Wanted by the Alphas (An Extremely Sensual Paranormal Shifter Romance)

by Dawn Steele

  Why is she compelled to watch then? It is akin to a mother going to the Roman gladiatorial ring to see her two sons being pit against each other in a fight to the death. And yet she is compelled to watch. To be a living part of it.

  The werewolf is already there. His hackles are all raised and he is growling softly, dangerously. Something glistens around his neck. It is a collar of some sort with an amulet hanging from it. It is too far for her to make the amulet design out, though she reckons Jared would probably be able to see it.

  Shannon has never seen Kirk wear any sort of collar or necklace, and she wonders if this confers him some sort of protection.

  The werewolf paws at the ground. His growls rumble in his chest. They are now like thunder.

  Shannon’s heart beats fiercely within her own chest, and the pain of what must happen within the next few minutes is almost visceral throughout her body. She will bleed when they bleed and cry in despair when one of them is felled. This is a no win situation. At the end of this, she will be in sackcloth and ashes.

  Please, she prays without knowing what she is praying for.

  Lucien stands still as he faces the werewolf. The air is charged with something that Shannon has never experienced, but the smell of burnt iron is rampant. Menace is in every particle, every blade of grass, every shaking leaf that adorns the area around them.

  Lucien removes the covered stick from behind his back. He unsheathes it. It is a katana – a samurai sword that catches the sunlight and gleams as brightly as the sun.

  Shannon’s breath catches in her throat. She has not expected a witch to be wielding a katana.

  Lucien removes something else from his jacket. It is a silver handgun. He aims this at the werewolf, who begins his acceleration towards the blond witch.

  Silver bullets!

  Shannon clasps her hands to her mouth to keep her from crying out.

  Lucien pulls the trigger, and successive blasts go off. The bullets whizz into the air and strike the werewolf, who visibly is impacted. But no blood stains smear his golden fur and he keeps on picking up the pace towards the witch. Shannon wonders if that is what the amulet is for.

  Lucien seems ready for this as well. He drops the silver gun and grasps the katana with two hands, the way it is meant to be wielded.

  The werewolf leaps into the air for Lucien’s throat. He thrusts the katana upwards towards Kirk’s chest.

  “Noooooo!” screams Shannon.

  An explosion of light and sound erupts from the katana. The air sizzles and pure blinding light strikes the trees and area in a wide radius. Shannon’s body is thrown back from the blast, and she thinks: God, that hurts.

  She smells the burning of the trees but hears nothing as her world crowds in and vanishes into a pinpoint.

  THE OPENING

  “Shannon? Shannon?”

  She tries to open her eyes, but it is such an effort. Her entire body is numb and she cannot feel any of her limbs. Her vision swims and she sees two anxious faces peering down at her.

  Lucien!

  And Kirk!

  Kirk is in his human form and he is naked. His hair is wild and flowing, and his body wears dirt marks and bruises and scratches. He is bleeding from a wound on his side, but this does not seem to perturb him. He is more concerned about her. The collar and amulet at his throat are missing.

  Lucien is just as anxious. His shirt is torn and bloodied at the collar, baring a lot of his chest. His blond hair is disheveled. His lower lip is smeared with blood and his hands are singed.

  She whimpers, but no voice issues from her throat.

  Jared? Where is Jared?

  She wants to keep her eyes open, but her lids shut on her. Now all she can hear is voices.

  “She’s hurt bad. Her pulse is very weak.” Kirk’s voice.

  “Can you do something?”

  “We can bring her to the hospital. But I can’t transform, damn you. What did you do to me?”

  “Reversion spell. What the hell did you do? Silver bullets can’t harm you?”

  “I’ve got my secrets, you’ve got yours. But she’s dying, damn it! None of anything else matters.”

  “I didn’t know she was here! I was trying to kill you. That’s why the spell was so strong.”

  “Thanks.” Sarcastically.

