Alpha

by Natasha Knight

  Was normal even an option for me? Or for any of my children — if I ever decided to have any?

  When Fly went into the basement to bring some more crates upstairs, I stood. I smiled at Mark as I slid my jacket on.

  “Gonna take it for a ride.”

  He nodded, a proud grin on his face. I walked out the door and to my car. I hadn’t decided anything. It was as though my mind wouldn’t let me think about it. Moving on autopilot, I climbed into the car and started it, strapping on my seat belt and pulling out onto the road, not sure where I was going but needing to be away.

  The cold air felt good, helped clear my head, although I did turn on the heat to warm my feet. I drove. Half an hour became an hour then two. But all that time, it was like I wasn’t there at all. My mind was on Zane, and I grew angrier and angrier. I’d asked him repeatedly for the truth. He’d had so many chances and yet, he’d fed me piecemeal. And I was mad. It was time to finish this once and for all. Six years was a long time to live with one thing on my mind only to let it go like this.

  I turned the car around, horns blaring behind me at the abruptness of my action. With new determination, I drove back toward the bar, back to confront Zane and finish this.

  * * *

  By the time I got there, I’d worked myself up. But when I found Zane, when I saw the anguish on his gray face when he turned to face me, I stumbled. He stood gripping the bar, his dirty knuckles white, dried blood smeared on his skin, his clothes, matting his hair, making him fierce, like someone you’d cross the street to avoid. Like some animal who’d been in a brutal fight. But when his eyes met mine, the hate that seemed to consume him made way for something else. Something broken.

  “Aria.”

  “What the fuck were you thinking you were doing?” Fly asked, coming around the bar.

  “Cain?” I asked Zane, ignoring Fly.

  He’d kept his eyes on me the entire time. “Gone.”

  My heart twisted for him, but I had to confront him now or it was going to be never. I needed to do this. I was sorry for his pain, but these things had to be said. “When were you going to tell me?”

  He stepped toward me, his eyes searching mine. “Tell you what?”

  It was in the way he asked it that he gave himself away. He knew exactly what. And he was still lying. Still. I reached for the switchblade in my boot. I couldn’t really hurt him with it, but wanted the feel of it in my hand anyway.

  “Aria, put that down before you hurt yourself.”

  “No. I’m done. I’m sorry about your father’s death. No, wait, I’m not.”

  “Talk to me. Talk to me, Aria.” He circled me, but I kept enough distance so he couldn’t grab the blade from my hand this time.

  “You want me to talk to you? Like you talk to me?” I asked, swiping the blade in the air, making him jump backward. “You want me to spill my secrets like you do yours?”

  “Aria, put that down. I mean it.”

  “Fine, I’ll spill. Hell, one of us has to.”

  He reached for me, but I pulled back just in time.

  “I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I know who killed my father. I know who started all of this.”

  He glanced at Fly and Mark who stood back, wide-eyed. “Go.” A one-word command and the two left us. “Give me the blade,” Zane said, his expression hardening.

  “No.”

  “It’s over, Aria. He’s dead.”

  “When were you going to tell me? Were you going to tell me at all?”

  He tried again to take it, but this time when I stepped backward, I tripped, giving him the moment he needed to catch my wrist. We tumbled to the ground, Zane’s weight crushing me as he caught my head just before it bounced off the floor.

  “Fuck. Aria, Jesus —”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” All I could do was lie beneath him, my head hurting, my eyes burning with too many tears spent. Too many fucking lies and half-truths.

  He pushed the hair from my forehead, wiping my tears away with his thumb.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Cain ordered my father’s killing?”

  Zane’s body sagged, his eyes bloodshot, his face tired. This was it. This was the end. For him. Maybe for us.

  “Because you’d hate me. Because I hate myself enough and I couldn’t have you hate me, too.”

  Something broke in me. Something I hadn’t realized was still whole, or at least partially so. I loved this man more than anything in the world, this man whose family had caused my family so much pain. Whose family had stolen everything from me. Without whom I couldn’t exist.

