The Alpha's Choice (44 page)

But, of course, she knew why. It was guilt.
She’d avoided Alice all week because she hadn’t told her friend
about getting laid off. Alice, with her rose colored glasses, would
see this misfortune as an opportunity to try something new, to
embark on an adventure, to meet new people. The woman never saw a
problem that couldn’t be fixed and Grace needed a little more time
to get used to the idea of being unemployed before hearing about
how wonderful it all might be.

So here she was, at a retirement party for a
guy she barely recognized, sitting at a group of tables surrounded
by twenty people she didn’t know, wearing a little black sheath
that covered a great deal less than decency should allow and a pair
of thin strapped stilettos that almost guaranteed foot pain in the
morning. A crystal pendant disappeared into her cleavage and
sparkling teardrops hung from her ears.

The buzzing in her brain was a continuous
thrum and it wasn’t from the lights or the music or the three
glasses of wine she’d sipped her way through. It was the people.
There were just too many people with their emotions rolling off
them in waves, heightened by the music and alcohol.

Grace looked around at the crowd, smiling,
talking, drinking and dancing. Happiness, anxiety, lust, fear, and
even a smattering of violence blazed through her head and she
winced as her heart seemed to take up the throbbing beat of the
music. The place was a cacophony of sensations and she didn’t know
how much longer she could hold out. She couldn’t handle this many
people on her best day and today definitely wasn’t her best.

Today had been her last day to take the
elevator to the basement storage facility where she’d spent the
last six years scanning box after box of paper files onto her
computer. It didn’t pay much, but she didn’t need much and the
peace she enjoyed made up for the lack of dollars. No one ever came
down to her little cloister and that was what made the job so
perfect. No people meant no psychic vibrations and none of the
violent headaches that accompanied them. Unfortunately, she’d been
too efficient and worked herself out of a job.

“Come on. Dance with me. You’ve been sitting
there all night.” Alice, wearing a flirty red dress with glittery
trim at the hem and deeply scooped neckline, shimmied in front of
Grace. Her smile was wide and her eyes sparkled. She held out her
hands. “How are you going to attract attention if you don’t display
the goods?”

“I’m not a piece of meat, Alice.”

Her friend laughed. “Oh, honey, in that
dress you’re a prime rib.”

When Alice leaned over to whisper, Grace
could only imagine the view the swirling skirt offered from
behind.

“In that dress, you’re as sexy as sin.” The
bubbly blonde’s face became serious. “You really don’t have a clue,
do you?” Then she shook her head and laughed again. “Never mind,
come dance with your best friend.”

And Alice was her best friend. If truth be
told, Alice was her only friend and had been since seventh grade
when yet another foster placement dropped Grace into yet another
school, her eighth or ninth. She was no longer sure. Thirteen year
old Alice immediately took her in and unlike most of her
classmates, never saw Grace as weird, only different. The
friendship continued right through high school as did the foster
placement.

She and Alice lost touch for a few years
after high school when Alice remained at home to attend Junior
College and Grace was cast out on her own when her foster child
funding was cut off at the age of eighteen. Then six years ago,
when Grace moved into her current cheap, fourth floor walk-up,
there was Alice, ready to say hello to the new neighbor and
reminding Grace that there were, after all, good things in every
life and Alice was the best thing in hers.

At twenty-seven, her life was a confined and
lonely one. She didn’t like it, didn’t want it, but it was the only
way she could survive. She often thought that without Alice’s
friendship, she might have succumbed to desperation and
depression.

Grace smiled as she joined Alice on the
dance floor and laughed outright as Alice lifted her arms and began
swirling her hips to the heavy beat of the music. She raised her
own arms and began a much slower mime of her friend. It was then
that she saw them.

Across the room, standing against the wall,
arms crossed over massive chests, were two of the most beautiful
men she had ever seen, twins, each the exact replica of the other.
Soft light surrounded them as if they stood in a spotlight on a
stage. Only their eyes moved, searching the room. She smiled in
appreciation.

“Whoa, girl, I didn’t know you could move
like that,” Alice’s admiring voice broke through.

