Alpha Exposed

by Anya Breton

  “I feel just awful,” Bianca continued at a rambling pace in a voice that shook almost as much as her fidgeting fingers. “I mean, bringing my personal life into work like that? It’s not right.”

  Dion gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “You didn’t bring your personal life to work. He did. And we took care of it. You let me know if he comes back around your place.”

  Bianca nodded her head in a jagged motion. “Thank you, Dion,” she whispered even as she wiped away a tear from her cheek.

  “I have a guest at the moment but I’ll have someone check in with you later.”

  Again she nodded. Bianca hesitantly turned toward the dining room and then whirled to face him without warning. She tossed her narrow arms around his neck. A hug was the last thing Dion had expected so he hadn’t had time to stop her. Her lips pressed to his cheek gently in a friendly fashion. She hurried away with glistening eyes.

  Sometimes the world made Dion very angry. Especially on nights like tonight when sweet young women like Bianca were forced to deal with abusive ex-boyfriends threatening to set their houses on fire. And when spellweavers kidnapped young Air witches. But he couldn’t bring himself to be fully angry with that.

  If not for the spellweaver named Dan, Samantha Avira wouldn’t be sitting in his office with flushed cheeks and sweet, swollen lips.

  * * * * *

  Had the scene been orchestrated? Sam had heard him request Tina, the buxom waitress with the friendly hands. At least that much had been arranged. But the heartfelt interlude with the grateful yet tremulous waitress hadn’t been anything Sam heard the guy plan.

  Not that it mattered. She’d personally spied him beating a man out back. However…

  What if the man out back had been this “Robert” character the waitress mentioned?

  No. Dion Hebert was odious. Sam wasn’t going to justify his actions simply because he kissed like a sex god and tasted like savory bread pudding with a hint of brandy hard sauce. Especially not when he’d declared the disgusting price for his help.

  Sex in public? As if sex with him wasn’t bad enough, Dion had to have both. Maybe he wouldn’t find Kari. Maybe she’d find Kari first.

  Dear Aer, she silently prayed while the odious man got groped in the corridor, please let Kari be home safe right now.

  “Do we have a deal?”

  Sam started at the sound of his voice on the edge of the room. Apparently she’d been praying far harder than she’d realized. She primly squared her shoulders as he shut the door once again.

  “I’ll agree to sex.” Samantha cleared her throat. She could hardly believe she’d agreed to that much. “But not in public.”

  The weretiger’s lips lifted into a mocking smile. “So you want to bargain.” He settled his considerable frame against the desk. “How about…our first time will be in private but the second will be in public.”

  Her croaked words came out unbidden. “Multiple times?”

  Dion’s gaze narrowed on her face and his smile dimmed. “That’s the deal,” he snapped. “Either once in public or we ease up to it.”

  She opened her mouth to protest only to have him cut her off.

  “You responded to my kiss, sweetheart.” He gestured at the sofa where she sat, a reminder of the embrace he’d stolen minutes earlier. “You may think I’m odious but you want to fuck me anyway.”

  He was right. But she didn’t have to admit it. And she certainly didn’t have to agree to sex more than once. It would be hard enough to detach herself from the experience during a single instance.

  With a deep, steadying breath, Sam attempted to revise the bargain. “Once but only partially in public. Like…in a dark room with the windows open.”

  “Three times,” he countered. “Once in private, the second in a dark room with the windows open and the third,” he paused, “in public.”

  Sam’s jaw dropped open in horror. Her heels dug into the gray-blue carpet. “You’re supposed to come down in bargaining, not go up to something worse!”

  “And you should know when to simply accept a deal instead of pushing your luck, sweetheart,” he shot back in a growling voice. “Now it’s three times and you come to work for me in my catering business.”

  “You…you…”

  “Odious man?” he offered with a sardonic glint forming in his eyes as he spread his arms to encompass his frame. “I do have a reputation to uphold.”

