Marked by the Alpha Wolf; Part 1

by Scarlett Grove

  For the rest of the day, the dragons carried mobile homes back to the compound along with materials to create foundations. They carried an entire load of two-by-fours, bags of cement, cement blocks, and rebar.

  By evening, they were all exhausted and had to shift into human form to rest and eat. The colony now had twenty-one new mobile homes. For now, that would be enough room for everyone to have a place to sleep inside.

  That night, they had another feast. Everyone was tired from work cleanup and setting up the new mobile homes. In the coming days, they would have to run plumbing lines and electricity to all of the new buildings. They would have to find more solar panels and more batteries. It would be a tremendous amount of work, but in the end, they would have a better compound than they had before.

  The key players met again in the dining room of farmhouse. Dina served them a private dinner of the choicest bits that she had saved from the feast prepared for the rest of the compound. She set out bottles of wine that had been stashed away for special occasions and got out crystal glasses. Even though Xavier invited her to sit with the rest of the party, she insisted on eating in the kitchen by herself.

  “The dryad told us that the Anu feed on fear and negativity,” said Circe, beginning the conversation. “Perhaps hybridizing with other species allows them to better feed on the fear from each planet they invade.”

  “When my astral body was on the ship, and from what I observed in the domes, their intentions are obviously nefarious. Just look at what they’ve done to our world,” said Cassie.

  “The dryad said that they’ve been here for thousands of years and that the reason they are hybridizing with us again is to bring our species into the fourth dimension, where they can feed on a higher level of negative energy.”

  A deep frown was carved into Cassie’s face. She looked at the table, her hands squeezed so tight they were turning white. Circe slid her hand across the table and held Cassie’s, offering her comfort. Circe knew how sensitive Cassie could be. Cassie had been in the domes. She knew exactly what the Anu were capable of and what they were doing to children all across the world.

  “We can’t let them do this. If the hybrid children are going to allow the human race to evolve into the fourth dimension, it has to be on our terms. We’ve been living under their thumb for thousands of years. It is time for us to take a stand. It is time for us to take back our planet once and for all. But the first thing we need to do is get those kids out of the domes.” Cassie stood up, slamming her fist on the table. Circe shot back in surprise. She nodded at her friend in agreement.

  “We all know how you feel, Cassie. I’m sure that most of us agree with you wholeheartedly,” said Rafe. “But there’s so much to do for the people who are already here that I can’t see us leaving the compound anytime soon. The drones are still striking at least once a day.”

  “There are five dragons here now,” said Xavier, motioning around the room. “Our elemental attacks, when combined, are much greater than the sum of their parts. We create an explosive bomb that will incinerate anything. Hell, even one of us could take down one of the drones. It’s your mission to free those children, Cassie. You need to bring out as many of them as you can, and we’ll find a way to take care of them. In the meantime, we will continue to rebuild here. There’s enough land to support several thousand if we incorporate enough buildings. If Rafe sets out the planning for the plumbing and electricity, you should be free to go within a couple of weeks.”

  Cassie sighed as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She sat back down and looked around the room. Circe saw that all the dragons and witches were nodding in agreement. Everyone was ready to do whatever needed to be done to protect the compound and liberate more of the domes.

  They were finally gaining a foothold. They were finally starting to understand what the Anu were about and why they had come here. They still hadn’t had a serious strike against the Anu forces, but they were getting closer every day.

  Circe threaded her fingers through Xavier’s hands and looked up at him. He smiled down at her, giving her his boyish grin. It was a special smile just for her and reminded her exactly the kind of person he was. The feeling of warmth radiated from within her.

  She remembered the dryad’s words. The people of Earth had to cultivate love and peace in their hearts. They had to stop giving the Anu the negativity that they fed on. As she gazed up into Xavier’s eyes, she knew the power of love would start with them.

  Desired By The Archangel

  Chapter 1

  Magdalena sat in Emilia’s workshop, staring at the mutant wolf shifter typing code into the computer. Magdalena was impatient to get inside The Program. After having mastered the virtual reality simulation that took her into the fourth dimension, everyday reality just didn’t compare.

  “Are you almost done?” asked Magdalena, twisting her ashy blonde hair into a tight knot on top of her head.

  “I told you, I have to reprogram the terminal. It’s been getting hard to hack inside lately.”

  “All I need is a portal inside. I can take care of the rest,” Magdalena blurted. She was tired of waiting.

  “I know. I know. Just give me a second.”

  Magda, as everyone called her, sat on the metal stool and sucked on her lip. The leaders of her compound liked to keep a constant presence “inside” so Magda did her checks at least twice a week. If it were up to her, she would have been in there twenty-four, seven.

  “Okay, Magda, I’ve reprogrammed the code. Entrance might be a little bumpy. But it can’t be helped, unless you are willing to wait a few more hours while I iron out all the bugs.”

  “No, just get me inside.”

