The Alpha's Captive (7 page)

Lorcan was not sure whether she was serious or not until a bright grin spread across her face. “I’m kidding,” she said in the broad drawl that made her seem so innocent and so much trouble at the same time. “I should be paying you,” she added with an arch wink.

He did not want to leave her behind. He did not want to leave her alone. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms, take her back to the manor, and make love to her until neither of them were capable of any kind of witty repartee at all. But he couldn’t. Sacha’s temper aside, events were about to take place that would be akin to a death sentence if Hannah were to see them. She was better off here, away from trouble.

She sensed his hesitation, and it made her bold. She took a step closer and pressed her curvy body to his, looking up into his face with an inviting expression. Lorcan felt his member stiffening in response to her; there was something about Hannah that made him want to throw all semblance of control aside and allow his animal nature full reign. He reached out to wrap an arm around her waist and slid his palm down to cup her ample bottom.

“I will be back for you,” he promised in a rough drawl, pressing his lips to hers in a kiss that quickly became deep and passionate, their tongues lashing against one another with an urgency reflecting their thwarted desires.

“Whoa,” she murmured when they broke the kiss. “You’re… wow.”

He looked down into her beautifully flushed face, her green eyes sparkling and felt that tug on his heartstrings again. God. Saying goodbye to her was almost impossible. And yet he had to.

“Go on,” he said, swatting her jean-clad behind. “And watch yourself. I’ll know if you put a foot out of line.”

“See ya,” she said with a wave and a grin that made his heart sink. He was going to end up thrashing her again before the week was out, he was almost certain of it.

Three days later…

Dressed in camouflage from the army surplus store she’d found a couple of villages over, Hannah fancied herself almost invisible as she laid on the heath, peering through a pair of binoculars with rudimentary night vision that cast everything in a green glow. She was positioned more or less inside a hedgerow bordering Lorcan’s massive property. Without the binoculars she would not have been able to see much in the way of anything.

It was perhaps a misuse of the money Lorcan had given her, but all he’d said was don’t buy alcohol. He hadn’t said, don’t buy some sweet tactical jeans and a camo sweater and a pair of night vision goggles and come sneaking back to the manor under cover of darkness. He’d been quite specific in not saying that, if you thought of it one way.

It was her curiosity that had drawn her back on the night of the full moon, which Sacha had noted as being important. There was a certain ominous tone to her statement that had caused Hannah’s intuition to sit up and take notice.

She had not seen or spoken to Lorcan since the day he’d dropped her off in the village, and she missed him. She barely knew him, but she missed him anyway. He had promised answers, but given none and she would not wait any longer for him to tell her what she wanted to know. She would discover the truth for herself. She was aware that what she was doing was vaguely stalkerish at best, and completely unhinged at worst, but she was so convinced of the mystery that she had decided it was worth the effort. If she saw nothing at all, she would perhaps feel silly. But she did not think she would see nothing. All the signs pointed toward something.

The glow of the goggles revealed a cluster of people gathered outside the manor’s front door. It would have been quite a sensible scene if it had been taking place at midday rather than midnight. Lorcan was wearing a suit that made his frame look even more imposing and made Hannah wish she were allowed to see him in proper lighting. Even with a weird green glow about him, he looked hot. She felt a yearning deep in her belly, a desire to go to him, but she managed to keep that impulse contained. Something was happening.

Everyone’s attention seemed to be focused on a point just out of range of Hannah’s goggles. It was so frustrating to only be able to see part of the picture. She tried shuffling forward a little more, poking her head out of the bushes to get a better look.

She did not have to wait very long to see what everyone was staring at. Out of the shadows, a large wolf appeared. It walked slowly toward the gathered people, approaching Lorcan with its head bowed in a manner that seemed to signify deference.

“
What the…
” Hannah murmured the question quietly to herself.

The animal was large and it looked wild, a beast so majestic it took Hannah’s breath away. She could not believe that it was so close to all the people, apparently unconcerned by their presence. Hannah shuffled back into the bushes, keeping as still as possible, barely daring to breathe. She knew she was intruding on something private to Lorcan and his family, but there was no way she could tear her gaze away now.

