by V M Black
Once he had the data, though, she’d be out of there, and that would be it. The end. Finito. That was what she wanted, because it was better that way, even with—especially with—a crazy wolfman with laughing eyes.
“Getting on, then?” she asked as he slipped on the second loafer, as much to interrupt those thoughts as anything.
“Sure thing, babycakes,” he said, swinging a leg over the motorcycle and settling into the seat.
Harper adjusted her position, sliding forward so that she sat snugly against his back. She wrapped her arms around his lean body. She was no shrimp, but he was tall enough that she only had to duck her head slightly and turn her face to the side to be completely sheltered from the wind.
Resting against him like that felt far too comfortable. Harper tried not to think about it.
Levi paused with one loafered foot still on the ground. “And thanks, Harper. For sticking around, I mean. You were right. I do need you.”
Harper could feel his voice though his body, against her cheek. Her arms tightened slightly around his middle. “Don’t get used to it, wolfman.”
“I’m trying not to.” And with that response, he started the engine, raised the kickstand, and launched them forward along the road.
It was only a short while longer when Levi made a turn onto an even smaller back road. He turned again and again until even the street signs disappeared. The roads dipped and dodged, plunging into narrow valleys and making hairpin switchbacks back up and out again. Trees crowded up on every side, hemming them in, and other times there was nothing to be seen but rough walls of rock as the road sliced through the mountains.
Harper blinked as the motorcycle burst out of the woods at the edge of a steep slope, revealing a sudden glimpse of a valley below, where the dark pointed tops of the pines rolled out over the crinkled feet of the mountains under the bright moon.
They were deep in the Appalachians now. Harper smelled wood smoke and the sharp tang of pine needles, all around, and the silence of the night beyond the roar of the motorcycle was complete.
Finally, Levi turned off onto an unmarked asphalt road so narrow that Harper imagined that a car would brush the reaching branches on either side. The trees closed in overhead to form a tunnel, and she could only make out the vaguest shapes of trunks and underbrush as they passed. Levi steered down the center of the road as it twisted through the trees for half a mile before finally pulling to a stop.
“What is it?” Harper asked, craning to see in front of them around his body.
“The gate,” he said, and he hit the headlight—for her benefit, she assumed.
The gate was tall, a flat black aluminum grate that was simple and utilitarian, making no pretense to any sort of decorative aspirations. There was something beyond it—a swooping sort of movement accompanied by a soft pneumatic sound, and Harper jerked back as she found herself ten feet from some kind of ball with a huge yellow eye.
It blinked—that was the only way that Harper could describe the small shields that came up to partially cover the eye before sliding back again, the metal visors above and below adjusting themselves.
A voice crackled through the darkness.
“About time you got here, you dumb ass-sniffer.”
Levi burst into laughter. “Shut up, ball-licker, and let us in. That thing is ridiculous. You’ve got to lay off the video games, man.”
The ball with the eyeball swooped and bobbed, and Harper realized it was at the end of a long metal arm.
“It looks good, though. You have to admit that,” the voice said.
“What’s the point of it, though? Open the gate!” Levi said.
There was a brief hum of electricity, and the gate gave a soft clang and began to roll back sideways, into the trees.
“What’s the point?” Beane’s voice, still coming from some invisible speaker off to the side, was filled with indignation as the yellow-eyed ball spun on its arm and waved its visors expressively. “Why does something so beautiful need a point?”
“I am still talking to Beane, right?” Levi said.
“Oh, okay, maybe it’s there to send the casual sort of snooper running. And to distract anyone from the turrets in the trees,” Beane said. “But it looks great, doesn’t it? And it’s got a camera inside, too.”
“Yeah, great,” Levi said, starting up the engine again and rolling forward. “Let me know when you modify it to spray poison gas.”
“Come to the main building,” Beane called over the noise of the engine, the yellow-eyed ball dancing in emphasis as they left the speaker behind. “You know where I am.”
“Be right there,” Levi shouted back.
They continued up the narrow road a short distance until it ended at to two old Quonset huts, metal half-barrel Army surplus buildings dating back to the second world war. Levi stopped the motorcycle, and Harper slid off.
