Alliance: an Alpha Shifter Romance (Mated in Hell Trilogy Book 1)

by K. de Long

  No. Her heart sank. It was too late to take him up on that offer. She wanted to be home so, so badly. But if she backed out of her promise to Elias, he’d kill her, kill her family. She’d force them into standing against the Malvati alone. Elias would take both Liam’s pack and hers as they fought separately, their alliance fractured by her actions.

  This was her problem. She couldn’t run away from it.

  The only way out was through.

  Chapter 25

  Tessa had clammed up. He brushed the tears off her cheeks and held her close. She was so perfect against him, her whole body curving against his. What had he said wrong? What had he said to make her cry? Was it just that he’d extended the offer, even though it would look bad to their packs? Or was it something else? Why wouldn’t she want to go back there, for how much she plainly missed it?

  “Is it because they bartered you to me?” he asked. “Are you mad at them?”

  “Yes,” she sobbed, but he couldn’t quite tell whether she was being truthful. She sounded almost...relieved...to offer that answer. Still, he couldn’t think of a reason to lie about it.

  He couldn’t imagine how awful it felt to see her own parents treating her as a good, rather than a person. He’d made his own decision, free of anyone’s pressure. But by the time it even made it to her, it had gathered momentum, had swept her up with no real way to say no without losing face or compromising her morals. Sent away to live with strangers, with a man she didn’t know or trust...

  In her shoes, he’d have killed someone already.

  How could she return to them? He’d already seen that they expected her to. No. Whether they meant to or not, her home existed only in her heart; they’d burned the reality of it to the ground.

  He tightened his arm around her and pulled her close. She deserved better. He didn’t know that he could give it, but he was sure as hell gonna try. Starting now. Starting here.

  He tilted her chin with a calloused finger, bringing her lips up to his. His wolf demanded he plunder her mouth, ravage her until she forgot her worries, but he quieted the beast. Instead, he focused on the subtle brush of her lips under his and the plushness of her lower lip. He kissed her slowly, determined to make her believe that they had the rest of their lives to wait for the kiss to end.

  Her breath hitched, and her lips parted, allowing him access. Still, he refused to allow his base nature to win out, refused to allow his beast to revel in her submission. There’d be time for that later. Now was the time for lovemaking, for him to take his time showing her everything he wanted them to share. The thought had been present in his mind since he woke up with her naked in his bed.

  Tessa’s arm tightened around his chest. It scraped over open wounds, but with the poultice already taking effect, he hardly felt anything more than her smooth skin against his…and the reminder of her cautious care.

  Her body arched into him, one thigh most of the way across his. His palm flattened over the small of her back, pulling her hips into him. Their legs were interlaced, almost the way he’d imagined when he brought her to the ground sparring. A wanton moan escaped her. Her muscles tightened and shifted, unconsciously grinding her against his thigh. He wedged it deeper between her legs, putting more firm pressure on her button. He could almost imagine it aching, throbbing for him, almost imagine her grinding herself to completion against his leg, her eyes locked on his.

  He wanted that. Wanted to own her in a primal way. Wanted to take her beyond the civilized trappings of the pack, to a place where pain, and manipulation, and compromise didn’t exist.

  He nipped her lip gently, and she bucked into him, the toned muscles in her thigh tightening. He slipped his hand into the front of her pants, between her legs, and cupped her mound, eager to give her what she needed. Her wolf whined softly in her gasp as the delicious pressure worked its magic. Her emerald eyes were bright with need, and he could hardly control himself around that desperate glow.

  He teased his middle finger between her lips, dragging moisture through her slick petals and up to her clit. In slow circles, he worked her to a euphoric high. The smell of her arousal hung heavy in the air between him, tempting him to crawl lower and lap her up. He wanted to taste her, to feel his chin sticky with her juices, to kiss her and let her taste them on his lips...

  Tess was his.

  Not his pet, but his mate.

  Now and forever, they were pledged together. Body and soul.