The wolf approached Lorcan, pressed its nose to his hand, and made a grunting sound that was clear in the night air. A soft murmur was all she could hear of Lorcan’s response. It seemed to mean something.

Before Hannah’s astounded eyes, the wolf began to change shape and size. It grew smaller, the fur faded from its limbs and the long snout retracted toward a face that was quickly becoming human. Halfway between man and animal it looked like a tortured thing, grunting with what seemed to be pain. As the change continued the utterances started sounding more human and finally the creature rose on two feet and stood erect, a man in every respect and portion of his anatomy.

She could not believe it. It was literally unbelievable. A beast had turned into a man. There were legends, of course there were legends about such things, but Hannah had never believed them. Nobody believed them, because such tales were not possible. And yet her wide eyes were looking at a naked man standing proudly in front of Lorcan, a man who had not been there before the wolf’s arrival. A werewolf. A real, live werewolf.

As she watched, several of the other people started to disrobe. Lorcan was still dressed, but next to him his sister Sacha was one of the ones taking her clothes off. Hannah watched thoroughly entranced as the woman’s lithe naked body came into view, along with the equally toned bodies of the others. They were all in excellent shape.

And then they too began to change, reversing the process she had just borne witness to. They crouched down and their bodies grew longer and thicker. Their faces transformed from human to carnivore, teeth elongating, mouths becoming snouts. It was no less shocking the second time than it had been the first. If anything, it was more horrifying, for the first time Hannah might have been able to tell herself that she had merely imagined it, that her brain was in some fevered state from extended travel, some deep form of homesickness that made her fancy that a big dog had become a man. But now at least six wolves stood on Lorcan’s front lawn, crowding about the naked newcomer, licking his bare body, sniffing him with great interest.

It was obviously their form of greeting, and now that they were wolves, Hannah felt her shock subsiding again. It was as if her mind simply could not understand what it was seeing, and as soon as the creatures before her became either one thing or the other it immediately asserted that the transition had not happened at all. And yet she knew it had.

As Hannah tried to come to terms with what she had seen, one of the wolves broke away from the pack and began to circle more widely around the group. It was a very dark wolf that seemed to almost disappear when Hannah moved the binoculars from her face. She was fairly certain that it was Sacha. There was something about its demeanor that reminded her of the woman.

Hannah hunkered down in her hiding place and though the wolf was still a long way off, tried not to breathe too loud or make anything in the way of noise. The wolf seemed to be looking for something, and Hannah didn’t know if it was merely making a security minded pass, searching for a succulent bunny, or if perhaps Sacha had sensed her in some intangible way.

With every step Sacha the wolf took, Hannah became more convinced that it was the latter option. As the moon came out from behind dark clouds, she no longer needed the binoculars to see the creature drawing nearer to her, golden eyes lit by the silver light. The wolf’s mouth was open, nostrils lifted high as it tasted the air.

Fear shot through Hannah’s belly, a primal fear that only a human who has been hunted by a much more powerful beast can ever know. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest she was almost certain that it was audible outside her body.

Sacha the wolf lowered her head and for the briefest of moments, their eyes met. Even at a distance of at least fifty feet, Hannah knew she had been seen. The time for sitting very still and hoping not to be noticed was over. She had been scented, and the only way to escape was to run. She pushed up from the ground, tossed the binoculars at the fence, and hurtled into the embrace of Darkwood Heath.

She ran for all she was worth, her survival hinging on flight. Behind her she could hear the four-footed landings of a beast gaining with every second that passed. As fast as Hannah was, the thing behind her was faster still.

With an animal cry of what sounded like blood lust and triumph, a baying glee that made Hannah’s stomach churn, the wolf launched itself through the air, heavy paws landing with the force of a truck against her shoulders. Hannah screamed at the top of her lungs as she was knocked to the ground and then she was silent, the wind driven from her body as slavering fangs snapped at the back of her neck. Unable to so much as whimper, let alone cry out, Hannah felt moss and dirt between her teeth, bloodied lips ground against the dirt as the heavy body on her back pinned her in place even as it shifted from wolf to woman.

