Ex-Con Alpha

by Sky Winters

  © Copyright 2020 by Sky Winters- All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  Ex-Con Alpha:

  Alpha Meets Omega Dating App Series

  By: Sky Winters

  Click to Receive a Free Copy of NYC Vamps: The Prequel and join Sky Winters Newsletter

  Table of Contents

  Ex-Con Alpha: Alpha Meets Omega Dating App

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Other Books by Sky Winters

  About The Author

  Ex-Con Alpha: Alpha Meets Omega Dating App

  CHAPTER ONE

  Travis

  “You aren’t so powerful in here, are you, Alpha?” Rybeck snarled.

  “Look, I don’t want any trouble. I’m almost done here. I’ll be out of your hair in a matter of days,” Travis replied, disinterested.

  “Ya think? I think different. You were all badass on the outside, selling guns to whoever wanted them. You got my brother killed, and I aim to make sure you pay for that.”

  “I didn’t sell guns to the guy that killed your brother. Your pack is on the other side of the country,” Travis sighed, stabbing another tasteless piece of pasta covered in bright yellow cheese. It looked like it had been processed in a nuclear plant.

  “You think those guns don’t travel? You think they stay in your little shithole county?”

  Rybeck was standing over his table, trying to force a conflict, trying to goad him into throwing the first punch. Before he’d come here, he’d have put him down right then and there for that shit. Even in human form, Rybeck was scrawny. He had no doubt that his wolf looked more like a starving coyote than an Alpha predator. In here, though, there was no shifting. The warden saw to that.

  “Rybeck! Get the fuck back to your table or go to your cell,” a guard barked from behind them.

  “This conversation ain’t over, Alpha Bitch. You and I are going to dance. Only way you’re going out them gates is in the back of a hearse.”

  “Right. I’ll look forward to the sleep,” Travis snorted, taking another bite of his food.

  Rybeck slapped the fork out of his hand, sending it scattering across the floor and sending Travis to his feet to stare him down. He didn’t want a fight, but he sure as fuck wasn’t going to let this yapping poodle make him look weak. The guards were immediately on hand, pushing them apart.

  “Rybeck, I warned you,” the guard barked, cracking him across the head with his club.

  Travis put up his hands to either side, backing away to indicate he was non-combative. He could take a blow if he needed to, but why suffer if it wasn’t necessary?

  “Finish your lunch, Porter,” the guard snapped, pushing Rybeck ahead of him toward the exit. “Come on, Rybeck, lunch is over for you. We’re gonna toss you in solitary for a few days to cool you off.”

  “I’m not going to solitary,” Rybeck protested, attempting to land a punch on the guard, but his partner drove his stick in from the side, doubling him over with a howl. They chained him and dragged him out as he cursed and spat at them.

  Travis glanced around him. No one was looking. They all ate their food as if nothing was happening. That’s the way it was on the inside. You minded your business and hoped everyone else minded theirs, as well. Rybeck was an agitator. He let his anger rule him. Travis used to be quick-tempered himself, but he’d learned to control himself since arriving on gun smuggling charges five years ago. He’d been lucky only to get that, a great deal of what they could have charged him for being missed by the authorities.

  It was a small prison, hidden in a remote part of Montana. There were no visitors and no time off for good behavior. You kept your nose down, did your time, and you got out. You weren’t allowed visitors, and you didn’t get mail. They strapped on a device that made it impossible to shift and took it off when you left, hopefully a better human being.

  Travis finished lunch and returned to his cell with his block. He rarely spoke to the others. It was lonely, but it kept him out of trouble with different packs. He was the only one from his pack, so he had no one to keep his back in a fight. Travis was good with that, as it meant no one else had gone down with him, and he was scared of nothing—but he did miss the fresh air and running free. His goal inside wasn’t to be the strongest Alpha, but just to get back home.

  Luckily, that was the ambition of most of these guys. There were a few like Rybeck, but most of them steered clear of him. They had no beef with him and no interest in starting one. Rybeck, on the other hand, started shit with everyone, and he still had a good decade to go. If he kept it up, he’d be in there for a long time. He was a sexual predator, a rapist who’d attacked the wrong woman. He’s lucky he’d survived her father’s assault, spending months in traction only to be released to be put in prison without so much as a single day in court thanks to a backdoor deal the father made with some important friends.

  “Who’s the new guy?” someone whispered as they walked back to their cells.

  “No idea,” Travis replied, noting the new guard on the block.

  “Looks like a grade-one asshole,” the guy replied.