  “I can’t hate you, Zane. I can’t,” I whispered.

  He shook his head and put a finger to my lips. “I was the one who hunted and found your family. I wanted to do my father proud. Like a fucking idiot, I believed I was doing the right thing.”

  “Tell it all; tell me the whole story, Zane.” I needed it to be said out loud. I needed him to tell it — everything at once.

  “I was to befriend Bryan. To recruit him so Xander wouldn’t lay claim to him. Once your grandfather died, there wouldn’t be anyone else to take over. Rage would become weak, and my father would swoop in and claim them, too. With your brother a member of Savage Blood, Rage would have no chance.”

  I lay there, hearing his confession, his sins against my family too many to count. And yet, as I shed tears for my parents and my brother, I also shed them for Zane, for us.

  “Thing is though,” Zane wiped his face, sitting up to lean against the wall, “Cain was telling the truth all along.” He ran his hand through his hair, staring beyond me. “About time I found out, huh?” He met my eyes, guilt burning in his. “Too late, though. He paid with his life. It was Ace. Ace ordered the murders. See, he didn’t want Bryan alive. In fact, he needed him dead.” He paused, leaning his back against the wall. “He doesn’t want me alive. And, with me gone, he could confront Rage. Take over. He did this, and I blamed my father for six fucking years. I destroyed any love, any hope for a relationship with him out of anger, and turns out, it was misplaced. He wasn’t guilty. It was his protégé all along. Ace betrayed him. But I was the one who killed him. If I’d only —” His voice broke.

  It hadn’t made sense to me before. When Zane had told me the parts he’d told me, I’d wondered why Cain would order my family’s deaths. He’d have had more to gain with Bryan on his side. And if not Bryan, then surely me. If truly I could birth Alphas, it would have been easy for Zane to bind me to him. I was already like a puppy in love.

  But he hadn’t.

  I cupped Zane’s face, wiping away his tears, smearing dried blood on his cheek. “I’m sorry,” I said, kissing him softly on the mouth. “I’m sorry he’s gone.”

  He closed my hand around the blade then, and we rose to stand. He brought it between us and turned it so the sharp end of it pressed against his belly. “You have every right to hate me. And you have every right to take your revenge. My family did this to yours. I could have stopped it, if I’d listened. If I hadn’t been such a blind, selfish fool.”

  A drop of blood trailed down the polished blade, the tip of it having cut into his belly. Zane’s hand dug into mine, hurting me as he pushed the knife deeper. For the first time since finding him, I wasn’t sure how far he’d go. What he was capable of.

  “Zane, no.” I shook my head, gripping the back of his neck to make him look at me. “Ace manipulated your father. He used his love for you against him. Don’t you see?” I tried to pull the knife away.

  “I do see. That’s just it.” He pushed the knife just a little deeper, his face contorting with the pain.

  “Stop!”

  “He’s gone. He didn’t deserve to die like that. He was Alpha. I’m here, right here.” He let go of me, rubbing his hand across his face. “Too much of a coward to even end myself.”

  “Zane —”

  But I never got to say more. Clapping from somewhere in the room startled us both
, and I saw Zane’s eyes change, harden as he faced the intruder.

  “That was…touching.”

  I turned as Zane reached to place me behind him, squeezing the hand that held the blade, telling me quietly to hide it. Ace stood in the shadows flanked by too many men to count.

  “I’m going to kill you, you fucking bastard,” Zane said, his fierceness opposite what I’d seen just moments before.

  Four men surrounded us.

  “Now, now, neutral zone. Switzerland, remember?” Ace said, laughing, making a point of shaking the gun in his hand at the sign above the bar. “No fighting. Says so right there.”

  “You’re going to die, Ace. Today, your time is up.”

  “Did you tell her everything, Z?”

  “He trusted you. He loved you.”

  Two men grabbed Zane as he stepped toward Ace.

  “He was weak,” Ace spat.

  A growl came from Zane, and a third man took him in a stranglehold from behind.

