Anubis turned Tariq around and around to study him from head to toe, but Tariq knew the god would see nothing, just unmarked flesh healed hundreds of times over.
“You speak true.”
“My lord?” Tariq didn’t dare to hope.
“Where is your heart, Tariq?”
Now worried Anubis might do something to Eden to get it back, he remained silent.
“Is it here?”
Tariq blinked and saw Eden suddenly standing beside his god. She looked small, frightened.
“No.”
“You lie.” Anubis turned to Eden and lifted her in one huge hand. He settled her on one side of the scales, while on the other sat the goddess Ma’at’s feather. Below the scale, Ammut appeared. Part dog, part crocodile and bird, the Devourer of Souls was a hideous creature poised and ready to consume those unworthy of finding eternal rest. Once past those jaws, a soul could never return.
Even Tariq would rather be tortured by Set for an eternity than live forever in the intestines of Ammut. Dread as he’d never before felt consumed him.
“Anubis, please. She’s not at fault for holding my Ib. I am.”
“Again, you lie.”
The scale started to slip, and Set appeared.
“Tariq, it’s not too late. Come by my side, and I will make you powerful enough to save your soul, your mate, and your child. Be mine, and it will all be yours.”
At the cost of innocent lives. The temptation had never been so great. Eden sobbed and clung to the scale that tipped even more. Anubis stood, just, implacable.
I’ll love you forever, Eden.
“This is your last chance,” Set offered. “Bah. Ammut, take them both.”
Though everything in him abhorred Ammut and rose up against the Devourer, he couldn’t sacrifice his mate or his god. “She is innocent. No,” Tariq shouted and threw himself into Ammut’s massive jaws.
Chapter Eight
Eden watched in awe as Tariq stared at nothing and started speaking in that ancient tongue. From what she could see, she, Anubis—now looking like one giant man even taller than Tariq—and a happy dog wagging his tail stood in the command room with the others still kneeling.
After Tariq had attacked Set, everything had slowed then frozen. Time stopped, literally.
Set vanished with a scowl on his face. The others in the room remained on their knees, looking down. Only Anubis changed into a more normal appearance. The dog just appeared out of nowhere, smiling, his tongue lolling out.
“So what has happened, exactly?” Anubis asked.
Eden told him everything in detail, even the parts about her and Tariq having sex in front of the guys. Something about Anubis demanded the truth, and knowing how much Tariq loved and worshipped him, she knew Anubis deserved the respect.
“Hmm.” Anubis tapped his lips and stared at Tariq, who suddenly jumped in front of the dog, screaming.
The dog licked him then seemed to wink at Anubis before vanishing.
“You really are his heart. I know you, Rehema, and I love your gentleness, your need to make things better for everyone you meet. You’ve been alone a long time now. Can you see a future with Tariq?”
She watched her lover, her mate, looking horrified, and wondered what he’d done and why. No doubt something noble and stupid to save her. She hadn’t lied before. She’d started remembering a good deal about him, and every bone in Tariq’s body belonged to a hero.
“He’s a good man. His heart is true.” She held a hand over her chest. “And it’s mine.”
“Ah. A good answer. But is it balanced?” He snapped his fingers and floated her on top of a scale that magically appeared.
A few days ago, watching time stand still, talking to a god, and watching her lover cut out a man’s tongue would have seriously freaked her out. Now? She just rolled with it.
Perched atop the scales, she marveled at the fact that her side didn’t move, considering a feather sat on the other side.
Anubis’s grin stole her breath. “As I’d hoped. You love him as he loves you, with your whole heart.” He helped her down, using his hands this time, and touched her belly. She felt a zing and a flutter. “Such strength in this little one. You will keep him happy, and one day he will serve me, like his father.”
She nodded, pleased at the thought of her family in the care of a fair and loving deity.
Then Anubis leaned forward and kissed her, and she felt his power all the way to her toes. “You are a worthy mate, Rehema. Eden.” He smiled. “You need not worry about leaving Tariq before your time. You are welcome here and in Duat.” Anubis glanced at Tariq. “See to your mate. I’ve given him a fright, but it was necessary. He would sacrifice all for you.”
She smiled.
“Yes, this I knew. But he would also sacrifice all for me.” Anubis nodded. “I will deal with Set and the others.” He snapped his fingers again, and the people on the monitors disappeared. The men in the room rose from their positions on the floor to smile at their god. Then Tariq rose to his feet, his worry a palpable thing.
“You are worthy, Tariq. Most worthy.” Anubis yanked Tariq to him, gave him a hearty hug, then vanished.
“Eden.” Tariq rushed to her side and squeezed the breath out of her while the guys laughed and congratulated them.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“Is Set gone? Ammut, is he still here?”
“Whoa. Sounds like Anubis put you on a bad trip,” Chig said. “We’ll give you lovebirds a break. Come on, guys. Let’s see if we can track Lowe down.” He cracked his neck. “You know, I have a bad feeling I’m missing something. My neck really hurts, but I can’t for the life of me think why.”