Grace’s heart skipped a beat as realization
dawned. The buzzing in her head was gone, leaving only the music.
The tension that had been her body’s constant companion was
replaced by a peaceful swaying rhythm. This was heaven. She kept
her eyes on the twins and let her body fall under the seductive
spell of the moment.

“Alice,” she said softly, after another song
began. “Eye candy at one o’clock.” She gestured with her eyes.

Dov elbowed his twin lightly in the ribs.
“That girl over there is staring at us.”

“Woman.”

“What?”

“Woman. You can’t call a female over
eighteen a girl. It’s sexist. Chauvinistic. Politically
incorrect.”

“Whatever,” Dov replied, shrugging off the
criticism. “She’s staring at us.”

“She can’t be. We’re in white light. Humans
can’t stare at what they can’t see.”

“I’m telling you, she’s staring at us.
Look,” Dov directed with a slight poke of his chin. “Right there.
Goddess body, skimpy black dress, dark hair with the blonde streak.
She’s dancing with the sexy boobs in the red dress.”

“Idiot. You’ve got to stop saying stuff like
that. You can’t refer to a woman as sexy boobs in a red dress.” Col
looked disgusted.

“Blonde. I meant blonde. Sexy blonde in the
red dress. Okay? And she’s still looking. She’s pointing us out to
her friend.”

“Shit. You’re right.” Col motioned with his
head. “Let’s take it outside.”

“Eye candy?” Alice squealed. “Did you say
eye candy? I can’t believe you said eye candy!”

Grace huffed in exasperation. “You say it
all the time. Now quit making fun of me and look behind you, over
by the wall. And don’t be your usual obvious self.”

Alice made a casual turn and kept on
dancing. “Ooo, you mean red shirt, dark hair, and dreamy eyes?” She
completed her turn and faced Grace.

“What guy in the red shirt? I’m talking
twins! How could you miss them? White tees, light blue jeans, at
least six feet of hunky body. Each.”

“Twins! Where?” Alice shrieked and spun
around.

It was too late for subtlety. Grace pointed.
“Right there in the light.”

But they weren’t there. And neither was the
light they were standing under. Her eyes darted around the room.
They had to be here. Somewhere. They were way too big to get lost
in the crowd.

“They were there, Alice. I swear. They were
right there.” Grace pointed across the room.

“So they left. No big deal, honey. We’ll
catch them another time. Now that you’re getting in the swing of
things, we can go out anytime you want.” Alice winked. “You really
let yourself go for a minute there, girl. You were something to
see.” Her eyes lit on someone over Grace’s shoulder. “We’ll catch
those twins another day, but right now I think I’ll go introduce
myself to the cutie in the red shirt. Don’t leave without me,
now.”

She watched as Alice danced her way across
the floor toward her intended conquest. Grace tried to keep the
smile on her face, but knew it was becoming a grimace as the
buzzing of emotions around her returned. She glanced at her watch.
The few minutes of reprieve had been wonderful and it gave her
hope. If it could happen once, it could happen again, right? But
for now, the buzzing was back with a vengeance.

She returned to her table, took a sip of
wine and tried to take an interest in the dancers on the floor. She
scanned the room again hoping to catch another glimpse of the
gorgeous twins, to no avail. The buzzing in her head grew stronger
and the migraine that always accompanied the sensory overload was
building along the side of her head. It was too much and she knew
it was time to go home. She wasn’t going to ruin Alice’s night out,
just make her apologies and find her own way home. She once again
scanned the floor, this time for Alice and Mr. Red Shirt and
quickly spotted them heading for a hallway at the back of the
club.

She blinked her eyes, shook her head and
blinked again. She couldn’t be seeing what she was seeing. Mr. Red
Shirt wasn’t the cutie Alice claimed. Grace’s heart stopped and she
choked on the bile that rose up in her throat. Red shirt’s face had
elongated, his chin jutting forward with snarling lips curled back
exposing jagged, feral teeth. His brow bulged over blackened eyes
and it appeared he had no nose at all. Grace shook her head again,
trying to dislodge the nightmare image. This couldn’t be real.