  Travis shrugged and stepped into his cell. He was out in three days. A new guard wasn’t his problem. He read until bedtime and then turned in, knowing it would be another night of restless sleep for him. It wasn’t like there was anything else to do but try to rest. Once lights out came, there was nothing else to do in the darkness of your cell. The amenities a lot of prisons possessed weren’t available, so there were no flashlights, no reading lamps. He was lucky even to have access to books via a donation program.

  “Travis! Up on your feet!”

  Travis blinked awake. Great. The first night he’d actually managed to drift off at a decent hour and they were stirring him for some impromptu search or some shit.

  “What is it?” he growled as two guards opened his cell door and stepped inside.

  “Come with us,” the one he knew as Hetfield barked.

  “Come with you where?” he protested.

  “Let’s go,” Hetfield replied, pushing him out the door without answering the question.

  Travis walked down the hall between the two of them, taking a side hallway he’d never been down and into a small room with nothing but a couple of chairs and a table, all bolted to the floor.

  “Have a seat,” the other guard told him, shoving him inside and closing the door from the other side.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Out processing. You’re being released tonight.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You got a complaint about going home a couple days early, Porter?” the guard snapped.

  “No. I’m
just surprised. That’s all. And in the middle of the night seems a little weird.”

  “Look, your buddy Rybeck. He’s got friends in here, and he’s bad news. He’s put a mark on your head. The warden would rather send you home a couple days shy of your run before he has to deal with something far worse.”

  “I’m not afraid of Rybeck or whoever he sends.”

  “We know, and the warden don’t want trouble. I don’t know why Rybeck’s got a hard-on for you, but he’s not going to let it go. You’ve been a model prisoner here, and the warden don’t want it to end badly for you. Call him an old softie.”

  A buzzer sounded behind them, and a man in a suit entered, going over some forms with him and giving him information on his probation officer. A tech came in and removed the bands that kept him from shifting. He was given the clothes he had come in with, his wallet, and an envelope containing his earnings from prison work he had completed.

  “Come on. The prison van will give you a lift into town.”

  Just like that, Travis was free. An hour later, he was standing at the bus station, booking a ticket for an out-of-the-way Alabama town to rejoin his pack. He was going home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kat

  “Come on, Mike. Let’s just go somewhere else,” Kat said, never taking her eyes off the two large bouncers at the door.

  “No, sis. I told you we were going out, and we are going out. Let us in, boys.”

  “You’re not coming in here. You’ve been banned,” one of them growled.

  “Just a misunderstanding. Come on, guys. You’re making me look bad in front of my sister,” Mike replied.

  “You’re not coming in. You’re banned,” the guard repeated.

  “Guys, it’s my sister’s twenty-first birthday. Would you deny her a proper birthday celebration?”

  “Your sister is welcome to come in, just not with you.”

  “Mike, enough. Let’s go,” Kat pleaded, pulling at his shirt sleeve.

  “Fine. There are better places in this town anyway,” Mike hissed toward the guards.

  He turned and followed Kat to the car and got in.

  “I’m sorry, Kat. They’re dicks.”

  “What did you do to get banned? Or do I want to know?”

  “Nothing. They just have no sense of humor.”

  “Right,” Kat replied, starting the car.

  Mike was always in trouble wherever they went. He’d been barred from more places than anyone she knew, and there seemed to be no end in sight. As kids, he’d been her protector, “Big Mike” Harmon to everyone that knew them. As an adult, not so much. He’d fallen in with the wrong people and lived his life between rounds of binge drinking and whatever the drug of choice might be that week or month.

  “Come on. We’ll go somewhere else. The night is young.”

  “No, Mike. I think I’ve had enough birthday fun. I’ll just take you back to the house so you can get your car and head home or out ... whatever.”

  “Don’t be like that now, Katerina.”

  Mike only used her full name when he was trying to charm her into doing things his way. It’s what their parents called her when she was little before everyone just shortened her name without asking if she wanted them to call her Kat. His charm was lost on her lately, though.

  “No. You need to get yourself together, Mike. I’m going to go home and have a nice pleasant birthday in front of the television like I should have done in the first place.”

  “Alright, fine. Well, I can at least join you for that, can’t I?” he asked, smiling broadly.

  Kat glanced over at him as she drove. There was something about his tone that told her it was as much for him as her. There was a reason he wanted to hang around her place, and she probably didn’t want to know what it was.

  “Sure, big brother. We’ll find something to watch, and you can crash on the sofa if you want, save you the drive home.”

  “Good times!” he beamed. “Hey, pull over here. I want to grab us some snacks.”

  “I’ve got snacks,” she told him.

  “Just pull over,” he insisted.

  “Fine.”

