by Dia Cole
Noticing that Gabe was also staring, I growled.
Doc readjusted the comforter, hiding her body from sight.
“She’s an Alpha,” Gabe said incredulously. “How is that possible?”
“It’s not,” I replied. Everyone knew the rarest of our kind were born, not made, something Tasha reminded us of all the time. If Havana were an Alpha female, she would’ve had bright yellow eyes from birth.
Doc shook his head. “I’d theorized the transfusion of Lykos blood would accelerate her transition and healing, but I never expected this.” He walked over and inspected the bag of blood still hanging on the IV pole. He looked over at me, his eyes widening. “You brought me Tasha’s blood, Liam.”
“I-I didn’t look at whose it was. I just grabbed a few bags,” I stammered. Shit. What have I done?
“Damn it.” Gabe scrubbed a hand over his face. “You know what Tasha will do to another Alpha female in her territory.”
She’ll kill her in the most painful way possible. I swallowed hard. “By saving Havana’s life, we’ve condemned her to death.”
“No, we haven’t.” Doc’s voice rang inside my head. “I swore to keep Havana safe and I intend to keep that oath. I won’t let Tasha hurt her.”
“Neither will I,” I declared, deciding then and there that this female was more important than anything else, including my family at Winterhaven and my own life.
“And neither will I,” Gabe added.
Mason and I gaped at the head Enforcer. Never would I have expected treasonous words to come from his lips.
“Tasha lost my loyalty when she destroyed my family.” Gabe looked at us with a fierce expression on his face. “From now on, I serve a new Alpha female.” He bowed his head in the direction of Havana, and then got to his knees beside the bed.
Doc and I followed suit. As we took turns verbally pledging ourselves to her sleeping form, we established a new faction. We just needed to keep our ruler alive so she could lead it.
17
Havana
A pinprick in my arm woke me. “Ouch.” I tried to move and found I couldn’t. A hand held me down. What the hell? Adrenaline spiked my blood. Where am I? What’s happening? The smell of rubbing alcohol assaulted my senses.
“Just relax,” said a familiar accented male voice.
Mason. All at once the tension eased out of my body.
I opened my eyes to find the handsome blond doctor standing over me. As I looked up, he pulled a needle out of my arm. “What are you giving me?” My voice sounded dry and raspy.
“Something to rouse you. You’ve been unconscious for several days.”
“Several days,” I echoed feeling dazed. The fluorescent lights above me burned my eyes. The buzzing noise from what resembled a refrigerator in the corner of the room rang in my ears like a chorus of cicadas. My head swam as I tried to knit together the fragments of my recent memories. I remembered falling in the snow. It’d been so cold. And the black veins on my hand. “I’m infected,” I cried out, pushing Mason away.
The doctor flew into the next hospital bed. He looked as stunned as I did. “Easy there. You're no longer infected with the Z-virus.”
I looked at my hand. There wasn’t a trace of the virus there, nor was there even evidence of the cuts on my palm. “H-how?”
Ignoring my question, he studied me with a pensive expression on his face. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“You finding me and bringing me back to the cabin.” I paused and looked around at the white-on-white space that could double as a triage room in any hospital. “Which we clearly aren’t at anymore. Where are we?”
“We’re at Sanctuary. Well, more specifically, the infirmary at the lodge.” Mason bent down and recovered the syringe that had flown from his hand to the floor. He turned and disposed of it in a red container on the counter by a stainless steel sink.
A sink meant running water and that meant showers and toilets. Thank God. “Okay,” I said slowly. “I thought Gabriel didn’t want me staying here.”
Mason flashed me a strained smile. “Your almost dying changed his mind. From now on you stay with us.” He walked back over to my side. “All your injuries should be healed. How does your back feel?”
Gritting my teeth against the inevitable pain, I sat up. To my surprise, I didn’t feel even a twinge of discomfort. The bed sheet tangled around me as I twisted from side to side. “My back doesn’t hurt at all.” I blinked in amazement. It’d been forever since I’d had this range of motion. “What did you give me?”
