Bad Boy Alphas

by Alexis Davie

  “I can’t believe you,” she muttered through her chuckles. “I can’t believe you’d go with that.”

  “Well, what can I say? I’m a simple werewolf with simple tastes.” Keppler shrugged his shoulders, earning another chuckle from her.

  Nina leaned her elbow on the table and rested her cheek on her fist, a smile lingering on her lips. Her eyes were still sharp and alert, the way they had been since Keppler had first met her almost three weeks ago, but they were also starting to soften around the edges. She had begun to smile a lot more these last couple of days, too. She hadn’t told Keppler much about herself yet, but that didn’t matter. To him, it still felt like he was getting to know her better, like the walls she had built around herself were slowly, agonizingly so, starting to break down—little by little.

  Her other hand had left the fork she had been using to eat, and Keppler found one of his hands reaching towards hers across the table.

  For a moment, he nearly pulled away, remembering the rejection from the first—and only—time he’d tried to do such a thing. He didn’t want to make Nina feel like he was pushing her boundaries, or like he was forcing her to let him do it because he was helping her. God, no—

  His fingers touched Nina’s, only slightly, a touch that was barely there. Nina’s hand tensed underneath his, but she didn’t pull back. She glanced down at the point of contact between them, and he did the same. When she took a deep breath to let it out in a long, quiet sigh, Keppler could almost feel warmth spreading through her, spreading from her through him, spreading from him through her…

  When he tore his eyes away from their hands to look at Nina, he found her staring back at him.

  He had never seen that openness in her eyes, that vulnerability, that desperate cry for help that—even now—she kept trying to bury behind a cold gaze.

  “Would you like to stay here with us?”

  It wasn’t until he saw Nina’s widened eyes and locked jaw that Keppler realized what he had said.

  He hadn’t meant to say that. Well, he had, but he had told himself that he wasn’t going to say it. He had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t ask her unless she specifically stated that she didn’t want to leave Evergreen Grove.

  Isn’t that what you just saw in her eyes? he asked himself.

  Nina said nothing. She stared at him with an unreadable expression on her face and her body frozen in place, like a statue. She stood up from her chair and mumbled, “I have to go,” and then she practically ran out of the dining hall.

  6

  Nina closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the trunk of the tree, Keppler’s voice echoing through her mind.

  Would you like to stay here with us?

  When she’d heard him ask her that, the words had sounded long overdue, like he had been meaning to say them out loud for a while and just hadn’t had the opportunity to do so. Part of her felt like she should’ve seen it coming, but the other part scolded her for even thinking such ridiculousness. She should have never expected anyone to ask her that, no matter how kind and sweet and funny Keppler—

  Nina took a deep breath. No matter how kind someone seemed to be towards her, she should have never expected anyone to ask her to stay. At all.

  The part of her that felt like she should’ve seen Keppler’s question coming was the same part of Nina that had wanted him to ask her that—ever since he had tried to take her hand and she had instinctively jumped away.

  “Do you mind some company?”

  Nina wasn’t as startled as she should’ve been by Keppler’s voice. She kept her eyes closed, hearing as he sat down next to her on the ground. In hindsight, perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised that he knew where she was—she had probably mentioned in an offhand comment the fact that she liked being in the woods because it made her feel somewhat peaceful.

  Keppler didn’t speak. He didn’t ask if she was still planning on leaving Evergreen Grove, which was good, since Nina herself didn’t know anymore.

  She had been sitting cross-legged on the ground, but now she sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, pulling them in towards herself. She opened her eyes and stared at the night sky above them.

  “I wasn’t always alone,” Nina began. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Keppler, who seemed to always be able to understand her somehow, drawing slightly closer to her. “I used to have a family, a pack. I had parents and three older siblings, one sister and two brothers. I keep a picture of all of us in my backpack with their names written on the back, because I’ve forgotten what they sounded like and I don’t want to forget anything else about them.”

  The words she hadn’t dared to speak out loud, the words she hadn’t even dared to think in the last ten years, came tumbling out of her mouth, as though they had been kept in a dam that wasn’t just leaking, it was flooding.

  “There was another pack in our town, and there had always been a truce between us,” Nina continued. “I guess that’s why no one saw it coming. One day, everything was right between both of our packs, and the next one, they had come onto our turf, looking for a fight with our alpha. They were… there were so many more of them than us. They were so much stronger than us; most of us were too young to have even learned how to defend ourselves from other werewolves at that point. We shouldn’t have had to know, because we were allies, and even if we hadn’t been, they had no reason to attack us, to destroy us, and they still did—”

  Her voice caught in her throat as images she had buried deep within herself rushed to the front of her mind. She saw the little children in her pack, who had been no more than cubs when they shifted with the full moon. She saw their parents desperately struggling between shifting to protect them and shifting to fight against the attackers. She saw her own parents and her own siblings urging her to shift, telling her to escape, screaming, “Go, Nina, run! Get out of here!”

  Keppler’s hand wrapped around hers, his grip strong and yet gentle, and it anchored her back to reality just before she lost herself in her memories.

