I Am The Alpha
Talia’s POV
34 Months Ago, Upstate New York
“You ready for this, Talia?” Eduardo was sitting on the counter in the hotel bathroom, watching me as I pulled on my black leather jacket over black jeans, a black T-shirt and boots. I double-checked my weapons, four throwing knives sat ready in my boots and jacket sleeves, and an autoinjector filled with a fast-acting sedative in my front pocket. I’d left the Glock behind, I didn’t want to risk jail time in this state that didn’t recognize carry permits.
It wasn’t like I couldn’t kill someone twenty different ways without it. “Yeah,” I replied as I pulled my blonde hair back in a ponytail, then covered it all with a black bandana.
“This phone has one number in it, you can use it to contact me when you are done. As soon as the sun sets, I’ll come get you.”
“If I need it,” I said. “You guys didn’t pick an easy task for my first assignment.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re ready for this, or Jarrod wouldn’t send you.”
I took a deep breath. “You going to be all right?”
“The do not disturb sign is up and we’ve got the drapes closed and taped. I’ll be fine.” I gave him a hug and walked out, down the hall and stairs and out into the parking lot. I fired up my Harley and headed out for the bar Alpha Marvin Jones owned in the town just outside his territory. I drove through the Fulton County Lakes region to Eagle Bay, where the Harbor Bar sat.
Parking my Harley facing out near the door, I got off and walked in. It was fall, the off season and a Wednesday, and there weren’t many tourists around. I unzipped my jacket as I walked in, and I could sense that most of the people inside were werewolves, including all of the staff.
I walked up to the bar, oblivious to their stares. Technically, I wasn’t on Pack lands so I couldn’t be detained for trespassing. That didn’t mean my presence was welcome. My scent alarmed them, and they all focused on me as I walked past the booths to take a seat on the barstool.
If I was male, they would have considered me a threat. I was without a Pack, unmated, beautiful and alone, so I could smell their attention shifting from alarm to lust. “What can I get you, young lady,” the bartender said. He was a big guy, at least warrior rank.
“Beer, menu and a meeting with your boss,” I said as I sat down.
He asked to see my identification, and I showed him my newly forged Louisiana driver’s license that showed me turning 21 two months earlier. He stared at it carefully, and his eyes glazed slightly. He was linking to his Alpha, giving him my name and address no doubt. My Coven had spared no expense in creating my false identity, down to the real apartment in the city that was listed. I even had a credit history showing my job working for a company secretly owned by Jarrod. “Beer and menu I can get you,” he said.
“I’ll take an India Pale Ale if you had it,” I said. He came back with a standard bar menu and a glass of Full Boar IPA. I ordered a burger with mushrooms and blue cheese and tried the beer, it was pretty good. The bartender went back into the office, right as another man sat next to me. “That seat is taken,” I said.
“I didn’t see anyone come in with you,” the young wolf said. “You’re not the one but you look like you’d be fun,” he said. “Name’s Boyd. Let me buy you a drink, pretty lady.”
“No thanks.”
I reached for my beer, but he grabbed my right hand, turning me towards him as he held it tight. “You’ve got no rights here, rogue. Leaving with me for a quick fuck is your best option right now. The three boys in the back there want to take you to the Pack prison, where they can share you with all their friends.”
My left hand had dropped to my boot as he talked. “You have a nice cock, Boyd?”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.
“You bet I do, and I know how to use it.”
“You like your cock the way it is? It’s not too big?”
“It’s perfection, bitch.”
I moved the tip of the razor-sharp blade in my left hand until it was poking through the fabric of his jeans, right where his hardened shaft was pressing against the zipper. “Then you better sit your ass down where you came from before you lose half of it.” His eyes got wide as he looked down. I could see his wolf coming forward, demanding my submission, and so I let MY wolf forward and she was pissed. My Alpha dominance pushed his wolf back, and he let go of me and backed off. I smiled and put the blade back as he walked away.
The smell of lust changed over to one of aggression as his took his seat, communicating what happened with his buddies in the corner. I ignored them, enjoying the burger and fries as I waited. I had just finished up when the bartender came back out. “The Alpha wants to know why you want to meet with him and who you represent.”
“Word is that there is a witness working with the FBI who saw two men abducting a woman in Syracuse last month,” I said. “The people I represent can make her go away.”
He nodded and walked off. I finished my beer by the time her returned. “Meeting will be on our lands. No weapons.”
“I’ll leave them on my ride,” I said.
“Boyd and the boys will escort you. Follow them and do not deviate or you will be killed.” I tossed a twenty onto the bar to cover lunch, then got up and went to my Harley. The four from the corner followed me out, two heading to each car. I made sure I showed them the knives as I took them out and put them into my saddlebags. Firing up my ride, I followed the first car out of the lot, the second behind me.
