The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

The traffic was heavy, the tourism in summer on the North Shore was in full swing. Our motorcycle blended right in, a lot of clubs did rides up here to get away from the heat and humidity of the city. If the wind was off the still-cold Lake Superior, it could be in the fifties. Switch the wind and you’re in the nineties. We had to stop to add or remove clothes a few times before we stopped for the night in Silver Bay. We were lucky to find a vacancy at a resort off the lake, they had cozy little cabins tucked into the woods. We went into town for dinner, did a little exploring with each other, then went to sleep. I wanted to get an early start.

I directed him to the Pack lands as we drove on the near-empty two-lane roads inland. I loved the smells up here, the pine and birch forests, the creeks and waterfalls, the lakes. It took an hour to get to the turnoff, and the road was blocked with a gate and a NO TRESSPASSING- PRIVATE PROPERTY sign. Mitch parked the bike out of sight from the road, and we looked at the overgrown trail. “I don’t think anyone has been here in years,” he said.

I scented the air, I detected nothing except rabbits and deer. “Would you mind if I shift?”

“Not at all, I’d like to see you naked. And your wolf.”

“Pervert,” I said as I pulled my boots off. He took the backpack and folded my stuff, putting it inside then on his back. I shifted into my wolf, shaking out my fur before I rubbed my scent onto his legs. He scratched my ears and knelt down in front of me as I put my muzzle on his shoulder, licking his neck.

“You’re so beautiful, it takes my breath away,” he said. I licked him again, then took off through the woods, going through the fencing where a downed tree had knocked it down. I ran around, sniffing and having fun, making sure not to get too far ahead of him. It took us almost two hours to walk to the clearing where the Pack House and buildings had been.

I stopped and shifted, dropping to my knees as tears rolled from my eyes. The place I had seen in the pictures was gone; the main house had burned to the ground, the foundation walls and basement covered with debris, vines and shrubs. I looked across to where the Pack Clinic was, the place my birth mother Jessica had learned about medicine, where my adoptive mother Vivian had worked as a contract doctor. I was sobbing hard as Mitch pulled me back into his arms, he held me until the tears had stopped.

He handed me clothes, and I quickly dressed. I started walking through the destruction, holding on to his hand with a death grip and I described what I remembered from Mom’s photos. We moved through the tall grass towards a group of houses in the back, and I stopped at the second one from the left. The walls had collapsed, some of the roof pieces hadn’t burned completely. I picked my way in, hoping that there was something left from my family after almost a quarter century of being abandoned. Mitch helped me move the roof section aside, and as I dug through the piles underneath my eyes came across a small jewelry box.

I was shaking as I opened it. Inside, a necklace sat, a heart-shaped locket at the bottom. I held it in my fingers, finding the catch, and gasped as it opened. I recognized my grandmother, my grandfather, and a baby who was my own mother in the tiny picture. I closed the locket and was still shaking as Mitch put it around my neck. “What happened to them?”

“When the curse started, women became valuable. It didn’t matter they were all dying, they had the chance to deliver heirs, to be the one who escaped the curse. A stronger Pack attacked ours, and killed all the men and boys. The women were carted off to be force mated.” I looked around at the destruction. “They probably burned the houses to hide the evidence and get rid of the bodies,” I said.

He pulled me to his chest as I sobbed against him. I took a deep breath, something was… wolf… it wasn’t a rogue, he smelled clean. Hell, he smelled great. I looked over at the edge of the woods where a big grey and black wolf with white streaks was staring at me. I felt my heart lurch as his mouth opened, before he let out a mournful howl and ran off. I could hear the thunder of paws approaching, something was wrong. “We have to get out of here,” I told Mitch.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Shift and run,” he told me as he tossed his keys on the ground. “Get back to my motorcycle and take off. I’ll make my way back, you pick me up in three hours.”

I didn’t want to, but I had to. The only way to avoid the Pack coming my way was to run myself. I pulled off my clothes. “Stay safe,” I said before I kissed him and shifted, grabbing the keys before running off towards the road.

Snake’s POV

I looked around at the clubhouse, so proud of my club and how we had rallied. Outside the gates, the fire had been put out in the SUV they had tried to drive Eve away in. We had collected all the dead, stuffing them in the back of a cargo van in the shop for now until they could be disposed of. Everyone involved in the fight or cleanup had showered and changed, and a front came through bringing torrential rains and cooler temperatures, washing any blood away in the parking lots.

We just might get out of this unscathed, I thought.

