by Liza Street
Filthy Alpha
Junkyard Shifters, Book 3
Liza Street
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by Liza Street
About Liza
Filthy Alpha, Junkyard Shifters #3
by Liza Street
Cover designed by Keira Blackwood.
Copyright 2020 Liza Street. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental or used fictitiously.
1
Blythe was pushing someone away. Again. Story of her frickin’ life. But after years of being pushed, she’d learned it was a hell of a lot easier to do the pushing first. At least this way, she was less likely to land flat on her ass.
Besides, in this case, pushing Jessica away was less about Blythe turning her back on a friendship and more about being a good friend. Jessica didn’t want to stay here, so Jessica should go.
Jessica looked at her uncertainly.
“Go on,” Blythe said, passing Jessica’s backpack over the gravel line. When Blythe’s hand bumped against something solid, she flinched. Stupid invisible wall.
“Are you sure?” Jessica took the backpack, but her eyes never left Blythe’s.
Jessica’s boyfriend, or rather, mate, Marcus, stood nearby. His gray gaze was soft and trained on Jessica. Blythe was glad her friend had found a forever person. That kind of relationship wasn’t for everyone, but Jessica seemed happy, so Blythe would be happy for her.
“It’s fine. I’ll use this time to write, okay? I have everything I need in here.” Blythe tapped her forehead. Then she tapped Jessica’s bottle of tequila, a third full, which she’d tucked in the crook of her arm. “And everything else I need is right here.”
“You’ll need a place to stay.”
The deep voice came from behind her, and she turned to see the man who had spoken. Jase. His words rumbled through her like thunder—something about him always did that to her. She’d met him when she first came to the Junkyard—by accident, tipsy on Jessica’s tequila—after Blythe had been thrown into an old RV as a prisoner. Jase had been the one to deliver food to her. He was the one shifter she hadn’t regularly attacked with her makeshift weapon—a metal pipe.
Jase’s most arresting feature, after his seriously amazing muscled arms and shoulders, was his eyes. One was gold, one was green. He had a way of peering at Blythe that made her feel like she was the only person in the universe. It was unsettling, and she didn’t like it.
Unfortunately, he’d started acting like he was her bodyguard.
Or babysitter.
“I can stay in the RV,” Blythe said.
He frowned. “You wouldn’t rather have a working bathroom?”
“Those…exist here?” She felt her cheeks get hot. She’d done her best to wash with a cloth and some of the water Jase had brought her over the past couple of weeks, but she knew she probably smelled a bit ripe.
“There’s even a bathtub in the cabin,” Marcus said from the other side of the gravel line.
Jessica smacked his shoulder. “A bathtub?”
“Yeah,” Marcus said. “It just needs a generator to get the old hot water heater working. I got it all set up but never found a generator.”
“I have a generator,” Jase said.
“Back up a second, Murphy,” Jessica said. “You had a bathtub, all this time?”
“Murphy?” Blythe asked.
“It’s like a nickname,” Jessica said. “But let’s focus on the most important thing going on right now. The bathtub.”
“The most important thing,” Jase said, stepping up to Blythe’s side, “is keeping Blythe safe in here.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Jessica said, but she shot a grumpy look at Marcus before returning her focus to Blythe and Jase. “I still like my idea of you two being mates.”
Blythe shook her head. No way was she finding a mate. Blythe’s luck was never that good—there was never an easy solution for her, and it had been that way ever since she was born. “I’ll figure something out, don’t worry. I’d like to check out this cabin. And especially that bathtub.”
Everyone said their goodbyes, and then it was just Blythe and Jase standing at the gravel boundary line.
“So,” Blythe said.
“So.” His mismatched eyes looked brighter in the late morning light, and a scruff of dark whiskers covered his chin.
“About that bath,” Blythe said.
“Yep. Come with me. We’ll stop at my workshop, grab my spare generator, and head to the cabin.”
“Spare generator?”
“I have an extra for work—I make recycled furniture, and some of my tools don’t run on their own.”
And to think for the past couple of weeks, Blythe had been pissing in a bucket, sitting in darkness at night, and huddling under blankets when it got cold.
“I kind of hate you right now,” she said.
He grinned, and his smile was bright against his coppery-golden skin. “Sorry. Let’s go.”
They walked past wrecked cars, some of them crunched down to wrinkled metal rectangles, others quietly rusting in their original forms. They passed a giant tractor, and next to it, the RV where Blythe had been both trapped and fortified. Alleman and Barnum had ripped away the rear panel to get her out, and she shuddered. The tequila sloshed in the bottle Blythe carried and she thought about taking a swig to calm her nerves.
Jase paused next to her. “Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Nodding, he started forward again. She got the distinct sense that he didn’t believe her. Well, he didn’t need to. She was fine. And if she wasn’t right now, well, it wasn’t anything a bath and a couple of shots of tequila couldn’t fix.