  The odious man started around his desk without waiting to hear her response. He dropped into his leather task chair and lifted the lid on a wide black-and-silver laptop. Was he dismissing her?

  In a hard tone, he commanded, “Go home and forward me every bit of contact information you have on everyone Kari has been speaking to in the past month. One of my pack members will be by to check out the dent in the wall and look for a scent before the night is through. If your sister is in this city, I’ll find her.”

  Sam no longer knew if she wanted Kari to be here or not. If her sister turned up in the Big Apple tomorrow, Sam would be off the hook for the agreement she may or may not have struck with the city’s Underground kingpin. And if Kari wasn’t…

  Sam wouldn’t think about that.

  Chapter Four

  Dion should have sent someone else. He hadn’t realized his error until the witch-with-the-tits appeared, disheveled, pink and sweaty from some exertion he’d been unable to decipher while he listened at the door.

  Samantha would look this way after he fucked her. Except in that instance she’d have a sleepy, sated expression instead of the exasperation now lining her narrowed features.

  “You said you were going to send a pack member,” she snapped rather than greet him.

  “I did,” he told her with a half-smile. “I’m a pack member too.”

  The witch pushed out an annoyed puff of air through her nose. Her perfect tits lifted beneath her knit shirt with a tiny bounce that made him want to irritate her into more puffs. But his focus immediately shifted when she stepped aside for him to enter and he got a look inside.

  It had probably been a pleasant receiving room before an unnatural disaster struck. Despite being in two pieces, the beige sofa looked comfortable. A black trash bag sat on the floor in between the upended pieces. Bits of wooden debris stabbed at the edges of the plastic, and white fuzz from the sofa’s innards poked through the holes. Dion recalled her telling him the fight occurred in the living room but he’d thought she was exaggerating about a tornado. It had been no exaggeration.

  She made an impatient sound that prompted him into crossing the threshold. The sweet scent of her sweat immediately assaulted him within the sweet scent of her house. There was a second feminine smell, perhaps Kari’s, and then the lingering scents of countless others. He did, however, sense the presence of one male’s aroma. Another witch. An Air witch like her, if the note of brisk plains wind was any indication.

  “Air witch,” he announced.

  “Of course we are,” she snapped. “You knew that.”

  He knew she was half Air witch. Dion had made it a point to find out everything about her. And that had been before she cut him in front of his peers.

  “The attacker,” Dion corrected. “He was an Air witch too.”

  “Most spellweavers are Air witches,” she said, telling him what he’d already known. His informants regularly educated him on the supposedly secretive magical community.

  “Then you’re on the right path.”

  Samantha snorted as she bent to get at another pile of fuzz from a destroyed cushion. His attention darted around until he found the indentation in the wall. Yes, a male. That was obvious.

  He walked to it, drawing in a nose full of air. The scent was unfamiliar beyond the Air note. It wasn’t any male he recalled off the top of his head.

  Dion clenched his jaw. Was this the spellweaver Samantha’s sister mentioned in her text message? Or was it someone working for one? Either way, Dion didn’t like not knowing the individual. He pride
d himself on having a finger on the pulse of the city’s Underground.

  An old-style phone ring echoed through the house. The witch’s head came up from where she’d been reaching for a chunk of wood that might have been a coffee table. She shot upright and then quite literally floated over the wreckage.

  Dion stared after her for more than one reason.

  She was a different species. It had been an abstract idea until he witnessed her long body rising in the air as though lifted by unseen cables. Now it was all he could think of.

  Samantha wasn’t human. She wouldn’t bat a lash when he revealed that he needed to hunt three nights a month when the moon was fullest or risk going batshit on someone. She wouldn’t assume he was gay if she visited his place and discovered naked men loitering in his backyard. And she’d know the bubbled scar on a female’s neck was the mark of a mate.

  Where the hell had that come from?

  Dion turned his thoughts to something more productive.

  Air witches could fly. Damn it. He owed Kevin fifty bucks.

  Her steps retreated down the corridor. Dion swayed onto the balls of his feet. Should he follow her and get a look at where she slept?