  “I was thirteen when I saw my family and my pack killed in front of me. That was ten years ago,” Nina went on, forcing herself to breathe through it, “and I’ve been on my own ever since.” She leaned her head against his shoulder, blinking back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, biting her wobbling lip.

  “I’m so sorry,” Keppler murmured, sounding like he might cry himself. “I’m so sorry that you had to go through that, that there was no one there to help you, that I—” He stopped before he finished that sentence, but Nina thought she could hear what he had wanted to say.

  I’m so sorry that I didn’t find you sooner.

  Keppler rested his head on top of hers, and rather than feel like she was going to break apart, she felt like all of her pieces were pulling themselves together.

  Nina had never felt so safe with anyone else. She had never felt so… drawn to someone the way she felt drawn to Keppler. Not that she had anyone else to compare the feeling to, but she wanted to be with him, she wanted to be close to him, and at the same time, there was a part of her that wanted to run away in the other direction and never see him again. His kind, their kind, had caused Nina nothing but pain and sorrow. They had made her life a living hell for the last ten years, and yet Keppler—and, though she hadn’t interacted much with the rest of his pack, she knew this to be true of them as well—was not like the werewolves who had taken away everything and everyone she had ever loved. He would never hurt her.

  God, when had Nina gone so soft?

  You always were, a treacherous voice whispered in her head. You just forced yourself not to be. You had to be hard in order to survive.

  But she didn’t have to survive anymore. She didn’t have to be alone anymore.

  “I meant it,” Keppler mumbled softly, his fingers tightening around hers. “When I asked if you’d like to stay in Evergreen Grove with us and be part of our pack.”

  “Would your pack be okay with that?” she aske
d, unable to keep the uneasiness and doubt out of her voice. “I’m an outsider.”

  Keppler smiled. “They’ll be okay with it,” he assured her. “Most of them already are, actually. They thought you looked pretty intimidating during the meeting last week, and a few wanted to know if you were going to join us.”

  Nina shut her eyes to stop her unshed tears from falling. She had spent her entire life mistrusting werewolves, running away from them, hating them for what they had done to her. These werewolves, who had never talked to her, who had only heard about her through Keppler… they were all ready to accept her as one of them. They were ready to receive her with open arms.

  Nina recalled how upset she had been the first night she had spent in Evergreen Grove, how much she had chided herself for staying instead of leaving like she ought to have done. If only the Nina she had been three weeks ago could see her now—if only she could see that she had made the right choice.

  “I’d love to stay,” she said, looking up at Keppler as she felt the weight of the world fall from her shoulders all at once. His eyes were bright with ecstatic disbelief, as if he couldn’t quite believe what she was saying, although the corners of his mouth were turning up in a grin.

  “Really?” he asked in a whisper. “You’ll really stay?”

  Instead of repeating her answer, Nina grabbed his head and kissed him.

  The moment her lips met his, she felt like she had woken up from a deep slumber, like she had been asleep her entire life and she was now finally awake, like she had been dead along with her family and Keppler had brought her back to life. Warmth spread from her chest, engulfing her in a fire that coursed through her body, as Keppler’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her to his chest and kissing her back with such passion that it made her toes curl and her skin tingle. Too bad he had shaved his stubble.

  Nina fell back against the ground, pulling Keppler on top of her. His mouth was sweet and damp and hot on hers, and Nina gasped into the kiss, her lips parting beneath his to allow his tongue to enter her mouth and drag a breathless moan out of her. Her hands let go of his head so that she could reach for the hem of his shirt, trying to pull it off him as Keppler’s hands did the same with her blouse.

  “This would be much easier,” he murmured against her lips, “if only I could stop kissing you.” He didn’t stop kissing her though, and as much as she hated being the one to break away from him, Nina didn’t want their clothes standing in their way, so she pulled apart with a soft chuckle. She nearly clawed at his shirt, at his pants, wanting to feel his skin against hers, and he laughed at her eagerness, his own fingers pulling her blouse and pants off her body.

  Once Nina was down to only her panties, Keppler leaned down to kiss her again, and Nina moaned once more when his erection pressed against her crotch through only one thin layer of fabric between them.

  “Please,” she groaned, not even knowing what she was asking of him. She just wanted him. She wanted more of him.

  Her fingers grasped the black curls on top of his head, as he softly grabbed her head and tilted it upwards, leaving a trail of kisses from her jaw down to her neck, down to her throat, down to her collarbone, down her bare chest. Nina took a sharp breath when Keppler bent to kiss her breasts, sucking first one of her hard nipples into his mouth and then the other one before giving them a teasing lick of his tongue, huffing out a chuckle that sent goosebumps through the rest of her body.

  Keppler continued his trail of kisses down past her navel until his breath was ghosting over her panties, and Nina writhed underneath him, desperate for more of his touch. His hands held her thighs apart so that he could fit better between her legs, and then he was licking at her center through the thin fabric of her underwear, causing Nina to buck her hips into his mouth.

  “Oh, my god,” she gasped, her chest heaving as Keppler pulled down her panties and began to tease her wet core. Nina used her grip on his head to push him closer, and Keppler let out a passionate groan before he dove deeper inside of her, bringing her closer to her climax with each stroke of his slick tongue.

