Alphas Unwrapped: 21 New Steamy Paranormal Tales of Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, Dragons, Witches, Angels, Demons, Fey, and More

by Michele Bardsley

  “Sure am. Don’t work too hard, Travis. I don’t envy you in the least.”

  Travis wished he was going with them, but he had to pack too, and he knew that his staying here was the safest bet for all of them. As soon as they left, he began taping up boxes and listening to the radio.

  At once, the weather report caught his attention. Sleet was headed their way just about the time they were due to go out on their night hunt. That would mean they’d have to run as cougars if it was too bad. Their paws spread wide to give them more balance and stability on ice and snow.

  That meant no one would be riding shotgun tonight. And if the men were running around, they’d probably be in their cougar coats too.

  ***

  Hell, he’d worked with Bridget on four jobs now and she was so hot, he wanted more. Her underneath him having the best sex of his life, or her on top, Chet was thinking.

  Bridget and Chet were at the grocery store getting some more boxes, the weather worsening by the minute. Already the sleet was sliding down Chet’s windshield and it was starting to stick to the cold pavement. They were rushing the boxes into Chet’s vehicle before they got wetter.

  She’d had enough. She’d begun to trust Chet, which was a mistake. He thought she did a great job while she’d worked with him on previous missions, and she appreciated that, but she had to tell him that his thoughts were getting in the way of keeping things between them professional. The more they worked together, the more he was thinking of how much he wanted her in bed. She just couldn’t see him in that way. She really wanted to keep this on a strictly special agent solving crimes business.

  “Quit it,” she said harshly to Chet. She had to let him know the truth.

  He glanced at her, looking puzzled.

  “I can read your thoughts.”

  He smiled, like he didn’t believe her. The few times she’d revealed the truth to someone, she found that was usually the initial reaction. People really couldn’t read thoughts. At least most people she knew didn’t believe in the ability.

  Chet moved toward her, reaching out as if to pull her into a hug.

  “Don’t you dare,” she growled. “I’m serious. I like working with you, but I’m not going to bed with you.”

  That took him aback. Now she read where he was wondering if his subtle hints hadn’t been subtle enough.

  “Okay, look, we have this chemistry between us and it’s only natural for us to want something more.” Chet obviously didn’t believe her about her psychic abilities.

  “No, there isn’t. There’s no chemistry at all.” She climbed into the vehicle. “We need to hurry to the storage facilities now before it gets too icy.” She knew there was no chemistry, not only because her thoughts kept returning to Travis and wishing he was here with her, but also when she was around Chet, her pheromones didn’t spike. With Travis? They rocketed to the moon. And his pheromones reacted in the same way. Now that was animal chemistry. Their cougar halves dictated to them when they were interested, so it wasn’t just a visual interest. And smells too. Travis had a hot, woodsy smell that made her think of fresh jaunts through the pines or spruce trees in a mysterious forest.

  Chet wore a moldy leaf smell, a hunter’s spray that would hide his cougar scent. It made her want to sneeze. Hers was scent-free.

  “Don’t tell me you feel something for Travis. You just met him. What? The fact you had to rescue him made you bond with him in some way? Hell, he should have been the one rescuing you.”

  She did feel a connection with Travis in that way, she had to admit. She’d saved his life. Somehow that tied them together in a way that went beyond anything else. Maybe it was because she couldn’t read his thoughts, and yet, with him, she wanted to know just how much he’d love to have her in his bed! Even though she knew he did.

  She sighed. They just had a raw, primal chemistry that sizzled between them. It was the only way she could explain it to herself.

  “I like working with you, but that’s as far as I want this to go between us.”

  “Have I said anything to make you feel threatened?”

  He was analyzing his behavior, recalling the times he’d touched her, drawing into her space when he didn’t need to.

  “I can read your thoughts, Chet. For real. I know what you’re thinking.” Besides the way he was getting more and more into her own space, trying to push for something that wasn’t there between them.