“A blood transfusion. The blood helped accelerate…your healing process.”
I started to ask him how a transfusion could heal a person so dramatically when he brought my hand to his mouth and brushed his lips across my knuckles. The sensation of his mouth against my skin made me shudder. Heat moved low into my belly and I forgot everything except for how delicious he looked in the burgundy polo he was wearing.
He inhaled deeply and groaned. “Christ, you smell amazing.”
“I doubt that,” I said, brushing back my tangled hair. I looked down at myself, realizing that I was wearing a hospital gown with nothing underneath. “Where are my clothes?”
“Back at the cabin. They were sopping wet. I had to remove them.”
“So you stripped me naked?” I gave him a teasing grin.
“Um, yes. And I admit I gave you a sponge bath or two.” Mason rubbed the back of his neck as a hint of red crept over his cheekbones. “I promise I took no liberties.”
“Maybe I want you to take liberties,” I said in a husky voice. Another pulse of desire swept through me. I reached out and caressed his handsome face.
His beautiful blue eyes widened. “You shouldn’t touch me.”
Oh, I would touch him. All over. Licking my lips, I reached back and undid the ties at the back of the gown, baring myself to his gaze.
“No,” Mason whispered. As if on their own volition, his hands reached for me. At the last minute he pulled them back and took a step away. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” My core throbbed, aching to be filled. “I need you, Mason.”
Mason swallowed hard. “I promised the others.”
At that moment, I didn’t care about anyone else but him. “This is about you and me.” I tore off the hospital gown and slid to the end of the bed. “Come to me.” My voice rang with a strange unworldly tone.
Wearing a dazed look, he walked straight into my embrace.
I wrapped my bare legs around his waist and kissed the column of his throat. His fresh rain scent teased my senses, making me burn even hotter for him. When he didn’t move, I whispered, “Kiss me.”
He lowered his head and claimed my lips in a drugging kiss.
“Touch me,” I whispered against his lips. I placed one of his hands on my breast.
He caressed my nipple.
Moaning, I arched into his palm. “Harder.”
He pinched the hardening peak making me cry out in pleasured pain.
“Yes,” I hissed as he did the same to my other nipple. “Now here.” I slid his hand between my legs.
He sucked in a shaky breath and stroked my damp folds. “Bloody hell.”
I moaned and bucked under his touch. “Ah, yes there.”
His eyes seemed to glaze over as he found my clit.
“Yes, yes,” I cried as he worked my nub. My thighs quaked as pleasure streaked through me. “More.”
He slid two fingers inside me and I nearly came undone.
“Oh, God!” Unable to stay upright, I fell back over the bed.
He pushed my thighs farther apart and suddenly his mouth was on me.
I screamed his name as he thrust his tongue inside and catapulted me into a mind-shattering orgasm.
Not even letting me catch my breath, he continued his erotic assault, licking and sucking me mindless.
Quaking and trembling against his lips, I was on the razor’s edge of another orgasm when there w
as a loud crashing sound.
“Motherfucker. Doc, you’re dead.”
There was a blur of motion. Mason was ripped away and hurled into one of the cabinets. Glass shattered and medical supplies flew across the room.
Mason lay on the floor staring up at the giant of a man who stood over him. “Liam, I can explain.”
Liam’s chest heaved. “Explain it to my fists.” He picked Mason up by the throat and punched the doctor in the face.
Liam will kill him! My desire evaporated under an onslaught of fear. “Let him go!” I scrambled off the hospital bed.
Jerking his head around to look at me, Liam dropped Mason to the ground.
I rushed over to the smaller man. “Are you okay?”
He rubbed his jaw and nodded.
I glared up at Liam. “How dare you attack him!”
Liam glanced down at my naked body and swallowed hard. “He was taking advantage of you after we all swore not to touch you.” He let out a rumbling growl and swung his menacing glare back at Mason.
