Alpha Exposed

by Anya Breton

  Alpha Exposed

  Anya Breton

  When Samantha’s sister goes missing, all signs point to supernatural foul play. Her fellow Air witches won’t help, leaving her with one miserable choice—to beg for assistance from Dion Hebert, the odious weretiger Alpha she shot down months ago. In front of his pack. What’s a witch to do?

  Dion can’t believe Samantha has the nerve to come begging after she humiliated him in front of half the supernatural Underground. He agrees to help in exchange for the one thing he’s always wanted—Samantha Avira. Naked. Wrapped around him in every delectable position he can imagine. But since the witch humiliated him publicly, Dion wants the sex to be public too.

  The thought of getting naked with Dion turns Samantha on, as much as she tries to deny it. The thought of getting naked with him in front of everyone leaves her part aroused and part horrified. When Dion makes good on his end of the bargain, Samantha’s deepest, darkest desires are unleashed. And the result is pure, sexy magic that can’t be tamed.

  Alpha Exposed

  Anya Breton

  Chapter One

  In any other house the phrase “the living room looks like it was hit by a tornado” would be a playful metaphor. For Samantha Avira’s house, it was a reality. Cautiously, she picked her way through the wreckage of what had once been her walnut coffee table and beige chenille sofa, hoping against all odds the destruction of the furniture had been one of her sister’s tantrums.

  “Kari,” she called across the once tastefully appointed space. “What the hell happened?”

  She had a pretty good idea of the what, but not the why. As Air witches, both Avira sisters could harness the power of wind. Kari could have started a dust devil indoors during one of her tantrums. The unnatural occurrence might have been small enough to cause the damage to the furniture without stressing the house’s structural integrity. Either way, Sam was going to have her head.

  “Kari!”

  A bit of wood debris from the coffee table caught her leg, snagging on her nude nylons. Now she had to add one perfectly good pair of hose to the list of casualties her sister’s volatile moods cost. Sam grumbled under her breath as she tapped into the aether—the swirling mass of magic hidden around everything. A pocket of Air magic formed beneath Sam like a soft pillow and carried her above the obstacles.

  “Kari,” she called again as she traversed the clear corridor to her sister’s bedroom. “I hope you got a raise, because you have an entire living room to refurnish.”

  But there was no Kari in the pink-and-black-painted bedroom at the end of the hall. Her younger sister’s space looked exactly as it had the last time Sam poked her head in. The delicate twin bed done up in hot pink and black could barely be seen beneath the mound of dirty laundry. A basket of clean, unfolded clothes sat beneath posters of the Harry Potter guys, beside a heap of discarded shoes. Though Kari was now eighteen, she didn’t have the heart to pull down those childish images.

  Samantha tugged her phone out of the front pocket on her purse. Wherever Kari was, her phone would be with her. Kari lived and breathed text messages. And she was about to get an eyeful of complaints from Sam.

  What the hell happened? Sam tapped into her phone and then pressed send.

  She waited for the chirp that signified Kari had received the message and responded. It never came. What did come was far more worrisome.

  The quiet blip in the distance didn’t bode well. Was her sister’s phone here?

  Where are you? Sam typed as she started toward the sound.

  A second chirp echoed nearby, louder now—coming from within the house, like in a B-horror movie.

  Kari, Sam typed.

  Her sister’s phone trilled from beneath rubble that had been the beloved sofa. Samantha crouched to get a look under the heavy item of furniture. The pounding of her heart drowned out all other noise. To her relief and simultaneous dismay, she found the phone but no sister.

  It would have killed her to find Kari’s body. But the lack of a body seemed nearly as bad. Especially since Kari would never voluntarily leave without her phone.

  This destruction hadn’t been a tantrum. Kari had fought someone.

  She scanned the space, looking for details she’d passed over before. A shadow on the eastern wall caught her eye. Sam squinted for more detail. The impression of a body in the drywall soon became clear. A tall, broad body.

