Red Hot Alphas: 11 Novels of Sexy, Bad Boy, Alpha Males (Red Hot Boxed Sets Book 2)

by Jo Raven

  Tryp peeked at Sariah again through the rear view mirror but focused on the road. He blinked, several times, as if processing, and slid a quick glance at Elfie. “I am glad that you were honest with me, Sariah. Don’t worry about me. I’ll get over it, because all I’ve ever wanted was for you to be free and happy. You deserve to have your own life without anyone dictating to you, even me.”

  Sariah sighed. “Thank you, Tryfon.”

  Elfie watched him. The woman he had risked his life for had just broken his heart. Tonight, he would probably crawl inside a bottle and stay there for a few days, and she would take care of him, as always.

  “You know,” Elfie said. “You should sue that asshole for child support. It would be funny if we could get all his wives out and sue him for dozens of kids, but you definitely should.”

  “His name isn’t on their birth certificates,” Sariah said.

  “So?”

  “He isn’t legally their father.”

  “Um, ever heard of DNA?” Elfie asked.

  Sariah asked, “What’s that?”

  Elfie cranked herself around in the seat. Sariah’s huge blue eyes astounded Elfie. “Seriously?”

  Sariah asked, “Tryfon?”

  “It’s science,” Tryp said. “DNA is the stuff inside your body that make you, you. They can measure it. They use it to determine whose kid someone is or to solve crimes.”

  “That’s not real,” Sariah said.

  “I went to high school for two years after I left, and since then I’ve read everything I can get my hands on,” Tryp said. “It’s real.”

  “But it doesn’t matter,” Sariah said. “Kumen Young doesn’t own anything, anyway. The church owns everything and pays for everything.”

  “Yeah,” Tryp sighed. “That’s always been the problem.”

  “So name the church as a co-defendant or co-conspirator, or have the lawyer set it up saying that he’s a de facto ward of the church or something. A good lawyer will get around that. The state will probably go after him, considering you were how old when Zillah was born?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Oh, yeah. The state will be all over that. If you testify, they’ll probably raid. They’ll probably rescue all the handmaidens, too.” A sick shiver rippled down her spine like a millipede dropping inside her shirt. “You guys didn’t even think of this?”

  They both shook their heads.

  Elfie was too thrilled at escaping that she couldn’t even be annoyed at their malignant innocence. She said, “You guys seriously need to watch some Law and Order.”

  Gloria

  About seven o’clock, Elfie blinked hard and saw signs for the Las Vegas International Airport as they pulled off the freeway. She had dozed off, holding Tryp’s hand as he drove.

  From the back seat, Sariah asked sleepily, “Where are we?”

  Tryp said, “I’m putting you and your girls on a plane right now to L.A. You have a driver’s license to get on the plane, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” Sariah sighed. “Got to have identification to collect welfare and food stamps.”

  Tryp cranked himself around in his seat. “Is that what they’re doing?”

  Elfie looked back at Sariah, too. Early evening sunlight streamed in the rear windshield, glowing on Sariah’s moon-pale hair like a silver halo around her head, and she nodded.

  Tryp turned back to the front and announced into the air, “Phone Chick?”

  “Yes, Tryfon?” said a mechanical voice through the car.

  His phone called him Tryfon?

  He said, “Call Gloria.”

  The mechanical voice said, “Calling Gloria.”

  Bells rang through the car.

  A woman answered, her voice gravelly and deep like a long-time chain smoker. “Hello? Tryfon?”

  “Gloria!” Tryp called out, as if she had just walked into a bar. “I need a favor.”

  “Again, always calling for the favors,” the woman said.

  “I’ve got a woman and two little girls who need to stay at my house. Can you let them in?”

  “I thought I explained condoms to you when you were fifteen.”

  “You have a filthy mind, woman,” Tryp said.

  She laughed a long cackle that ended in a deep cough. “So how did this happen?”

  “It’s Sariah.”

  “No shit,” the woman said, wonder lightening her voice.