I laid my hand on Liam’s broad chest feeling the thundering of his heart against his tight knit shirt. “He didn’t take advantage of me.”
“She ordered me,” Mason gasped, stumbling to his feet. “I couldn’t resist her compulsion.”
Liam froze. “Is that true?”
Confused, I looked between the two of them. “I-I told him to touch me.”
“She doesn’t yet know her power,” a deep voice said from the doorway.
We all turned to see Gabriel leaning against the doorframe.
The dark-haired man was dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans and looked good enough to eat. “Leave us,” he ordered the other men.
Neither Liam nor Mason looked happy, but they followed his order and strode from the room. Based on the dark looks Liam gave Mason, he still wasn’t happy with the doctor.
After closing the door behind them, Gabriel threw something at me.
Reflexively, I caught the ball of shimmery fabric. As I pulled it apart, I discovered it was a gold silk robe.
“Put it on.”
I bared my teeth at him. Something in me rebelled at him giving me an order.
Gabriel took a step back and gentled his voice. “Please put it on, Havana.”
Mollified, I slid the robe around me, loving the fabric's soft slide against my skin. The owner of the robe clearly had luxurious taste. “Whose robe is this?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. It didn’t seem like anything the men would wear.
“The Alpha female who lived here,” Gabriel said, crossing his arms.
I blinked. Not this stuff about Alphas and wolves again.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Gabriel nodded at a stainless steel stool over by the counter.
“I’d rather stand,” I said stiffly, remembering the last conversation we’d had. Swallowing hard, I said, “Just be honest, did Mason drug me so I hallucinated you turning into a werewolf?”
Gabriel let out a deep laugh. “I can assure you he did not.” The smile faded from his lips. “But what he did was so much worse. He gave you a transfusion of Lykos blood to push you through your first transition and in doing so turned you into an Alpha female.”
I shook my head. “You can stop now. I’m not buying into the Alpha werewolf crazy talk.” Mason must’ve injected me with more of that aphrodisiac drug. That’s why I’d all but boned him on the exam table.
“If it only were crazy talk.” Gabriel crossed the distance between us and looked down at me. “You're now a Lykos Alpha female, Havana. And with that comes a great deal of power.” He gestured at my hand. “The power to shift into a wolf and heal your injuries.”
I let out a weak laugh. As if.
His serious expression didn’t change. “And the power to compel humans and other Lykos to do your bidding.”
“You mean like mind control?”
“Exactly,” he whispered into my mind.
“Did you just speak to me telepathically?” I cried, taking a shaky step back. My bare foot crunched down on a piece of broken glass from the cabinet. The sharp pain was a welcome distraction. I reached down and pulled the jagged shard from my heel. Blood poured from the wound.
“Heal yourself,” Gabriel ordered.
I looked up at him in confusion. “How?”
“Find your wolf.” He sent images of me transforming into a large black wolf.
No. I shook my head, rejecting the idea. “That’s impossible.”
“Don’t fight it. Change!” Gabriel’s voice reverberated off the walls of the room. He ripped the gold robe off me.
Instinctive fury rose inside me. How dare he command me! A snarl escaped my lips. Suddenly, every muscle in my body seemed to contract at once. Bones and cartilage snapped and popped. Overcome with the startling sensation of my body being remade, I fell forward and landed on huge claw-tipped black paws.
My shocked cry turned into a bark. Holy hell. I’m a wolf.
“Impressive. Now change back.” When I blinked at him, he added, “Visualize your human form.”
Once I imagined myself as I’d looked the last time I’d peered into a mirror, I immediately snapped and popped back to my real body. Wow. I looked at my trembling human legs with a mixture of wonder and horror.
Gabriel handed me the robe and watched me put it on. “Look, see how your foot has healed.”
I glanced at my heel. There wasn’t even a scar to show where the wound had been. “I don’t understand.” This can’t be happening. None of this can be happening.
Seeming to sense my crisis, Gabriel grabbed my elbow and led me over to the stool. “You’re different now.” As I sat down heavily, he went over to the counter, picked up a stainless steel tray and held it out. “See for yourself.”