  Bad idea. If he saw her bed, saw her near it, he’d want to get her in it.

  The woman was too distracted by her sister’s disappearance to appropriately enjoy what he had to offer. First he had to find Kari, and then he’d invade the older sister’s bed.

  “Thank you for calling, Priest Zephyr.” The witch’s surprised voice floated through the house.

  Dion’s jaw tightened upon hearing the man’s name. Kent Zephyr was the head over the state’s Air witches. And he was a pompous ass who used and abused women. Yes, Dion could be accused of using Samantha Avira. But he hadn’t vowed to protect her race. Zephyr had.

  And Zephyr wasn’t infected with a communicable disease.

  The witch related the news to her high priest in a steady voice that soon trembled and lifted. Dion’s urge to comfort her was strong. Ridiculous. She despised him and he…he didn’t comfort. What he did was solve problems and then send people on their way.

  Yes, Samantha Avira was a problem to be solved. He’d find her sister, fuck her mindless and then restore his reputation. Now he just had to make himself leave her house so he could begin the first task.

  Kent Zephyr was an asshole.

  Sam slammed the phone down on its cradle simply to hear the bang. The action was unsatisfying. She’d rather smack him in the face with it.

  Her high priest had behaved with thick condescension even as he spoke words meant to be soothing. She doubted he’d look into her sister’s whereabouts as he’d said. No, he knew they weren’t pure and would promptly forget her existence the moment he set down the phone.

  She stomped to the front of the house, where her other problem could be found. Dion might have agreed to help find her sister but he hadn’t needed to personally look at the wall. Not when he’d said he’d send someone else. He was here to taunt her. That was the only possible reason for him to see to this task.

  Sam stumbled to a halt at the entrance. The living room was empty. Almost literally. Not only was Dion Hebert not standing where she’d left him, but the sofa and table debris were also missing.

  She threw open the front door, half expecting to find Dion on the other side. The pieces of the sofa set were visible on the edge of the road where the trashmen would pick it up in two days.

  He’d cleaned up.

  The gangster restaurateur and Alpha weretiger had done housework for her. And she’d planned to scream at him. She flushed in shame.

  Then she recalled what he demanded in payment for finding her sister. The reminder brought anger back to the surface. She swung the door, waiting for a gratifying crash that soothed nothing. Sam stomped back to her bedroom, away from the memory of Dion’s effort.

  The mint-green coverlet on her bed wasn’t the first thing she saw. The overlaid image of Dion sprawled out, nude and erect like a conquering king, appeared first. Sam squeezed her eyes tightly shut to chase away the visual. However, it only sharpened. Sam released a long sigh as she reopened her eyes.

  Kari’s softly glowing laptop reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing. Sam dropped onto the bed to continue scouring the machine for clues, and more importantly to forget a gangster had been helpful.

  That, of course, didn’t work out. Dion was present in her thoughts while she jabbed at the keys. He’d probably demand another favor in exchange for his cleanup service. It would be something frustrating like gourmet breakfast delivered in bed…for him and the busty waitress. He’d quickly find she was deadly with scalding coffee if he tried something that foolish. Sam smiled slightly as she clicked through into her sister’s account.

  A message from Dan waited with the subject, Where are you? Getting worried.

  Her smile faded. Dan either wasn’t her spellweaver or he was trying to throw them off the scent.

  Sam emailed Dion about this development. Then she began the task of looking closer at everyone else her sister had corresponded with. With a sociable creature like Kari, it would take ages. But what else was she going to do with her time but sit and worry?

  * * * * *

  Dion needed something to keep his mind off the witch-with-the-tits. Heading the search team should have done the trick. It didn’t. During the downtime he’d fantasized about what he’d do to her once he got her under him. The thoughts had him uncomfortably at half-mast all night.