  Could it be the guy her sister had met on Witchbook? Samantha didn’t trust the website for witches modeled after the vanilla humans’ Facebook site. But Kari insisted it was all the rage in the Underground. Sam bet Kari had a different take on it now.

  With her sister’s phone in hand, Sam carefully maneuvered through the ruin of the living room with a little burst of Air to help her along. Soon she stood in front of the man-sized dent. Sam scrutinized the shadowed mark to gauge the man’s actual size.

  Would he be larger or smaller than the dent? She tried to remember what she knew of physics. Perhaps physics wasn’t even the correct science to call on. Sam inhaled a frustrated breath and then set about looking for other clues.

  Pay dirt. A thick golden ring nestled near the baseboard. No female would have a finger that large. She’d found another clue.

  The flat, smooth surface of the jewelry held a sapphire in the center that glimmered beneath the overhead light—an overhead light that had survived the fight. She turned the jewel over in her hand, looking for initials or markings to lead her back to the owner. Unfortunately the gold was worn with age. If there’d been any initials, they were long gone.

  Setting the ring aside, Sam loaded her sister’s phone to the messaging program. A draft attached to Sam’s number appeared rather than the message history she’d hoped to find. The short note struck cold fear through her heart.

  It read, Spellweaver in the city.

  * * * * *

  “Has it been twenty-four hours yet?” Alice Etesian’s typically shrill voice asked over the phone two hours later.

  Sam had called each of Kari’s friends. She’d driven to every place she could think of to check for her sister. And she’d even roused the girl’s boss to verify her sister went to work today. But no one had the first clue where Kari was now.

  Samantha clenched her teeth in anger at Alice’s question. She’d feared her priestess would treat the situation with her usual indifference. Alice, like most of the coven, thought the Avira sisters were second-class citizens because they were only half witch.

  “She’s at that age where disappearing for a day is common,” Alice continued. “She’ll probably turn up tomorrow morning with a good excuse.”

  “I wouldn’t be worried if I hadn’t come home to a wrecked living room, the imprint of a man on the wall, a man’s ring on the floor and Kari’s prized possession left behind—her phone. What eighteen-year-old leaves the house without her phone?”

  “My eighteen-year-old uses her tablet more than her phone,” was Alice’s retort.

  Samantha tried to hold in her growl. “Her laptop is here.”

  “Maybe the young man she escaped with had a phone.”

  The accusatory emphasis her priestess placed on the word was obvious. Kari’s yearning for greener pastures was well-known among the coven. The younger woman told everyone who would listen her dream of becoming a model in New York City.

  Could Kari have escaped like they thought?

  No. She would have told Sam before she left. Even if it meant they got into a huge fight that would make the wreckage in the living room look like a soft summer breeze, Kari would have had the decency to warn her big sister before disappearing. Sam was owed that much for struggling to raise Kari over the past eight years.

  There was one other thing Alice hadn’t commented on. �
�How do you explain the text message about a spellweaver in the city?”

  “Some witches do desperate things for money.”

  Sam’s jaw dropped open in horror. Desperate didn’t cover it. If Kari had sought the services of a spellweaver…

  Kari wouldn’t. No self-respecting witch would offer to sacrifice a portion of her magical ability for money. Especially a half-blood who had less to begin with.

  “So you’re not going to help me?” Sam asked for the record.

  “I don’t think there’s anything to help with.” Alice’s voice was at once icy and light. “She’ll contact you from New York when she’s ready. You’ll see. In the meantime, try to learn to live without her. You’ll be happier this way.”

  With that bit of advice given, the bitch disconnected the call.

  Sam clenched the handset as she struggled not to throw the thing. She wasn’t a violent person, not usually. But the priestess’s response made her wish she did more with a butcher knife than chop prime pieces of beef for her catering business.

  The woman was supposed to support them, to protect them if needed. If Kari were a full-blooded witch, Alice would call in the Rangers to find her. Heaven forbid a pure witch of breeding age get away without doing her duty to provide a pure child.