  “Psychic? No way. I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  She let out her breath. “Okay, think of something, anything.”

  His mind went blank.

  “You’re not thinking of anything. Just watching your driving.”

  “It’s icy.”

  She folded her arms and was quiet, listening for his thoughts when he didn’t feel pressured to think of something.

  Then she read his thoughts about him seeing a psychic at a fair and the woman had told him he would marry a Chinese woman in Sacramento. Which was where the fair had been held.

  “So the psychic was a fraud.”

  “What?” Now he sounded a little alarmed.

  “The one who read your fortune in Sacramento? She predicted you’d marry a Chinese woman, but it didn’t come to pass.”

  Chet’s jaw dropped a little.

  “Wait, there’s one of the storage facilities.”

  He pulled in and they went inside a small office to talk to the owner of the facility. “Can we look around? I’m not sure what size I’ll need,” Bridget said.

  “Sure. Here’s a map showing the sizes, locations, and prices.”

  “Thanks.” She and Chet headed through the gate and started smelling for any cougar scents.

  “Does Travis know that you can read minds? Have you given him this speech too?” Chet asked her, his tone annoyed.

  “No, and don’t you tell him either. It’s my business and when the time is right, I’ll tell him. Besides, I can’t read his thoughts.” Though she suspected Travis was thinking the same things as Chet was concerning her. But at least she was feeling the same way about Travis.

  Chet glanced at her.

  She shrugged. “Sometimes I can’t read people’s minds. I couldn’t read my parents’.”

  “What about the man in the office?”

  “He was wondering if we were married and what we had to store.”

  “You could have guessed that.”

  “Yep, I could have.” She really didn’t care if Chet didn’t believe her. She just wanted him to stop thinking such thoughts concerning her when he was with her.

  “I don’t smell any cougar scents around here, do you?” Chet asked and she was glad he was thinking about the mission.

  “No. Let’s check out the next one.”

  She returned to the office and said, “We’re going to check out a couple of other facilities that are a little closer to where we live. But if we don’t like what we see there, we’ll be back.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  She left the map with the rental unit owner and then they returned to the car.

  “So what was he thinking?” Chet asked as he drove off to the next facility, slipped on ice again, and cursed under his breath.

  “I have no idea. I don’t always try to read minds. I try to concentrate on the business at hand. I can block out the thoughts when I need to.”

  “But not my thoughts.”

  “I do, most of the time. But you’re pushing it. Not just in your thoughts, Chet.”

  “All right, all right. Hell. I can’t believe you read minds.”

  She smiled and settled back into her seat, then began to worry again about the worsening weather conditions. By the time they reached the third storage facility, she hoped this was it because it was the only other one that was close enough for the men to have visited. Maybe they had only gotten their vehicle and hadn’t gone to the storage facility first before they returned for Travis like they said they would.

  As soon as they walked around the place,
she said, “This is it.” She was ecstatic and hurried in the direction she smelled that the two cougars had gone. They’d driven to a ten by twenty unit at the end of the facility. She smelled flakka. “Looks like we not only found the men’s storage unit, but their drug stash.”

  “Sure wish we could call this into the police.”

  “After we take the men down, we can. Just hope that when we call the police, they aren’t the ones on the take,” she said.

  They returned to the storage office, and they rented a unit as close to the rogue cougars’ so they could return and break into the storage locker and make sure that the stash was in there. They bought a padlock from the owner, left a bolt cutter and backpack of clothing in their unit, and locked it. Chet would shift and dress and use the bolt cutter on the rogue cougars’ lock, if he couldn’t just drive there in his human form later tonight.

  “What if we eliminated the men who put this here, then come back with a storage truck to move it?” Bridget asked as they headed back to Travis’s place.

  “Travis’s rental truck? Then he’d be in trouble for hauling the contraband.”

  “What if we rented it in Rambo Lancaster’s name?”

