Alphas of Summer: A collection of shifter romances

by Lia Davis

  She laughed. It sounded shrill and silly in her ears. Be cool. “So, Eastern Europe. You guys are into soccer, right? Football, sorry.”

  He hesitated. “Yes, that is correct. Football.”

  “We’re supposed to be getting a team here soon,” she said. “Way more interesting than American football.” You’re talking too much. The whiskey was burning in her belly and loosening her tongue. “You want another one?”

  “Yes, please,” he said. After pouring, they clinked glasses again. The second one went down much smoother for both of them.

  Violet had her hands full running the bar and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life when she wasn’t here. She had dated a handful of guys over the last few years, but only two of them had made it past a third date before she called things off. She’d been with Nick for six months, but he couldn’t deal with her schedule. When he issued the ultimatum of him or her bar, then it hadn’t been a question at all. He hadn’t liked it one bit when she threw the question back in his face and told him he had to choose between her or his job at the car dealership. Like selling used cars for his uncle was somehow superior to her owning a profitable business.

  The more recent boyfriend, Greg, hadn’t minded her schedule since he worked night shifts and they could spend time together during the day. They’d been together for nearly a year, but things got ugly when he came to the bar on a night off. After seeing some of her patrons flirting with her, he’d gotten jealous. He’d been consumed with it, criticizing her outfits and trying to get her to dress more conservatively so ‘those pervy old drunks won’t put you in their spank bank’. Even though she’d assured him it was harmless, and she was simply being amicable to encourage them to keep drinking and tipping, he’d showed up one night and threw a punch at one of her regulars. She’d bribed the customer not to press charges by opening a hundred-dollar tab for him, then walked right out to dump Greg on the spot. It would have been one thing if Greg had been defending her from someone harassing her, but his little display was all about his own wounded ego. Violet was smart enough to know that eventually his jealousy might lead him to direct that violence at her. And then she’d go to jail, because she’d beat him until someone pulled her off. It was hard to run the bar from jail, and she looked awful in orange.

  It had been about three months since she broke up with Greg, and she was content. She wasn’t the type for one night stands, but if she were considering it, Paul would have been a prime candidate. He was polite, attractive, and he even smelled good, which went a long way. She wouldn’t be taking him home, but there was no harm in enjoying the back-and-forth.

  “So what did you do to your face?” she asked.

  He hesitated, brushing his large hand over his jaw. “I was in a fight.”

  “On purpose?”

  “Yes,” he said sheepishly. “Sort of a competition for prize money.”

  “Oh,” she said, waving him off. “Like MMA?”

  He hesitated. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “So did you win the fight?”

  “You are very…” He paused as if he was searching for the right word. “Direct.”

  “I pride myself on it,” she said. “And I’m guessing that’s a no.”

  “No, I did not win,” he said.

  “You want some ice for it?”

  He tilted his head. “You are very kind. I will be fine.”

  “Paul!”

  Paul whipped his head around. Eric was waving at him from the booth. One of the women was nestled in close with his arm around her. Her friend was peeking around the edge, giving a coy smile. As soon as she made eye contact with Paul, she laughed dramatically and tossed her wavy blonde hair over her shoulder.

  The petty jealousy came as a surprise to Violet. Paul was just a cute customer, but if she could have gotten away with it, she’d have yelled back off, bitch across the bar.

  “I should go,” he said. “Thank you for the drinks, Violet. It was very nice to speak to you.” The way he said her name sent a thrill down her spine. It sounded mysterious and exotic.

  The rest of the evening passed in relative boredom. Eric returned to the bar several times for drinks, each time ordering four for their table. Needless to say, there were no more free drinks for him and his lady friends.

  Around midnight, the two men got up to leave. She’d expected to see them walk out with the women on their arms, but they left the women in the booth. As they narrowly skirted her pool table, Paul was stumbling noticeably, with Eric supporting him. On their way toward the door, Paul veered away and ambled toward the bar.

  “Violet!” he said loudly. His green eyes gleamed, reflecting a glassy sheen. “You should come see me fight next time.”