  This heartless behavior where Kari was concerned was the last straw.

  It was time to take this up the line.

  * * * * *

  Sam’s gaze grew unfocused on her sister’s laptop. The messages she’d discovered painted a bleak picture of Kari’s life. How had she missed her sister’s fall into depression?

  Kari’s unhappiness began when she wasn’t accepted to her top three colleges of choice. Several emails proved Kari had gotten serious about escaping soon after the final letter arrived. Though no plane tickets had been bought or money sent, she’d looked for roommates in the Big Apple.

  Fear that Kari had indeed escaped without calling sat heavily in Sam’s belly. But the phone. The indentation. The fight. Her sister wouldn’t have left this way. Something was wrong. And it had something to do with a spellweaver in the city.

  Could the spellweaver be this mysterious “Dan” that appeared in both Kari’s phone and laptop? They’d carried on flirtatious conversations over text, email and messaging on Witchbook. But as far as Sam could tell they hadn’t met in person.

  She could find no information about the guy’s full name or location. And when she called the number he’d used to send his text messages, a young girl answered and claimed no one by the name of Dan lived there. Something smelled wrong.

  It was time to call their high priest.

  Unfortunately, she got the priest’s assistant, a youthful-sounding woman who cheerfully explained Priest Zephyr was booked through the rest of the week. No amount of begging changed his schedule. Only Sam’s protests that an innocent witch’s life was at stake prompted the assistant’s agreement to slip her boss a note regarding the situation. It was the best Sam could hope for.

  The doorbell reminded her too late she’d had a breakfast date with her best friend lined up.

  “Shit,” she hissed as she scrambled through the wreckage she hadn’t had the time or inclination to clear. “Just a minute!”

  Emma took one look inside the house and then declared, with a dismayed shake of her long blonde hair, “Kari.”

  Emma was beautiful in a pureblooded kind of way. In a society that had spent centuries breeding for purity and beauty, most of their kind was exceptionally attractive. And even though Sam wasn’t as beautiful as the others or pure like Emma, it hadn’t stopped the two females from becoming friends years ago.

  Sam ushered her friend in as she relayed the events of her horrible night. Emma agreed to wait while Sam got ready.

  While she didn’t want to waste time on what was usually her favorite meal of the day, Sam needed to eat. There wasn’t much she could do until she heard from the high priest.

  She showered quick as lightning then dressed in comfortable jeans and a T-shirt. Sam drew her hair up in an easy ponytail as she walked back into the living room. Conversation was light in the car while Sam shared what she’d found on her sister’s laptop. Minutes later, they sat at their favorite greasy-spoon diner waiting on orders of eggs and bacon.

  “You know who can help you with this, Sam-ham?” Emma began with a tilt of her head that told Sam she wasn’t going to like what came next. “Dion.”

  “No.” Sam hadn’t blinked before snapping out her answer.

  “He knows everyone,” Emma continued despite the sharp response.

  Sam focused on the glass of ice water in front of her. “That’s because he’s running a protection racket and everyone pays him.”

  Any other day, Emma would have argued that no one knew for sure how the weretiger Alpha made his money, that profit from his businesses could be responsible for his apparent wealth, and that just because he was infected with a strain of the Were virus, it didn’t make him inherently evil. The misfortune of a missing sister must have made Sam’s friend hold her arguments. Instead, Emma declared, “If this weaver is in the city, Dion will know him.”

  “Yeah,” Sam drawled in thick disgust. “Dion is probably getting money to make sure the asshole doesn’t get attacked by people like me.”

  “All the more reason to talk to him.”

  “People don’t talk to Dion Hebert. They grovel for favors.” She made certain Emma heard the emotion roughening her voice.

  But her friend wasn’t swayed. Rather, Emma’s tone sharpened. “Then you better get on your knees because your sister is missing and none of our faction leadership is going to help you.”