  Each weaver he met who didn’t match the attacker’s scent brought Dion farther from his goal and closer to frustration. Time was running out for Kari Avira. If a weaver had taken her against her will as Sam thought, he would be draining her of power. The lengthy, painful syphoning process was limited by a weaver’s endurance. Dion prayed this weaver had little.

  He opened the H3’s door in the driveway of their next stop. The scent of brisk plains wind filling his nostrils had an undertone of sweet femininity—the aromas he’d sensed at the Avira sisters’ house. His back went rigid.

  Kari was here. And if she wasn’t, she hadn’t been gone long.

  Dion battled down the urge to charge up the stairs and break down the door beyond the whitewashed porch. Violence would have to wait until he discovered if the girl had gone willingly.

  Using the Alpha link, Dion silently directed his Gamma to go around back. Dion nonchalantly mounted the steps. He worked to relax his clenched jaw and crinkled eyes into an expression of boredom. One wrong move could make the weaver do something rash and violent.

  He knocked twice on the wooden screen door. The curtain in the adjacent window fluttered. Dion kept his position, whistling all the while. The door cracked noisily within its old casing. A brisk plains-wind aroma floated into Dion’s nose. This was the guy.

  “Mr. Hebert.” Dale Vere—the son of one of Dion’s newest suppliers at the restaurant—croaked the greeting.

  Dion used his neutral tone and patently fake smile to reply, “Evening, Dale. Can I come in?”

  “Uh…” The guy’s attention darted inside, perhaps gauging the evidence in the crime scene. “Sure.” Dale slowly widened the door. He adopted a quiet volume. “But I have a friend over. I don’t want to wake her.” Dale waited until Dion was past the door to waggle his eyebrows and add, “She’s kind of exhausted…if you know what I mean.”

  Dion quickly turned away, hiding what was certainly a pissed-off expression. “Anyone I know?”

  “Nah. Some Air witch,” was the man’s brainless response. “She’s a half-blood. Those bitches are always eager to prove themselves.”

  Unable to hold his fury back a moment longer, Dion slammed his palm against Dale’s throat as roughly as he dared. He seized the fucktard’s arms in one hand before they could focus a magical blow. Dion allowed the weaver only the barest of breaths beyond his grip.

  An Air witch likely wouldn’t die of asphyxiation, not when he could call on Air magic to fill his lungs,
but that wouldn’t stop him from experiencing the fear of death.

  The creaking of a metal-spring bed in the next room implied Kevin had breached the back door. Dion’s broad-shouldered Gamma soon appeared around the corner. A brunette with honey-brown highlights and a slim build hung limply from his arms.

  Dion tightened his grip around the weaver’s throat. “Is that Kari Avira? Nod twice if it is.”

  The fucktard nodded twice.

  Dion dropped his right hand to his side. And then he used it to hit the fucktard with an uppercut strong enough to knock him unconscious. It was mildly satisfying but not nearly enough punishment if he’d truly done what Samantha said.

  Soon enough he’d find out.

  Soon enough he’d claim his payment.

  * * * * *

  A soft sound brought Sam to her feet beside the bed. Silently she called on Air for amplification. The front door rattled—a clearer version of the sound that had caught her attention.

  Was someone working a key into the lock? Or was it just the wind? No, not the wind. The weather had been calm tonight.

  “Kari?” she called out even as she started forward. “Is that you?”

  The living room was dishearteningly empty when she stepped over the threshold. Their mother’s worn beige sofa was gone. The coffee table with the scratches they’d cut during Kari’s eighth grade science project was likewise missing. Both were minor worries. Without Kari, the Avira home was no home. It was only a lonely house with too many haunting memories.

  A rap smacked against the wooden door. Sam started, barely quieting her reaction. Her heart pounded madly.

  Who would be knocking at four in the morning?

  She feared she knew the answer and it wasn’t Kari. What did he want? Was he going to make their deal official with horrible paperwork?

  A second knock followed by his voice calling her name prompted her into action. Yes, he was here. He’d probably demand half his payment upfront before he started working. Gangsters did that sort of thing, didn’t they?