  “Okay, then. I will,” she said. “You have a good night, okay?”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “I have the lightning in here,” he said, pressing his hand to his chest. “A storm, like…” He held up his hands in fists and opened them, his fingers spreading like flower petals blooming.

  “Okay, that’s enough, Paul,” Eric said. “Thank you.”

  She frowned and hurried around the bar. “Y’all aren’t driving, are you?”

  Eric shook his head. “We live right down the road. We walked here.”

  She narrowed her eyes and nodded. “All right. You be careful. Come back and see me. In one piece,” she said pointedly.

  “Thank you, Violet,” Paul said loudly. “You are a wonderful human. This place is not so bad.”

  “Let’s go,” Eric said, hauling him toward the door.

  As she watched them go, she realized her throwaway comment was genuine. She hoped it wasn’t the last she’d see of the two strange men.

  She was heading back into the bar when Mike hurried out of the back hallway with a panicked expression. The cuffs of his jeans were damp. “Men’s toilet is overflowing.”

  “Ugh,” she groaned. So much for her fun evening.

  Chapter 3

  Opening his eyes was a mistake, although not nearly as big a mistake as blithely drinking everything Ariv put in front of him last night. Pahlin squinted against the brutal onslaught of sunlight through the open window. “Ugh,” he groaned. He rolled over and buried his face in the scratchy pillow. It smelled unfamiliar. He sat bolt upright, then immediately regretted it as nausea rolled through him. There was a useful word he’d learned last night. Perhaps he’d learn no and how to use it more effectively after this.

  He was in the midst of a blanket nest on Ariv’s couch. With his head pounding, he surveyed the small living room. The small house was similar to the one Pahlin rented, although larger and somewhat better furnished. Like many dragons on the khalle t’aradan, he and Ariv both had an arrangement with the local dragon community.

  Atlanta had become home to many of their kind, as well as the Edra who had chosen to leave Ascavar for the human world. A small dragon community had been established in the outskirts of the city, where they could sometimes fly at night without being seen, so long as they avoided airport traffic.

  The sound of water in the walls told him Ariv was showering. As Pahlin tried to regain his bearings, flashes of the previous evening pieced themselves together. He’d had way too much to drink, and then Ariv had gotten out his phone to call them a car since neither of them had been in any shape to fly back to the house. Minutes later, a car arrived for them. Without Ariv saying a single slurred word, the driver drove them straight to Ariv’s door, and dropped them off. Human technology was a magic all its own.

  Gritting his teeth in preparation for the massive headache, Pahlin flopped off the couch and trudged to the small bathroom near the front door. Gingerly, he pulled up his rumpled t-shirt to reveal his battered torso. His copper skin was splotched with bruises across his ribs. The movement sent a sharp pain stitching through his side. Grumbling, he released the shirt and leaned in closer to the mirror. The cut in his lip had already closed neatly and was covered in fresh pink skin. The welt on his ja
w had turned a sickly shade of green overnight.

  He splashed cool water on his face, delicately patting his swollen jaw, then dabbed his face dry with a towel. His mouth tasted like something had died on his tongue, and he wished for the toothbrush back at his own house.

  Footsteps creaked across the house. They paused. “Pahlin, are you okay?” Ariv asked.

  Pahlin emerged from the bathroom to find Ariv tossing the pile of blankets back onto the couch. “I’m up. I’ll get that.”

  “How are you feeling?” Ariv asked, continuing to pile the blankets on the end of the couch.

  “Terrible,” he admitted.

  Ariv shook his head and cringed. “Me too. Human liquor is rough. Come have some coffee.”

  He followed Ariv into the kitchen, where the other man rattled around brewing coffee. As the machine began burbling, the sharp smell made Pahlin miss the bitter, strong tea from home. His brothers had told him to pack a number of comforts from home that didn’t have an equivalent in this world, but Pahlin had refused their recommendations and brought only the required tribute to pay his way. He now regretted it, like so many of his recent choices. “I apologize if I embarrassed you.”

  Ariv laughed. “No, not at all,” he said. “Those girls liked you. They were enjoying teaching you English curse words. Just for the record, don’t call someone a motherfucker unless you want to fight. It’s very rude.”