We arrived at the Pack House twenty minutes later. Driving up, the Pack looked like a small housing development mixed in with the rolling hills and trees, but I could see the subtle clues there was more. The chain link fence topped with barbed wire, the cameras, and the layout with the Pack House and gym at the center. Larger homes belonging to senior Pack leaders were on the inner ring, smaller houses surrounded it. They probably had the unmated staying in Pack House apartments.
I parked my Harley when they came to a stop, and the four men escorted me up the stairs where I was met by an even bigger man. “I’m Beta Mark Turner. Follow me.” He led me into the house and up the stairs to a conference room, holding the door open for me. Four men were in the room, including the Alpha who I immediately recognized from his photo. “Alpha, this is Amanda Keller. Amanda, this is Gamma Pierce, Delta Lawrence, Warrior Parker and Alpha Erich Shunn.”
“Welcome to the Fulton Lakes Pack, Miss Keller,” the Alpha said as he stood and took my offered hand. He raised it up to his nose, a little confused by the scent. I could tell his wolf didn’t like it. “I understand you have a proposal for me.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I challenge you for the Alpha position at Fulton Lakes.” The five men stared at me, then the Alpha started to laugh, and the others followed. I stared him down, my dominance forward and my wolf pissed at being dismissed. When the laughter died down, I continued. “Do you accept, or do I take your submission now?”
“Thank you for the comedic interlude, young she-wolf, but you are better suited to be UNDER a strong man than in charge of one.” The other men got up from their seats, two moving behind him while the other two blocked the door. “Take her to the cells until I decide what to do with her.”
I let my claws grow out as they dismissed me, and when the two men came to grab me, I was ready. Fast as lightning, I sliced clean through the neck of the man on my right before spinning and plunging my claws into the kidneys of the man on the left. He screamed in pain, and I snapped his neck before the other two men could react.
One ran towards me, and with a jumping roundhouse I knocked him into the wall and out. The second man had gone wolf and leaped for my throat as I landed from the kick. Avoiding his jaws, I grabbed him by the scruff and slung his head down into the wood-paneled wall. His head broke through the wall, and before he could recover, I stomped on his exposed neck. A loud snap told me it was broken, killing him instantly.
I turned to face the Alpha, who was now alone in a room with a pissed-off she-wolf who had just taken out his senior leadership in under ten seconds. I walked towards him, my bloodied hands dripping on his expensive carpet as he backed up towards the window. “My question remains, do you accept my challenge, or do I take your submission now?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m your worst fucking nightmare. You’ve been kidnapping and changing human women, threatening to draw attention to our kind. That isn’t acceptable, especially as you’ve tried to dump the ones who didn’t make it in the back yard of friends of mine.” His eyes got wide, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything. My hand shot out, the claws piercing his upper left chest. I moved my hand around in there as his mouth opened in shock and his hands grabbed mine, but he was already dying. Finding what I wanted, I jerked my hand back hard. He was pulled forward past me as his chest ripped open, and he fell hard to the floor by his desk.
I looked down at him, his heart in my hand. I reached over to his desk and grabbed a pair of scissors, then plunged the blades through the heart, pinning it to the center of the conference table.
The man I had knocked out was starting to come to. The thirst for blood led me to grab him and bite into the carotid artery just below his left ear. I took deep gulps of the warm blood as I listened to his heart weaken. I let go and sliced his throat open when I had my fill.
My beast felt satisfied; he hadn’t deserved to live, and they had all paid the price for breaking Council laws and endangering the local Coven. No longer would dead bodies be showing up around the Syracuse coven house; that was the kind of cold-war antics that could get us all in trouble. The fact that girls were being kidnapped and forced into a life they didn’t want, well, that gave me satisfaction in ending them.
I went to the attached bathroom and washed the blood off my arms and face, and used the towels to get the blood off my clothes and jacket. I liked black because the blood didn’t show, and leather because it would clean up well. I walked back into the room, placing an Ace and King of Clubs in the mouth of the dead Alpha.
I opened the door and a few dozen Pack members were waiting outside. “The Alpha, his bond broke,” Boyd said.
“It’s to be expected when he’s dead,” I said as I flung the doors wide open. “Tell the Council to find leadership suited to the Pack, I don’t want it.” I walked towards the stairs, the shocked werewolves parting for me like the Red Sea for Moses.
“Who are you, really,” Boyd asked.
“I’m the Alpha Killer.” I walked out, firing up my motorcycle, and left them shocked and leaderless behind me.