“Screw you, Derek,” Mike said. “You say that every time we come across a pretty female.”
Derek laughed. “You know me, I’m a ladies’ man. It’s such a shame Alpha was able to erase her memory. I’d be happy to make her scream for other reasons.”
“It sounds like y’all would have to fight for her,” another voice said with a laugh. “I’d pay to see that. It’s a good thing the girl’s oblivious to this conversation. She’d be running again, and, fuck, we should head into town and see if we can’t find some willing females. Chasing her has given me a raging hard on.”
“Well, Sam, if she wasn’t oblivious we’d be adding another female to our pack since we can lawfully keep anyone with knowledge of us.” Mike appeared in the circle. He was almost as big as Marcus, but with light brown hair. He was handsome, but the fire in her body burned only for Derek and Marcus. What is wrong with me? I want to have sex with two men I do not know even though I know they’re werewolves? She thought about them taking what they wanted from her, and she felt the ache in her pussy turn from dull to throbbing. If they offered right now, she’d let them both have their way with her.
Derek leaned into her neck and inhaled. “I can smell her arousal. Imagine how responsive she would be tied to my bed.”
Their conversation should have horrified Anna, but she thought it was hot as hell. They seemed to think she couldn’t hear them and were talking freely about their pack laws and sex.
Something had gone wrong with their mind tricks. From what little she overheard, since they thought she couldn’t remember them and she was under their control, she wasn’t under pack law. If it hadn’t worked, then they wouldn’t let her go home. She decided the best course of action was to play along. If they asked, she’d act as if she didn’t remember a thing. Anna wasn’t sure what they would do if they found out she was aware of everything that happened, but from what she could guess, she wouldn’t make it out of these mountains.
Marcus ran his hand down her face. “Yes, Derek. If she’s this responsive while I hold her mind, I can only imagine how she’d respond to us in bed with all her senses intact.” Marcus’s lips brushed on the soft flesh of her neck. “So beautiful, little Anna. How I wish I could make you mine.” He sighed and raised his face to look into her eyes again. His expression looked disappointed. “What a shame I do not have any rights to you.” His lips lowered to her ear. “I would make your days full of joy and your nights full of pleasure you couldn’t even imagine if I could keep you.”
Anna fought the urge to look into his eyes and ask him what he meant by that. Brian made her scream, but it was never in pleasure.
Marcus’s hand rested over her eyes and they closed. His palm was over her nose, and she couldn’t breathe. Her mouth wouldn’t open and fear started to choke her. Did he find out she was not as unaware as he thought? Did he plan to kill her now? She tried to move her hands, but she was paralyzed.
“Sleep, little Anna. When you wake up you will only remember a strange dream,” Marcus said in a deep, compelling voice.
Again, Anna felt the urge to go to sleep, but it didn’t happen. Her eyes closed and she felt her body go limp, but she was awake.
“Enforcer Derek,” Marcus called.
“Yes, Alpha.”
“Take her to the police department near her campsite. Inform the police who she is and who she was camping with. Tell them we found her. Make sure she is unaware of us before leaving her there.”
“Yes, Alpha. I will see her safely to the police.”
Police? Why did Marcus want Derek to take her to the police, and what happened to her friends? A new dread began seeping into Anna’s mind. What happened after she stormed off from her campsite? She had the feeling her life was about to change…and not for the better.
Chapter Two
Anna picked up the phone at the police department and dialed her closest friend, Rachel’s number.
The line picked up after a few rings, and she heard Rachel muttering every curse word before she said, “Someone had better be dead or I will kill you, fucker. It’s one o’clock in the goddamn morning.”
“Rachel, it’s Anna.” She felt the overwhelming emotions hitting her again, and the room spun a bit. “There was a bear attack. Brian and Erin are both in the hospital, and two others are dead.”
“What?” Rachel yelled into the phone. All traces of aggravation were gone from her voice.