  “Yep. She finally came out. She needs some help. She’s going to stay at my house. I won’t be there until late summer at the earliest, maybe not then. I was wondering if you could help her out a little, help her acclimate.”

  “Oh, sure. What else do I have to do?”

  “She plays the piano.”

  “The piano?” Gloria asked sharply.

  “Yeah, she was quite accomplished on the piano,” he said. He tilted his head toward the back seat. “Sariah? You can still play the piano, right?”

  Elfie watched them both. Tryp seemed oddly okay with all this.

  “Yes,” Sariah said. “I still practice and play. I was teaching the little kids back home.”

  “Holy Hell!” yelled Gloria through all the car’s speakers. “Does she want a fucking job?”

  “Oh, my,” Sariah said.

  “I didn’t think about that,” Tryp said. “Sariah, what other instruments can you play?”

  “I can play the harp,” Sariah said.

  “Harp!” Gloria yelled through the car, and Elfie covered her ears. “Did she say harp? Can she really play the frickin’ harp and give little brats lessons on the harp?”

  “Yep,” Tryp said. “I’ll bet she’s good at it, too.”

  “If she can mind the music store and give lessons on the piano and the goddamn harp, I will pay for her kids to go to nursery school and pay her to work in the store. Ever since you left for conservatory, Tryppy, I haven’t been able to keep good help. They’re all goddamn stoners who think they’re rock stars.”

  “She’ll be on the next flight to L.A.”

  “Let me change out of my nightgown and find my keys. I’ll pick her up from the airport if she can teach the piano and the goddamn harp.”

  Elfie helped Sariah get her girls into the airport, and Tryp bought three tickets on a plane leaving in a half an hour for Los Angeles.

  Sariah hugged Elfie before she and her little girls went through security, whispering, “Thank you.”

  After Sariah and the girls left, Tryp trotted through the airport and the parking lot like he couldn’t get away fast enough. Elfie watched for cult guys, but she didn’t see any.

  Back in the car, Tryp leaned over the cup holder console between the bucket seats and wrapped his arms around Elfie’s waist and the back of her neck.

  “My God,” he said as he held her in his strong arms. “I thought they were going to kill me, and I couldn’t protect you from them. It was all my nightmares, all at once.”

  “It’s okay.” She held onto him, repeating as much for him as for herself. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

  “I want to catch a plane to Texas and kick your step-father’s ass.”

  “Got a little extra testosterone running around in there, do you?”

  “I mean it.” Vibrations ran through his body like a racecar revving up. “Let’s go. I’ll do it.”

  “I don’t want to go, and I don’t want you to,” she said. “We were forced to fight in New Empyrean. I don’t want to go looking for a fight, and I don’t ever want to see him again. Just, um—” she curled her hand around the soft cotton of his tee shirt, holding on, “—if he ever comes looking for me, you hold him down, and I’ll stuff so many gerbs up his ass that he’ll shit sparks for a month.”

  Tryp stroked her hair. “I won’t let him near you. I won’t ever let anything happen to you, ever again.”

  She held onto his neck until they both stopped shaking.

  Losing It

  Tryp called someone from Jonas’s office to get them a room at the Bellagio. Jonas ha
d evidently gone to New York City during the impromptu break to scout Madison Square Garden because Killer Valentine was supposed to play there in June. Luckily, Jonas’s office people got Tryp and Elfie a suite somewhere way in the top within ten minutes, and a bellhop met them at the private entrance in the back when they drove up.

  Tryp staggered out of the car, stretching.

  Elfie’s legs were trembling as she stood on the pavement in the warm early evening, and she wanted to rip off the stupid, ridiculous white dress.

  Tryp tossed the car keys to the bellhop who snatched them out of the air, grinning, and he handed Tryp a tag as he passed by. Inside the entrance, they rode up the elevator to their room.

  Elfie didn’t let go of his hand the whole way.