  Chet smiled at her. “You know what Travis said about not going after humans.”

  “Right.”

  He laughed.

  Cars were beginning to slide on the snow mixed with ice. One ran into a parked car, another tried to take a corner but ran into a stop sign instead. Everyone had slowed down to a crawl.

  Travis called Bridget and she answered. “Yeah, we’re almost home.”

  “How’s the weather? I’ve seen two near accidents out front of the house already.”

  “Bad. We’re going to have to run as cougars tonight. Hey, we’re pulling in now. Good news. Share in a minute,” she said.

  When they arrived at Travis’s home as icy as it was, it would be difficult to drive any vehicle tonight. They parked and Travis headed out to help them. Thankfully, he had a covered walkway out to the carport.

  She was all smiles when she exited the vehicle, thrilled to tell Travis the good news. Chet looked a little growly, probably because of her putting him in his place concerning their work relationship earlier, but with Travis, she was super friendly.

  Chapter 4

  To Travis’s surprise, both Chet and Bridget helped him pack. He’d envisioned days of packing, but at this rate, the time would be cut in more than half. And it was fun. They had a couple of pizzas delivered and drank sodas, foregoing wine or beer because of the mission tonight.

  “We couldn’t locate their residence,” Bridget said, writing on a box, then taping it shut.

  “But the storage unit had a foul smell like sweaty socks. With our keen senses, we knew it was flakka, that new experimental street drug associated with bath salts,” Chet said. “As long as it hadn’t been stored there and then has been removed, Bridget had the notion of moving the goods and then destroying it or turning it over to the police.”

  “As long as we don’t end up turning it over to the bad cops,” Travis said. “You couldn’t move the stash in a vehicle rented under your own name. If you got caught with it or police dogs smelled what you had transported…big trouble.”

  “What if we destroyed it right there in the storage unit?” Bridget asked.

  “If we burned it, it could get out of control,” Travis warned.

  “So what? We just leave the alpha-PVP there?” Bridget sounded annoyed.

  Travis shook his head. “But we have to do it right.” He finished packing another box.

  “What if after we take down the two men, we rent a vehicle with Rambo’s name on it and move the stuff and then take it to a field to destroy it? Or, what if we steal one of Rambo’s vehicles and haul the stash in it? Dump the contents, burn it, and return the vehicle before he’s ever aware it went missing? We could hide evidence on the vehicle and then call the police. If we get hold of the bad cops, no big deal because the majority of the drugs would be gone. If we get hold of a good cop, then Rambo’s in trouble.”

  “You’re determined to take down humans in this venture,” Travis said.

  “He and the rest deserve to be.”

  “In your last job, you dealt with army servicemen that you were investigating. That meant humans. But in this job we go after cougars,” Travis reminded her.

  “The director wouldn’t sanction us going after Rambo,” Chet said.

  Bridget grabbed another box and began wrapping glassware in linens. “I can’t imagine doing this job right if we don’t at least try to take down all the bad guys.”

  Travis finished packing another box and sealing it. “Okay, tonight we’ll see if the men have left a scent trail from their home to the shop. As cats, we’ll be able to tell better than when you were trying to drive by and still look inconspicuous. We’ll concentrate on the two men who are cougars involved in criminal activities and who meant to kill me. We can decide what to do with the drugs after that.” Travis looked out the window. “It’s dusk. Time to get moving. We can’t stick together, though I’d prefer it. But it isn’t safe. We’ll have to move separately so that no one will look out their windows and see three cougars looking suspiciously like they’re amassing as if in a hunting party.”

  Chet looked at Bridget.

  Yeah, that was what Travis was worried about too. If she came upon two male cougars, she was going to be in trouble.

  “But we’re checking out the houses on the other side of the fence that’s behind the alley to the Christmas Tree Shoppe first, right?” Bridget asked.

