BirthDate (La Patron, the Alpha's Alpha)

by Addae, Sydney

  “That sounds like a fairy tale,” Jasmine said.

  “Okay, so the Alpha was a ghost who impregnated women and that started things in motion?” Silas asked not understanding where the story was going.

  “Alpha impregnated human women.”

  Silas stilled as the ramifications slammed into him.

  “Oh shit,” Jasmine whispered.

  “They say he came back once a year to talk to his sons and procreate with any female he could. It was always the same night, in the same area. It did not matter if the female was willing or not. If she was old enough to breed, she was a candidate.”

  “That’s terrible and twisted,” Jasmine said.

  “It’s a possible explanation how this got started. What surprises me is that it was going on during the same time period I have Jacques researching.”

  “And it came through your line.”

  “What?” he did not want to think of the ramifications of that.

  “This whole human breeding thing started from the Black Wolf clan. Your original clan. Your roots. Your—”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. But to believe that you have to believe the Alpha rose from the dead.”

  “Says the man who is a walking, talking wolf. Talk about weird stuff.” She chuckled.

  Silas was not amused.

  “Hey, you believe in spiritual things like the Goddess, how much of a jump is this? Then again, maybe he wasn’t fully dead,” she said.

  “Then why did he appear once a year?” He countered.

  “Menopausal? Weird? Polygamist? I don’t know. But the time is about right, according to Griggs anyway.”

  “What happened to his sons?” Silas asked instead of talking to his mate. He did not appreciate her humor of a possible connection to his origins and human breeders. That was not something he wanted to think about right now.

  “As far as I know they never acknowledged their dual nature until the cycle was broken.”

  Silas frowned. “What cycle?”

  “I bet you’re thinking of all the mean things you said about breeders right now knowing we could all be related…” Jasmine said laughing.

  He ignored her.

  “One of the women had a daughter, twins I think. After the girls were born, Alpha did not appear for three years. By then he had a large clan of mixed breeds. His sons followed in his footsteps, traveling all over the country, planting their seeds. Most of them were hanged for crimes and did not live past a hundred.”

  “The daughters?”

  “One died as a young child. We are still tracking the other’s lineage. But she was the cream of his litter. Even mixed, her pups were closer to our pack than any of the sons litters.”

  “We could be cousins or something, huh?” Jasmine asked with a chuckle in her voice.

  “You think Asia is from her line?” Silas said wishing his mate would muzzle herself.

  “She could be. So could your bitch. She is very strong and it is not all from you.”

  “Really? Damn you Black Wolves sure have made serious inroads on the half-breeds of the world.” Jasmine said.

  He frowned at her poor humor. She had no idea what all she was capable of yet. They needed to take this information seriously.

  “If Asia is a descendant of the Alpha, you think that is the reason she has been targeted?”

  “No. We believe that is the reason she has been successful. There is a difference. Recently we discovered an ongoing intensive background study on her. Someone even came to the continent poking their noses where it did not belong. It caused quite a stir, we had no idea.”

  “No one will believe a dead Alpha impregnated those women,” Silas scoffed.

  “Unless they are the same ones who know wolves and men can be one. It goes back to what I asked before. Why her? Why does her body have the ability to be altered and not others? They are seeking more of our kind.”

  “Are there many others?”

  “Pure black wolves? No. Less than a hundred around the world. But most are strong and have large packs. Not as large as yours…”

  Silas waved down the comment, it was irrelevant at the moment. “Are there many from his son’s line still living?”

  “We have someone tracking that information as well. It is more difficult because there were many sons who mated with many women who birthed a lot of children. We may never know all of the offspring because of the time period and poor record keeping.”

  “That’s true,” Silas said thinking how most people could not read or write let alone record a birth in those times. “So it is easier to track the daughter’s line. She was his only living female child, right?”

  “As far as we know. Alpha rarely appears any more. I have heard stories that he visits his seed, grandchildren in dreams and speak of their heritage. But I cannot confirm if that is true or not.”

  “So where do we or Asia play in all of this?” Silas asked glad his mate had stopped with the teasing.

  “We are not exactly sure… but suspect Asia will be a solid leader in this war. A force of nature as she comes into her own. Do you know if she is mated? Or has had a mate?”

  Silas shrugged, refusing to share anything personal regarding Asia. She would share whatever she wanted Angus to know. “You will need to ask her.”

  “Of course.” Angus paused. “There are others, your sons, for example. We have researched their line. Bennetts have been known far and wide as a fierce fighting clan for generations. But the twins are better, faster and meaner than their relatives. Their ability to adapt quickly to change has been noted. It’s possible that they are descendants as well. They exhibit the mental and physical agility of the black wolf as well an innate loyalty to pack. Those are core traits of our clan.”