  Pahlin groaned. “I made a fool of myself with the barmaid.”

  Now there was a pleasant thought. The memory of Violet’s smile momentarily overshadowed the throbbing headache. She had a way of smiling with her whole body, like a shockwave that started with her lips and then reverberated through her, reaching her eyes, her shoulders, her cocked hip.

  “Bartender,” Ariv corrected. “They don’t like being called barmaids.”

  “Bartender,” Pahlin said. “She asked if I got in a fight.”

  Ariv’s dark eyes narrowed, his thick brows furrowing. “What did you tell her?”

  “I said yes, and she asked if I did some em…and…vazredakh, I don’t remember,” he cursed.

  “MMA?”

  “That’s it,” Pahlin said.

  The tight concern pulling at Ariv’s features smoothed out. “Good. If anyone asks, you can tell them you’re into MMA. It’s a human sport.” He took down two cups and poured each of them a cup of coffee. After handing the cup over, he joined Pahlin at the small dining table. “However, you do have to be careful. You told her last night that you had lightning inside of you.”

  Pahlin groaned. “Really?”

  “Really,” Ariv said. “You must keep the secret. Takara vhan. The Gatekeepers do not take it lightly.”

  “I wish I could make her forget,” he said.

  “You must not get into that habit. Not unless it is necessary,” Ariv said, shaking his head emphatically.

  Pahlin put up his hands. “Not like that,” he said. All Kadirai possessed a powerful psychic force that could affect humans. With a mental push, he could convince a human to carry out his commands. The scope was limited, but if he wanted to make the pretty bartender forget about something stupid he’d said, it was within his reach.

  However, when he’d arrived, the Gatekeepers had told him he was to use this ability sparingly and only when needed to protect the secrecy of their community. This was part of the rules of the Wandering. While showing him around his small house, his landlord had reminded him once more in no uncertain terms that he was to use this ability only under duress. Ariv had confided in him later that there had been incidents of Kadirai who had abused their abilities, persuading humans to hand over money or to climb into bed against their will. When those abuses were discovered, the Gatekeepers would mete out swift retaliatory justice.

  Pahlin didn’t need to be told that was wrong; his father had told him from the day he first managed a successful compulsion on a human that if he ever abused his power, especially for sex, then he would flip a coin to determine whether he ripped Pahlin’s wings or his dick off first. And if his father didn’t find out first, the Queen’s Storm Legion would have happily strung him up and beat him senseless in front of a crowd as a reminder to the rest of his kind that there were lines one did not cross.

  “Maybe if we give it a few days before going back, she’ll forget on her own,” Pahlin said.

  Ariv’s lips quirked into a smile. “You liked her.”

  “She was pretty,” he said. “For a human.” That wasn’t quite true. She was pretty, plain and simple.

  “It’s not like home,” Ariv said. “No one cares, as long as you keep the secret.” He frowned and pulled his phone out of the pocket of his pants, then swiped through the screen. At Ariv’s insistence, Pahlin had purchased a phone, but hadn’t gotten into a habit of checking it unless it started making noise. Besides, he knew only a handful of people here, so there wasn’t much point in monitoring it.

  Ariv’s preoccupation gave Pahlin a moment to remember the better part of the previous evening. Even in his human form, his senses were sufficiently heightened to pick up on the minute changes that gave away Violet’s attraction to him. As she talked to him, her pupils dilated and her pulse quickened. But she wasn’t like the women Ariv had been flirting with, who’d laughed too loud at everything and petted Ariv like some small animal. She’d been quick-witted, asking him questions and pinning him with her sharp, green-eyed gaze.

  Pahlin had not come to the human realm to find love, but he certainly didn’t mind the idea of female companionship. Before leaving, he’d had a series of trysts with a pretty Kadirai woman named Midzira, but it had been a matter of physical pleasure for both of them. When she’d left the city to train for the Storm Legion, she left Pahlin lonely but not broken-hearted. There would be other women, and at barely forty-eight, he had centuries for love to find him if that was in his destiny. After all, his parents had not met until they were in their nineties. Still, it had been months since he had touched a woman, and the thought of spending an evening with the pretty bartender quickened his pulse.