“I’m sorry to bother you so late.” She wiped tears away as she struggled to control her voice. “I’m still in North Carolina and stuck at the Hardwell County Sheriff’s Office.”
Anna heard rustling in the background as Rachel continued to cuss. “Anna, I’m so sorry I answered like that. I thought you were a guy I gave my number to. I’m on my way. I’ll be there soon. I’m leaving right now. Hold on. It’s what, an hour or so from Tennessee?”
“Okay, and yeah, it took us an hour and a half to drive here, but we took our time.” Relief swamped her, and she felt herself crying again. She had such a wild swing of emotions tonight from terror to arousal and then shock. She felt like she’d been completely wrung out and now all she wanted to do was curl up in a fetal position and cry. She couldn’t, though, not here. She’d have to wait until she was home. Rachel was one of those friends that would drop everything and come running if Anna was ever in trouble. Once she was safe with Rachel, she could fall apart. They’d been best friends since the first grade and were closer than family. Once Rachel had her safely home and away from the prying eyes of the men that held her captive, she could let her emotions loose.
Derek Miller, who said he was the volunteer searcher who’d found her, wrapped a soft blanket around her. “It’s a good thing you decided to take a walk and got lost. You could have been one of the victims of that bear attack, maybe even died. The cops told me your friends hid, which saved their lives.” He stared at her as if he was watching her reactions. Derek smiled, but Anna could sense the dangerous predator just under the surface of his friendly smile. His face was handsome, but also battered, as if he’d spent his life fighting, and he had an agility that didn’t match his bulk.
Derek looked like a weightlifter that took steroids, yet moved silently like an assassin. Maybe he is. Marcus called him an enforcer. Maybe he kills for a living. That thought should have terrified Anna, but her pussy throbbed with need instead of shriveling up. Looking at Derek, she didn’t see a cold-blooded killer but a man she felt she could trust with her life.
Anna bowed her head and put her hand over her face. She feared Derek would figure out that she remembered everything, and she didn’t want to take any chances about going home. Despite the painful need to have sex with the man, she wanted to go home and see Rachel. She started to shake, but she didn’t need to fake her overwhelming emotions. Her ex-boyfriend and friend were attacked and the couple camping next to them was dead. Brian and Erin were in bad shape at a hospital in Ashville, and some of her anger with Brian and Erin diminished. She hoped they would be okay, but she still wanted to walk away from them both.
She wondered what would have happened if she’d stayed at the camp instead of getting lost in the woods. Anna wondered if she would have run or stayed to help the other couple. “I could be dead right now.”
“Yes, do you remember anything?” Derek asked. He kept his hand on her arm, and she tried to concentrate on his questions instead of what his touch was doing to her. She was going to go to hell for sure. She’d witnessed this man turning into a wolf and fighting with vampires, but all she could think about was sex. Maybe werewolves sent off some kind of sex pheromone that made her act like a sex addict.
Anna rubbed her temples. Concentrate on your story, Anna. “I fell asleep, maybe. I had some weird dream about animals fighting. I don’t know what happened. Everything is a mess in my head. One second I was lost and trying to find my way out, and the next, I was waking up with people everywhere. I must have fallen and hit my head. I don’t remember much.”
Anna leaned into his touch. She wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her, but she barely knew this man. Remember what you saw him do. Quit getting all mushy over this guy. You can’t have him. Anna nodded while taking a deep breath. She knew perfectly well that Derek was not a volunteer searcher but an enforcer for the pack sent to make sure she didn’t remember anything.
Derek leaned in closer to her, and she could see the specks of different blue colors in his eyes. He was almost as muscular as Marcus but slightly smaller. His blond hair was cut past his neck and had just enough curl to give it a messy appearance. His skin was tan as if he was a man that spent his life working outside. On his arm, he had an odd tattoo. It looked like an animal’s clawed paw was shredding through fabric. She shivered a little because it reminded her a lot of the violent fight she’d witnessed where large claws shredded through flesh and fur as easily as a knife through cake.
