Alpha Heat

by Deva Long

  Contents

  Title

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Thee

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  End Notes

  Dedication

  Alpha Heat: Sons of Thunder - Episode 1

  by

  Deva Long

  one

  Everything was going great until I woke up in hell.

  I’d been lying beneath a canopy bed listening to a sweet and simple melody, roses and jasmine filling the air.

  Then, I heard a loud scraping noise and my dream dissolved. I opened my eyes and saw everything in a toned reddish-gray, like a picture ruined by a cell phone app that turns a rainbow into seven shades of sepia.

  To my left, the wind blew the tops off of the slate colored waves throwing spray into my face. On my right, a pea-green wall erupted from the sea, dripping rust stains like blood.

  I reached and touched the surface with my hand, then jerked my fingers back from the corroded metal to keep from getting cut.

  My friend, the sun, had left the clouded sky an angry crimson-gray. I lifted my head to look for the shore that should be close by, but more salty water assaulted my eyes.

  This isn’t the same gentle breeze that blew when I drifted off to sleep on my beach float.

  A sharp light stabbed downwards.

  I blinked rapidly to keep from being blinded. Long, unshaven faces peered at me, flashing before me like a disco strobe.

  “Help,” I shouted.

  Rough and scratchy hands lifted me over the rusty green metal wall that disappeared into the foggy night. The smell of body-odor and fish crashed upon me.

  “Put me down,” I yelled.

  They set me on a moving surface that felt like a boat.

  Then, fingers closed around my neck and something sharp and burning stabbed my arm.

  I jerked my eyes down.

  A hair-covered fist pushed a syringe’s needle into the flesh above my elbow.

  The fingers on my neck tightened and I dropped back into the night.

  two

  I awoke to complete darkness. No moon. No stars in the sky.

  The wind’s gusts bit at my exposed skin. It was almost like I was back in Minnesota though the temperature had only fallen a few degrees from the sudden Gulf Coast storm.

  At least I was still wearing my bikini.

  I could see a glow shining from the cabin. I reached out toward the light and touched plastic bars.

  This is a cage. I’m in a cage.

  The plastic was coated with the crusty remains of…something.

  Whatever was in here before me, certainly had died.

  I rubbed some of the sludge off to see what it was. The residue had a slimy feel, and there were hard bits. Fish scales…and shrimp shells. I lifted my fingers to my nose and bile rose in my throat as the smell overcome me.

  I screamed.

  “Help! Let me out.”

  Male voices laughed in response.

  The plastic box had narrow slots cut into the side to let the water drain after the crabs or shrimp or fish or whatever it was made for had been dumped in.

  I’m in a stinking fish-box cage and someone’s laughing at me.

  I yelled some more.

  This time I heard faint cries answering me, high pitched and wavering, distinct from the laughter.

  Either someone is being held somewhere under the deck of this boat, or I’m hearing ghosts.

  I kept yelling and crying until my throat was raw.

  Then, I lay with my arms around my knees, shivering.

  A rectangle blazed bright and now I saw the outline of a boat’s cabin, like the shrimp boats that go out on the Gulf with their nets.

  Several figures stalked through the light. I couldn’t see them well enough to make out their features or even the color of their clothes, but they moved like men. Big men.

  They spoke Spanish, with short barking shouts and curses. I’d studied the language in college, and understood it well enough to get by but, “Tu Madre,” and, “Chingado,” were the only words I could recognize during the rapid give and take.

  The deck I lay caged upon hummed with a throbbing bass moan louder than everything except the most robust gusts of the storm.

  The moaning must have been the tub’s engine, pushing me farther from my home.

  three

  Eighteen hours before Grace was taken…

  “It is said of these men in the engagement who were were-wolves…that as long as the fit was on them no one could oppose them, they were so strong.”

  The Book of Were-Wolves, by Sabine Baring-Gould, [1865]

  “Dangerous to hunt wolves in anger.”

  Jack lay by his side, transformed. Tawny hair framed his face, nostrils flared in the moonlight, and his long fangs flashed.

  Karl nodded. His brother was right.

  Wolves are predators. Wolves hunt and kill deer, cows, and these wolves, people.

  Predators have teeth and claws. Unlike deer, they fight back hard.

  But, these wolves were being stupid. Running wild. Taking over a weed-infested orchard, and bringing victims from the coastal Florida towns.

  They called themselves The Alphas.

  Local authorities had been paid off. The missing girls reported as runaways.

  Karl pushed air out through his nostrils and drew his lips over his own fangs.

  Someone needed to stop them.

  But the Alpha pack was rich. Powerful. The pack owned men and women in high places.

  Familiars.

  But not the highest place.

  There were only two sure way to kill a werewolf. One was to crush his skull with a hammer, the other to cut off his head. Bullets, even silver bullets, just went through wounds that healed in minutes, or were stopped and then expelled by the disease.