  Silas had always thought there was something different, special about how quickly Tyrone and Tyrese learned new skills. When he met Tyrone in the hospital, he picked up a different scent, but could not identify it at the time. With everything happening so quickly, moving from the hospital, Jasmine going into heat, his wolf fighting the attraction and their mating, he had forgotten the small difference, until now. They certainly carried the traits Angus mentioned and more. Before he trained them, they fought on the same level as his Alphas. Now they were an unbeatable tag team. He trusted the twins not only with his life, but the lives of his mate and pups. There was no one else on the planet that he trusted to that degree.

  “What do you mean?” he asked wanting Jasmine to hear the pronouncement clearly.

  “We believe your mate is a descendant of the daughter of our Alpha.”

  Chapter11

  The further they moved from the area of the explosion, the more the lab resembled the area Asia was intimately familiar with. They passed the corridor leading to the larger apartments. Inwardly she chuckled. Her cell at the compound was larger than those apartments. But when all you know is what you are told and what you see, you believe. Her heart ached for the elderly residents who had been left behind like unwanted garbage. They had worked and lived here all their lives without compensation. Now, older and they had nothing to fall back on to survive. No one would be providing food for them to eat or clothes to wear. This facility would be torn apart and never utilized again. La Patron had made that very clear.

  Looking ahead in the dim corridor, she exhaled. “We’re close, the hallway make a left.” The inability to share a link with Tyrese mystified her. She had always been able to link with anyone she chose. They had spent a few moments earlier trying without success to relink.

  He nodded and continued walking slowly waving his scanner from side to side and along the walls. Large, outdated black and white safety posters appeared on the walls in no specific order. Her captors never missed a trick to keep them clueless to the real world. There were no televisions or radios for entertainment. If she hadn’t gone on assignments, stayed in hotels, been given the appropriate wardrobes and taught a multitude of languages, she would be just as clueless as the residents t
alking with Alpha Samuel.

  They stopped short of the hallway they needed to travel. Tyrese pointed to a pair of steel double doors. Swallowing hard, fighting memories she wished had died when she had, she whispered. “Surgery areas. I am not going in there.”

  “No. No, of course not.” He turned and wrapped a comforting arm around her. She tensed for a moment. Uncertainty rocked her. Should she take the offered embrace or not? Accepting his care would make the horrors all the more real. She glanced over his shoulder and saw the doors again. Closing her eyes, she held on to him and breathed him in to free her nostrils of the stench of remembered surgeries.

  “They do unspeakable things in there,” she whispered as the horrors of her confinement slipped from the vault in her mind and replayed in living color.

  His large palm stroked her hair. She squeezed her eyes tight to keep out the visions, but they continued on a loop. Too many times she had been wheeled through those doors on a gurney, drugged and prepped for experimental surgery. Behind those doors, they had turned her into a monster with metal parts. They played with her mind, stole her memories and her identity.

  Her body shook until she lay limp in his arms, terrified because she could not stop the shudders running through her body. Or the tears that overflowed from her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

  “It’s over now, Asia. It’s over. They can’t trace you anymore. You still have your skills, in time your memory will be better than ever. Shhhh, they can’t hurt you anymore. We won’t let them. Plus, you don’t know my mama, she don’t play when it comes to hers. And she considers you one of hers. So don’t worry, we have your back.” He continued rubbing her until she pulled it together and wiped her face with her palm.

  Ducking her head, she forced herself to step away even though she wished she could linger in the shelter of his arms. They were on the clock and needed to get Leon and the others over here to go through the rooms to search for anything of value.

  “Thanks, sorry about that. The concrete floors, block walls, even the smell of the place take me back to a place I swore I would never return.” She wiped her hand on the jumpsuit. “I am nobody’s victim, Rese. Never again.” Certainty rose in her chest, she refused to allow anyone to use her again. For some reason the Goddess gave her a fresh start, she would make it count this time.

  He wiped her tear with his thumb and stared into her eyes. “Never again, Asia,” he whispered.

  She nodded, pleased that he got it. He got her. They were similar in temperament, and would make a good team. Unfortunately he believed her mate was someone important and somewhere on the horizon. She remembered the day he told her that tidbit. If he hadn’t wanted her to smell something she would have laughed him out of her small cell. It wasn’t until she realized he had stopped coming to see her as often that she realized he was serious. Tyrese was no lightweight. If he believed her mate was nearby, then she had to take the possibility seriously. But not now. Not when she needed to focus on the job of clearing the path for the team and retrieving her legacy.

  “Ready?” he whispered.

  “Yeah.” Inhaling, her gaze flicked over the doors that warped her past and then looked toward the opening to the hall where pieces of her future was stored.

  Asia and Tyrese turned the corner to the wing where she stowed her box in the janitor’s closet. She wondered if Jan was okay? Was he one of the residents in the room with Samuel? She hoped the kind, older man could finally take time off from work and just chill.