  “Did you tell her your nickname when you were still Alpha’s beloved son at the compound?”

  Zane narrowed his eyes.

  “Never told her what they used to call you?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Ace.”

  I felt the hatred between the men.

  “Funny thing, Aria,” he began, walking toward me, giving me his full attention. I hid the blade in my hand, smearing Zane’s blood from the sharp edge onto my palm.

  Ace’s grimace chilled me. There was pure evil in this man, and he hated Zane with a passion. Perhaps he hated me, too.

  “You want to tell her, or shall I?”

  “Why are you doing this? Isn’t what you’ve done enough?”

  Ace looked at him. “No, not enough. You were always the one he wanted, you know that? Stupid bastard still had hopes you’d come back. Come home. When you showed up at the compound that night, I almost believed he’d gotten his wish, which would have meant the doghouse for me, but luckily, you’re not all that smart, are you, O?”

  O?

  Zane’s roar was deafening as he hauled the men who held him forward, forcing Ace to retreat a step. It took two more men to drag Zane backward.

  “He always was the biggest and the baddest,” Ace said to me. “Well, until now. Until you came along. Now he’s just a little pussy.” His eyes raked me as if he were looking for a reason to justify his comment. “You figure it out yet, Aria? Have a clue what we used to call him back when he was the great Alpha’s son?” he mocked.

  I stared, my brain working so hard it hurt. But then I got it. I got it and everything fell into place. And Ace must have seen it the moment it did.

  I looked at Zane.

  “You’re Obsidian.”

  Zane only watched me, neither denying nor confirming.

  “You’re him.”

  “As black as they come — on the inside.” Ace’s breath was hot at my neck as he said it. “He might as well have pushed the knife through Bryan’s heart. He led us right to him. Right to Mommy.”

  My hand tightened around the blade, and my eyes never left Zane’s. But Ace had underestimated me. Ace had sent the anonymous note in an effort to get me to find Zane, to come here and put this into motion again. He’d failed six years ago when I hadn’t been at the house. Yes, Zane had been the one to lead the killers to my family, but that was only because of Ace’s betrayal and not the fault of either father or son. Their hands were clean, in this case at least.

  But Ace didn’t know what I had come to understand. And Zane was wrong.

  There was power in understanding.

  “I wasn’t going to kill you, you know. If you had been at the house that night, we could have avoided all of this.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “Your brother couldn’t live. He’d be too powerful to control.” His gaze swept me, making my stomach turn. “But you? I’d keep your belly full of babies.”

  Zane struggled against the men who held him. Ace just looked at him, enjoying every moment.

  “Still will,” Ace said. “And tonight, with Xander dead and his granddaughter by my side, I’ll be taking over both packs. This shit hole will be the first place I—”

  But he never got to finish his sentence. Ace Von never got to take another breath. Zane wasn’t pure. He’d made mistakes. But he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. He’d been used and manipulated. He’d been a victim, just like me. And when we stared at each other, him facing death, me something else, something just as bad, it was as though I saw him, finally. I truly saw him. And I loved him more.

  The door to the kitchen opened then, stealing everyone’s attention as Fly stood there, menace on his face, and, in his hands, the biggest and the baddest machine gun I had ever seen. His gaze was locked on Ace, but neither he nor anyone else had a chance to react to the intruder.

  “Heard you were missing some guns,” he said in a casual, cocky tone.

  I saw the hatred on Ace’s face turn to a hot rage, but the angrier he grew, the wider Fly smiled.

  “You’re the one stealing from me? You? Fucking imbecile.”

  “Now, imbecile might better fit the halfwits you sent to take the shipment, don’t you think?”

  Several of Ace’s men took aim at Fly, and Ace grinned. “You won’t get more than a round off before my boys kill you.”

  “But I’ll get to kill you first.”

  “He’s right, Fly. You’re not part of this. Go,” Zane said.

  “Uh-uh, Z,” Ace said, eyes never leaving Fly. “He just made himself a big part of this.”