  “If you hadn’t worn that amulet, the repercussions wouldn’t be that devastating. Look at this place. All the trees are singed and broken. The rangers will be on to this for sure by tomorrow.”

  “Fuck the rangers. She’s dying! That’s all that matters.”

  A groan.

  “Is her brother OK?”

  “He’s hurt too, but he’s in a lot better shape than she is. It’s because he’s a shifter, I think. But he wasn’t protected like you and me.”

  Lucien’s decisive voice: “We’ve got to do something.”

  Kirk in a low voice: “I don’t think we can make it to the hospital in this state.”

  “Then there’s only one thing I can do, and you have to help me, seeing that you obviously know a spell or two.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “This is a very old spell, one that has been in my family for years. One of my ancestors was put to death for owning it.”

  “Great, thanks for telling me that.”

  The voices are fast fading. Shannon’s brain is slowing down to a trickle. She can barely think anymore. Nothing appears to be fully coherent to her.

  Lucien: “This katana is tempered with old magick. It is a conduit, a channel for concentrated energy. Stand clear.”

  A swooshing sound, like a blade being plunged into something soft.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like? Sticking the sword into the ground. Now I need your blood . . . and mine.”

  Silence.

  “OK, what do I do now?”

  “Let your blood flow into the blade, and I will let mine mingle with yours. Ours is magical blood. It will make the conduit twice as strong, thus binding us to the spell.”

  “What exactly are we doing?”

  “Nothing your medical degree has ever prepared you for. Now I need a sharp stick.”

  More silence. Footsteps rushing around. The startling snap of wood.

  “Here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Drawing hieroglyphs around the focus point.”

  “Why hieroglyphs? I can read the ancient Egyptian alphabet . . . well, kind of – ”

  Something in Shannon’s fading mind stirs. She knows what Lucien is writing.

  A horned viper.

  A leg.

  A hand.

  A leaf.

  Another leaf.

  A wave.

  Another hand.

  An open mouth.

  A rope.

  An ancient Egyptian anagram. Scramble them and put the letters all together again.

  “It says . . . Forbidden,” Kirk pronounces in awe.

  Forbidden.

  The word thrills through her like an incantation of a spell. And maybe – combined with the katana and the blood and the power channeling through the earth like a roaring waterfall – it is.

  The world spins on its axis as images of ankhs and leaves and hanged witches and growling werewolves tumble in her head.

  *

  This time, she can open her eyes with ease, and she realizes it is because her body is no longer corporeal. She looks around her in wonder.

  Am I dead?

  She is not alone. Kirk, Lucien and Jared are with her, and they are also looking around them in amazement. This is because the world around them has taken on the brilliant hues of the rainbow and beyond.

  Everything around them – the trees, the grass, the sky, the mountains, a slowly moving stream – is constantly changing in color, as if they are looking at everything through a rapidly moving, multicolored prism. Everything is simultaneously surreal and hyper-real. The colors bla
ze before her eyes, if indeed those are her eyes she is seeing through.

  “What is this place?” Jared breathes.

  “This is Pangaea, the world between worlds,” Lucien says. “Do not eat or drink anything here unless bidden.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Jared says.

  “Pangaea?” Kirk asks.

  “It is one of the netherworlds accessible by certain portals, like the one I created with the katana and the hieroglyphs. Living people do not wander into this, except for a few who can ‘travel’ between worlds. One of my ancestors, Magda, could do this.”

  “And the dead?” Kirk says in trepidation. “Are they here?”

  “No. This is not the afterworld, although there are creatures here who would have you believe so. Also do not engage anyone in conversation unless I tell you to. The creatures here cannot be trusted.”

  Shannon takes all this in half-dazedly. Her body is too light, and she still cannot feel all her limbs. Even Lucien, Kirk and Jared are not fully corporeal. Their skins are too bright, too real. Jared’s hue is slightly dimmer.

  They are all naked.