  Tyrese led the way with his scanning device. Tapping his back lightly, she pointed to the small alcove where the door was located.

  He nodded and continued scanning past the doorway and across the hall. Her heart raced in her chest with each step he took. This section of the lab was further away from the fall site and was in good condition. That information made her pause and look around carefully. There was a thick ledge at the top of the wall. All the years she had lived here, she never noticed how much thicker the walls were in this area.

  Dread skittered down her back as she continued to stare up at the thick wall. “Tyrese, we need to leave,” she whispered backing away from the closet door.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.” She turned and glanced behind him. The eerie silence made goose bumps rise across her flesh.

  His head swiveled, looking behind and then in front of him before taking her hand. Seconds later they moved in the direction they had come. “I called for backup, Rone and Leon are on their way.”

  The hairs rose on her back. Her leg struggled to move, one in front of the other. Biting her lip, she tried to tell him it was too late. Her enemies were in the corridor with them. Pinpricks of awareness rose on her arm and legs. The bastards had found her. Instead of speaking her thoughts, she screamed as excruciating pain from the metal in her leg ripped through her, snatching her breath.

  One moment she held Tyrese’ hand, the next she was flying backward seeing his startled gaze as the wall behind them opened, gobbled her and slammed close. A bulked Tyrese running after her was the last thing she saw.

  Her back hit a soft wall, as she started sliding down her arms were jerked upward. Cold metal surrounded her wrists. Seconds later her ankles were bound as well. Fear robbed her of reason and she bucked and writhed on the padded surface trying to break free. How had they found her? She continued fighting to be free until her wolf whined, telling her to stop and pay attention. From the first time they put her under the microscope to now, every action and reaction was recorded. She could not believe how quickly she had fallen back into the old habit of fighting for release. Somewhere, someone was watching with a timer and recorded how long she struggled. More importantly, that she had not been able to break free of her restraints. Damn it. She had just given them information they did not need to have.

  Never again. The refrain continued rolling through her mind, strengthening her. Closing her eyes, Asia focused on the building. She would tell Mistress anything that would expedite her freedom.

  There was nothing. No sounds. That couldn’t be right. Someone was nearby, she knew that as well as she knew her name. Focusing harder, she sent her senses further, through the thick walls. Pushing, she saw the grainy concrete that proved just how thick the wall actually was before finally seeing the floor and wall on the other side. Elated that her powers were intact, she searched for her captors. She inhaled. Two scents were familiar, but she could not immediately place names. There was another, but it was so different she was not sure if he was human or wolf or other.

  “Why did she stop?” A female voice asked in the distance.

  Asia turned, searching for the person who spoke. The voice was unfamiliar. Floating downward, she noticed four outlined bodies. One shape was a bit shorter than her and appeared to have a slim muscular build, but his scent was strange, almost appealing. She strained to make out his facial features but could see nothing more than the grainy outline. The male stood next to a feminine shape, tall and slender with a long ponytail.

  “Asia?” Jasmine called.

  “Yes, Mistress?” She expected to hear from Mistress earlier and wondered what took so long.

  “Are you okay?”

  She understood her Mistress did not know what else to ask, but that question was…lame. Most who are abducted are not okay. I am stuck on a padded wall somewhere in the lab.”

  “We don’t know,” another masculine voice replied.

  She turned to see the outline of a familiar voice and scent. Deets. He was one of the first doctors, pervert in disguise, who had worked on her. She hadn’t seen him in over fifteen years and wondered why he was here.

  “Can you tell me anything that will help us find you?” Jasmine asked sounding worried.

  “Not yet Mistress. But there are three men and a woman having a discussion about me, I am listening without them knowing it.”

  “Four? Are you still in the lab?”

  “Are you sure she regenerated? Perhaps this i
s her old form?” the odd man asked.

  Asia wondered why the stranger made Deets uneasy, fear wafted off him in waves. She did not pick up malice or anything of that nature from the stranger. What were he and the woman doing there?

  “Everything inside her shut down. Her heart, her mind, everything. There was no signal that she was alive. That is the only thing we are sure of. If Bruce hadn’t suggested we wait to see if she came for her box we would never have caught her,” Deets said.

  “Good job…sorry your name again?” the male stranger asked.

  “Bruce, Sir.”

  “You work here?”

  “Yes, Sir. I’m the janitor. No one pays attention to the cleaning staff. We see a lot that goes on.”

  Asia gasped at the voice of the janitor she had thought of as a friend over the years. She recognized his scent, but didn’t know his name was Bruce, she had called him Jan, short for janitor. The older man had been a hallmark in the lab for as longs as she remembered. She couldn’t count the times they had talked about meaningless things or he held her hand offering comfort when someone they knew passed. It took a moment to grasp that he had been the one who sold her out.