The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

“Good to have you back home, Randall,” he said as he buckled the seatbelt. “It’s boring here without you.” He smirked as he saw Mom and Dad standing on the front porch of the sprawling ranch-style home under the wide overhang of the roof. The house was connected underground to the houses surrounding it, and those passages contained additional storage and other rooms. “You sure kicked up a hornet’s nest with your phone call.”

“It can’t be helped, I need Dad’s help.” Brent and Patricia had led the Sulphur River Pack, a strong and loving group of nearly a hundred people, for the past six decades and were still going strong. They were well respected among the American packs, bringing calm and reason to the discussions that could easily get out of hand. Each of us sons had been dragged to watch regional and national Alpha Council meetings, functioning as bodyguards for our sisters as the unmated searched for their other half. “Did you put together what I asked for?”

“Yeah, and it’s got Mom worried. She doesn’t want you anywhere near the Alpha Killer, even if it is for your job. She thinks she’s more dangerous than a cornered rogue.”

“Come on, let’s get this over with.” He grinned as he got out, unconcerned with his nudity like all wolves on their home territory. He walked past our parents with just a kiss to Mom, while Dad was glaring down at me and Mom was waiting nervously. I stopped on the steps below them, bowing my head slightly in deference to their rank. “Father, Mother, it is good to be home.”

“Welcome home, my son,” my Dad said as he opened his arms. I stepped forward, embracing him then being pulled into a hug by my mother. Both buried their noses in my neck, letting my scent comfort their wolves after my absence. “Did you have a good drive?”

“Once out of the cities, yes, but that is always the case.”

“I don’t know how you can live among all those people and all those smells,” Mom told me. “It would drive me batty.”

I just laughed as she pulled me inside. “It just makes coming home so much better.”

“We’re meeting in my office,” Dad said in a tone that made it a command. “Your call has me worried.”

I followed my parents to the conference room next to their shared office. Waiting at the table were my oldest two brothers, Dusty and Dallas, the heirs to the Alpha and Beta positions. My father’s Beta, “Bear” Baldwin, was sitting to the right of my father while my mother sat to the left. Bobby had put on jeans and a shirt and was sitting on the other side of my brothers, while I ended up at the position at the end opposite my father, with the Delta, Frank Madison, to my left.

“What I am about to discuss involves an ongoing FBI and Dallas Police Department investigation, and the information cannot leave this room,” I said ominously.

“It will not be spoken of to anyone else,” my father said, the Alpha order coming out. “Why are you asking about the Alpha Killer?”

“Because she killed four people two nights ago in a Fort Worth hotel,” I said. “I traced her scent from the crime scene to a room on the floor below, but she was gone by the time I got there.”

My Dad relaxed. “That’s good, isn’t it? I mean, the Alpha Council has been unable to bring her to justice, perhaps the human authorities can. Convicting her of multiple homicide in Texas, where they still have the death penalty, is better than having her threatening us all.”

“The people she killed for the most part won’t be missed.” I filled them in on the basics of the case. “The Alpha Killer walked into a temporary whorehouse, took out the two humans running it, and left again with one of the sex slaves in tow. The question is why?”

Bear shifted uncomfortably. “Does it matter?”

“The way she ripped out the throat of a human who ran the operation convinces me this was very personal. I’ve been away at school and training, I’ve not been following Council affairs and I’m only aware that she is wanted. I took the surveillance photo you sent me and pulled it up on my phone, and one of the officers made a positive identification that the woman in the room was her. With her was another young woman, also with blonde hair, who she said was her sister. She was human, and retrieving her was the focus, but who is she?”

My father sank back in his chair. “The Alpha Killer’s real name is Talia Stillwater, but she doesn’t go by that name anymore. She was the elder female heir of the Tomah Pack Alphas in Wisconsin. In the course of a few hours, her younger sister Tania was kidnapped from her Pack and her parents were killed in a car crash while rushing back home. She was sixteen at the time, her sister fourteen.”

“Oh Luna… she found her sister in a whorehouse?” My mind was reeling; my wolf pushed forward, outraged that someone would do that to a werewolf, much less my mate’s sister. “No wonder she ripped his throat out with a shifted hand.”