  She looks down at herself. She too is naked. But her flesh texture is far, far fainter than the rest of them, as if she is already part ghost.

  And maybe she is.

  She is alarmed.

  “Lucien, Kirk.” Even her voice sounds strange in her ears, as if she is speaking through a fluted vessel. “Why am I different?”

  Lucien holds his hand out to her. He is clearly distressed, as is Kirk. Jared is looking around him, thoroughly baffled. She grips Lucien’s hand. His touch is barely there, as if she is already intangible.

  “Shannon.” Kirk’s beautiful face is a rictus of fear. “Don’t leave us.”

  “I don’t want to leave you!”

  But she is fading fast, winking in and out, as if she is a television image that is being interrupted by static.

  “Quick,” Lucien urges. In this place, he resembles an Impressionist painting of a blond-haired, blue-eyed angel from one of the French masters. “Bring her to the stream.”

  Together, they grip her hands and pull her to the kaleidoscopic stream. It is as if her feet are floating, they hardly touch the ground.

  “Can the waters heal her?” Kirk asks.

  “No. We need the ferryman.”

  “Where is he?”

  Lucien points downstream. “There.”

  Shannon blinks. Sure enough, she can make out a robed figure poling a barge up the stream, struggling against the current. The figure comes closer in stops and starts. She would blink, and the barge is suddenly much closer.

  “Hurry,” Kirk says more to himself, “she is very weak.”

  They stand upon the banks of the eddying stream as the ferryman approaches. The ferryman wears a brown robe with a cowl, and Shannon cannot make out his features in the darkness of his face. But when she gazes upon his hands, she finds that they are extremely skeletal. Not quite bone, but with only a thin layer of yellowed skin covering his knobby fingers and knuckles.

  His hands curve around a wooden pole which has one end mired deep in the water of the stream. Shannon thinks she can see creatures running around in the substance of the pole, but when she stares directly at it, it once again turns into wood.

  “Ferryman,” Lucien addresses the figure respectfully. “We have a boon to ask of you.”

  The ferryman does not reply.

  Both Lucien and Kirk are holding Shannon up.

  “Please grant this one the gift of further life,” Lucien says. “It is not her turn to go.”

  The ferryman says in a raspy voice, “What will you offer in exchange for her life?”

  Lucien says, “What do you wish?”

  The air between them curls menacingly as the ferryman contemplates this.

  He says, “You, witch, have given up your heritage for this woman. You will be excommunicated from your family and coven, shunned from your own community of witches for shaming them. You have given up your considerable inheritance, which will cripple you greatly.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she worth it?” the ferryman challenges.

  Lucien glances at Shannon, and says, “Yes. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I love her and I do not want her to die.”

  The ferryman turns to Kirk.

  “You, shapeshifter, have been transformed by this woman. You are beginning to question everything in your life and your status as the alpha in your community. You believe you have found your lifelong mate and you intend to remain true to this woman.”

  “Yes, that is true.” Kirk glances at Shannon. “I would do anything for her.”

  “Good. Because we have need of your skills, the both of you.” The ferryman’s tone is insidious as he cackles. “Additionally, your living flesh is craved by many beings here. We will be calling upon you soon enough, witch and shapeshifter, when the time is upon us. Do you agree to this?”

  Shannon has a sinking feeling. Whatever the ferryman and his fellow denizens of this place request of Lucien and Kirk will not be pleasant. Or legal. Or beneficial to the world at large.

  She wants to shout out, “No! I am not worth it. Don’t do it! What they will ask you to do will potentially be far worse!”

  But no voice issues from her throat. In alarm, she observes her hands and feet. They are fading even faster than possible.

  “Yes, I agree,” Lucien says without hesitation.

  “Yes, I agree,” Kirk echoes him.

  No.

  But her thought is too weak, as if even her mind is going.

  “Very well.” There is a smile in the ferryman’s voice. “On behalf of Pangaea, I accept your barter. Now in order to restore life to her, you must bring her to the Tree. Climb on board.”