“Yeah, blurred is good.” Anna saw someone coming from the corner of her eye as a deputy brought her a cup of coffee. Her hands shook as she gratefully took the steaming brew.
“Easy there. Here, let me help you.” Derek wrapped his large, calloused hands around her smaller ones and helped steady the coffee cup. Her arm was a little sore still, but nothing like the pain she felt before the strange silver-haired man touched her. Instead, a much different pain made her ache.
Anna felt heat pooling in the depths of her core. The junction of her thighs grew slick as molten need made her want to cross her legs. What was wrong with her? She’d just had the most terrifying experience of her life, and now she was lusting after two men. She was going crazy or something.
Derek watched the woman, Rachel, drive off with Anna Mason. He hadn’t known her long, but already it felt like a piece of his heart was driving away. He’d heard of a mindless need to possess a female, whether she was human or lycan, but he’d laughed and thought it a myth of the pussy-whipped. Now that he’d met Anna and felt the desire to claim her for himself, he knew it was a real thing. It was nearly impossible for him to let her go. His wolf paced angrily that the female he wanted was driving away, out of his reach.
If only Anna had given any indication that she remembered them, then he could have taken her back to their pack lands.
Derek, like most lycans, was a dominant male, but he was also comfortable with being a beta in a relationship. He hadn’t realized how much he hoped Marcus’s memory tampering hadn’t worked until now. The thought of having Anna in between Marcus and himself as they both claimed her for their own sent shockwaves of want through him. His cock was large and uncomfortable in his jeans. The thought of a hand job left him feeling cold. Only one female could ease his discomfort, and that was Anna Mason.
Marcus could have gone ahead and claimed Anna, saying she’d seen too much, but Marcus was an honorable lycan. He wouldn’t take a female without just cause, as some other supernaturals had done in the past.
With a sigh, Derek turned back toward the police station. He stopped when he spotted Melanie. She was a female who had been after Marcus and himself for years. Derek shivered in revulsion as he looked over her pretty face and slender body. She had a beautiful appearance, but that is where here beauty ended. Her heart was cold and calculating, and all she wanted was the status of the pack Alpha taking her as a bond mate.
“Melanie,” Derek said with a curt nod of his head.
“Derek.” Melanie put her fingers to her lips, and her round brown eyes held unshed tears. “I was so worried about you when I heard about the fight. Were you hurt?” She held her free hand out to him in a fake gesture of concern.
“No, Melanie.” Derek sighed. “Why are you here? I don’t need any help.”
“I was just so worried when I heard a human witnessed the fight. You know how those things are. You could have been hurt by it.”
“It?” Derek laughed. “If you think a frightened, lost camper could take me then I don’t deserve to be second to the Alpha, or in charge of the enforcers. Anna is a little scrap of a woman I could carry around one handed.”
Melanie blushed. “I’m sorry, Derek. I didn’t mean to offend you. Come on, let me take you home.” She placed her hand on Derek’s forearm in an attempt to pull him toward her car.
Derek shook himself loose from her grasp. “No. I’ve told you nicely several times that I am not interested in any kind of relationship with you. Go away.”
Melanie wiped a tear from her cheek. “How can you be so mean? Fate has destined we mate, yet you treat me terribly.”
“Fate, huh? If we were destined to mate, I would feel the pull. When I am near you, I feel nothing but pity for you. You have no idea how to love anyone but yourself.”
Melanie’s mouth opened in outrage, and her face turned molten red. “But you would mate with the human? Don’t think I didn’t see how she turned you on or the way you looked at her.” She spun around and stormed toward her car. “Just wait till I tell Alpha about this.”
“Do that,” Derek muttered. “The stars can only guess what story you will tell him.” Shaking his head, Derek walked over to the car he’d driven to bring Anna to the police station. One day Melanie would either mate to another pack Alpha and leave, or she would finally go too far, and Marcus could banish her from the pack.
