Risky Bargains

by J. C. Diem

  “Where were you?” Liam asked. He and Nick both loped over to give me a hug. I submitted to it, knowing they’d been worried when they’d found out that I was gone.

  “I’ll fill you all in, but I want to know how he got into my enclosure first,” I said and pointed at Heath. “I left because of him. Emma took Yas and me to safety.”

  The alpha frowned in confusion. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “I was in my enclosure the whole time.”

  “That’s bull,” Yas said, glaring at him accusingly. “Your scent is in Alex’s pen and you did this to me!” She gestured angrily at the slashes in her suit.

  “Let’s all calm down,” Agent Steel said when Heath took a threatening step towards the vampire. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for all this. Get cleaned up and we’ll discuss it over breakfast like civilized beings.”

  It was a relief to have Mark here. None of us were about to argue with him, since he was the voice of authority on our team. We filed upstairs and entered our bedrooms to take showers. Emma stood guard while I washed away the grime from sleeping on the ground.

  My stomach was rumbling when I returned to the dining room. Yas waved away the offer of blood. “I’m full,” she said to Syd, since it was her turn to feed the vampire. “Alex fed me well while we were squatting in the bear’s den.” I didn’t need to drink blood after the full moon, since I ate raw, bloody animals when I shifted.

  “Is that the same den where you took Jax?” Nick asked as we piled food onto our plates.

  “Yeah,” I replied and saw Heath’s expression turn jealous at that news. “I don’t remember anything, of course, but Emma must have taken us there.”

  “I’ve searched the footage, but whatever happened between you two wasn’t caught on any of the cameras,” Mark said. “If Agent Franko managed to get out of his enclosure and into yours, there must be a fault in the fences. I’ll have them checked and repaired.”

  “Why would you break into Alex’s pen?” Brynn asked the rookie in a slightly hostile tone.

  “I’m an alpha,” Franko reminded her snottily. “She probably defied me and I was going to use my power to make her submit to my authority.”

  Liam and Nick rolled their eyes in tandem. “You have no authority over us,” Liam said. “This territory belongs to our parents. We’re part of their pack, not yours.”

  “Try explaining that to my werewolf, boss,” Franko retorted. “The supreme alphas are never here anymore. My werewolf would have seen this as prime land. It’s only natural for me to assume control of the area and of the only available female werewolf.”

  “Which is why you shouldn’t even be on our team,” Nick said with a pointed look at Mark. “He doesn’t belong here,” he added, directing the comment at Agent Steel. “He’s a bad fit and none of us want him on the squad.”

  We all nodded in agreement, but Mark calmly kept eating. “Give Agent Franko time to settle in,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll all learn to get along eventually.”

  My stomach fell at his apparent unconcern that the alpha was trying to take control of us all. Heath had broken into my enclosure and God only knew what he’d intended to do to me.

  Agent Steel left shortly after breakfast, leaving us with a smug alpha who clearly thought he could get away with anything. He hadn’t been reprimanded for any of the things Liam had told Mark about. He’d already been a trial, but we all knew he would now become downright insufferable.

  Chapter Thirty

  JUST AS I’D FIGURED, Franko believed he could do and say whatever he wanted to now. He strutted around as if he owned the place, belittling Liam and mocking Nick. The alpha treated Syd and Brynn like his underlings, giving them orders, which they ignored. Crowmon was apparently beneath his notice, which amused the jester to no end. Yasmine was his sworn enemy and he exchanged vitriolic comments with her constantly. He hated Emma with a passion as well. I was the only one who escaped from his vile treatment. Instead, the alpha hole was now trying to seduce me.

  I avoided the rookie as best I could for the first few days after the full moon. It became impossible when I woke up earlier than usual and opened my door to head downstairs. The alpha was waiting for me to emerge. Leaping forward, he put his hand over my mouth and pushed me back into my room. He snatched Emma off my shoulder and threw her into the hallway, then shut and locked the door.