  “What do you think of fighting tomorrow? A hundred dollars guaranteed,” Ariv asked, interrupting his thoughts of Violet.

  Pahlin raised an eyebrow. “Why the increase?”

  “The fight will be with Fidhur. He is from the Ashflight,” Ariv said. “He’s very good.”

  Pahlin sighed. “So I’m expected to lose,” he said. “Again.”

  “You will get better,” Ariv said with a wince. “Shall I put you down for the fight?”

  The delay would give him another day and a half to heal before this Fidhur beat him to a pulp. One hundred dollars was too much money to turn down, even if it came at a great cost to his pride. “Fine. Set it up.”

  Like his last visit to the Pinnacle, Pahlin spent the moments before the fight in a cramped anteroom just outside the arena. The room was dim and austere, with only a metal chair pushed against one wall. The dull roar of the crowd through the door reminded Pahlin that he was just minutes away from what would likely be another losing fight.

  Ariv kept telling him that it would just take time to acclimate. Pahlin had only been in the human realm for two months, so he had to be patient. In that time, he’d made the transformation into his dragon form several times, which was markedly more difficult than at home. The passive magical energy in the atmosphere was less dense here, making it more difficult to begin the change. And his lightning, once as natural as breathing, was much harder to access.

  All Kadirai were born with an elemental affinity; like many of his kin in the Stormflight, Pahlin could channel lightning. Though it was easiest to wield in dragon form, it was possible to call the lightning in human form at home with concentration. Tapping it here was infinitely more difficult, like trying to recall the faintest glimmer of a fading dream.

  Pahlin flexed his fingers and closed his eyes, searching for that tiny spark of lightning in himself. To level the playing field, transformations were forbidden in Pin
nacle fights. Putting two dragons in a small space to fight was asking for a lot of collateral damage. But there was no rule against wielding their elements in human form.

  Electricity tickled down his arms, pooling in his hands like a thousand tiny pinpricks dancing over his palms. It was just there, barely out of his grasp. He strained for it, like leaning over a precipice for something just out of reach.

  The crowd burst into shouts and cheers, breaking his concentration.

  “Vazredakh,” he cursed.

  The door opened, revealing a male official in all black. “Are you ready?”

  Though he was far from being prepared, Pahlin nodded. His heart thumped as he followed the official down the narrow hallway. He had to remind himself of the philosophy his father had tried to teach him. It was tradition for all the Kadirai, male and female, to learn to fight in their dragon form. When a much younger Pahlin became frustrated that his elder siblings soundly trounced him, his father pulled him aside. “You must learn,” he said. “Instead of being angry, learn why they beat you and then deny them the advantage in the future.” To his credit, Pahlin’s father had never shamed him for a loss, but had always taken a moment to ask him what lesson he learned, not letting him slink off to nurse his wounded ego until he had produced at least one lesson. It had paid off. Though it took years, he had eventually bested all of his siblings in combat except his oldest sister Amira, and her time was coming.

  So for now, Pahlin would do his best to learn from each fight here at the Pinnacle. From his fight with Telak, he had learned to guard his flanks and sides, as well as to not fall for obvious moves that were likely calculated feints. If he lost to Fidhur, then there would surely be a lesson there.

  Despite his resolve within the safety of the anteroom, dread washed over him as he walked into the arena. Spotlights bathed the fighting ring in harsh white light, blinding him to the crowd. On the opposite side of the arena, Fidhur strutted in to the sound of raucous cheers.

  Pahlin ignored the excited rambling of the announcer, who introduced both of them in English. Instead, he sized up Fidhur. The other man’s dark hair was buzzed short. Like Pahlin, he wore only a pair of loose pants cinched at his narrow waist. His fists and feet were bare. He scowled when Pahlin made eye contact. The other man was Kadirai, but he was shorter and stockier. Pahlin wasn’t stupid enough to get cocky because of the size difference. His sister Amira was a head shorter than him and once hit him so hard he couldn’t hear for two days.