  When they got inside the suite and the door latched behind them, Tryp tugged on her hand, spun her into his arms, and lifted her to press her against the wall with his body. The long, white dress wrapped them both when she hooked her legs around his tight waist. His warm mouth landed on hers, and she opened her lips for him. His kiss was hard, desperate, like he had been craving her for hours, or maybe that was how she felt. She clutched him closer, their tongues swirling over each other, trying to get enough.

  Eventually, he kissed her more softly, tapering off. His chest pressed against her with each rough breath. Finally, he muttered, “Good God, I need a shower. And food. After that, you want to go out?”

  “Seriously?” Her butt was numb from sitting in the car, and her skin was still shivering. She wanted to crawl into his arms and cry, but being held against his body and necking were so much better.

  He grabbed her under her butt and around her back and carried her into the blazing white living room. She slid down his body, landing on the couch, where she flopped backward into the down cushions.

  Tryp sat beside her on the couch, bending the fluffy cushions toward him. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

  “Are you serious? It feels like the middle of next week!”

  “We could hit a nightclub, maybe go dancing. Well, maybe not dancing.” He pried off his shoes and peeled off a sock. The sole of his foot wept blood.

  “Oh, my God! Tryfon!” She rolled off the couch and looked at the hamburger on the bottom of his foot. A line of welts and blood circled the back of his ankle, too. “I could have at least driven the car!”

  “You were so tired,” he said.

  “What the hell happened?”

  He shrugged. “I ran seven point five miles in loafers. Got a few blisters, I suppose.”

  Elfie called down to the front desk for antiseptics and bandages.

  “I still need to take a shower,” he said, sniffing inside his shirt gingerly. “I reek.”

  If he showered, half his blood would run out his feet and down the drain. “Aren’t you worried that Rade and Grayson will tease you about smelling all prissy if you shower?”

  His wan grin distressed her more. “You’re all I have to worry about.”

  She sat on the floor beside his feet and eased his other sock off. He didn’t hiss or anything as the thin fabric tore away his scabs, just watched her with his big, dark eyes.

  She said, “I’m sorry. That must have hurt.”

  “I’m all right.” He reached out and touched the stupid puffy bun on her head, running his hand down the back of her neck. He seemed to study it for a minute, but then he began pulling the hairpins out of the crease.

  “You don’t like it?” she asked, joking because she hated it.

  He shook his head and kept tugging the pins out until the bun fell off the back of her head and her blond hair uncoiled to the floor where she sat. He gently combed it with his hands. “It’s been bothering me for hours.”

  His fingers threading through her hair soothed her, and she rested her cheek on his palm, hard with calluses from his drumsticks.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said, his voice almost breathless.

  “Come on,” she said, looking at the carpet.

  “Oh, yes, you are. You’re absolutely gorgeous. Physically, too. Your face is perfect. I love the way you look, but you’re brave, and generous, too. And smart. I couldn’t believe it in the church when you were shooting off pyrotechnics like a fire goddess.”

  Elfie liked the term fire goddess. She should have it silk-screened on her work shirts like a name tag.

  Tryp continued, “Not every woman out there would help a guy rescue his ex-girlfriend, especially after you thought I was dead.”

  She had to know, even though it was going to hurt. “Did Sariah break your heart today, Tryp?”

  “No.” He arranged Elfie’s long hair over her shoulders. “It didn’t even occur to me that she might think I was rescuing her so I could marry her.”

  No way. “Not even after all these years?”

  “No.”

  “It occurred to me.”

  “Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Elfie. I was fourteen when they threw me out. I had a crush on her when I was a kid. It wore off a long time ago. I fucked up her life, and I wanted to make amends. It was a good thing she decided to let me down easy. I don’t want to even contemplate how it could have gone otherwise.”

  “Would you have married her?”

  “Of course not. I don’t love her. Oh, like a sister, maybe. I’ve told you that I had a lot of sisters, and you saw what I meant by a lot. But that’s not love. Not really.”

  “It’s not?” she asked. His fingers trickling over her shoulders sent shivers through her skin.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not at all.” He took a deep breath and sat back. “I’d appreciate it if you’d order us some room service. I really need a shower.”