  Sensing my terror, he let go of me and held his hands up. “I’m not going to hurt you, Alex,” he said soothingly.

  I backed away and crossed my arms over my chest defensively. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. I’d have to scream as loudly as I could to wake the others up. He’d be on me before I could let out a shout for help. He didn’t know I had my own type of deadly weapon sleeping in the room across the hall.

  “I just want to talk to you without anyone staring at us,” he said seductively. He looked me up and down and I felt his alpha power oozing out of him.

  “Stop trying to use your power on me,” I snapped. “It won’t work because I can’t stand you.”

  “You never even gave me a chance,” he said as he took a step closer.

  I took a step back and bumped into the dresser. My crystal angel tottered, but it didn’t fall over. “I’ve spent enough time around you to know you’re not my type,” I said as he slowly stalked closer. He was treating me like a wild animal that he was trying to tame.

  “All female werewolves are attracted to me,” he said and sent out a pulse of alpha power. “You can’t help yourselves,” he added, moving even closer. “You all want me because I’m the strongest male and I’d be the best mate. An alpha like me can pick anyone I want. You should be flattered that I’ve chosen you.”

  I snorted out a derisive laugh. “You only want me because of my connections,” I said with heavy contempt. “I’m not attracted to you and I never will be.” He lifted his hand to touch my face and I jerked out of his reach.

  “You’re a silly, inexperienced virgin,” he said mockingly. “You have no idea what you want yet.”

  My jaw dropped at the insult, amazed that he’d been stupid enough to say that directly to my face. “What did you just say?” I asked with rising anger that was replacing my initial terror.

  “You’re only eighteen,” he explained. “You’re too young to have any life experience. You need an older man like me to tell you what to do.” He was twenty-three and seemed to think that meant he was mature enough to make my decisions for me. He bent his head as if to kiss me and I sidestepped him.

  Rage began to pulse in my head that he thought he had the right to control my every thought and action. “I don’t need anyone to tell me what to do, Franko,” I snarled.

  He looked taken aback, then smiled condescendingly. “Spoken like a spoiled little teenager,” he said indulgently. “Once I’ve taken your virginity and have turned you into a woman, I’ll train you to be obedient. You’re just a lesser wolf and you’ll learn that your place is beneath me where you belong.”

  He grabbed me by my t-shirt so I couldn’t step away and dragged me closer. My hands went to his chest as he forcefully kissed me. My rage turned white hot and I shoved him as hard as I could. I was yanked forward a couple of steps and my t-shirt tore at the neck when he was sent flying into the wall.

  Hitting it hard enough to leave marks on the paint, the alpha hole leaped at me with his fist raised. Flashing back to my traumatic childhood, I instantly dropped to the floor. I curled up into a ball to protect myself as I waited for him to beat me to a pulp.

  Franko leaned down to grab hold of me, but the door slammed open before he could touch me. I opened my eyes and splayed my hands to see Yas through my fingers. The bloodsucker’s face was a rictus of pure anger. Seeing the alpha looming over me, my vampiric guardian reacted. Emma scampered over to me, but she couldn’t take me to safety this time.

  The newbie let out a noise that almost sounded like a frightened squeal, then the vampire was on
him. Yas grabbed Franko by the wrist and began slamming him into the floor, the walls, the ceiling and furniture.

  Crowmon appeared in the doorway and darted forward to drag me out of the way. The others heard the ruckus and emerged from their rooms. Liam pushed his way through the mob to my side and did a double take when he saw my face. “Alex?” he said cautiously. “Are you in control of Yas again?”

  “Yep,” I said and realized I was smiling nastily. “He’s had this coming ever since he joined our team,” I said almost dreamily as I used my only weapon against him.

  “I think he’s had enough, lass,” Crowmon said after a while. Blood splattered my bedroom, but Yas was showing no signs of letting up.

  I ignored the trickster and concentrated on making Franko pay for being a douche nozzle to us all.

  Nick reached over and flicked my ear hard enough to snap me out of my fury. “That’s enough, sis,” he said sternly. “You’ll kill him if this goes on for much longer.”

