Challenging the Alpha (Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance)

by Joanna Wilson

  “Fine; but I’m not wearing heels.” Sapphire finally said as she tipped the glass of soda back, trying to get more out. I really do have an addiction to fizzy things.

  “Like you could walk in them.” Max scoffed, snorting. “Now move your ass. I only have three hours to make you a hot-to-trot bona fide stripper.” Max said, with a little note of glee in her voice.

  ***

  “You can’t be serious, Max.” Sapphire said incredulously, staring at the pink and purple scrap Max called a dress and the floss she called panties.

  “You want to get in, Fire? You got to look the part.” Max said flippantly as she yanked off her shirt and kicked off her pant, completely unconcerned with her nudity.

  “Can’t I like be you--I don’t know--assistant?” She beseeched her friend as Max slipped on a barely-there lime green thong with matching nipple tassels.

  The look Max gave her was a combination of frustration and amusement. Sapphire could understand the frustration but the amusement? Do I have to actually dress like a stripper? She asked herself for the hundredth time.

  “We’re going to a bachelor party. You want to get in, don’t you?” Max pulled on a bustier and tied the strings tight in front. “Put it on and save your brother or don’t put it on and save your chastity.”

  And that just about cinched it for Sapphire. She stomped over to the bathroom and put on the ridiculous outfit. It took nearly ten minutes before Sapphire finally psyched herself up enough to come out of the bathroom.

  “Holy shit, Fire. If I were a lesbian, I’d totally fuck you right now.” Max whispered reverently, passing Sapphire a pair of patent black knee high boots.

  “Fake it til you make it, right Max?” Sapphire shrugged, being as pragmatic as she could while she laced up the boots.

  She’d chosen to do this, and there was no way she was half-assing it. She looked down at the boots and the dress that barely covered her ass. Deal with it.

  “Ready to go do this thing?” Sapphire asked as she stared at Max’s equally scandalous attire.

  Her friend tossed a long red trench coat over to her, and slipped on a black one for herself. “I don’t think you’re giving me a choice here, honey.”

  Chapter 5

  "Password." A pair of hard green eyes glared at them through a slit in the door.

  Sapphire listened as Max spat out a complicated sounding sentence in a language Sapphire couldn’t understand.

  "Nice to see you again, Maxine." The giant guard said as he opened the door.

  Sapphire was completely amazed as her friend hopped into the giant’s arms and gave him a kiss full of tongue. "It's been too long, Tony."

  "Damn right." Tony laughed and gave Max's ass a squeeze. Sapphire just hoped she wouldn't have to give him the same treatment, because while she could wash off the stench of horny men from herself, washing out some dudes tongue from her mouth was another story entirely. "Who's your friend?"

  Sapphire cocked her hip and smiled flirtatiously, trying to look like she knew what she was doing. "Fire." Sapphire purred.

  The guard looked her up and down before finally letting them pass. Sapphire felt practically naked as the man took their coats and eye-fucked them. Sapphire bit her lips as she tried to remember why she was there. The fear that Mark was tied up somewhere hanging over a giant shark tank, would definitely be a good enough reason for Sapphire to be strutting around in a skin tight purple ass-hugging dress.

  "I heard there's a bachelor party." Sapphire said, bending over so the guard got a good look at her ass as she took a deep whiff in every direction to try to sniff out her brother.

  "Yeah. Follow me." Tony said and stepped in front of them to lead them down a hallway. Sapphire lagging just a little behind, trying to sniff out all the doors they passed.

  "Here we are, ladies. And remember to save me a dance, Maxine." Tony’s voice held a slight note of longing.

  "I always do, baby." Max winked over her shoulder at him.

  They walked into the dimly lit room and Sapphire nearly tripped when a loud roar of hoots and hollers rang out in the room. "You sure are popular, Max." Sapphire whispered, remembering to keep her smile in place as she climbed onto the small stage and took the position Max had taught her, one leg and hand wrapped around the pole with her head back.

  "It comes with the terri--Oh fuck." Max hissed, her mask slipping for a second, before she gathered herself. The music began and Sapphire started to twirl around the pole.

  Max slid over to her, grabbing onto her pole and leaning close to her; "Your left - towards the front, surrounded by guards." Max whispered against Sapphire’s neck, licking across her skin as she was greeted with a round of hoots and hollers.

  Sapphire ignored everyone and looked to where Max had indicated, making sure she was still in tune with the music. Is that... Mark? What. The. Fuck.

  If not for Max suddenly spinning her and tipping her back to kiss the day lights out of her, Sapphire might have jumped off the stage and ended the charade right then and there to strangle her brother. Max's tongue moved over Sapphire’s as her hands roamed all over Sapphire’s body. Sapphire knew what Max was doing. She was being brought back to reality, though she would have preferred another method.

  Sapphire drew back and smiled before spinning Max away and dropping down to slide her hands up her friend’s legs. She stripped away Max’s skirt, playing up the act. The skirt was tossed to the side and Sapphire hovered over Max’s ear. "Thanks for letting me know. I think it’s time for a lap dance."