“Her sister is still missing, there were no clues, no ransom, nothing. Her family searched for years, even now we get enquiries from her aunt and uncle, who are Alphas of the LaCrosse pack. Her Pack declared her dead a year after she disappeared.”

“Wait, she was the Alpha heir, why is it not her Pack?”

“That’s a longer story,” my mother said. “I can hear your heart racing, this is more than an investigation for you, isn’t it.”

I could never get anything past my Mom. Werewolf senses made it impossible to lie, especially to an Alpha. “When I got to the crime scene, I caught her scent in the parking lot. I must have missed her by minutes because it was still fresh.”

“She’s….” My mom’s hand went to her chest and tears started to fall.

“She’s my mate, Mom. I have to protect her, she’s MINE.”

My Dad leaned forward, his hands on the table. “There’s a multi-million-dollar reward, and she’s been sentenced to death by the Alpha Council. Now you tell us she’s responsible for the murder of four humans. You have to reject her, boy. She will destroy you if you let the bond form.”

“I can’t. I just can’t give her up.” I looked down at my hands as my Mom got up and rushed to my side.

What a shitshow my life had become.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Talia’s POV

Second night after her parent’s funeral

I couldn’t sleep. My mind would just not shut down and let me rest, it was like a ride that wouldn’t stop even when you got sick and begged for it to stop. My mind kept replaying things.

My family and friends had rallied around me, and we were all hurting from the events of the past week. The reaction to the Council’s edict, requiring me to be marked and eventually mated to Beta Todd, was mixed. For the adults like my grandparents and uncles, it was a pragmatic way to save the Pack and maintain my bloodline in the Alpha position. “We all have to make sacrifices for the greater good,” my Grandfather had told me after I left that meeting. “The Pack will be in an uproar without it and may not survive. Mating your Beta is not the worst outcome here. Having you killed and someone taking over is.”

“All we have to do is hold on for a few years! Give me a chance to search for my true mate, the man who is supposed to be by my side at the head of this Pack,” I begged.

“Your parents wanted that more than anything, but that won’t happen now. We have to play the hand we are dealt, not the hand we want.” He pulled me into a hug. “I spoke with the Council members before you did, I even tried to push for Grandma and I taking over, but we’re old and weak now. Putting me as Alpha makes the Pack vulnerable, and you could end up dead if the new Alpha sees you as a threat to his reign.”

“And what about Tania? Who is going to search for her if the Alpha is not willing to find her?” Grandma pulled me into her side. “It’s a hard lesson, but the Pack does come first, always. You will be marked, you have until you are eighteen before you are mated and a full Luna, but everyone will know that is your destiny. We will help you with the transition, I will teach you the things your mother was planning to show you as you became an adult. Now come on, we need to eat dinner, and we can’t insult the Council by being late.”

The dinner itself was an ordeal. Everyone talked around me, treating Todd like the Alpha while I was no more than decoration, a trophy for the winner to hoist. If I brought up concerns about Tania, they were brushed off by old men saying everything possible was being done, and I just had to be patient. Anytime something regarding my Pack came up, Todd would talk over me.

I’d had enough and excused myself before dessert was served. My best friends, Erica and Michelle, ran after me as I left. They could see I was about to explode and followed me onto the porch where I pulled off my clothes and shifted. I led them on a chase along the trails, ending at the beach area when my sister had disappeared from. I let out a long, mournful howl as my friends sat by me to lend me comfort. “I miss her so much,” I said.

Erica nudged me with his muzzle. “We all do, and we’re so sorry, Talia. We were all having such a good time and then she just wasn’t here. No one suspected anything until much later.”

“Something just isn’t right about her disappearance,” Michelle said. “She didn’t take clothes, a phone, not even a towel. We searched for ten minutes or so before we called Beta Todd, and there were no other scents around. She just got up and walked away, and the scent disappeared at the road.”

“Was she seeing anyone? Did she say anything to her friends?”

“Nothing, and we’ve been racking our brains to think of anything that could help.”

I showed them the meeting I had with the Council and the ultimatum I was given, and they were shaking with rage by the end. “Those bastards,” Michelle sent. “They expect you to give up your future to keep your title? What about what the Pack wants? I don’t want Todd as Alpha, I want you.”