  Starting with their bodies.

  A knock reverberated through the house.

  Tessa growled. More and more, it seemed that the noise heralded doom and violence. And a bucket of cold water, dumped over her desires and strengthening her inhibitions. The universe had sent her a sign that she wasn’t destined to be treated with the tenderness Liam offered.

  For a moment, she’d thought she might escape the desolate scene in her head, filled with images of her own body, her parents’, Liam’s... She’d lost herself in his caress, and temporarily felt home.

  But she didn’t deserve that. She never would.

  Liam released her and left to answer whoever had interrupted with their banging. Their voices echoed through the house.

  “M. Sorry to disturb you. Early meeting. Emergency.”

  “Shit, Hagen. What happened?”

  “It’s Ryker. They found his body on the green, along with two others. It’s ugly. Quentin asked me to come, ‘cause he was afraid to be that messenger.”

  “Ryker?” he said, and Tessa heard the way the name left him like a punch to the gut. But he continued, his voice firmer now. Angrier. His questions spitting out more like demands than inquiries. “Two others. Who.”

  “Two others close with Gunner’s group but who hadn’t tried to deflect with them. My best guess is they were supposed to, and Elias realized they were alive because they’d chickened out.”

  “Shit.”

  “I know. Murders like this, square in the middle of our fortress, the seat of our power. He’s saying you can’t protect your own. Any of them. That no matter who or where we are, he can get to us.”

  Tessa shuddered. Elias had lied, that much was plain. The only way what Elias had said could even remotely be true was if he hadn’t killed the three Nefari, but if Liam had, in order to convince his people to go on the warpath. But she couldn’t conceive that being the reality. Even from here, she could hear the strain in Liam’s voice. Ryker’s death had hit him deeply. He’d die before he admitted it, she had no doubt, but she just couldn’t see Liam as someone who would murder a friend to gain power. And that meant she’d made a horrible, horrible mistake.

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she sobbed to herself quietly, listening to the men talking outside the bedroom door.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” Liam said. “I need to get dressed.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you there.” The front door shut with a slam.

  She took her time, wiping the tears away, trying to make it seem as though she hadn’t just been crying.

  As his footsteps thundered down the hallway toward the room, Tessa scrunched her face, tensing every muscle in the hopes that when she relaxed it, it would be blank, with no incriminating confessions in the set of her mouth or the pain in her eyes.

  Liam stormed back into the bedroom. “You heard all that, I guess?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Is this retaliation for something?”

  He seemed to think the panic in her voice was due to the attack itself. Not due to what now felt like her role in it. If she’d gone to the sentries last night, told them she’d heard voices in the woods, Liam’s people might still be alive.

  “No, pet. Shit. I thought something was coming, but I never—” His voice cracked. “I never could have guessed it was this. Ryker showed me the ropes when I was just a pup. Sometimes he seemed like more of a dad than Remi, once Lucien died.”

  “Lucien?” she asked softly.

  Liam nodded. “Elias’ father. For most of my childhood, I
thought that man was my dad. I grieved him like my dad. And Remi and I were never close. So Ryker was that favorite uncle, the one you could go to when your home life was too weird.”

  Tessa wrapped her arms around him, dragging his head to her shoulder. Grief seared her insides on his account. This was at least somewhat her fault, too. Liam would kill her if he knew it. If he found out she had met Elias, agreed to spy for him—

  And that was the tip of the iceberg. She was playing with fire, and it was only a matter of time before she got burned. Whether it was Elias or Liam who brought the flames to the kindling at her feet, what did it matter?

  The next person Liam found himself mourning might be her.

  Or maybe he wouldn’t mourn her. Somehow, though, she thought he might. And it was the only comfort she could find for herself. That at least when her mistakes dragged her to hell, he’d be left behind, whispering prayers that her soul might find some peace.

  He was staring at her. She couldn’t let her turmoil show on her face. She stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck.