“You little bitch.” Sacha’s cold tones hissed in Hannah’s ear. “I knew I’d get the chance to finish you if I only waited long enough. You are a fool. You should have left when you had the chance.”

She stood and turned Hannah over with a rough kick to her ribs, leaving Hannah wheezing for breath on her back. Pain was arcing through her body, her ribs likely cracked from the fall if not from the kick, her mouth bloodied, every breath painful.

Sacha reached down and clamped her hand around Hannah’s neck, squeezing at her windpipe.

“No mortal can see what we are,” Sacha hissed. “So will you die and be whelped, or will you simply die?”

Hannah did not understand the question. Her mind was flailing for escape and finding none. She could not form a word, let alone work out what Sacha meant.

“
Leave her be
!”

Lorcan’s order shook the earth. His rage was a terrible, tangible thing that gave Sacha momentary pause as he strode toward them, still dressed in his impeccable suit. He looked severe and strong and relief flowed through Hannah in a great wave as a sense of safety returned. Lorcan obviously controlled these wolves. He was not a beast like them, but he could rule over them. If he could not, he would surely already be dead.

“Get off her, Sacha,” he ordered in clipped angry tones when he was still several strides away. Sacha obeyed in part, rising from Hannah’s battered form to face the angry alpha with pure defiance.

“Step away from her,” Lorcan repeated.

“No,” Sacha flared. “Your time is over, Lorcan. Mine is just beginning. And it will start with this little bitch living or dying according to my will.”

He shook his head curtly. “I told you, there will be no conversions. Our pack will be born, not made.”

“I don’t care what you told me, Lorcan,” Sacha growled. “Do you not understand? The time has come for you to leave. Take your little bitch and go, or watch me slash her throat with my fangs.”

“Lorcan,” Hannah wheezed. “Help me…”

Sacha crouched down and backhanded her, a hard slap that rang out through the cold air. Hannah’s cry of pain was a thin wail that carried through the night and was ultimately punctuated by a fierce growl as Lorcan reached the end of his tether.

He did not shift painfully and gradually as the others had. He flowed from man into beast. There was the sound of ripping cloth and then the snarl of a wolf twice the size of the one Sacha had been. Sacha frantically tried to shift too, stumbling and tumbling over feet and then paws as Lorcan bounded atop her.

He had the advantage in weight, power, and sheer fury, his anger expressed in animal form. Sacha was smaller, but more vicious. Her jaws were aimed at his jugular, her baying cries full of fury and blood. Hannah covered her eyes, shocked out of her senses. The battle going on before her was brutal, snarling and growling filling her ears and making her muscles weak with fear. She was nothing but prey, her life hanging in the balance between two predators.

The two wolves rolled over and over, teeth flashing, lips pulled back in furious snarls. Though she acquitted herself well, it soon became obvious that Sacha had no chance at all. She was no match for her brother, but she could not admit that. Fur flew, blood began to flow, and still she would not submit, not until Lorcan’s jaws fastened upon her throat and he pinned her there on the earth, his canines poised atop her jugular.

For a moment it seemed as though he would kill her, but he stilled his jaws and instead held her there until it was obvious to all that she had been utterly bested. Sacha let out a whine of defeat and it was over.

Lorcan flowed back to human form and looked down at his fallen sister with a furious glare. “I am stripping you of your rank,” he said. “You are the lowest of our number now. You have shamed our father’s legacy and you have disobeyed me for the last time. You will be punished severely for this. Richard! Derrick! Take her away and give her aid! She will need it.”

While the rest of the pack helped Sacha at Lorcan’s bidding, he focused his attention on Hannah. He lifted her gently from the ground, his face twisted with sorrow and anger. “I told you to stay where you were,” he murmured. “Why could you not obey me?”