  Heat coiled in her belly, rapidly mounting the more Keppler kept working at her center, licking and sucking on her skin like he was addicted to the taste of her, like he was addicted to her pleasure, and Nina held his head in place, as she bucked her hips upwards against his mouth. Keppler growled into her hot, open core, and her escalating passion reached its peak.

  Nina’s entire body tensed for a second, her breath catching on her throat before she climaxed into Keppler’s mouth, crying out his name.

  Afterward, and for only a moment, she felt like she was boneless, completely spent as Keppler pushed himself up to kiss her lips, letting her taste herself off him. Nina groaned into the kiss, her fingers moving from his curls to the nape of his neck, tenderly gripping his flesh.

  “I want you,” she whispered, her voice raspy and breathless. “I want you inside me, Keppler, please…”

  “Yeah,” Keppler mumbled, his mouth brushing hers. One of his hands still held one of her thighs, but she couldn’t see where his other hand was until she felt his erection against her center. He wasn’t pushing into her, not yet—he was rubbing his hard, thick shaft against her flesh, as if to prepare her, but all Nina wanted was for him to be inside of her now.

  “Keppler—” she started to say. Before she could say anything else, Keppler pushed his throbbing member into her core, and he was inside her in one fluid motion, causing her to cry out in pleasure.

  Keppler moved the hand he’d had on Nina’s thigh to her leg so that he could lift it a little in order to thrust deeper into her with the next drag and push of his hips. Nina saw his other hand coming to rest against her head on the ground, and then Keppler was covering her entire vision, his eyes bright—even in the darkness of the night, his black curls giving him the appearance of a god.

  And he was Nina’s. He was Nina’s as much as she was his.

  He used his grip to pull his hips back and then push himself harder inside of her, the head of his member dragging against the spot inside of Nina that made her lightheaded, that made her dizzy with pleasure and her mind hazy with lust and passion, the spot inside of her that had her gasping for air and mouthing Keppler’s name, as he brought her to her climax again, her fingers tightening on the back of his neck.

  “Together,” Nina moaned, her other leg wrapping around his waist to pull him impossibly closer.

  “Together,” Keppler groaned, and then he closed his eyes and leaned down to kiss her mouth like he wanted to devour her and steal the very breath from her as his hips snapped harder and faster against her, the sound of slapping skin echoing in the silence of the night.

  It took only one, two, three more thrusts of his member for Keppler to release his seed inside of Nina’s center with a choked-off gasp, his eyes still screwed shut in ecstasy and his mouth parted around a quiet cry. It only took Nina that last thrust of his hips and the expression on his face and the sound he had made for her to clench around him and scream, as she climaxed a second time.

  They both lay in each other’s arms, gasping for breath, as their chests heaved in unison. Keppler softly pulled out of her, both of them hissing with the delicious pain of oversensitivity. Nina didn’t wait for them to completely recover before she pushed her mouth against Keppler’s, kissing him hard, deep, and dirty, sucking on his tongue in a way that made his now soft member twitch against her hip.

  “Was that enough answer for you?” she mumbled.

  Keppler burst into laughter, his arms wrapping around her back to pull their bodies together from head to toe, and Nina’s arms encircled his waist.

  “It was,” he replied, his chin resting on top of her head. Then he nudged her head until she looked up at him, and she was surprised at the seriousness in his expression. “And as long as you’re here, Nina Novak, as long as you’re a member of my pack, I swear that no harm will come to you or those you love if I can help it. I swear that I will do everything in
my power so that you won’t have to go through what you already have again.”

  Nina buried her face on Keppler’s chest and hugged him to her as tightly as she possibly could. She started crying, and then she started laughing, and Keppler held her through it all, whispering promises of love and devotion into her ear while he rubbed soothing circles on her back.

  In the last ten years, no forest had ever felt like a place where she truly belonged. Close, but not quite. Now, in the woods of Evergreen Grove, wrapped in the safe embrace of Keppler’s arms, Nina finally felt like she was home.

  * * *

  THE END

  Royal Dragons

  Books One & Two

  Book One: Forbidden Mate

  1

  Nyle’s eyes stared directly above him, tracing the swirls and vines of the detailed painting that adorned the dome ceiling. Perhaps it had been the thousandth time in his life that he had sat in that very seat and gazed at the metallic gold artwork, his mind always questioning how an artist had been able to keep such a steady hand while being so high up. Then again, maybe it wasn’t as perfect as it looked, and it only looked flawless because the painting was so high up from where he sat.

  “Nylyrias, are you even listening to your father?” his mother, Asalei, called over to him. She had never been the best at masking her frustration, her tone pinched with annoyance.

  With his Italian shoes still kicked up onto the Macassar ebony table, he rolled his eyes in the direction of his parents. His father sat at the head of the table, just a few seats down from Nyle.

  Nyle raised a platinum white brow. “I thought it was evident that I wasn’t.”

  “Don’t be a smartass, Nylyrias. This is serious,” Thalydias scorned, his eyes narrowed at his son.

  “How many times have we had this talk?” Nyle retorted.