Her rational mind told her that this was a
hallucination. Someone must have drugged her wine. It all made
sense. That’s why her brain buzz had temporarily disappeared.
That’s why she saw the beautiful twins who weren’t there. That’s
why she was now seeing this monster while Alice walked calmly at
his side, laughing and talking as if she didn’t have a care in the
world.

Grace grabbed her purse and followed the
couple across the floor. If she was hallucinating, whether from
drugs or simply because she had finally gone over the edge into
insanity, she needed to get to a hospital and she couldn’t trust
herself to get there alone. She needed Alice. Alice was all she
had.

She reached the empty hallway in time to see
a rear exit door close. Something was very wrong. Hallucinations or
not, Grace knew that Alice would never follow a complete stranger
into a back alley alone. Alice was fun and flirty. She wasn’t
stupid.

Grace sprinted for the door.

Excerpt from Guardian's
Faith

A Guardians' of the Race Novel

Coming in 2013

Having only recently crawled from the dark
cavern of her madness, Faith Parsons seriously considered crawling
back in. At least it was quiet there. For a while, her mind had cut
off most sight and sound, most thought for that matter, and Faith
found she sometimes missed the absolute silence. The silence within
her mind wasn’t deafening as some writers claimed. She thought of
it more as restful, serene, and healing.

There was a lot of healing going on in this
House of Guardians lately and while she didn’t mind using her
powers as a Daughter of Man to help repair the injuries they
inflicted upon each other, she wished they could batter and bash
each other a little more quietly. When they weren’t screaming at
each other in mock battle rage, they were laughing and joking and
thundering around the house, egged on by the twins, Dov and Col,
who weren’t yet Guardian’s but were full-fledged trainees and
certainly old enough to begin acting like sensible adults.

Following the recent trouble at Moonlight
Sanctuary, the Paenitentia enclave several miles outside the city,
and the popularity of Nardo’s video games, there had been an
upsurge in young Paenitentia men signing up for long-unfilled
positions within the Guardians of the Race. This House had become a
clearing house for these recruits where they were put through a
rigorous initial training meant to weed out those who didn’t have
the right stuff. Those that passed would be sent on to other Houses
to complete their instruction.

Faith wasn’t sure how Canaan, the Liege Lord
of this House, had earned this dubious honor, but there it was.
There were eight new recruits living here now along with the seven
people who called this House their home. Add to that number her
sister Hope and Hope’s Guardian mate, Nico, who lived across the
alleyway and the old, but harmless vampire, Otto, and his mate
Manon, and you had quite a crowd around the dinner table and none
of them were quiet.

The place was like a damn bus station with
people running in and out, in and out and like those in the bus
station, most of them, most of them were strangers. Faith hated
strangers. They frightened her and she'd had enough fright in her
twenty eight years to last a lifetime, thank you very much. It was
her problem, she knew, and no one else's fault, but there it was;
strangers coming in waves of two or three or four. She would no
sooner get used to one batch than another would be flowing through
the door, coming upon her unawares, bumping her with the door while
she was doing laundry and they came in, laughing or shouting to
each other, from the garage. It was a good thing she had no voice
or she would have spent half her time screeching from
startlement.

And that was another thing, she thought as
she stripped the sheets from one of the guest rooms' beds, guests.
At least that's what everyone else called them. Faith thought of
them as cattle buyers coming in from out of town to get an up-close
look at the House's current stock of muscle bound bulls. Every week
or two, someone new arrived.

None of the other women seemed to mind.
Grace, Lord Canaan’s Lady and pregnant with their first child,
fussed over them all like a mother hen, clucking over the recruits'
injuries and stuffing the visitors with the goodies that constantly
flowed from her oven in the huge kitchen at the back of the house.
Hope spent her days taking care of the business end of Nardo’s
games. She closed her office door and didn’t come out until it was
time to set the table for supper. JJ, Faith's best friend and the
only known genetic mix of Paenitentia and Daughter of Man (other
than the child Grace carried) was Nardo’s mate. She worked beside
the men in the gym, training recruits. For Faith, it was the only
thing she enjoyed about the comings and goings of the House; the
look of shock and awe on the faces of the new recruits when JJ set
them on their all too macho asses.