw a huddle of shocked faces, a pissed bartender, a swearing, writhing hunter. And at the tables, another face in the crowd, a short, stocky girl with a pixie cut whose eyes followed them with a violent hunger. Another hunter. Waiting to strike.
Or maybe the booze was just getting to Cami’s head. The bell above the door clattered unevenly as Marcus yanked her out the door and into his pickup.
By time they got home, Cami had completely lost the use of her legs. Marcus carried her upstairs and dropped her in her bed. The mattress bounced underneath her and Cami stretched out like a cat in a sun puddle. “You saved me,” she said, her voice near singsongy in her drunken slur.
“Save it for Prince Charming,” Marcus said. He yanked her tights off gracelessly, making her slide part of the way down the bed with his force.
“That’s right, you’re my Beast. Do you have, like, a rose somewhere? Or a stained glass portrait of you when you were a kid?”
“No.” He sat her up and pulled her dress over her head. Cami leaned her forehead against his shoulder; it felt nice and warm against her cheek.
“I have a rose,” she whispered in his ear. She spread her legs for him, baring her lavender panties, and tiptoed her fingers past the lace, nestling them between her legs. “It’s pretty and pink and opens up just for you. You wanna see it?”
She could see the rise and fall of his chest quicken. But then he grabbed her wrists, lifted both arms over her head, and said, “Up.” She stayed with her hands lifted obediently as he dressed her in her oversized sleep shirt.
“Does the big bad beast want to come out and play?” Cami pressed, slipping her hand up his shirt, feeling the warm skin of his back. “C’mon. I can see it in your eyes. I know you hate it when I get drunk. I know you want to punish me. Make your baby ache—”
“Stay here,” Marcus said, then rose and left abruptly.
Cami sighed and flopped back down in bed. She absently let her hand drift between her legs and slipped her fingers under her panties so she could dip them into her slit. She was wet. And spinning. The ceiling went around and around, so she closed her eyes and just focused on the scissoring motions of her fingers instead.
She heard the door open and close and then felt the side of the bed sag with Marcus’s weight.
“Up,” he said.
She opened her eyes and grinned, biting her lip, when she saw thick rope in his hands.
“Kinkier and kinkier. I like it,” Cami said as she sat up, removing her hand from her panties.
“Give me your wrists.”
She displayed her arms for him and she felt him loop the rope around her wrists expertly. The rope coiled around and around her forearms, making it impossible for her to break them apart. She tried, though, just to feel the unrelenting strain on the ropes, and felt warmly secure.
“Open your mouth,” he said. She did, obediently, and then felt him press a pill against her tongue. He lifted a glass of water to her lips and said, “Drink.”
He tilted the glass slowly, just enough to wet her lips, and she sipped as the water lapped at her mouth. He tilted a little more and it dribbled down the corner of her mouth. She giggled and water sprayed into the glass and he pulled the glass back up. “I’m like a baby,” she laughed as he wiped her chin with his thumb.
“You’re my baby,” he said, then brought the glass back again. “Finish it.” He coaxed the glass back to her lips and bit by bit, she swallowed it down. Once it was empty, he looked back at her and said, “Do you need to use the bathroom?” She shook her head, big eyes on him. “Lie down.” She did, watching him as he ran the rope through the decorative iron bars of her headboard and tied it off.
When he finished his handiwork, Cami tugged and felt her wrists snug and secure above her head. Helpless Disney princess that she was, she said, singsongy, “Oh, whatever will I do…?”
“Go to sleep,” he answered briskly.
Marcus got up from the bed, pulled the covers over her chest and tucked them around her like a cocoon. And then, a little softer, “Shout if you need anything.” And he pressed a kiss to her forehead, sucked her two wet and bound fingers clean with a single sweep of his tongue, and then got up to leave.
“I need
you
,” Cami whined, flushed now, frustrated, furious, and embarrassed. “I’ll just burn through these.” She twisted her hands and tried to elicit a flame on her palm, but her head was swimming; she couldn’t focus. Nothing but sweaty palms and a dull frustration.
At the door, his voice softened sympathetically. “You need rest. Good night, Cami.”
With that, he flicked off the light and closed the door behind him. Cami gritted her teeth and struggled in her bonds, her forehead burning hot. She felt sick, out of control, and the shadows of her room threatened to strangle her. All her years of practiced and perfected repressed feelings, her walls were crumbling down fast and she was reeling with the flood. Everything she wanted to forget with booze and sex was rising to the surface. Jayce turning into a wolf. The hunters out for Marcus’s blood. Aldric and his cronies in the black of the woods. The fire in her veins. Her mother. Above all, her mother, whose self-righteous voice still rang in her ears.
(What’s wrong with you? Where did I go wrong, dear?)
You raised me right, mother. I don’t have feelings. I have orgasms.