  Hidden alongside his Harley’s long, chrome exhaust pipes lay a scabbard and from this, he drew a three-foot long blade. The sword’s edge could cut through the finest Toledo steel like butter and even good Yamashiro Katanas would break like twigs if they took the weight of the Northern blade in full swing.

  Jack drew his own weapon, a twin to Karl’s.

  Karl took a deep breath. No matter the crimes of the pack he faced, he couldn’t let his anger rule him tonight.

  Around the fire, half naked male forms chased naked, shrieking females. Large motorcycles stood parked around the blaze, their tires interlocking so anyone trying to escape the circle would have to clamber through the bikes.

  Speakers boomed out pulsing music. Karl recognized Guns and Roses: “It’s So Easy.”

  One young woman, breasts shaking, tried to hurdle the seat of a bike.

  Two black-clad shapes grabbed her and threw her back into the ring.

  Tonight the two leaders of the Sons of Thunder motorcycle club would show these Alphas the last road to Hell.

  Karl made a deep, rumbling sound. To any human, the sound would be an inarticulate growl. Jack, his brother, shifted gears as he drove He heard, “When you need to stop a pack of wild curs, you call the Sons!”

  Jack slapped Karl's jaw.

  “Bring on the thunder!”

  Karl smiled, pulling his lips pulling back from his ivory fangs.

  “If they fight, we’ll eat their faces,” Karl rumbled the first line from the ancient battle cry.

  “If they flee, we’ll eat their tails,” Jack responded.

  The two br
others roared together. Glowing eyes looked from the bonfire, and answering howls and yips pierced the night. Men transformed into wolves, shaking their clothes into strips, and baring teeth and angry yellow eyes. Their massive muscles strained and with their jaws snapping, they charged the two huge forms that had appeared among them.

  The hot blood flowed as heads rolled on the ground and one by one the yips were silenced.

  Jack threw down several of the bikes, clearing a path through which naked women ran into the night. Karl watched them go as he shifted back into human form, restraining his urge to chase them and pump each one full with his seed.

  His brother stood straining next to him.

  Karl kicked at a syringe leaking fluid into the sand.

  “Let them go. They’ll just be druggies telling a story no one will believe. Wolves fighting with swords in the night.”

  Tendons appearing on his neck, Jack nodded. Karl let out his breath and relaxed his shoulders.

  Then, he smelled the most enticing thing from a breeze wafting through the distant sea. Though he had shifted back to full human form, Karl’s senses remained wolf sharp.

  “We have to go.”

  four

  Eleven hours before Grace was taken…

  “You need to get out there, Grace, have some fun and maybe meet some new guys.”

  “I don’t need to meet any new boys, Leslie. I’m doing fine.”

  I wasn’t. I didn’t have great luck with men. First off, I’m not a model. Curvy defines my shape. Exercise, diet, herbal remedies, nothing gets me below a size fourteen. And I don’t stay near there for long. The boys who proposition me tend to be looking for their mothers.

  Sweet. Nice. Boring.

  “Really? We moved here six months ago, and you’ve been on what, two dates? Between our paper and your cat boxes, you don’t have any social life.”

  I tugged on my ear and rolled my eyes at Leslie. She alternated between thinking I was a saint for the work I do at the animal shelter and being pissed off about it because she has some critical project she needs me to pull an all-nighter on and I’ve got cat patrol for the shelter. Just the other night she called me again and again while I lurked behind the 7-Eleven trying to coax a stray mama cat and her kittens out from behind the dumpster. They clamber in there and then get crushed by the garbage truck or poisoned by the store manager who hates all things furry.

  That night I’d taken a boxful of purring heads to the shelter, got them cleaned and posted their pictures on the shelter’s Facebook page. We always find them homes at Sleepy Key Shelter. Then I’d answered Leslie about her emergency. She still hadn’t forgiven me for the kitten induced delay.

  “I’ll find a boyfriend when I’m ready. Right now I’m too busy trying to get your dream off the ground.”

  “You’ve been great, Grace. But you need to live and enjoy yourself.”

  Leslie rubbed her fingers together, her teeth flashing as she smiled.

  “I’ve scored an interview with Caden Morning, the billionaire who’s parked his huge yacht at Marina Sam’s.”

  “Oh poor you.”

  “Yes, well I already promised Pablo we’d cover his event. We can’t blow him off.” Leslie winked at me. “Plus, he likes you.”

  My lip curled.

  “Please. He’s past fifty.”

  I stroked my chin, then held my hands out to her, palms up.

  “Why don’t you let me go interview Morning, he’s at least young and cute.”

  Leslie’s brows twitched.

  “He’s not that much younger than Pablo.”

  I snorted in disgust.

  Her eyebrows climbed her forehead.

  “So you like billionaires?”

  She does such a good job with her eyes. I love lipstick and eye shadow, but my thin brows have always been a challenge to get right. Thick defined the current style, and Leslie was born for the look.

  I pointed a warning, making a finger gun and mouthing a silent, “ka-pow.”