  Emilia spun in her faded office chair and nodded toward the terminal chair—an old dentist’s chair with busted padding. Magda burst to her feet and bounded across the room, plopping in the dentist’s chair. Emilia walked toward her with small footsteps, peering down at Magda with the worried expression that never left Emilia’s face.

  Emilia might be a computer genius and a vicious predator when shifted, but sometimes she could be a massive, wussy dork. Magda lifted her eyebrows at Emilia, waiting for her to lower the terminal helmet over her head.

  “Well, come on then,” Magda demanded.

  “I hope this doesn’t hurt too much. I know that entry can be tough if there are bugs in the system.”

  “For crap’s sake, Emilia, just get me inside. I don’t even need the serum anymore. Just help me into the helmet.”

  Ever since Magdalena had been freed from one of the domes run by Pyramid Corporation, she’d been working with Emilia to better understand The Program. No one in the compound had as much skill as Magda, not even the compound’s resident badass, Cassandra Kline.

  Magda screwed up her face, thinking of Cassie. It wasn’t that Magda was competitive, mostly, but she knew where her talents were. Cassie’s skills were on a whole other level. She could blow things up with her mind and levitate. She could kick zombie ass like a rock star.

  Cassie’s extraordinary abilities just made Magda want to work harder. As two of the only full-blooded humans left alive on Earth, Magda felt herself in constant comparison to Cassie.

  Many of the other girls who’d been freed from the domes were mothers now. They’d carried the alien hybrid babies in their wombs and given birth.

  Emilia sighed and finally picked up the virtual reality helmet, lowering it slowly over Magda’s head. During World War III, a handful of children had been taken to live inside protective domes. The domes were run by a corporation in league with the aliens responsible for the nuclear bombs that destroyed the old world.

  The humans left outside the domes either died or were mutated into various kinds of shape-shifters, witches, or zombies. Yeah, zombies. Those were fun. One bite and you were dead.

  Cassie, on the other hand, had been given some kind of gift from these benevolent aliens called the Council of the Seventh House. Magda wondered why t
he council hadn’t stopped the bombs and radiation from killing ninety-five percent of the human race. Giving Cassie Jedi powers seemed like a “too little, too late” kind of situation.

  As the helmet covered Magda’s eyes, the world went black. Her heartbeat accelerated and her breathing quickened. She took a sharp breath as the pain gripped her eyes. Her screams sounded muffled behind a thick plate of glass. The taste and smell of cold metal lapped against her senses.

  The darkness faded to gray and into white. Magda took control of the simulation. Emilia hadn’t been kidding. It had been a challenging entry but nothing Magdalena couldn’t handle.

  When she’d been back in the domes, Pyramid Corp technicians had her going into The Program nonstop for days at a time. She’d gotten so fried, she barely remembered her own name.

  That was before her brother taught her to control it, and how to get inside on her own with scavenged parts they’d squirreled away into their dorm rooms.

  Magda had become a master hacker before her brother disappeared. Not even Pyramid Corp’s intense schedule could faze her. She’d come to relish the time inside the simulation. She learned to hide from the technicians and create her own realities—her own world in the fourth dimension.

  Once you’d become a god in a higher dimension, it was hard to settle for life at a post-apocalyptic mutant colony.

  The white fuzz around her eyes faded, and she found herself in a small room. This was her starting zone. All her stuff was still there. It reminded her of her room before the war—her comfortable bed, her plush, black carpet, her rock music posters.

  Magda sat in her red leather chair, an item she’d never owned when she was fourteen. She tapped her fingers against the smooth crimson leather, making a plan for what she would do today.

  Rafe, her supervisor and one of the compound’s leaders, always wanted her to spy on Pyramid Corp and their alien overlords, the Anu. But Magda had other things in mind today.

  She hadn’t had a good swim in a heated pool in far too long. She walked to the chest of drawers and pulled out a black and gold studded bikini. Her mother never would have let her wear this when she’d lived at home.

  But now that Magda was eighteen, a virtual demigod at the end of the world, she figured she’d wear something sexy in the reality of her own creation.

  She slipped out of her virtual clothes and slipped on the swimsuit. She stood at the mirror looking at her reflection. She was petite at five foot three and had a compact figure with perky breasts and full hips. She assessed herself in the mirror and pulled down her hair, letting it fall to her waist.

  She winked a green eye and manifested a pair of trendy sunglasses. Slipping them on her face, she opened the door of her bedroom and stepped out onto the patio of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

  The sun shone above as if it were one of those perfect southern California days before the war. She sauntered down the patio toward a deck chair and sat. Glancing up at the sky, she blinked and made seagulls fly overhead.

  She thought for a moment about making virtual people, but those always freaked her out. That was one of the drawbacks of being a demigod in your own virtual world—there really wasn’t anyone to share it with.

  She could spy on the Anu and look into the minds of the children still trapped inside the domes, but that wasn’t nearly as fun as having someone to swim with in her gorgeous pool.

  Standing from the lounge chair, Magdalena took off her sunglasses, set them down, and dove in the water. It was a perfect temperature. Not too hot and not too cold. She swam lazily down the length of the pool, ducking underwater to do a flip.

