The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

I woke up to find Eve gone and the room bright with sun. I got up and walked down the hallway, knocking softly on Eve’s room. Kelly opened the door a moment later. “How is she?”

“Good, she ate and took her pills and went back to sleep,” she said. “Hopefully she’ll sleep until Meghan gets back here.” I thanked her for watching her for me and left to go get some lunch myself. The kitchen wasn’t always open for lunch, today it should have been for day care but I hadn’t been available. I was surprised when I went downstairs that the kitchen was open and food was coming out- BLT’s and fries from the look of it.

I pulled Terry aside, he was the noon meal prospect for serving. “Who’s in my kitchen?”

“New guy, Mitch. He’s pretty good,” he said before I let him take the food to the table. I thought about going back and checking on him, but I figured it would be better to just see what he has going. I sat at the table where Viper and Crash were finishing up their food and beers. “Everything going all right?”

“Good, Snake. If this guy decides to join, we’ve got our backup fry cook,” Viper said. I told Terry to get me a Coke and a lunch, and he put the order in before rushing over with my drink. “When Gabriel gets here, we’re holding church. I don’t like how that guy was able to get to Eve, we need to tighten security.”

I nodded, I thought the same. “If we can’t be sure she is safe to run there, she can’t go. That guy might have mated her if he’d been able to stop her from running.” The prospect of that scared the shit out of every guy who had seen Vivian after it happened to her.

“I’m locking her down to the clubhouse until we can get her to the Alpha Summit. I’ve already talked to Michael, he’s keeping six people inside the gate and another four on patrol, day and night. Add in us, and the alarms and physical protections, and we should be good.” Viper wasn’t kidding around now. She’d always been restricted to the clubhouse property unless she had a large escort, but even that wouldn’t happen now. I was hoping she wouldn’t flip her shit about the new rules, maybe the close call would help drive home the need for security. I just hoped she would find her mate at the Summit, she would be happy about it, and she could have a good life with him.

“Meghan texted and said they’d be here about four. We’ll give them a chance to shower and eat, Church at seven tonight for both Clubs,” Viper said. “Spread the word.”

We talked about other stuff as my food came out. Mitch wasn’t chef grade, but he was a good cook. If he stayed away from my daughter and pitched in, I could see him fitting in here.

Mitch’s POV

Two Days Later

I was out all morning, checking out apartments near Century College here in White Bear Lake. I had enrolled before I left Bethesda Naval Hospital, because it was near Donut and the club he wanted me to prospect with. I was about halfway done with their two-year program to get an associate’s degree in Law Enforcement, having started by correspondence course while still in the Marines. It also would give me what I needed to pass the licensing exam. With my disability benefits and the GI Bill, I wouldn’t have to go in debt or work while I was getting my degree. Still, I didn’t want to dip into my savings to buy a car. I was hoping to be close enough to walk or take a short bus ride so I could survive without one.

I knew what winters were like here, they were long and could be brutally cold at times. I’d grown up in Lake City, a small tourist town on the Mississippi about fifty miles to the southeast. It was a good place to grow up, but I didn’t have the best upbringing. My father was a drunk who beat my Mom and occasionally me; when he was killed in a single-car accident, driving off the road into a ravine when he fell asleep, I felt nothing for him. I loved my Mom, but she died of breast cancer while I was in the Marines. I had no desire to go back there, the memories were painful.

The apartment complexes were a bit spendy, but I found a guy who had a mother-in-law apartment in his basement he was willing to rent. I had filled out all the paperwork and given him a deposit, I was just waiting for everything to be processed and get the go-ahead to move in. He expected that in two weeks, so that was how long I told Viper I needed to stay here. “You’re welcome to stay until you get your place,” he said, “But I’d like you to help Snake out in the kitchen, cover for him when he’s busy. He can use the break,” he said.

That was all fine with me, it gave me a chance to get to know Eve. After I carried her into her room, I didn’t hear or see her the rest of that day or the next. I could hear people, mostly Snake and Kelly, going in and out of her room. The second day, I saw a woman I didn’t recognize coming out. She had scrubs on, and filled them out well, she looked to be about thirty. “Hey, is she doing all right?”

“Eve will be fine, uh…”

“Mitch. Mitch Miller, I’m staying here until I can find a place. I just got out of the Marines.”