Donuts was still out there with the White Bear Lake police, planting the idea it was a stolen car some gangbangers had taken from Colorado to Minnesota with a load of weed. To back that up, I had my resident computer whiz member, Mitch, file a stolen vehicle report in Colorado dated yesterday. There wasn’t much left of the vehicle, the glass had all blown out and it was completely gutted by the firebomb.

Upstairs, Meghan was still patching people up. Viper was cranky as he waited on a cot outside the room, his foot bandaged and elevated. Down the hall, Crash was lying in a cot with a bandage on his arm and an IV. “Michael still in there,” I asked.

“Yeah, he was in bad shape. Meghan said I could wait.”

Kelly was in a chair next to him. “She said he caught a ricochet in the foot, she’ll remove it after Michael and Crash are done. Crash will be fine, he took a through-and-through to his upper arm.”

“Good.” I patted Viper’s shoulder and gave Kelly a hug before I went back downstairs. Everyone was finished with the fast cleanup, we couldn’t do more until the cops left. “Anything new on Eve?”

“No,” one of the Knights said. “We followed her trail to an alley about eight blocks away where it disappeared. She must have gotten in a vehicle. It wasn’t them, we’re pretty sure. We tracked the two wolves that chased her as they searched for her after she disappeared, then they took off.”

I was happy she had gotten away, but terrified of what may be going on with her now. A thought came to mind. “Hey, who took out the car Eve was in?”

A bunch of people looked around at each other. “We didn’t fire on it,” Shakes finally said. “Too risky with Eve in the back.”

Moose thought for a minute. “The driver was shot through the side window, not from the back,” he said. “Plus, the Alpha and Beta were shot before we even got our rifles out. It wasn’t us.”

“Mitchell. It had to be him,” Tiny said. With Viper injured, he was in charge now. He read the text, the warning text Mitchell had sent Donut before the attack. “He must have been here and set up a hide. Moose, take a Knight and sniff around out there, figure out where he was. I’m going to have Donuts stop by his house, maybe he took her there.” Moose left with two men, and Tiny pulled out his phone. Donuts responded right away, he told us he was done out there and would get his car and drive over to his apartment.

“Rocket, take the two prospects,” he pointed at Chewie and Tony. “As soon as the cops leave, drive the van with the bodies out to our property in Wisconsin. Leave it there and drive back with them,” he said.

“What about Gabriel?” He was on his way, he had left Chicago with his men as soon as word of the attack got out.

“He’ll be here in a few hours, but I’ve texted him our plan. He’s going to leave some of his men at the property to take care of the bodies. Four of them are his men, after all. Rocket, you’ll have to pull into the loading dock of their building to get the other two.”

“I hope they leave soon, that van isn’t going to smell good,” Rocket said.

“Good reason for you to not get caught. Don’t speed, don’t be stupid. Prospects, if he’s getting pulled over you do something to get them to chase you instead, got it?” They nodded.

“Snake, you, Shakes and Mitch start doing what you can to find out where Eve went. Hack traffic cams, check their phones, whatever you need.”

I nodded. “I think her phone is still in her bag in the car outside, I’ll get it,” I said.

“I’ll get it, you get your skinny fry-cook ass in the kitchen and make us breakfast,” he ordered. “We’re hungry.”

I just nodded, at least cooking would give me something to do other than lose my mind. “OK, for everyone else, we don’t need any attention drawn to us, so it’s business as usual.” There was some nervous laughter at this. “Well, as usual as we can make it seem, except the whole picking up spent brass and making sure the bloodstains are gone thing. Send the kids to school, go to work. When we know where Eve is, we’ll let everyone know.”

I went back into the kitchen, turning on the grill as I prepped something fast. Twenty minutes later, I had eggs, bacon, and French toast flying out of the kitchen to the grateful crowd. I finished breakfast myself before wiping things down and going back out. “Any word?”

“We found his sniper hide, it’s definitely Mitchell who did the shooting,” Tiny said. “He used over a magazine from his AR-15, and he isn’t going to miss many. I’m sure he’s the one who took out the Alpha, he waited until she was out of the line of fire, then took them both out. They’re boxing up his gear and bringing it back.”

“What about his apartment?”

“Empty, neighbor said he heard him come and go well before sunrise. Said a girl was with him.” I let out a breath, at least she was with someone on our side, even if he did look at her like he wanted to bang her on the table in front of us. “Oh, and Snake? Moose said from the looks of his hide, he’s been watching the clubhouse for weeks.”

I was up to a rolling boil now. “The little fuck, spying on us like that?”

“Probably trying to see Eve coming out of the shower or something, since you don’t let her out of her room when he’s here,” Tiny said. I wanted to punch him just for suggesting that, but then I looked at Tiny and my sane side prevailed.