The others left, but Tariq didn’t let her go. Instead, he lifted Eden onto a nearby table and fiddled with his pants. Growing wet at the thought of him desiring her after all he’d been through, she accepted his kiss, his desperate hands, and the thick cock that slid inside her.
“I love you so much. You’re my heart, my soul.” He took her harder, and she felt his need to get as close to her as possible. “Yes, yes.” He came and continued to thrust, riding her through her orgasm and into another.
After three more rounds of exhausting bliss, he finally slowed and kissed her.
“You made a huge mess,” she complained, but she felt so boneless she never wanted to move again.
“I almost destroyed us,” he confessed and told her what he’d seen after attacking Set.
“You didn’t. You saved us. I think if you’d accepted Set’s offer, neither of us would be here.”
“As much as I love you and want you safe, I cannot put Anubis or the lives of innocents at risk.” He paused. “I will always be his protector, Eden. Just as I will always have the capacity for the dark in me. Set didn’t turn me this time, but what of the next?”
“Then it’s a good thing you got your heart back.” She kissed him, showing him how much she loved him. “I hope you’re not the jealous kind, because Anubis and I shared a kiss.”
The look of joy on his face brought tears to her eyes.
“You are truly my heart. My soul.” He sighed and started to move again. “But if Anubis kisses you again, I’m going to punch him.”
Eden laughed. “I’ve mated a warrior.”
“Through and through.”
“Then take me, warrior. And don’t let go.”
****
Set wriggled his now-attached tongue, disgusted at himself for letting Tariq fall into the arms of that whore. For thousands of years he’d kept them apart, and in the span of a mere two days, he’d lost a key component in his plan to win the games and take over the universe.
“Ziyad.”
His servant appeared and bowed.
“Have we located the Elixir?”
“Not yet, sire. But the Dogs are convinced they know who has it. A valkyrie.”
“Wonderful,” Set said, the sour taste of defeat scratching the back of his throat.
/> “There is one bit of good news.” Ziyad sounded painfully pleased, and Set’s interest perked. Ziyad was never truly happy unless causing pain.
“Oh?”
“Yes, sire. The girl has conceived. Your child will be born early, in just another month.”
At least everything hadn’t gone to pot. The spell Set had put on the woman to speed up her pregnancy had succeeded. He’d used the spell on the dead and on godly minions, but never on mortals. Then again, his seed had changed her in ways he hadn’t foreseen.
“Excellent. I want you to keep an eye on her. Once the child is born, you may have her. But until then, I want Zaliki taken care of. My spawn will need a warm home while I reconfigure a few things.”
“Yes, sire.”
Set shrugged. Some days were better than others. Now to find that damn valkyrie and get that vial before the child was born…
Alpha’s Sacrifice
A Fallen Alpha Novella
By Rebecca Royce
Alpha’s Sacrifice
Hayden Chaucer leads a small, but loyal pack in the Wine Country of California. Scarred from his years serving the former Alpha Prime, Hayden is ready for anything—except the arrival of a human madwoman who claims she’s lived a life with him. Not only does she know that he’s a werewolf and many more of his secrets, she’s his mate and now he will do anything to protect her and his pack.
Consumed by her visions and held captive by the True Believers for years, Chelsea flees to the only person who can help her…the wolf whose passion burns in her blood. Desperate to convince Hayden before her fleeting visions abandon her completely, all she knows is she must save his life, even at the cost of her sanity.
Chapter One
Hayden sat back in his office chair and listened to the sounds filtering up from downstairs. Nine of his pack members were giving wine tastings to humans who had made appointments to try Chaucer Family Wines. Some of the humans were on vacation and some of them lived in Napa and had heard the buzz about the blends happening at Chaucer. None of them knew that the Merlot or the Pinots they sipped were produced every year by the local wolf pack, who, in between creating wines served in the finest restaurants in the world or stored in the wine cellars of connoisseurs everywhere, shifted into wolves every time the moon became full.
And Hayden preferred it that way.
His office bordered the living accommodations for his pack. One quarter of the winery was actually an elaborately constructed series of bedrooms so that his pack could come and go without having to find quarters somewhere where they might be discovered by the outside world. None of them had a lot of privacy, but the twelve members of his wolf pack didn’t seem to be complaining. They were all grateful to get to live in such a beautiful location that at least, for now, kept them undiscovered.
He wanted to go downstairs and watch people enjoy what, outside of his pack, he lived for. Instead, he worked. Turning his attention from the happy noises in his winery, he stared back at his computer screen. An email he couldn’t ignore, waited for his attention.
Another death. Clarkson Petra, Alpha of the Austin Pack, had been murdered, along with most the strong males who swore allegiance to him. All evidence pointed to it being humans who ended their lives and not, as it would have been when the world still spun on the correct axis, other werewolves.
It was the third such murder in the last three months, and there was no question as to who was responsible for the acts: the True Believers, the human group determined to eliminate werewolves from the face of the earth. They’d always been around, but lately they seemed to have gotten stirred up and more active. They were succeeding where once they’d been a big joke.
No one in the werewolf community laughed anymore.