“Oh, you’re the one Donut told me about! I’m Doctor Meghan Jenkins, I’m the Club Doctor. How are you feeling? Any lasting issues from your treatment?”

“No, it’s going fine, I’m just having to work to gain the muscle back after losing so much weight.”

“Well, if you join the club, I’ll need to give you a physical and verify for myself you are doing all right. I don’t trust the VA bureaucrats when it comes to disability claims, so I can help you with those if you run into problems.” She shook my hand, I heard someone coming up the stairs. “Nice to meet you, Mitchell.”

“You too, Doc. Is Eve awake? I wanted to say hi.”

“She’s resting, and if you know what is good for you, you’ll leave her alone. Eve is special, she’s not some kid you can seduce and abandon.”

“So I’ve heard, I’ve seen ambassadors with less protection than her.”

A voice from behind me cut in. “And most of it is to protect her from guys like you, Mitch.” Doc moved past me as Hammer gave her a quick hug, then he parked himself in front of Eve’s door. “I know I’m not the first to threaten you, even Donut tried to help you out. You need to forget about her and find some biker chick or floozy to get your nut off. This is your last warning, quit sniffing around her or you’re gone.”

“Understood.” I smirked as I thought back to that conversation; it was one of those things where you knew the right thing to do but couldn’t do it. Every bit of logic and instinct told me to let her be, but there was something about her, something I just HAD to have in my life. I’d just have to be smart about how I did it.

Last night I had gotten a text from her signed, “Little Miss Troublemaker.” I called her back, and we talked into the night. I kept things light, asking her about her art, her college plans, the movies she liked to watch. She spent time learning about me; my time growing up, why I entered the Marines, even what it was like to be a sniper. “Did you kill anyone?”

“Yes, but they needed killing,” I told her as I laid back in bed, my eyes closed as I focused on her voice.

“What was it like?”

I thought about how I could break it to her, most women, they wanted to think you regretted it, that you weren’t some crazed killer. I couldn’t lie to her, though. “I didn’t think much about it while it was happening, really. Your training takes over; you focus on the aim point, your breathing, the trigger pull. When the shot was fired, I was watching the trail of the bullet through the scope for the second and a half it took to get there. I watched it hit, watched the blood spray behind him, watched him drop to the ground like a switch was turned off.”

“That sounds horrible, it must give you nightmares.”

“No, it felt good. It validated everything I had spent years preparing for, training for; when it came time to do it, I did it right. One shot, one kill.” I let out a breath. “The people I killed, they weren’t good people. I made things safer for the people there, I saved lives of my fellow Marines.”

“So if you liked it, if you were good at it, why did you leave the Marines?”

“I was medically discharged… I had cancer. Testicular cancer.”

“Oh no…”

“I’m in remission, they tell me I have a good prognosis, but I was discharged with a service-related disability.”

“That sucks. Are you ok with being out?”

“No, I miss it already. My best buddies are still there, most of them. I miss the camaraderie, the shared goals. That’s one reason I want to join a club, to get some of that feeling again.”

She laughed a little. “These guys are like that, half of them have been with the club more than twenty years,” she said. “Growing up, it was like I had two dozen Dads and a dozen Moms. Everyone was watching out for me, making sure I wasn’t hurt, keeping me from doing anything wrong.”

“Seems like nothing has changed.”

She snorted, laughing into the phone as I smiled. “You have no idea.”

“Why so much security? Are you really in that much danger?”

“So they tell me. I’m worth a lot, apparently, there’s a price on my head and a bunch of people who would kidnap me in a second if they had the chance. The guys, especially the Knights, they are my security.”

“They don’t let you do much, do they?”

“Nope, and after I got hurt this week, I’ve been put on lockdown. I can’t leave the clubhouse grounds at all.”Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

I sighed loudly. “That really sucks,” I said. “I was hoping you might want to go do something, get out for a while, maybe catch a movie or something.”

“Are you asking me out?” She giggled a little.

“Hell no, if your Dad found out he’d have my ass. I’m just trying to cheer you up a little, I figure those wounds will have you laid up for a few weeks. They looked pretty bad.”

She yawned. “I’m tired, Mitchell. Can we talk tomorrow?”

“I’d love to.”

“Goodnight, Mitch.”

“Goodnight, my beautiful troublemaker.” I ended the call and laid back in bed, a smile on my face as I drifted to sleep.