“I’ve never actually seen one of these in person before,” she said, adjusting her purse strap on her shoulder as she stared at them in the moonlight.
“They’re just a decoy,” Levi said. “One of them’s set up as a two-bedroom house. The other’s a garage. Nobody lives there, though.”
He held out his hand, and Harper stared at it.
“Can you see in the dark?” he asked, wiggling his fingers invitingly.
“Oh,” she said, and she took it.
Despite the drive, his palm was warm against hers, and it was just a little rough with calluses. A man’s hand that made hers feel small and—stupidly, ridiculously—safe.
Levi led her straight into the trees that crowded around the small asphalt turnaround, and for a moment, Harper thought he was just walking at random into the woods. Then she realized that there was a trail there, made of compacted dirt and wide enough for only one person to pass at a time.
Ten steps inside, the trees cut off even the faintest reflection of the moonlight that fell on the road, and the darkness closed in like a blanket around her. Harper switched her grip so that her right hand was in Levi’s, then she put her left on his shoulder so she could step exactly in his path. She opened her eyes wide, trying to see something, anything. But the most that she could make out was the vague bulk of Levi’s shoulders, inches from her nose. Beyond that, there was only blackness.
Her foot hit a root, and she let out a curse as she stumbled forward, catching herself agaist him. He paused.
“Doing okay back there?”
“Sure thing,” Harper said. “It’s darker than the inside of a cat, but I’m just fine. Just try not to walk me into a hole or off a cliff, okay?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” There was a hint of humor in his voice.
“I’d appreciate it.”
He started forward again. “Branch, low and to your right,” he said.
Harper edge to her left and felt it brush against her leg through her jeans.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem.”
She followed him along in silence until he said, “Root.”
She stepped high, and this time, she didn’t stumble.
“Almost there,” he said. And in another moment, he stopped. Harper stopped behind him, then edged to the side, trying to make out where they were.
She felt Levi reach out, and a moment later, there was a low, reverberating sound, like a big sheet of metal being struck. But it wasn’t until a sudden edge of golden light appeared as it opened that she could see the door, set at an angle into the earth.
A tall, dark-skinned man stood in the doorway, his hair braided into shoulder-length ropes and tied back from his face, highlighting his long, angular features.
“Are you clean?” he demanded, and Harper recognized Beane’s voice.
Were all shifters ridiculously hot? When Levi had said “tech guy,” a well-muscled hunk like that hadn’t even been on her radar.
“All cellphones are off,” Levi said, his free hand dipping inside his pocket.
“You’d better come in t
hen,” he said, and he stepped aside.
Levi looked back at Harper, giving her a toothy smile. She looked past Beane, but all she could see were metal steps, leading down into a kind of narrow hall.
Beane’s lair. Well, what other chance did they have?
Pushing past Levi, Harper stepped inside.
The story continues in…
The Alpha’s Captive
Part Five
Aethereal Bonds
On Sale Last Week of July 2014
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On the run from the vampire mafia, curvy Harper Bailey and the werewolf Levi Harris finally get the files they stole to a secret underground bunker where they can be decrypted. But the vampires have more resources than either Harper or Levi had counted on, and soon they’re in a desperate flight—with even more on the line than ever before.
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Author’s Note
I hope you enjoyed this book! If you want to keep up with me, you can find me on my blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Tumblr. I update Facebook and Twitter most often. Click “Follow” on Facebook if you want to see my updates but don’t want to share yours. Otherwise, choose “Friend.”
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The Alpha’s Captive is a novelette serial that comes out on the first Tuesday of every month. When the serial finishes, it will be collected into an omnibus/boxed set edition. If you like this book and want to try out my other serial (with installments that run about twice as long), try Life Blood, the first in the Cora’s Choice serial. It comes out on the third Tuesday of every month.
I’m currently working exclusively in the Aethereal Bonds world, which I’ve mapped out to be big enough to let me tell all the different kinds of stories I want to share with readers. It’s got vampires, demons, weres, faes and more—all sorts of creatures that are great fun to play with.
I live near Washington, D.C., with my family. A proud geek, I love fantasy, romance, science fiction, and historical fiction.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Afterword