Alpha_Taken

by Nora Ash

  Something big and dense is forced further into my abused pussy, spreading me wider as it continues to grow than even the alpha’s punishing cock, and it is not a pleasant sensation. I gasp and struggle to get free, but he keeps me still against his form with arms as unmovable as if they were carved from granite, making shushing noises into my hair when it hooks behind my pelvic bone and I keen in distress.

  It's his knot, my rational side realizes with a start; the swelling gland at the bottom of his member designed to lock me in place for increased chances of fertilization.

  “Why are you knotting me?” I want to scream it at him, because the lust that made me spread and Present has been quelled and I want him out of my body. I want out of this park, out of the nightmare that’s closing in on me again now that the pleasure has ebbed, but I am knotted so thoroughly I can’t even move without my pelvis protesting painfully, tied to an alpha I don’t know.

  Before I can stop it a sob claws its way out from my compressed chest, bringing with it all the fear and agony I have been suppressing since he came out of the darkness to save me. Tears blur my vision of my desperate nail marks in the tree I’ve been fucked up against for the past half hour and I let out a low wail as despair so deep it feels like I cannot contain it takes over my limp body. There are no words forming in my mind to phrase why I am shaking wretchedly in the prison of his arms, only a deep, black sensation spreading through my chest and arms threatening to swallow me whole.

  He never answers me, but when I start to cry he shifts us both, kneeling down on the dirty ground so I am sat on his lap, cradled against his chest.

  And then the most wonderful sound I’ve ever heard rumbles out from his chest, deep and loud. It penetrates my very bones, makes my teeth tingle and my muscles melt. It’s an alpha purr—a real alpha purr. His gift to me in return for what I offered him.

  The empty blackness releases its hold on me, retreating when utter calm washes through my sore body. His presence inside of me becomes tolerable as my muscles slowly relax, and when his one, oversized hand finds the small swelling on my stomach where his knot is locked, rubbing gently against my shirt, I sigh with pleasure. The soft stimulation coaxes my channel to give in to the pressure, allowing peace to filter from my body to my mind.

  My eyes flutter closed. I make myself more comfortable against him, resting my scraped and bleeding fingers on the arm he has wrapped around me and the hand that continues to rub slow circles over my stomach. Some primitive part of me understands that by assuming this position, with his back turned to the open park behind us, he is letting himself be vulnerable to attacks in order to ensure my comfort. He could turn around to make sure no one can sneak up on us, but that would mean I’d be facing the bloody mess of broken bodies. So he doesn’t.

  He doesn’t even stop the loud purring that must be audible far into the darkness surrounding us once I settle down. It keeps vibrating soothingly through me from everywhere we are touching, allowing me to find pleasure and comfort in the sensation of the steady stream of semen I can feel leaking into me. As long as I don’t think, my hormones and instincts keep me placid and content.

  It takes more than half an hour before the knot starts to retract, and fifteen more minutes before it is soft enough that he can withdraw from my swollen pussy without hurting me.

  He lifts me off his lap by the hips and a river of fluids flushes out of me, covering him in a sticky mess. He doesn’t seem fazed though, and quickly zips up his pants before getting to his feet, pulling me with him.

  I stagger, every muscle in my body protesting wildly at having to carry my own weight again, but I manage to find my footing and drag up my nearly ruined pants before I turn around to face him.

  The killer.

  I let a killer fuck me. Knot me. I even freaking Presented for him.

  The silence is deafening in the absence of his rich purr and I swallow, suddenly nervous again. He is once more a large, looming shadow, and the way he watches me makes me feel like a mouse cornered by a cat.

  I find his eyes, searching for his intentions in their depths.

  They are icy gray once more, now the pupils aren’t blown wide from sexual hunger, but the anger and frustration in them startles me.

  He’s looking at me as if I am his enemy—as if he didn’t just spend the better part of an hour soothing me with his purr while his knot was locked inside of me.

  I swallow and take a step back, fear making its way back into my hazed mind. “W-will you hurt me?”

  Not the smartest thing to say, perhaps, but the complete change in his demeanor shakes me more than anything else has this evening. For some reason, while he tended to me so carefully after mating with me, I’d forgotten what he was.

  That he has fucked me doesn’t make me safe, despite whatever primitive mutterings of ‘mate’ and ‘protection’ my instincts try to thrust into my conscious mind.

  The mountain of a man keeps quiet, gaze locked on my face. He’s reading my expression, I think, must see the confusion and fear. I wish I knew what he was thinking.

  Slowly, careful to keep my eyes on him, I take a step to the side. When he doesn’t move to stop me, I brave voicing the question that can end me.

  “Will you let me leave?”

  My breath rushes out in a relieved exhale when he nods once. I glance to the muddy ground and the grotesque display of my attackers’ mutilated corpses before quickly looking back to him again. He’s still watching me.

  I wish I knew what he was thinking.

  “Thank you,”

  His eyes narrow, as if my gratitude is insulting somehow.