  My tattoos flared and I doubled over in pain. Yas went still when I released my hold on her. Her eyes cleared and she saw Heath dangling from her grasp. He was unconscious, bloody and battered. She turned to look at me accusingly. “Do you have to keep doing that?” she asked in exasperation as she dropped the limp werewolf to the floor.

  “What a mess,” Brynn said, shaking her head at the blood splatters.

  “What did he do?” Sydney asked.

  “He ambushed me and pushed his way in here. He locked the door, then tried to use his alpha power on me to make me want him,” I said flatly.

  Franko’s wounds healed and he came to just in time to hear my accusation. “She’s exaggerating,” he rasped, wincing as his last few broken bones mended. “I was just talking to her and the leech broke in and assaulted me.”

  “You forced yourself on me, Franko!” I said in renewed rage. “He kissed me against my will and tried to make me submit to him with his alpha power!”

  Liam leaned close enough to sniff my face. He whirled around when he smelled Heath’s scent on me. “She’s telling the truth!” he said, furious with the newbie. “Forcing any of us to do anything against our will is something we won’t put up with, Agent Franko! I suggest you take a long drive before we shoot you and bury you in the woods.”

  Heath was outnumbered and was facing a bunch of hostile shifters, not to mention a vampire who hated his guts. “I wasn’t going to hurt her,” he said sullenly.

  “Yeah, you were,” I refuted, fists clenched in cold anger. “You would have beaten the crap out of me for rejecting you if Yas hadn’t saved me.”

  The vampire glowered at him as he exited from my room without a backward glance.

  “It’s alright, girly,” Crowmon said and patted me on the back soothingly. “We won’t let that alpha hole harm you.”

  I realized I was shaking in reaction, but I couldn’t make myself stop. If I hadn’t been able to call on Yas to defend me, Franko would have been free to do whatever he wanted to me.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  EVERYONE WAS WIDE AWAKE now, so we headed downstairs. I had to change out of my torn t-shirt first. Liam stayed in the coms room to call Agent Steel. Mark was always alert, no matter what the time was in their European base. “Liam,” he said in greeting. “Is everything alright?”

  “Not really, Uncle Mark,” Liam said, tone grim and voice tight. “Franko just tried to assault Alex and he almost succeeded.”

  Agent Steel sucked in a shocked breath. “Tell me exactly what happened,” he ordered. Liam relayed what had just occurred in my bedroom and our boss went silent. “I’ll call Agent Franko and have a discussion with him. It won’t happen again.”

  “That’s it?” Yas asked in annoyance when Mark hung up. “He’ll have a ‘discussion’ with him?” She held her fingers up to make quotation marks, tone heavily sarcastic.

  Liam was just as unhappy about this as the rest of us. “I don’t know what’s gotten into Uncle Mark,” he said as he descended the stairs. “He’s never let any of us break the rules, or cause trouble before.”

  “He’s giving the alpha hole a free pass,” Nick said in disgust. “Franko can get away with anything and he’s just going to let it all slide.”

  Crowmon’s expression was thoughtful, but he didn’t voice whatever he was thinking as the others vented their frustrations.

  “That’s the last straw,” Syd said as she set the table. “If the alpha makes one more wrong move, we’re going to have to take matters into our own hands.”

  Brynn paused in frying bacon to nod her agreement. “We’ll say he decided to leave and that we haven’t heard from him when Uncle Mark checks in with us.”

  “He’ll vanish without a trace, just like Jax did,” Yas joked. She glanced at me when I winced as a spike of pain speared through my heart. “I was just kidding,” she said with a frown of concern.

  “I’m not,” Nick said, savagely pushing the lever on the toaster to make the bread descend. “We all feel the same way about Franko. One way or another, he’s got to go.”

  Liam heaved a deep sigh before he spoke. “We’re not murderers,” he reminded us. “We haven’t been trained to kill people who offend us.”