  If I wasn’t watching Ace so closely, I would have missed his infinitesimal nod, the “go ahead” gesture to his boys, but before I could open my mouth to warn Fly, an inhuman roar tore the room apart as Zane ripped himself from the men who held him and gripped my hand tight, turning me, burying the switchblade so deep in Ace’s stomach that I not only heard but felt the tearing of flesh and muscle, felt the hot flow of blood cover my hand as Zane’s other hand closed over Ace’s shoulder, holding him steady, their eyes locked as, together, we killed him.

  Ace opened his mouth, and, even with his face draining of color, he raised the barrel of his gun toward me with a trembling hand, but Zane’s grip tightened, pushing the knife I still held deeper, twisting it, drawing it upward. Ace being gutted in front of me was sickening. His blood drenched my arm, tissue soft against my skin as life drained from him. His face contorted as the doors burst open and the sound of gunfire coming from every direction exploded behind my ears. Zane was on me in an instant, and everything seemed to occur in slow motion, had been happening that way since we’d stuck the knife into Ace’s gut together. I crashed down onto Ace’s bleeding body, my head smashed against the ground, the pain blinding. Zane’s weight flattened me, burning agony in my side making me scream. Ace had been the one playing all of us like puppets all along. Cain was not a good man, but he was a man with a conscience, and I did believe that in his mind, as warped as it was, he was trying to save Bryan, his foster brother’s son, by initiating him into this world because you couldn’t ever leave it, not really.

  But now it was finished. This was what I’d set out to do, even if it was too late for Bryan and my mom. For Zane and me. Because no one could live through this war. Zane held on to me, even as, after a strange breath, his hold on my hand loosened, the weight of him suddenly too heavy, crushing my lungs, leaving me unable to get any air.

  Zane was dead. I knew it.

  An inhuman sound came from somewhere deep inside me as I waited to die myself, wanting death. It was a cold comfort that I’d done everything I set out to do. I’d killed the man who had stolen everything from me. I’d killed Ace Von before he’d killed me.

  A man shouted out orders as the gunfire ceased, but the sounds were hollow, echoing, like we were in some sort of tunnel. I couldn’t open my eyes. Zane’s body was shoved aside, and I sucked in breath, gurgling something warm and hot, realizing it wasn’t Zane’s weight that numbed me bu
t something else. Consciousness faded slowly. Someone spoke to me, calling for me to do something, but all I knew was my hand still held the knife that had killed Ace, and Zane’s hand was still wrapped around it, holding on to me in death.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Aria

  Numb. I felt numb. Something beeped steadily beside me, and the smell of bleach permeated my senses, but opening my eyes was not an option. My eyelids were too heavy for that.

  “Sir, she’s waking up,” a woman said.

  “Aria.”

  I vaguely recognized the second voice, a man’s voice, but all I could focus on was the screech of a chair scraping the floor.

  Disappointment. It wasn’t the voice I wanted to hear. And when he squeezed my hand, it felt different than the last time someone had held it.

  “Can you open your eyes?” the woman asked. When I didn’t respond, she pushed my eyelids back one at a time and shone a light in them. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me,” she said, taking my other hand in hers. I squeezed. It was a great effort with miniscule results, but she must have felt it because I heard her relief.

  “You’re home, Aria. You’re safe now, and you’re already well on your way to recovering fully.” The familiar voice was my grandfather’s.

  I turned toward him, concentrating hard, forcing my eyes to finally open, needing to close them against the bright light for a moment before I could focus on him, on his face. He smiled down at me. His hair looked a little grayer. His face a little thinner.

  “Where’s Zane?” It came out groggy, and it hurt my throat to speak. “How long?”

  “Three weeks. You’ve been here three weeks. The doctors induced a coma to help your body heal. You were shot, accidentally —”

  “Accidentally?”

  “When my men stormed the bar, they should have safeguarded you first. You were caught in the crossfire.”

  “That was you?”

  He nodded.

  “Ace?”