  He stood, frowning at his feet, and Elfie looked up at him from where she kneeled on the floor. Looked like she wasn’t going to have to pry him out of a bottle tonight after all.

  “I’ll be right back.” Tryp left her kneeling there and limped toward the bathroom, leaving dark footprints on the navy blue carpeting.

  Elfie brought her legs around and leaned back against the couch. She reached over and knocked the room service menu off the end table beside her, took a look, and ordered five different meals and a bottle of white wine.

  “No,” she said. “Cancel that. Make it champagne.”

  “Are we celebrating something tonight?” the lady asked.

  “Just being alive and free.”

  The lady giggled. “Well, those’re certainly better than the alternatives.”

  “Better make it two bottles.” The menu rattled in Elfie’s hand as she clutched it.

  She looked around the opulent suite, pretty sure it was the one Xan and Cadell had stayed in a while back.

  For some reason, she was still wearing that stupid white dress. That much, at least, she could fix.

  The bellhop brought their suitcases on a luggage cart and set them up in the master bedroom. Behind the closed bathroom door, the shower hissed, and Elfie resisted the urge to check on him.

  After the bellhop left, she pressed her ear to the door for just a second. Behind the whirr of the water, Tryp was humming in his sweet baritone, and she listened, just to hear him, because for a few hours that day, she had believed she wouldn’t ever hear him sing again.

  Afterward, Elfie dug into Tryp’s suitcase, finding a tee shirt for herself to wear. The long ribbon of condoms was still in the net pocket in the lid. She showered in the bathroom of the other bedroom, washing away the fear stink and desert dust and pyrotechnics ash and slimy oil from Kumen’s hand around her wrist, and then she pulled Tryp’s shirt over herself.

  She held onto the side of the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. This was what Kumen had lusted after? This pale young woman with thin cheekbones and grayish eyes? Why would anyone want this?

  No, that was how she had survived the last two years, hiding herself in bulky cargo pants, filling her pockets with explosives, and scraping her hair back into a knot, all to make sure no one looked at her and saw anything th
ey wanted.

  That ended here. Now.

  Tonight.

  She unclipped the hotel’s blow dryer from the wall. Make-up would take just a few more minutes.

  By the time she got back to the living room about nine o’clock, dressed in the sapphire blue take-me-dancing dress and with her long, blond hair curling to her waist, Tryp was sitting on the couch, trying to bandage one of his feet. Tension trembled in his body as he grasped his ankle and struggled to reach his own foot. Under his tee shirt, his abs quaked.

  By the door, the room service carts stood piled with silver domes.

  “Here,” she said, sitting at his feet again. “Let me do that.”

  He let go of his foot and snapped back on the couch. “Evidently the trainers at that gym didn’t focus on flexibility.” When he looked at her, his eyes traveled up and down her hair and that blue dress, and his lids half-lowered over his eyes. “You look great.”

  “Thanks. Hand me the gauze.”

  He handed the bandages over to her and stretched his leg out.

  She made quick work of squeezing the antiseptic gel on his shredded flesh and taping several gauze pads in place on both his feet. “There. Maybe you should take an aspirin or something.”

  He ran his hand down her hair. “I’m fine, now. And I see that you ordered champagne. Good call.”

  “I hope so.”

  For dinner, Elfie picked at a couple of the dishes—the chateaubriand, the lobster, and the chicken stuffed full of cheesy something that she couldn’t identify—while Tryp scarfed the rest of it. He ate about half of each one first, then watched to make sure she had set her silverware aside and folded her napkin, then ate the rest of it like he had dozens of siblings competing for the food. He was a twenty-one year old man who hadn’t eaten in fifteen hours, had run almost eight miles, and carried a lot of muscle that burned calories night and day. He ate like he was starving.

  Elfie drank more champagne.

  Tryp watched as she drained her second glass, offered her a refill, and popped the cork on the second bottle to fill her glass halfway.

  “More,” she said.