I peered into the shiny bottom of the tray and blinked at the pair of bright yellow eyes staring back at me. My eyes. “What happened to my eyes?”
“You have the eyes of an Alpha now. I pray you won’t abuse your power like others of your kind.” His voice held a bitter note.
The memory of my encounter with Mason replayed in my mind. Did I compel him to touch me?
“Probably. Although I’m sure he wasn’t unwilling.”
I jumped. “You can read my mind.”
“You’re telegraphing your thoughts for anyone to hear. You’ll have to learn to shield them.”
“Can I read your thoughts?” I asked, as curiosity warred with fear.
“Try me,” he said, kneeling down next to the stool.
I gazed into his dark eye.
“Please don’t become like Tasha.”
Shit. I can read minds now. I swallowed hard. “What did this…Tasha do to you?”
He flinched and stood. “Besides this—” he motioned at his eye patch. “She compelled me to murder my entire family.”
18
Gabriel
Havana gasped and her beautiful face paled. “She made you kill your family?”
Shame and grief filled me as the horror of that night came back. “My sister had just given birth to her first child—Isla. It should’ve been a joyous occasion, but the babe was born with yellow eyes marking her as an Alpha female. Even though they're revered among the other factions as the rarest and most powerful of our kind, Tasha views them as a threat to her rule.”
I let out a deep breath. “I knew I should’ve moved them to another faction immediately, but my parents and my sister’s mate wanted to wait a few days for my sister to recover from the birth. Somehow Tasha found out.” I gritted my teeth as regret and pain knotted my stomach. “She confronted me, ripped the truth out of my mind, and compelled me to slay every member of my family. And I did.” I clenched my eye shut as if that would block the memory of their screams.
Havana stood and laid her hand on my shoulder. “Oh, my God. That’s horrible.”
Shooting pain had me rubbing my eye patch. “After it was done, Tasha ripped out my eye, placed one of her diamonds in my e
ye socket. She compelled me to wear it for the rest of my life to remind me of my betrayal.”
Havana shook her head in disbelief. “That woman’s a monster, Gabriel.”
That she is. “I’m sharing this with you so you’ll understand the depths of your power and what you’ll be up against. Because as soon as Tasha discovers what you are, she’ll come for you.” She’ll come for us all.
Instead of being filled with fear, Havana’s golden gaze narrowed. “Good. That bitch’s reign of terror needs to end.”
My heart wrenched at the mental image of Havana facing off with Tasha. Tasha would make sport of destroying her piece by piece. Then she’d mount Havana’s head on her trophy wall as a warning to others. My throat tightened. No. I can’t let that happen. I’d failed my niece and my family, but I wouldn’t fail Havana. Somehow I’d figure out a way to keep Tasha from finding her.
Trying to push thoughts of the evil she-wolf from my mind, I cleared my throat. “Why don’t I show you to your room while you still have your wits about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you remember the first heat cycle I told you about?”
She nodded slowly.
“You’ll begin it soon.”
She flushed. “I think I might already be in it.”
I gave her a pitying look. “Believe me, you’d know.” The heat cycle was twenty-four hours of unyielding torment for females. Only the semen from a Lykos male could ease the primal assault on their bodies.
“Oh,” she said breathlessly.
She was so fucking gorgeous. I tried not to notice the glimpses of her thigh peeping through the gaps in the robe or the way her pert nipples pressed against the silky fabric. I couldn’t let my brain travel down that treacherous road. Not while Nathan had already staked his claim.
As if picking up on my thoughts, Havana cocked her head to the side and said, “Are Nathan and Mira here?”
“No. The storm still rages. When it clears, they’ll come.” I strode over to the door and opened it hoping she wouldn’t detect my worry. The storm had taken out all the radio and cell towers and I hadn’t been able to reach the Alpha male. I hoped the virus hadn’t reached Sunridge, but if it had… There was no telling what threats he and his daughter were facing.