  Max gave the barest of nods before she once again began to move to the beat. Carefully Sapphire walked off the stage and over to her brother, winking and blowing air kisses at any guy that looked her way.

  "Ha. Looks like the bachelor's going to get a lap dance." One of the guys in the crowd hooted as Sapphire moved to her brother.

  The recognition came soon enough.

  "Holy shit. Sapphire?" Mark asked her through their link.

  Plastering on a fake smile, Sapphire began to grind against her brother's leg, trying to hold back the immediate instinct to vomit. "Who the fuck else would it be?" Sapphire snapped through their link.

  "So, what's a good little boy like you doing here?" Sapphire asked out loud to Mark, turning to shimmy and shake her body in his lap.

  Sapphire expected Mark to answer, but the guy next to him, who looked like the poster boy for extremely excruciating tattoos spoke up instead. "Enjoying his last night of freedom." The man shouted and slapped her ass playfully.

  Reflexively, Sapphire raised her hand to punch the guy in the face but remembered who she was pretending to be at the last second and latched her hand onto Mark’s chair, laughing seductively. "Well, I'll be sure to make it a very memorable last night."

  "Explain." Sapphire shot at Mark through their link, while she continued to wiggle on top of him.

  Mark's explanation was clean cut without his usual bullshit, not that it made this situation any easier for Sapphire to deal with. Somehow over the course of 48 hours he had been kidnapped, nearly killed, saved by a mob boss’s daughter, and engaged to her. Sapphire would have preferred it if he was getting tortured instead.

  “I came to get you, Mark. You know you can’t stay here; she’s human, and a mob boss’s daughter. It won’t work. I’m going to create a diversion, and then we’re going to get out-”

  A loud noise interrupted her thought as a pair of double doors on the other side of the room suddenly burst open, and a bright florescent light flooded the room.

  “No, no, no, no, no, no.” Sapphire’s heart dropped and she froze.

  Sin stood there, his face livid in anger. Sapphire tried to look away but the pull drew her gaze. Fear flooded through her and she breathed. “No.”

  Standing next to Sin was a short Asian man. Flanking both of them were a dozen guards, some of who she knew as guards from the compound. And all of them saw her very clearly in the dim room. No, no, no.

  “Mate.” The si
ngle word broke the silence that had settled over the room and made Sapphire whimper.

  She was in trouble now.

  Chapter 7

  “Out. All of you.” Sin barked as he thrust Sapphire into the foyer of their home.

  Sin was livid, and he had every right to be, but Sapphire wasn’t prepared for it. When he’d come and dragged her off her brother’s lap with barely a look to anyone, Sapphire felt like she wanted to faint or throw up or both. Things only got worse when Sin congratulated Mark on his engagement and said they’d “try” to make it to the wedding.

  It pissed her off to think he’d known the entire time, but then she remembered that he had been the one to contact the Tsu Jai organization. She doubted he had to do much more than make a quick call and find out the details of Mark’s kidnap. If she had just stayed with Sin all of it probably could have been avoided. The thought of it all pissed Sapphire off and made her defensive.

  She needed to make Sin see the situation from her perspective, see her fear and worry over her brother. “Mark’s my brother, Sin. I had to do something. I know the circumstances weren’t… great, but I made a choice. I would have done the same thing for you, Sin. I was just doing what I had to do.” Sapphire said emphatically, trying to get him to see. If he could just understand her reasoning maybe…

  Sin had been quiet the entire ride back, and he had somehow severed his link from her, so she couldn't get anything from him. He was going to keep to his silence and keep ignoring her. He didn’t even turn to look at her as the last guard scattered out the front door.

  Sapphire wished he would just get angry and rage at her. Anything would’ve been more preferable than the deadly silence. It was the silence that scared her the most. Sapphire got used to having Sin in her mind, occasionally diving into his mind, but she couldn’t do that now.

  Even when he’d chased her through the forest and taken her furiously, she’d still been able to dive into his mind. The fact that she couldn’t now told her how angry Sin really was.

  “Come.” Sin commanded. He latched onto her upper arm and dragged her up the stairs, through their bedroom and into the bathroom.

  Sapphire stumbled into the bathroom, looking at herself as she skidded past the mirror. Before the night had started, she’d made a pretty kick-ass stripper, but as she looked at her reflection all she could see was a woman who had betrayed her mate in the worst way possible. It might not have been sex, but Sapphire had been stripping for a room full of guys; and giving her brother a lap dance equated to sex in Sin’s eyes.

  “Look Sin, I’m--” Sapphire began, turning to face her mate and nearly losing her composure by the look on his face. Sapphire stumbled back until she hit the outer glass wall of the shower, the initial sting from the cold not even register in her mind as she tried not to cower at the look Sin was giving her. Inside, her wolf was lying down, exposing her belly, and begging for every kind of forgiveness. Sapphire wasn’t far behind her.

  “Get in.” Sin pointed.

  Sapphire could only assume he meant the shower, and she reached for his coat, pulling her arms out of it and dropping it to the floor. Sapphire was shaking as she anchored her fingers in the hem of the dress ready to pull it up and over her head, only for her arms to be yanked up and her body suddenly thrust into the shower.