  “Yeah. It’s closest. Then we can check on the storage unit after that,” Travis said. He got the directions for the unit in case he reached it first.

  “I’ve got clothes at our locker.” Chet gave Travis the combination for their lock. “And bolt cutters are in the unit if you get there before I do.”

  “Good thinking. Ready?”

  Chet and Bridget nodded.

  Travis wanted to tell Bridget not to take any unnecessary risks, afraid that she might feel she had to in order to prove she was just as competent as they were. She didn’t need to prove anything to him. Not after she single-handedly rescued him. He was afraid if he told her not to take any unnecessary risks, she would be offended. So he did the next best thing.

  “No heroics. We all need to return in one piece.”

  They both agreed with him and then Bridget returned to her room to strip, while Chet and Travis stripped among the boxes, and shifted.

  ***

  Bridget hadn’t wanted the men to treat her any differently than any other agent, so why did she slip off to the guestroom to strip and shift? Because she didn’t want to hear Chet’s thoughts on the matter. If it had been just her and Travis, she would have just stripped where he did.

  Travis led the way because it was his territory and he knew it better than they did. She realized that once she left the woods and had to separate from the men, she felt more vulnerable. Not because she was a woman, but because she had envisioned doing more cougar work in the wild and not in a more of a city environment. If anyone saw any of the cougars, they would call animal control and someone would be dispatched to shoot to kill. A cougar in a city could be bad news when it came to pets and small children. The cougars’ presence in the city would signify the cougars were most likely hungry and looking for prey.

  It was still sleeting and no one was travelling on the streets near where they were tonight, so the weather conditions couldn’t have been more perfect for them. She saw Travis ahead of her when he went down the alley to the Christmas Tree Shoppe. She continued past the alley to the first street behind the fence.

  Chet took the next street.

  She hoped one of them would find the house where the men were staying. She just hoped Travis would let her and Chet know if he found the men at the shop and didn’t try to take them out by himself.

  Then she smelled the scent of the rogue cougars in this direction.
Adrenaline shot through her blood, both with excitement mixed with apprehension and wariness. She headed for the one-story brick and siding house, watching for any sign of movement. The place had a light on somewhere in the back of the house. She mentally made a note of the address and drew close to the house. It was small, probably a rental, and the smell of the two men was all over the place. So she was fairly certain this was theirs. The Christmas Tree Shoppe was within walking distance.

  She heard a voice speaking inside.

  Were both men here then? Or just the one and he was speaking on a phone?

  “Okay. Travis MacKay.”

  Her heart stuttered when she heard Heaton mention Travis’s name.

  Heaton stated Travis’s address. “All right. This is the time to take care of him.”

  They must have had the crooked cop check out Travis’s license plate number, and now they knew where he lived.

  She was torn between taking this man out or getting hold of Travis. She weighed her options. Gun versus cat. Male cat versus she-cat.

  She decided the only safe thing to do was go for Travis. She leapt over the neighbor’s fence, hoping no one would be looking out at the pretty sleet. Then she raced across the yard and leapt over the eight-foot fence bordering the alley. When she landed on the asphalt, she saw no sign of Travis. Great. Had she missed him then? Had he taken off down another street?

  She had to find him and Chet. She had to warn them that someone was likely coming for Travis at his house, and they had to prepare for it. Their guns and clothes were all at his house. And all three vehicles too. Damn it. Then all the men had to do was discover who their license plates belonged to.

  She raced down the alley and out on the street, then headed past the street where the men lived, glancing in that direction, looking for a cougar. No sign of either Travis or Chet. She ran to the next street over, same thing. Then she did what she hadn’t planned to do, warning the cougars in the house if they could hear her that she was out there. On the other hand, she needed to get hold of Chet and Travis before it was too late.

  She let loose her most angry cougar gargling growl, snarling, and hissing at the end. Her sounds could carry nearly a thousand feet. Hopefully one of the guys, the good guys, was within hearing distance.