  Does he think I mean for the sex?

  “For letting me leave,” I clarify, shifting nervously further toward the bushes behind us. My foot presses against something, and I can only guess as to what it is. I don’t look down. “And for ... saving me.”

  For the first time he breaks eye contact, gaze sweeping over the ground as he surveys the damages. I take the opportunity to move closer to my promised freedom, not quite willing to turn my back on him just yet. If he changes his mind I want to see it coming.

  “If I see you alone after dark again, you won’t like the consequences.”

  I jump at the dark voice that rings from his shadowed form, my eyes widening in shock at the threat.

  “Do you understand?” he asks, taking one step closer to my now shaking body.

  I do.

  Unable to keep my reawakened fear under control any longer I turn around, and I run. The burn of his eyes on my back follows me as I flee the darkened river bank.

  Next Book

  Leigh’s story continues in

  ALPHA: MASQUERADE

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  Masquerade Preview

  The darkness slowly resides as I blink the blur from my eyes in an effort to shake away the same dream that’s been haunting me for two weeks now.

  The same nightmare, I correct myself. My breathing is still huffing out of my chest in quick, shallow gasps, and my sheets are sticking to my sweat-covered skin.

  Annoyed with myself for the warm aching for attention between my thighs I kick my covers off and roll out of bed to get dressed before I can reach for a vibrator and shame myself even further.

  Two weeks.

  It’s been two weeks since I was saved by a dangerous killer. Two weeks since I Presented for him and allowed him to take me on a darkened river bank like a common whore.

  On wobbly legs I make my way to the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face, severing the lingering echo of the dream. Nightmare. For fuck’s sake!

  I glare angrily at my face in the mirror as the cold water droplets trickle down my neck, slowly cooling off my overheated body. The wide, fearful eyes staring back l
ook like they belong to a lost little girl.

  And that’s the most infuriating part.

  Knowing what I allowed him to do is bad enough—hell, it could probably fuel a few years’ worth of therapy visits, if I was stupid enough to ever tell anyone, but this… This constant and unrelenting yearning for a man I don’t even know, an alpha who thought nothing of knotting me surrounded by corpses of men he’d slain… It feels like being betrayed by my own mind, my own body.

  If only I would stop dreaming about that night I might be able to forget and pretend like it never happened. But every night I relive the memory of being in that damned park with him, of his hands touching me in every sweet spot and… and his knot locking inside of me..

  I blush and drop my gaze, not wanting to look even myself in the eyes while remembering the sweet agony of being tied with an alpha.

  Before him, I never truly understood why some women chase after any alpha that happens to cross her path. They are all arrogant and self-assured, completely unshakable in the knowledge that all the power in society belongs to them. They take what they want and are insufferably overbearing with the female gender, most seemingly viewing us as just another possession to conquer.

  It wasn’t until that stranger’s brutal knot locked deep inside of me and his purr soothed my fears that I knew why any woman would be interested in them.

  Now, I get it, because every time I think about what it felt like to be tied with such a powerful male, my sex softens as if to prepare me, and my heart rate spikes. On some base and primitive level, I want him to do it again.

  I turn away from the mirror, as disgusted with myself as I always am first thing in the morning these days. The lingering cobwebs of my lurid dreams make the memory of his touch way too strong, and my shame along with it.

  Thankfully, there’s a cure, even if it’s only temporary.

  I stalk to the kitchen and load up my beloved coffee machine, fully prepared to drown my shameful memories in caffeine and the clarity brought along by the daylight peeping in through my windows. Once the coffee is brewed I sip it while it’s still near-scalding, sighing with relief as the caffeine works its magic on my foggy head and the last remnants of the dream disappear.

  There. My mind and body once again belong to me, and I have work to do.

  It turns out that being as-good-as-unemployed when you’re basically living paycheck to paycheck is an excellent way of finding out just how low you’ll sink in order to eat.

  I used to be very proud of my reporting career. I fought my way through college working three part time jobs, seeing how my parents weren’t exactly inclined- nor capable of helping me, and when I got the job as junior reporter for one of the biggest newspapers in town, I was sure all the demeaning jobs of my college days were past me.

  As I type away at my $0.0005/word web article on grout cleaning, I do my very best to push back the festering resentment toward my senior editor, Roy, who so unceremoniously suspended me—without pay, mind you—two weeks ago. It’s not like I chose to Present in the middle of that stupid press conference!

  Heat floods my cheeks at the humiliating memory. Okay, so maybe Roy didn’t have much of a choice, seeing how every politician in the city threatened to boycott the paper for all eternity if he didn’t get rid of me. Not that they knew the girl who Presented in their midst and caused them to launch into an all-out brawl by name, but the staffer who’d rescued me had apparently told them which newspaper my press badge said I was from.

  A sudden, loud knock on my door interrupts my thoughts, making me jump and flail so violently I nearly tip my refilled mug.

  Maybe it’s Roy come to give me my job back.