  Lucien scoops Shannon up in his arms, and they all clamber onto the barge. Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly in this place, the barge does not bob and the water does not splash with their added weight. They all settle onto the floor of the barge – with Lucien and Kirk supporting Shannon between them – and the ferryman poles them off.

  “Hurry,” Kirk says, but the ferryman ignores him.

  Time passes strangely in this place. Shannon sees strange trees – some of which are alive with moving branches. Beings which are crosses between animals – stags with men’s penises and hairy legs, goats with pigs’ tails, giant butterflies with faces of cherubs – stare at them as they pass from behind the trees and shrubs. Some follow them down the banks of the stream, jabbering excitedly in their language.

  “I think we’d be right at home here,” Jared says to Kirk.

  “No. These are not shapeshifters.”

  “They are more dangerous than shapeshifters. They crave our live source, our vitality, our energy. Do not engage any of them,” Lucien warns.

  “You speak as if you’ve travelled this place many times,” Kirk observes.

  “Not many times. But I knew of it since I was a child. My sister and I were curious, and so we conducted our own forays into this place without my father’s knowledge. Sometimes, we barely escaped with our lives.”

  Kirk smiles. “Yeah, I know the feeling of childhood curiosity. It happens to us shifters too, but in a different way.”

  There is so much she doesn’t know about the two men in her life, Shannon thinks.

  Time passes, and soon, the ferryman stops poling the barge.

  “The Tree,” he says.

  Shannon averts her head. Her vision is becoming a blur. She sees a majestic tree on the bank, which towers over everything else. The tree’s hoary branches are swaying on their own like arms with spindly hands to no wind she can feel on her skin. Or perhaps her skin is already incorporeal.

  “Tell us what we must do,” Lucien says tersely.

  “The Tree stands on hallowed ground. There is a cross section of ley lines and nodes under its roots. But its magick has to be activated by you.”

  “How?”

  “Lov
e binds the three of you and her brother as well. Therefore, the most potent magick which can be harnessed is sex magick.”

  Shannon stirs at this.

  “How?” Kirk says, echoing her faint thoughts.

  “How do you think?” Lucien says. His mouth is set in a grim line. “Help me with her. Jared, can you walk?”

  “Yes.”

  Together, they climb out of the barge and lay Shannon on the ground beneath the tree. The grass here is sparse, and the earth is a shifting surface of sand, rock, slate, and granite – all interchanging geologic features on a strange bed. Shannon can feel the power emanate from the tree, the ground, everything around her like a primal surge – a sustained blast of energy. She is almost buffeted by its sheer, raw force.

  Lucien gently strokes the hair from her forehead.

  “Shannon, listen to me,” he says. “I’m going to make love to you, and if it isn’t enough, Kirk will join in to add his power. You will not be hurt. It’s the only way to make you better. You understand?”

  She nods. Or thinks she nods, but can’t be sure because she can’t feel her neck.

  How am I going to experience this lovemaking then? she wonders. This is all so strange. So worrying. So wondrous. So terrifying.

  They are all naked, and so there are no clothes to shed.

  “Kneel at her head and hold her hands,” Lucien instructs Jared.

  Jared does so. He pulls up her arms so they are outstretched. He kneels, and she can see his anxious face peering down at her.

  “You’ll be OK, Shannon.”

  “I shouldn’t have made you come,” she says weakly.

  “No. It was meant to be like this.”

  Lucien straddles her. His cock is already erect. He parts her legs, although she can hardly feel them.

  “Shannon,” he says, his stunning blue eyes full of complex emotions, “look at me.”

  She looks at him. He enters her, but she cannot feel a thing. Her body here has already vanished to the point of almost nothingness. Still holding her gaze, he rocks against her.

  “Shannon,” Kirk says, and his voice is full of pain. He is by her side, and he is stroking her body, her breasts. Once again, she cannot feel anything.