Hayden rubbed at his eyes. Cyrus Fennell, the Alpha of the Manhattan Pack, had sent him the news. They’d shared a strained but productive relationship since childhood. They’d both attended the Alpha training camps at Lucian’s, the now deceased Alpha Prime, farm. In any case, Cyrus hated Hayden’s brother, Savage, with a passion, which was why there was virtually no communication between the New York and San Francisco wolf packs. Sitting quietly with his small pack in Napa, Hayden had been the acting secret go-between when talks had to happen, but no one else could know about the conversations.
Cyrus wasn’t emailing because he needed Savage this time. The other Alpha wanted Hayden’s particular talents. Cyrus wanted him to do what he hadn’t done since he’d stepped away from Lucian’s special counsel ten years earlier.
He didn’t torture anymore. Even if the world could be potentially crumbling around them.
Thankfully, Cyrus didn’t hold enough clout to force him to come east, and without an Alpha Prime to rule them all, Hayden didn’t have to take direction from anyone. Still, he might be able to help from a distance.
Cyrus, he wrote.
Not going to happen. Lucian is dead, and until someone makes you Prime, I’m not going anywhere to do that. You, Alexie, and Travis aren’t without your own skills. If there is no information flowing, I’d guess there’s nothing to get.
Maybe I can help in a different way. Someone’s got to follow the money. They’re getting funding from somewhere. This much power wasn’t created in a vacuum. Let me see what I can dig up.
-Hayden
He hit Send before he could change his mind and decided to be helpful in the way Cyrus wanted. Standing up, he stretched his arms over his head. He rubbed his itchy nose. His bones ached, and he didn’t know what that was about. At sixty years old, he was still a baby in werewolf years. He couldn’t be developing old-age problems yet.
A knock sounded on his door, but it was just a formality. His pack knew they could come and go as they wanted. They’d all lived through the hell of Lucian’s special training together. The Alpha Prime hadn’t thought they’d make good leaders—but good wolf soldiers? Yes, that had been all he’d believed them good for—fighting, bleeding, killing and dying.
Whether or not they’d prove him wrong still remained to be seen. However, if this year’s Pinot Noir turned out the way Hayden thought it would, they’d be well on their way to distancing themselves from those years that needed to be forgotten.
“Come in, Sal,” he called out to his second-in-command. Sal entered, closing the door behind him. Unlike Hayden’s, Sal’s body didn’t retain permanent reminders of their time with Lucian. Hayden’s skin had been torn up so much during those years that he’d eventually developed permanent scars he’d never be rid of no matter how many Full Moon shifts he made.
Sal, taller and broader than Hayden, had skin the color of milk chocolate. The man had generations of half-human ancestry, but Hayden would never know it from how completely wolf he appeared every time Hayden looked him in the eye. He was a man who wore his animal like a protective coat, and Hayden couldn’t blame him.
The local women loved him.
Or so Sal likes to say.
“Everything all right?” Based on the high-pitched laughter downstairs, there was an abundance of women in the place getting tipsier by the minute. Sal should be in his element. Unless there was some problem with getting set up for that evening’s Full Moon. Had something gone awry? Lately the whole thing had been running like clockwork.
“Well, my Alpha.”
Sal and the others had insisted on the term the second Hayden’s brother had handed him Napa to run. Hayden had always suspected it had more to do with not wanting the survivors of Lucian’s special training in his own pack than any belief his brother had in his ability to lead that had propelled Savage’s act of generosity. Alphas didn’t usually give up territory, not even to their own brothers. But Hayden had never questioned him. He’d been glad for the space. Big city life didn’t appeal to him. Napa had always been quieter.
“Yes? Something wrong with the wine? The underground tunnels?” With no real wolves running around Napa or Sonoma to cover their tails, he’d had underground running paths created from the wine ca
ves all up and down the property. It wasn’t ideal. His wolf self hated being contained on the few nights a year he got to come out and play, but as long as they stocked it with prey, no one complained. Manufacturing things to make their lives work proved to be the name of the game these days.
“There’s a woman here. She’s not making a lot of sense. I initially thought to send her on her way because she’s clearly out of it. I’m not smelling drugs, but something is wrong, and then I decided maybe she should get to see you.”
“Why?” They didn’t get a slew of crazy humans running around. Most of the ones who came for appointment only tastings tended toward the sophisticated, happy variety. If they had issues, they left them at home. It certainly didn’t fit Sal’s modus operandi to bring them to Hayden.
“Because she keeps insisting she has to see you.”
“Specifically? Did she get my name off the website or something?” There’d been a brief write-up in Wine Spectator Magazine that could have garnered the unwanted attention.
“At first she asked for you by name. She kept saying she needed to see Hayden, and then it changed. The last time, before I shut her in the back office, she told me she needed to see my Alpha. None of the other humans heard her, or I would have reacted faster.”
Hayden nodded. “You did the right thing. I can’t have some human who shouldn’t even know we exist running around spouting off at the mouth. You did check her for explosives?”
If she was a True Believer, she could be there to blow the whole place up. Weapons he could handle without Sal’s interference. He’d never met a human he couldn’t disarm. But if she’d come to bomb them, he didn’t want her inside. He’d end her outside where she couldn’t damage any member of his pack or any of the vines in the fields.
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