  “I have,” Yas refuted flatly. “It would be my pleasure to eradicate that alpha from the planet permanently.”

  “You’re being very quiet, lass,” the trickster noted. “What do you think we should do?”

  Suddenly the focus of everyone, I stirred the tea I’d just made. “He won’t take no for an answer,” I said. “He’s too arrogant for that. He’ll back off for a while now, but then he’ll start chipping away at me again. Eventually, he’ll push me too far and I’ll snap. When that happens, I’ll use whatever I can to stop him from taking what he wants from me.”

  Yas rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “I’m going to stick to you like glue,” she told me. “I won’t mind at all when you use me to dismember Franko.”

  No one laughed, because they knew she was deadly serious. They’d seen me take over the vampire on numerous occasions and use her as my weapon. The only reason Heath was still alive was because Nick had stopped me from killing him. It was almost inevitable that the alpha would die by one of my undead minions’ hands. He’d been warned, but he had no idea who or what he was really dealing with.

  “Look at that smile,” Syd whispered to Liam. “She’s looking forward to getting rid of him.”

  I turned away to start pouring coffee for everyone who wanted one, pretending I hadn’t heard her. My smile dropped away and a sick feeling entered the pit of my stomach. On some level, I was plotting the rookie’s death. My hands would remain clean, but my soul would be forever stained if I went ahead with my plan to do away with him.

  The alpha was gone for most of the day, giving us all a break from him. We went about our usual training routines without the stress that had been hanging over us all. The herd notified me that a car was approaching the base just before nightfall. “The alpha hole is back,” I said to everyone. We’d all just finished training and were heading upstairs to take showers. I’d spent a couple of hours cleaning the blood from my bedroom. It hadn’t been easy to get it out of the carpet.

  “Franko’s got balls to come back here after what Yas did to him,” Nick said with a glower at the monitor in the coms room. We all paused to watch the red Corvette wait for the gate to open.

  “He won’t have them for much longer if he keeps bothering Alex,” Yas said from her seat on the couch. Crowmon giggled, which set her off. I was smiling slightly as I entered my room and locked the door. Liam had changed the lock for me, since my vampiric guardian had broken the other one when she’d broken in to rescue me.

  Emma stood watch while I took a leisurely shower. I didn’t want to face Franko again. I wished he’d leave me alone, but he was hellbent on harassing me. To prove I was right, he was waiting in the hallway when I opened the door. Emma went on full alert and bared her teeth at him, going into a crouch
on my shoulder. She was prepared to launch herself at him and chew her way through his jugular if she had to.

  Heath held his hands up peacefully and kept his distance from me. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said. He did a good job of making his voice sound sincere, but his eyes told a different story. Glee and lust danced in their blue depths that he couldn’t quite hide.

  “You can shove your apology,” I told him, glad when Yas suddenly appeared right behind him. He didn’t sense her standing there, ready to grab him if he tried to touch me.

  “Agent Steel warned me not to try to kiss you again,” he said contritely. “I’ll lose my place on the squad if I upset you again.” He nearly leapt a foot in the air when Yas spoke.

  “So, Alex repeatedly telling you to leave her alone had no impact on you whatsoever, but Mark telling you to back off sank through your dense skull?” the vampire said derisively.

  Whirling around to glower at her, he barely glanced at me when I quickly moved to stand behind my bestie. “Alex is young,” he said defensively. “She’s lived a sheltered life and she isn’t wise enough to know what she wants.”

  “Did you hear that, Alex?” Yas said without turning to face me. “You’re too young and stupid to know what you want. He really does think he needs to do your thinking for you, doesn’t he?”

  “I told you,” I replied in vindication that he’d just proven what a control freak he was. “I’ve met enough werewolves by now to know what I want and you aren’t on my list,” I told him flatly.

  His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned in anger. “Who is on your list, Agent D’Ath?” he asked me with a hint of menace.

  “That’s none of your business, douche nozzle,” Yas said as the rest of the squad gathered in the hallway behind me.