They stopped at a building made of sheet metal, panels torn from cars, and stacked tires. Blythe stared at it. “Is this your house?”
“My den, yeah, and it’s also my workshop. You want to come in?”
“No, thank you. I’ll wait here.”
As he moved to duck through the empty doorway, Blythe said, “Do you have any paper in there? Like a notebook or something, and a pen?”
“Matter of fact, I do,” he said, then disappeared into the dim space.
Blythe looked around at the dump while she waited for him. Her life had changed in unimaginable ways in the past two weeks. She’d gone from being a cast-off scholarship student to being an unintentional inmate in some kind of paranormal prison. Jessica might pity her, but Blythe wasn’t all that upset about this turn of events. Blythe had nowhere to live outside of the Junkyard, anyway—she’d had to give up her tiny apartment to attend the writing program, because the scholarship would pay for the program, but not the rent. And she couldn’t afford the rent when she was taking four weeks off from waiting tables. Her few belongings were stored in a college friend’s garage.
Blythe’s prospects for a manageable life after leaving t
he writing program had been slim, anyway. At least here she’d be able to live rent-free, maybe do some fishing to catch an occasional meal in the lake nearby. And there would be a bathtub. And a notebook and pen.
Her needs were simple, and they were about to be met.
She could handle the shit out of this so-called setback to her life plan.
Movement from a pile of rubble several yards away caught her eye, and she saw a man in a cowboy hat sitting on an overturned ice chest. He held a book in his hand and while she watched, he scribbled something in it with a pen.
“Hey!” Blythe shouted. “Don’t write in books!”
He looked up sharply in surprise, then tipped his hat at her. “Don’t worry, just writing on a piece of paper.”
He held up the book and Blythe saw the half-sheet of paper tucked inside.
“Oh, okay then,” Blythe said.
Smirking, he said, “Glad you’re looking out for the books, Pipe Dreams.”
“Pipe Dreams?” Blythe said quietly.
“Your nickname,” Jase said from behind her as he came out of his den. Or workshop. Or whatever the hell he wanted to call it. “You were a force to be reckoned with.”
Good. Maybe everyone would hear about Pipe Dreams, and then they’d leave her the fuck alone.
“Ready?” Jase asked. He handed her a pen and a legal pad, nice and thick. Plenty of paper, which should last her awhile. He also held what must be a generator in his arms. His muscles weren’t even straining, although Blythe doubted she’d be able to lift the damn thing.
She nodded and held tightly to her notepad and pen, along with the very important tequila. “Ready.”
He led them away from the cluttered, dumpy looking area and into some trees. Here, Blythe could almost forget that the old cars and rusting pieces of metal were around. This little woodsy area was all picturesque and natural. A stream trickled along, only about as wide as her foot, and flowers dotted the edges of it. Some of the tightness and worry in her chest eased.
She really was going to be okay, just like she promised Jessica.
“Here we go,” Jase said as a cabin came into view.
It was actually rather quaint. “I like it,” Blythe said.
“I haven’t been inside, but I’m kind of excited about the bathtub,” he said in his rumbly, low voice.
Her mind immediately pictured him in the bathtub, and then she pictured herself climbing in next to him, and then she gave herself a mental bitch slap to stop thinking about things like that.
He opened the door and stepped inside. Blythe followed right on his heels, eager to check out her new digs. She’d lived in dozens of homes over the course of her twenty-three years of life, floating from one foster home to another.
The cabin had a twin-sized mattress in one corner, covered by a green and blue quilt. A table rested next to one of the windows, a metal chair next to it. Off to the side was another door, and she marched directly to it and pulled it open.
A bathroom. A freaking bathroom. She could’ve cried with happiness. Going straight for the toilet, she pushed down the lever. It flushed.
“How is this even possible?” she asked.
Jase held out his hands like a showman would. “The magic of water pressure.”
Her gaze went to a bathtub that also had a shower head. It wasn’t pretty, with the exposed fiberglass sides and rust dotting the metal fixtures, but to Blythe it was one of the most magnificent things she’d ever seen. “Can you get the hot water working?”
“I can.” He stepped one way, and she stepped that way at the same time, and they nearly collided. Jase hoisted the generator into one arm and used the other to touch Blythe’s shoulder and keep her in place while he moved. “You know what? Maybe you could…”
He jerked his head toward the other room of the cabin.
“Right. I’ll give you some space to work,” she said, unable to hold back her grin. She was going to get a bath!
She left the bathroom and looked at the notepad. She hadn’t been able to write in forever. Those two weeks in the RV had given her lots of thinking time, but she hadn’t been very creative. She’d been too worried about what was coming next. Her best moments had been the times Jase brought food and stayed to chat with her. He’d been a lifeline during those days, and she wondered if he knew how special that was to her.