  We had a secret plan to strike it rich — starting with the tiny paper, The Key Times, her parents bought her as a graduation gift, we were going to build a web store for Sleepy Key. We planned to build an on-line marketplace to let people purchase vacation tours, rent condos, and buy goods from local shops. The unique hook was that we’d use the digital currencies that were taking off like hotcakes. But we need funding to realize our plans. We had tried offshoring the work to inexpensive developers, and we learned from that mistake.

  We couldn’t accomplish our dream without professional help.

  The Key Times had two employees now, and we were both more than full time. I didn’t have time to build a web-store when I’m was also the graphics department, the photographer, the one who keeps the site and the blog and the YouTube channel updated.

  I Tweet for food.

  “Please, Grace. We need to keep Pablo happy, but we also need to get some investment lined up.”

  I’d known her all through college, where we’d become best friends after dorm-rooming together freshman year. Leslie had her, ‘I need you to do this for me,’ look on her face now.

  “It’s one of his sales events. You know how I love those.”

  She rolled her eyes at my attempt at sarcasm.

  It’s not that I don’t like selling. Making money is a good thing. I was poor once. I still am, but back in high school and my first years of college I was ramen and fast food ketchup packets poor.

  Now at least I can buy my own ketchup. Most of the time.

  Leslie’s well-shaped brows drew together and her lips pressed together in a thin line.

  “Come on, it’s not like we’re talking retail.”

  “Pablo’s events are worse than retail. He’ll want me to put on a suit. He’ll want me to paddle around on his boards.”

  I hunched in my chair, “He’ll want me to hand out drinks.”

  Leslie puffed her lips like a parent making fun of a whiney child.

  “His skinny sales girls will be wearing bikinis and looking much better than I can.”

  “You got serious first world problems, girl.”

  “Ha-ha,” I held my hands up to surrender.

  Leslie Styles has her way with me again!

  “OK, alright, I’ll go.

  I looked at her through my half-full water glass. Covering the event would get me away from my computer, into the sunshine, and I’d have some free drinks.

  Maybe even some exercise, though I didn’t plan to paddle very far.

  five

  “Grace, you have to help me get more people on the boards.”

  When Pablo said that the words sounded like, “hafta hel’me.”

  I swallowed and lowered the Pepsi bottle I’d been hiding behind like I was on the verge of drying up and blowing away. I could tell Pablo wanted me to ride a board up and down the beach and pretend like I was addicted to the sport.

  A long time ago, I learned that Friday was named for the Norse love goddess. On Freja’s day, the beach at Sleepy Key starts getting crowded in the afternoon. People with weekly rental houses and condos would come out for one last Florida sunset and mix with the office workers and laborers starting their weekend early. It’s always five o’clock somewhere, might as well be written in the sand.

  While the western Florida sun burned strong and the temperature reached the high seventies, murky cloud clusters also rolled in, casting the beach into a chilly shade.

  Today, the crowds were thinner than usual. Skinnier in number, not in torso.

  Pablo’s three sales girls were all talking to different groups on the beach, waving their hands and bursting into laugher.

  “Hey, I’m just here to take photos of you telling people how this sport will do wonders for their mental and physical health.”

  When he first started selling stand-up paddleboards at his shop, Sleepy Key Gear, Pablo had a hard time getting people who looked at his thousand-plus dollar products in the store to sign on the dotted
line. Then, he started offering free rides on the beach, with free wine. This resulted in a lot more sales.

  On good days.

  On this day, his eyes darted back and forth, from the bodies walking by, to the very few people looking at the display beneath several colorful pavilions.

  “You took some shots of the models and the beach already; I’ll give you a brochure you can write your article from. This’s not the hard part.”

  He ran his hand through his dense black and gray hair.

  “The hard part is getting people to try the boards and have some wine. One in ten buys a board if they take them out.” He frowned. “I’m lucky to get one sale for every hundred when they just look at them.”

  Pablo has said the same thing to me many times, like he’s repeating a mantra.

  “I spend two thousand dollars a month in advertising. More than half goes to your paper.”

  He’d waved his hands at the boards sitting there on the beach like he was shooing them into the water. “That money comes from selling these.”

  When Pablo talks about cash he looks at you from beneath his long lashes and grey eyebrows. He squints his eyes, making his crow’s feet pop out. He wags his finger in time with his words, like he’s a dollar guru or a professor of pennies.

  I guess that’s what happens when you grow up like he did. Years ago, over tequila shots when Leslie and I had first met him, he’d regaled us with tales about Castro’s Cuba, and how he escaped with his mother on a boat with so many holes that he had to bail the entire way to Miami

  With an empty soup can.

  I kicked my foot in the sand. Having just consumed a cold soda while trying to avoid Pablo’s beseeching gaze, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the day wasn’t warm enough for me to get wet.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  He smiled and handed me a plastic cup. The ruby liquid wasn’t the dirt-cheap wine often found at free-drink events. This stuff was decent, as far as my untrained tongue could tell; something from a town in California called Jack West. However, this city doesn’t allow glass on the beach, so all the cups are plastic.