  He held her as though she might blow away if he released her. She wasn’t sure whether it was for his benefit or for hers.

  She didn’t know how else to comfort him. Didn’t know how else to apologize. She’d only ever had one thing he wanted.

  Tessa dropped to her knees, raining a trail of kisses down his bare chest. His fingers twined around her hair. She freed him from his underwear, but left her fingers tangled in the elastic for leverage. She kissed the shiny head of his cock, licking away a little bead that had already gathered there. He gasped, his fingers tightening.

  “Pet,” he said, but didn’t actually attach a thought to the word.

  She parted her lips, taking him into her mouth just far enough to run her tongue along the dip under the head. His cock flexed, almost pulling free of her lips.

  “Tess,” he gasped.

  The territorial tone brought a smile to her face. Even in this submission, with the floor hard under her knees and her whole attention brought to bear on pleasing him, there was power. If only she could have given this to him without the guilt driving her actions.

  She bobbed a little more firmly, sucking more of him into her mouth, until she’d gone about a third of the way down his shaft. True to her fantasies, Liam was thick, and long. Just as powerful as he’d felt last night. She wouldn’t be able to take him all into her mouth, as much as she might try.

  Liam’s fingers caught in her hair to pull her onto him deeper. She wrapped her fingers around his girth and came up for air, sucking hard as she pulled away.

  His grip pulled her right back, and she fell into that rhythm, hand and mouth pistoning over his length in a desperate rhythm. He leaned against the doorframe, his back curving to allow him to look down at her. She only caught a split-second’s glimpse of his honeyed eyes before she was drawn back into her own momentum.

  She released his clothes to cup his package, her fingertips playing over his balls as she bobbed. His nails bit into her scalp. She liked the reminder of the pain he could cause, and how even that felt divine, and gave her strength.

  Her tongue tingled with the faint salty tang of precome, and her mouth glided easily over him. She was still wet from his finger thrumming her clit, and she ached for him to be inside her again. But there wasn’t time, and she’d taken providence’s hint to heart. She wouldn’t seek her own release in this. Only his.

  Liam moaned, and his cock throbbed in her mouth, a little vein pulsing against her tongue. His other hand found her head, guiding her just where he wanted to feel her. She let him use her, let him pump into her mouth as deeply as his length and girth allowed, even as the spots danced in front of her eyes and her body screamed for air. He pounded the back of her throat, her tongue gliding along the underside of his cock, and with his next moan, she knew he wouldn’t be long.

  She took a deep breath, opened her throat, and put her hands over his as he moved her. A hot stream of liquid hit her tongue, and she swallowed, barely taking the time to register the pleasant warmth of his smell, his musk. She lapped his come off him, swallowing over and over again until he’d run dry and released her.

  “Fuck,” he gasped. He extended a hand down to her and pulled her to her feet. She stumbled against him as she rose, and his lips crashed onto hers.

  She tasted of him, of his ownership, of his pain.

  But so long as she tasted that, she could no longer taste her own guilt.

  “Fuck, pet. I—I don’t want to rush. But I have to go. You could come, too—”

  She shook her head. Now was a time for pack. Not outsiders. “Go. Look after your pack. It’s not my place.”

  He squeezed her tight one last time, then slid away from her to look for his clothes.

  Tessa clenched her hands to fists. She couldn’t cry until after he’d left.

  Liam hadn’t had a chance to catch his breath. Tessa’s fragrance still adorned his fingers when he reached up to swipe his hair away from his face, and the memory of her lips on his cock was a mindfuck guaranteed to distract him. She tasted perfect, with his scent, his taste in her mouth.

  But even the possessiveness in that couldn’t ease his nerves. If she wanted him calm, wanted him strong, she might have been better off throwing a punch and letting him wrestle her to the ground. He wanted the world to hurt. He wanted Elias to bleed.

  Window curtains stirred as he walked toward the green. Those who were on their porches gathering put their hands over their mouths to disguise the whispers. News traveled fast.