She set down the bottle of tequila and her notepad on the table, then sat in the chair next to it. Putting the pen to paper, she closed her eyes. This moment. This was everything. All of the potential of a blank page. Some writers said it stifled or scared them, but for Blythe, it was all about possibility and new beginnings. She could go anywhere from here.
She’d filled half a page with words when a mechanical grinding noise filled the cabin. Jase came out of the bathroom, grinning with that beautiful smile of his. His lips looked soft, yet commanding. They were a paradox resting right there on his copper face.
“I hooked it up to the water heater. It doesn’t hold a lot of water, but enough for the tub to be half full or so. Maybe give it twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.” She could hug that man, she was so pleased. But she kept still.
“So…about that mate thing,” he said.
She held up a hand. “Nope.”
“It’s not a bad idea. It doesn’t have to be real, just real enough that everyone will leave you alone.”
“Do you have something to do?” Blythe asked. “I’m about to take a bath in the first bathroom I’ve seen in two weeks, so…privacy would be awesome.”
He looked taken aback, but then he chuckled. “You just say whatever you’re thinking, don’t you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Mostly, yeah.”
“I like it. Okay, yeah, I have stuff to do in my workshop. I’ll come back later and make sure you’re all settled.”
“Don’t worry about me. I have a bathroom and a notebook, I’m good. Thanks so much for your help.” She realized that probably sounded glib, so she sucked in a breath and looked him in his beautiful, dual-toned eyes. “Thank you, Jase. I mean that.”
“You’re welcome. Be careful.” With that, he turned and left the cabin, which suddenly felt empty and maybe even the slightest bit lonely.
The bath had been everything magical that Blythe had expected. She didn’t fill it quite as high as Jase said she could, wanting to save some water for washing her hair. When she was done, she felt like a whole new woman.
Unfortunately, she had to put her old dirty things right back on again. She found some t-shirts in a stack of wooden crates and shook one out. An earwig fell from it, but otherwise it was clear of dirt and bugs, so she put it on instead of her old shirt. In fact, there was a pair of jeans in the wooden crates, as well. She shook out a pair. No bugs. She shook them out again, and two earwigs fell from one of the pant legs.
Bugs were the worst.
Sighing, she shook the jeans out again, then turned them inside out, then shook them out a fourth time. Confident that there were no insects crawling around in them, she slid them on.
They were big enough to fit a grown man, but the thought of putting on her very ripe smelling jeans made her feel icky through and through. Her belt held up this pair, and she rolled the cuffs several times.
She had to find her backpack. Not only for clothes, but for her own notebooks. The one Jase had given her was great, but she had already started a manuscript during the writing intensive, and she needed that, too.
Leaving the cabin, she noted that more time had passed than she’d thought. The sun would be setting in an hour or so. She better hustle if she wanted to find her backpack before dark. And no matter how comfortable she might get with this place, she didn’t want to be wandering around alone after dark.
She and Jessica had been close to the lake when everything had gone to shit. She knew the lake was roughly east, so she headed in that direction. If she didn’t come to it, she’d turn right back around and ask Jase for help finding the bac
kpack tomorrow, if he wasn’t busy. He probably was busy, and the man had spent enough time helping her. So, scratch that idea. She could look for the pack herself tomorrow, if she didn’t find it tonight.
She hadn’t gone far when she got the uncomfortable feeling along the back of her neck that told her someone was watching her. Already she felt out of place, wearing a stranger’s too-big clothes and marching through what still felt like enemy territory.
Slowly turning in place, she examined the woods behind her. The cabin was all but swallowed up by the trees.
A man stepped out of the shadows. Red-blond hair, gray eyes, a scar crossing his neck. Derrick Alleman. He’d been one of the worst during Blythe’s captivity in the RV. And stepping forward to stand next to him was Fred Barnum, another not-so-fantastic human specimen.
Blythe’s heart sped up, but her feet were frozen to the ground. It had been a warm evening, but now she felt cold.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“We just wanted to say hello to Pipe Dreams,” Alleman said with a sneer. He nudged Barnum. “Grab her.”
Blythe couldn’t believe what she was seeing and hearing. “You guys said—you said that this wouldn’t happen. The dominance battle was just last night, dammit.”
“She’s right,” Barnum said. “They’ll put us down.”
“Worth the risk,” Alleman said. “Besides, those pussies wouldn’t have the nerve.”
Barnum shook his head. “I ain’t doing it. Come on.”
Blythe waited, motionless, while the two men melted back into the shadows.
When they were truly gone, the forest seemed to exhale in relief, and Blythe exhaled, too. Her legs were shaking, her arms rigid. She’d felt rooted to the spot when the men were in front of her, but now her body was frozen with indecision. What had she even come out here for? Clothes and notebooks? She felt like an idiot.