  Kat pulled into the low budget grocery store that sat on the edge of where pack lands began. It was called Wolf Garden Grocery, but most folks referred to it simply as GarGro. Like “Kat,” it was just another casualty of a society too busy to even use a full name for something or someone. She watched as Mike climbed out of the car and lumbered toward the store. He was a big guy, tall and stocky. It used to be all muscle, but the last year or so of drinking and drugging had softened him.

  Born into a different family, his life might be different. Their father was a Beta and their mother was an Omega. Mike and Kat were the same, meaning he was destined to a lower tier of society where Betas served whatever Alphas were in charge. She, of course, was in the lowest tier of Wolf society. As an Omega, she was intended to marry and have lots of babies for some Alpha who valued her ability to procreate and give him a large, powerful pack family over anything she might accomplish in her life.

  Her best hope was to marry well and at least find an Alpha who might actually love her. It could be a good life with the right partner, but most Omegas didn’t get a chance to choose their mate. They were bartered off like cattle to whoever might help move the family’s standing upward. She was lucky to have a father who was a Beta with no desire to trade his only daughter for prestige.

  Her brothers were also Betas, but all had accomplished remarkable things outside the pack. One was a doctor, two were lawyers, and three were in various high-powered financial positions in the city. Even Mike had made a success of himself as a prominent real estate broker in the human world before he had made bad decisions that landed him back in the pack.

  “Alright, we can go,” he said, returning to the car with a large bag in either hand.

  “Did you get enough?” she asked, noting how he tucked them under his legs out of her sight.

  “Hopefully,” he replied, offering nothing further.

  She started the car and headed toward home, Mike chatting amicably beside her about starting his own business in town rather than returning to the city. She knew the truth was that he couldn’t return to the city. He’d burned bridges there. It was unlikely that he’d find anyone willing to hire him or do business with him if he branched out on his own.

  “So, what do you think?” he asked finally.

  “About you starting a pod commune in the woods?”

  “Well, it sounds kind of stupid when you put it like that,” he said.

  “Ya think?”

  “Listen, you’ve not spent time in the city like I have, Sis. The people there are all stress and adrenaline. They need a place to relax.”

  “And you think they want to come out to some podunk village in the middle of nowhere to sleep in bubbles?”

  “Yes, I do. These things make a killing, and they are easy to build. Find a decent wooded lot and make separate little clearings in it for a half dozen or so of them and rent them out as vacation pods, writers retreats, glam camping ... they’ll pay for themselves in less than five years, and it’s all gravy after that.”

  “And how do you intend to get the money for this little endeavor of yours?”

  “Same way everyone does. Borrow it,” he laughed.

  “Good luck with that.”

  Kat didn’t want to be overly critical, but it sounded like a pipe dream for someone who didn’t have his shit together. Granted, Mike was once brilliant, but he wasn’t at his best now, and unless he got his house in order, there was no hope of him being successful at anything. Even if he managed to get it off the ground, the money would soon go to get drunk, high, or both.

  “Alright, let’s get this party started,” he said cheerfully as they pulled into the drive of the cottage on the edge of their parents’ property. When she had turned twenty-one, they had given it to her as a gift. It wasn’t very big, but it was cozy, and she had all the privacy in
the world with the grove of trees that surrounded the property.

  Once inside, she went to change out of her dress and heels she had donned for the club. She returned in a pair of gray leggings and an oversized pink hoodie, pulling her honey blonde hair up into a ponytail. Mike was busy pulling a frozen pizza from its box and putting it in the oven, alongside a pan of chicken fingers and garlic knots.

  “Happy birthday, Sis!” he cheered as she walked back into the room.

  On the counter sat two bottles of wine and a small confection box. Beside them was the miniature chocolate cake. On top, there was a single tealight candle. She laughed.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sorry about the candle. It was all they had in the store.”

  “It’s perfect.”

  “Listen. I’m really sorry about us not getting in the club. This isn’t how I planned to celebrate your birthday with you after missing like the last five or six.”

  “Eight, but who’s counting,” she told him.

  It was funny, but if not for the ten-year difference in their ages, Mike and she could pass for twins. They both had the same hair color and the kind of pale blue eyes that people were as likely to describe as unnatural as they were beautiful. Their only real difference was in size. Mike was tall and broad-shouldered, stocky. She, on the other hand, was thin and petite.

  “I’m sure you could do better than frozen pizza, but it was the best I could come up with on short notice.”

  “It’s perfect. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than hanging out with my big brother, whether that is at a club or watching one of the bad horror films you like.”

  “So, no Zombie Werewolf in Space then?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “Alright. I’ll pour us some wine, and you pick out something you’d like to watch, birthday girl.”

  Kat climbed onto the sofa and turned on the TV. Hopefully, there was something decent to stream. She flipped through the selections and finally found a dark comedy called Bartering in Baytown.