  Even as my stomach clenches with hope at the thought, I know it’s not. Even if ‘the incident’ wasn’t still being referred to every time the Liberals’ Peter Leod appeared on the screen, I doubt very much that anyone wants to see my face again until after the election.

  A delivery guy stands in the hallway outside my 4th floor apartment, holding a large white box in expensive-looking cardboard out toward me. On top balances a thick envelope and a smaller box.

  “Miss Adams?” he says, looking my disheveled figure up and down.

  I wrap my cardigan closer around my sweatpants and food-stained t-shirt. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Delivery for you.” Without missing a beat he shifts the small tower of parcels to one hand, balancing them nimbly while he pulls out a machine for me to sign my name.

  I do, clasping onto the packages with both hands as soon as I am done. It isn’t often I get anything but bills in the door. “Who’s it from?”

  “I ain’t in the detective business, ma’am,” the delivery guy says, turning back around now that his job here is done. “But it’s a special delivery. Make of that what you will.”

  I stare after him for two more seconds, before curiosity finally wins out and I slam the door shut to inspect the packages.

  That it is a special delivery tells me about as much as the ivory cardboard and heavy paper envelope does—that whoever sent it has enough money to throw away on postage and packaging.

  I glance at the envelope, but excitement I vaguely remember from Christmas when I was little makes me reach for the small package first.

  It’s made from the same ivory cardboard as the larger package. I brush my fingertips around the edge. lift the lid—and frown.

  Inside is a beautiful, golden mask with black feathers and shimmery stones adorning the sides and rim of the eye holes.

  “What the…?” I’d half expected it to be some form of fancy pastries or cupcakes, judging by the white packaging.

  With less grace I hurriedly rip the lid off the larger box—and find a pile of silky, black fabric. A dress. A very pretty dress with a full, silk skirt—far above anything I’d ever be able to afford myself, even if I weren’t currently trying to make a living off questionable content writing.

  Hoping for an explanation I tear open the letter, but if anything, it just leaves me with more questions.

  Dear Miss Adams,

  You are hereby invited to the annual charity masquerade at Town Hall, October the 19th at 7pm.

  The short note is handwritten on thick, white paper to match the envelope, but there is no signature or any other distinguishing features to help me determine the sender’s identity.

  Included in the envelope is a golden ticket with my name and the date written on in intricate print, presumably what will allow me entry to the famed masquerade.

  Every year the political elite and socialites of Mattenburg dress up in fanciful costumes to congratulate each other on their wealth and power, while compensating for the glitzy affair by claiming it’s all for charity.

  At least, that’s what I assume goes on, because no one outside of the elite is ever allowed inside, not even the press. And yet here I am, with a literal golden ticket in my hand. Someone’s sent me not only an invite to the most exclusive event of the year, but a beautiful costume to go along with it.

  But why?

  I am no one important, and a reporter to boot. In as long as the masquerade has existed, not a single reporter has managed to sneak in to this exclusive event. Whoever’s behind this must know what my job is.

  So why are they trying to get me in?

  A cold chill travels down my back when the thought of how exactly I might have drawn the attention of someone powerful enough to orchestrate this.

  The only thing that sets me apart from any other reporter in this city is that I am the one who nearly caused a riot among the top politicians. The same people who will undoubtedly be present at the masquerade.

  Is someone hoping I’ll do the same at this event?

  But why? There won’t be any cameras present, so even if I did Present again there wouldn’t be any proof like there was at that damned press conference.

  I shudder at the thought. There wouldn’t be any proof, but there likely wouldn’t be anyone to save me, either.

&
nbsp; As much as a very large part of me is giddy with excitement over the chance to be the first reporter to gain access to the annual masquerade, I can’t help but think back to the two times I’ve lost control around alphas. If it were just the once, I could believe it was just a freak accident, but…

  A ghostly touch of a large, powerful man’s intimate touch echoes in my mind, and I shove the boxes away with an involuntary spasm. If I could Present to a stranger, a masked killer no less, then who’s to say it won’t happen again? Clearly, my biology is all haywire, and if there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s another humiliating encounter with a roomful of alphas.

  No, whoever sent me that dress and invitation has wasted their money. As much as I’d love to get the exclusive inside scoop on the masquerade, it isn’t worth the risk.

  Resolute, I shove the boxes to the side with my foot and walk back to my computer. I’ve got grout cleaning instructions to write, and bills to pay, and I’m not getting stuck any further into politics before the election is well and truly over. The end. Case closed.

  My fingers hover over the keyboard as I glance back at the magnificent, black silk dress.

  Of course… if I were to go and get the inside scoop, Roy would have no choice but to reinstate me… And probably give me a significant raise.

  I look back at my computer screen, biting my lip as I stare at tip number five for achieving sparkling clean grouts.

  But if I don’t take this chance, then can I really call myself a proper reporter? If I’m too scared to take the biggest opportunity I’ll ever see in my entire career, do I even deserve to get my job back?

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