  Freezing cold water hit her back as Sin turned on the faucet, making Sapphire yelp. “B-But my clothes…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes hit his, seeing the dangerous swirl of barely controlled rage inside.

  Sapphire tried again to reach out to him through their link, but all she got was empty space. “These aren’t your clothes, Sapphire. This isn’t you.” These words forced out as he savagely ripped the clothes from her body.

  The strong independent part of her wanted to rebel, wanted to kick him in the nuts and run away. She’d been trying to save someone she loved, but even that excuse suddenly sounded hollow. Sin had offered to help her, and they could have done it together, avoiding all of this, but she’d been selfish and inconsiderate. She still saw herself as a lone wolf. She wanted to give into the impulse and run, to disappoint herself and Sin yet again. But an even stronger part of her knew she had to stay, knew she had to suffer through whatever Sin was going to do; because she deserved it.

  “Oh, Sapphire, you more than deserve it.” Sin said as he tossed the remnants of her clothes over the side of the shower stall, not even bothering to disrobe himself.

  So, we still have a link. The thought comforted her even as the look in his eye chilled her to the bone. There was nothing she could say to make it better. She fucked up and now she had to pay the price. There was only one thing she could give him: her submission.

  “Your submission?” Sin barked harshly, pushing her further into the shower stall.

  Sapphire shrunk back into the shower, her back hitting the cool marble. There was nothing to do but wait; wait for the Sin she knew to come back, to kiss her sweetly and take her with a soulful intensity. But it was only the beast that loomed over her, his eyes raging fire and hell.

  “I have never once gotten your submission, Sapphire.” He rested his hand on her shoulder, his thumb pressed against the pounding vein in her neck. “No matter what you like to tell yourself in that pretty little head of yours, not once have you submitted to me. You still live as you used to: by yourself, shutting everyone out. You shut your mate out.”

  Sapphire winced as his words hit her; Sin didn’t raise his voice to her, didn’t scream or shout or rage, and that was what scared Sapphire the most. She could deal with his fire, his anger, but this sort of seething rage left Sapphire drowning in a sea with no hope of rescue.

  “Sin, please don’t do--” But her words were lost on a scream as Sin bit down hard on her shoulder, drawing blood.

  Sapphire didn’t claw at him, didn’t fight back as he lifted her against the tile, teeth still buried in her neck and thrust with a sort of cold calculation into her.

  There was no emotion in their joining, Sapphire couldn’t even say there was a connection. It was simply about Sin taking what he wanted from her body. Sapphire flinched away as his fist shot out an inch from her head and slammed through the marble of the shower wall. Bits of debris scraped her skin. She yelped.

  “Don’t do what, Sapphire?” Sin asked as he thrust his hips into Sapphire with a sort of mechanical quality, as if even he wasn’t enjoying their mating.

  “Don’t hurt yourself.” Sapphire whispered, the patter of water stealing the fear and sadness out of her voice.

  “Is that what I’m doing?” Sin asked silkily, thrusting sharply into her.

  “Yes, and you know it. We share… everything.” The room was starting to spin for Sapphire, taking a horizontal tilt. Am I fainting? Sapphire wondered as she teetered, and leaned forward to grasp onto Sin.

  Immediately he stopped, and pulled slightly away to look at her through the cascade of water. “Sapphire?”

  He was blurry, rimmed with a million white lights. Sapphire tried to open her mouth to tell him… something. But the thought was lost, and suddenly, he was lost. Everything was lost to her in a split second as the world went black.

  Chapter 8

  “Your friend called you Fire. I think that describes you perfectly.” Sin said softly, his voice trailing Sapphire like a caress as she slowly came back to consciousness. Though a part of her would have liked to stay asleep if the scarves securing her to a chair and the blindfold were any indication of what was to come.

  The dizziness left her, making her wonder if she’d really even fainted. Though, not being able to remember how she got from the shower into silk bindings convinced her that she had indeed blacked out. But if she was feeling better, then Sin knew it, which didn’t bode well for her immediate future.

  Testing the scarves that held her in place, Sapphire flinched when Sin’s fingers gently brushed her bound ones. She could escape easily, one good tug and she would be free, but that was what he wanted, to see if she would let
him have control completely or do what she always did and half-ass it. The need to dominate and control was a trait in a male alpha, one that Sapphire had recognized but refused to accept. If she released herself now, she would be denying a key part of him, and betray him yet again. The bonds were far more than a restraint; they were a test.

  “You’ve made your point, Sin. I won’t break the bonds, you have to release me. So please… please.” Sapphire cooed, choosing her words carefully as she listened to the sounds of his soft footsteps on the carpet.

  This was yet another side of Sin she’d never seen, not livid, not enraged, but something else. Sapphire couldn’t read him. For the time she’d been passed out gave him time to stew, to cultivate a plan, to turn his blind fury into carefully calculated distance.

  “Maybe I was too rough with you.” Sin said, his voice lacking any sort of emotion. A shift in the air, alerted Sapphire to his presence on her left side, a blast of heat made her think he might be leaning over her.