Hours later, after Rachel picked her up and brought her back home to her small town just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Anna stood in her shower as the steaming hot water sluiced down her body. Her skin was pink from the heat of the shower, but finally her muscles felt like the knots were easing out. It had been an awful and tragic day. Grief hit her, and she began to cry once again for the people who died. She’d only met them a couple of times, but they seemed nice. She’d had hours to put together the events of the day. Sometime after she’d caught Brian and Erin having sex and she left to cool off, vampires attacked their camp, and they nearly killed Brian and Erin while they did kill some other campers that were next to their site. The fight she’d stumbled on had been a pack of werewolves that hunted down the vampires that killed them.
She let the memories of Marcus and Derek settle over her as the hot water relaxed her stressed body. Now that she was home and calm, and she knew she hadn’t been in any danger from Marcus. He’d only been trying to get her back home safely. He also thought he was altering her memory, but it didn’t work. She remembered everything, every detail in crystal clarity.
When she finished and went downstairs, Rachel waited with a bowl of soup and a sandwich. Anna ate it as Rachel ordered her to, but she kept her mind on the two werewolves she met. Maybe I should have let them know I remembered everything. No, not a good idea. They seemed to live a violent life. No, keep your fantasies to your books, girl. At least at the end of the day, you sleep in your own bed…your lonely, empty bed.
Three weeks later, Anna sat back in her computer chair and rubbed her eyes to relieve the ache from staring at the computer screen. The information available online about werewolves and vampires was vast, but she had dug deep into her research to ferret out the stuff from the popular book and movie series. She tried to let it all go, but the burning curiosity wouldn’t end. She’d meant to just take a few minutes to look, but hours later, she rubbed her tired eyes and still was not done.
Anna was looking for facts buried in the myths on various websites. She’d witnessed their fighting, so that helped narrow down her search for the truth. Anna typed, werewolves and vampires that grow in muscle mass. Her search led her to a site that looked hokey, but the information she read was closest to what she’d witnessed.
It may seem impossible, but there are indeed werewolves and vampires in our world. They keep their existence a secret through mind tricks and other methods.
Anna bit her lower lip as she wondered what kind of other methods the site owner meant. She’d had a feeling if she hadn’t p
layed along she wouldn’t have made it home. Would they have killed her? There was a search feature on the website, so she clicked on it. Anna had a feeling she was being watched as she typed. What happens if mind tricks don’t work?
Some terrifying images came up of wolves with razor sharp claws and needlepoint teeth tearing into a man with fanged teeth and glowing red eyes. Other sites have vanished, and I am not sure how long this site will stay up before some hacker takes it down, the page read. What I am telling you is the truth. They do exist and live among us. Much of the website seemed like fear mongering and talked of people vanishing into thin air. Anna laughed at much of what she read. The guy seemed a little paranoid, and she again assured herself that if those werewolves wanted her dead, she’d be dead. They wouldn’t let her come home just to kill her and open themselves up to police scrutiny.
A story began to form in her mind, and she started to develop a plot. She could never tell anyone what she’d seen that night since they would think she’d lost her mind. She could write it as fiction, though. Her fingers almost blurred over the keyboard as she typed out her story. In just a few hours, she’d had several chapters done. She proofread them and then logged on to one of her sites where she posted her stories.
Anna checked on her other stories and read the comments on each of her chapters. One day she would turn something over to a publisher, but for right now, she was happy to get feedback from other writers and readers in her group.
Anna’s love of reading books drove her to write some. She liked publishing on a few sites that allowed anyone to post a story. There were a few sites for people like her that enjoyed writing but didn’t feel ready to publish yet. She’d just started the third chapter in the story about her encounter and put in everything she’d wished would have happened to her that night. From the comments she got on her stories, there were many ladies out there that lusted after werewolves.
Lycans Embrace [Southern Supernatural Alphas] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 3