  On her way upright, she knocked into something. She thought it must be the side of the pool. Thrusting her feet to the ground, she wiped the water from her eyes and looked in front of her.

  She nearly fell over and drowned from the shock. A man who was way too hot to exist stared down at her. Had she made a virtual boyfriend without realizing it? The thought had crossed her mind plenty of times, but she always dismissed it.

  “Hi,” she said, playing along with her own accidental creation.

  “Magdalena Dupre. At last we meet.”

  “I’ll say,” she said, winking.

  She ran a finger down his bronzed chest and looked up into his shining violet eyes. Long blonde hair waved around his shoulders. He looked like an angel. Her imagination really did know her type. She bit her lip and moved closer. A virtual boyfriend had been a great idea. Too bad her subconscious thought it up without her.

  “Magdalena Dupre, I have come from far away to speak with you.”

  “No time for talk,” she said, pulling his massive shoulders down toward her. He hesitated slightly but moved with fluid grace under her direction. She stood on her tiptoes, reaching to press her lips to his full mouth.

  Desire surged through her as his arms encircled her, bringing her into a tight embrace. She opened her mouth, flicking her tongue through his lips. He tasted like honey and sunshine. She moaned softly as his thick tongue flicked over hers and pressed inside her mouth.

  She could feel his manhood hard against her stomach. He was so tall it nearly hit the underside of her breasts. Feeling his massive size against her petite form, she slowly pulled away. This might be a virtual reality simulation, but Magda was a virgin. Did her subconscious really think she was ready for all that? Besides, Emilia might be watching. Gross.

  “Um. Maybe we should take this somewhere private,” she whispered to her virtual boyfriend. “And maybe I should have made you a little smaller.”

  “You made me?” he asked, his eyebrows drawing together.

  “Yes, silly head. I. Made. You. This is my reality.”

  His face froze for a moment in an expression between shock and humor. Then he laughed a deep belly laugh and rolled back his head. When he looked down at her again, a dangerous and alluring smile played on his lips and lightened his bright violet eyes.

  “My dear girl. I am Michael, a member of the Council of the Seventh House.”

  Chapter 2

  Magda fell backward in the water in confusion and shock. He was what? No. It couldn’t be. He was part of her virtual simulation. She didn’t just kiss an alien. No way. When she finally made it back to her feet, she stared at him warily.

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” she asked, still unconvinced. Maybe this was one of the bugs in the system Emilia had mentioned. Her mind was literally playing tricks with her.

  “I’m afraid you didn’t give me the chance, with the touching and kissing. I must admit it was quite nice, Earth girl. But that isn’t why I’m here.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling cold and small. This couldn’t be happening, could it? Did she really just seduce a big cheese of the galaxy? She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. This was her world; she made the rules. If her subconscious wanted to mess with her like this, she’d have to find a way to take back control.

  “You see, I don’t really believe that a member of the Council of the Seventh House came down to Earth to visit my virtual pool party. So, if you aren’t just a fabrication of my rebellious and very creative subconscious mind, I’d like you to prove it.”

  “All right, Magdalena. Magda, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Magda. Has your subconscious ever taken over your visits into The Program before?”

  “No. Not really. But it could happen.”

  “Perhaps. But a person with such skill in the virtual reality simulation known as The Program must also know that this is another complete dimension of reality. We aren’t on ‘Earth’ or anywhere. This is a nonphysical space. And the pool is a nice touch. The water is perfect.”

  “You don’t act like a member of the Council of Blah de Blah. For one thing.”

  “And what do I act like, pray tell?”

  “You act like something I’d make up. My ideal virtual boyfriend. You’re hot, funny, and smart.”

  “How s
hould a member of the Council of Blah de Blah behave?”

  “I don’t know, more like an alien.”

  His eyes sparkled in the violet depths, and his lips curled into a deep grin. It only made him look more perfect and more godlike. There’s no way this person is real. He bellowed out the loud belly laugh again, gripping his hips with his hands. He stood in such a manly pose, Magda thought maybe he was auditioning for one of those cleaning fluid commercials on TV from before the war. She raised an eyebrow and waited for him to stop laughing.

  “Magda, it is imperative that you listen closely. The Anu are planning an attack at your base in San Diego. With Cassandra Kline gone, you will be far too weak to withstand the coming assault.”

  “We have the dragons,” she said, her disbelief in his claimed identity slowly fading. Could he really be?

  “Your dragons are a formidable force, but not for what the Anu have planned.”

  “What are we supposed to do? Cassie and Rafe and several dragons went to Denver to liberate the dome there. It isn’t like we can call her.”

  “You can use The Program to connect with Cassie telepathically.”

  “Why don’t you just do it?” she asked, skepticism growing again.

  “Because, Magda, you are a surrogate. You can quickly move between worlds with little focus or intervention. Your ability to hack The Program is a far greater talent than even you understand.”

  “Tell me how.”

  “There isn’t time. You must reach out to Cassie and tell her to come home immediately.”