  Emma was right. Everyone in their local coven knew Kari wanted to leave the area. And even if Sam got through to Priest Zephyr, he would check in with the local priestess prior to doing anything. Alice would report all about Kari’s dissatisfaction. More importantly, Alice would tell him the Avira sisters were half-bloods. Any interest Priest Zephyr might have had in helping them would fade when he learned of their lack of purity. And Sam would receive a message from Zephyr’s assistant that Kari had probably run away to follow her dream.

  With an annoyed grunt, Sam dropped her head into her hands. Dion would help her. But the cost was higher than Sam wanted to pay.

  She might not have a choice.

  She’d give her sister and Priest Zephyr a few more hours. Then she’d make a decision.

  Dear Aer, she silently prayed to her patron god, please let Kari be safe. And please bring her back before desperation kicks in for either of us.

  Chapter Two

  Sam had avoided this section of the city for the past eight months. The vanilla humans thought affluent people had gentrified the historically rough neighborhood. Supposedly it was now safe to walk through at night. What they didn’t know was those affluent people were actually members of the Underground led by Dion Hebert—the weretiger Alpha.

  Rumor had it the weretiger pack bought a condemned city block ten years ago. They’d renovated it to code, making it livable again, and then rented out apartments to other Underground members. This generated interest from the other factions beyond the Were community. Soon witches were opening boutiques across the street. Shapeshifters bought office space down the block. And the vampires had recently opened a nightclub on the corner.

  Despite the supposed safety of the area, Sam heard the dull thuds of flesh on flesh as she passed an alley near the parking lot she’d used. Sam held her breath.

  Would someone note her proximity and draw her into the fray?

  She hurried past until her conscience quietly pricked. Someone might need help. Sam hesitated near the building. She brought her phone out of her purse even as she called on Air to sharpen the sounds with magical amplification. She had a better chance of getting help if she knew who was involved. Sound waves filtered into her ear.

  A rough bass voice growled, “I’ll cut off your dick the next time I catch you in this city. Do you
got me?”

  “Fuck you, Hebert,” came the choked response.

  “Fuck me?” Dion Hebert repeated in a sardonic tone. The slightly incredulous question was followed by what might have been a laugh, if laughs were a combination of a breathy sigh and a frightening growl. And then Dion spoke in an eerily light tone that implied he was smiling. “You might want to apologize for that.”

  A chill slipped down Sam’s back when she recalled Dion’s smile. She remembered thinking there was nothing more frightening than a smiling weretiger gangster.

  Apparently there was one thing more frightening—her sister’s disappearance. Silently, Sam urged the beaten man to apologize. She couldn’t stomach asking Dion for help if he killed someone in the alley minutes before.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hebert,” the man gasped out as if someone had grabbed him by the throat to force the issue.

  “You’re in luck. I’m in a good mood today. So I’m not going to kill you.”

  Boots clomped heavily atop broken cement. Treads scraped as Dion lifted the victim off the ground. When Dion began anew, he was quieter and closer to the guy. “But you’ll lose more than your dick if I ever see your face in this city again.”

  A thump and a subsequent male grunt hinted Dion had thrown the guy to the ground. The victim came scrambling out of the alley seconds later. Sam drew flush with the building so he wouldn’t notice her eavesdropping. Not that it mattered. The skinny guy didn’t so much as turn his swollen face toward her as he hightailed it in the opposite direction.

  “Find out where he lives,” Dion’s voice floated into her ear courtesy of Air magic a moment later. “And persuade his super to cancel his lease.”

  “Yes, Dion.”

  Another chill slipped down her back upon hearing that.

  The man really was odious.

  * * * * *

  Dion Hebert had thought he was in a good mood before. But the appearance of a certain Air witch caterer in his restaurant made finding his missing lucky T-shirt seem like small potatoes. His nostrils flared to draw in the notes of her breezy floral scent across the dining room. Dion smirked because she’d come here even though she knew exactly who owned the place.