  He kept his head up, his shoulders back. The Nefari needed to see confidence on him before they could truly feel it for themselves. He nodded acknowledgment, but didn’t slow his pace to talk or call out greetings. His people needed to know that he was on it, that he took their problems and their fear seriously.

  It wasn’t difficult to spot the gruesome spread when he reached the green. Quentin and Hagen were nearby, Hagen’s broad shoulders and shock of hair impossible to miss. Hagen was taller than more than half the Nefari and had a gravitas to his presence as though the world were tipping inward with his weight. He commanded attention and respect and was one of Liam’s most trusted enforcers, in part because of it. He didn’t have Liam’s ambition, his desire to lead, but the desire to protect and to punish was there.

  Liam approached, nostrils wide to take in any hint of something out of the ordinary. But other than the tang of blood, there was nothing. They’d brushed their tracks clear behind them with branches, making it impossible for him to tell how many Malvati had been there or which direction they’d gone.

  The bodies were another story. They hadn’t been killed in the green; it would have been far too messy. And from the twisted looks on their faces, it had taken them quite some time to die. That meant that the Malvati had a collaborator. Someone who sheltered them as they tortured their victims. Someone who had directly defied Liam and betrayed their own packmates.

  He could understand why people would follow the shifts of the wind and the tides, seeking fairest ground. Seeking opportunities or prosperity was human nature—bestial nature, too. But turning on family directly, enabling and participating in violence...

  If he ever found out who it was, he would tear them limb from limb with teeth and hands. Even a dull blade would make it too quick for them.

  Liam knelt by the closest corpse, turning its face toward him to inspect it.

  The first place to start investigating would be contacting their family and friends. When had Ryker set his duties aside for the night? Had he gone to see a mistress or friend? There’d be a million questions to ask and answer, trying to put it all together. But it wasn’t time for that yet. Grief came before understanding and retribution.

  After the funeral, he would buckle down and seek answers. For now, his only job was to take it all in, commit every detail to memory. To ensure that Ryker’s memory wouldn’t die inside him, no matter how
much he might wish to forget the ugly ones on display at Liam’s feet.

  The three men were only identifiable by their tattoos. Their bodies were twisted, limbs broken, eyes put out, lips sewn shut, skin blackened with blood and bruising. But from the torn flesh surrounding the stitches, they’d been alive when it was done. They’d taken as much of a beating as they could in silence, until the pain overwhelmed them and they brought more on themselves by screaming.

  Liam shuddered. He’d bet the pack’s whole absinthe stores that Elias had been here. He hadn’t sent underlings to carry out his work. This crime had Elias’s deviant creativity all over it.

  He’d come home.

  For the last time.

  Chapter 26

  As the time ticked by, Tessa wondered whether she should have accompanied Liam to see the bodies. But despite her impatience and worry, she knew she’d made the right decision to hang back. If she had to see them, she was sure that she’d give her guilt away. She’d comfort Liam from a distance, though at some point, she’d have to stand at his side for the portions of the funerary rites that were done in public.

  Every minute he was gone, it weighed on her. Elias had done this to test her. If she came clean to Liam, and he killed her, it would erode Liam’s support with the Kumori. If she didn’t, it gave Elias even more leverage over her, forcing her to spy on him out of fear he or her family would be next. Meanwhile, Liam would have to reckon with his people’s anger and grief.

  Elias had successfully used her heartache, homesickness, and pride to break the Nefari and their alliance with her pack. It’s just that no one but her knew that yet.

  As Tessa saw it, she’d had a choice. Duty, or independence? Elias had reframed their bargain; in this kind of fracas, her pack would be lucky to escape alive, once the Nefari started clamoring for her blood. And the Kumori would never allow her to lead them if even a hint of this tainted her when she left. Her own parents would disown her. Elias had promised her a new pack, but none of them would be people she loved or trusted. What if the price of her independence was simply too high? Elias had given her a poisonous pill.