Rise of the Alphas

by Alexis Davie

  “Oh, for the love of…” She quickly turned on her blinker and eased her way off to the side of the road. “Hey, um, Gramps, I hate to do this to you, but can I call you later? Something just came up that I have to handle. I’m sorry. I love you! Talk soon, I promise.”

  She barely heard him reply. The optimist in her thought that maybe smoke coming out of the engine was not a bad thing. Well, it was definitely a bad thing, but it wasn’t a terrible thing. Maybe something had gotten in there, like a leaf, and the heat from the engine had ignited it. The other part of her, the part that knew about vehicles and in particular the black truck, knew instantly that she was fucked. If she had to come up with a worst-case scenario, it was this, right here: truck broken down, on the side of the road, in the rain, with a trailer full of equipment.

  She braced herself for the wet, threw open the door, and hopped out. Tiny droplets of water ambushed her the moment she became available. She scrunched up her shoulders in the hopes that she wouldn’t get soaked and went around to the front of the truck before popping open the hood. The engine itself looked fine. The problem arrived in the form of a gloopy, thick purple slime that was currently being pumped out of part of it before almost instantly evaporating when it touched the exterior of the hot metal. She glared at it and went with the only mature thing she could do, which was stomping her foot like a ten-year-old and slapping the grill.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” She leaned in and saw exactly what she was worried about: a slim crack in one of the tubes. The thing about diesel and magic combo engines was that they tended to be stronger, faster, more efficient, and overall better. But they also were heavily customized, and in some scenarios, the welding failed and a crack would form. It was a simple fix. All she’d have to do was seal it up. If she’d noticed it back at the ranch, it would take her a grand total of fifteen minutes.

  But she wasn’t at the ranch. She was a solid five miles away from it. In the rain. Soaking wet. With a trailer load full of equipment and feed she just purchased.

  Sophie put her hands on her hips, groaning. Time to figure out Plan B, which, tragically, involved a lot of walking. After taking another look at the damage, she shut the hood, grabbed what she needed from the cab, and locked the car. Muttering under her breath, she stuck her hands into her pockets, hunched her shoulders up, and started the hike back towards the ranch. She’d be there soon enough.

  She came up behind the back of the trailer to make sure it was locked. Good. She wasn’t too worried. Nobody came through here except other ranchers.

  Muttering under her breath, Sophie stalked back towards the way she’d come. In Texas, it was hot. It was legendary for it, actually, but there was one scenario where it was always cold: during a storm. This one wasn’t a huge thunderstorm, but it was enough to get her soaking wet and irritate her with tiny blasts of surprisingly cold water against her skin, sneaking into her clothes and draining directly into her socks, making every step a symphony of squishy, wet sock sounds. She felt her ears start to go down like a cat’s.

  She must have walked for a half mile before she heard the sound of a car approaching. Slightly surprised to hear a car and not a truck, she afforded a casual glance back to see what it was. When her eyes fell on it, she tripped on a rock, and she groaned in disgust. She wasn’t much of a car person like most people. She drove a ‘98 Dodge not for the glory but for the functionality. She knew cars, and she knew how to work on them, but as far as finding the allure, she had never been impressed by super fast, super expensive cars. If she had the money to buy a Lamborghini, she’d invest it. Only spoiled, arrogant jackasses thought the flashy lifestyle was worth it.

  Whoever was the owner of this car was the most arrogant, spoiled jackass of them all. The king jackass. The alpha jackass. The jackass that all the other jackasses gathered around for warmth and protection.

  Almost scraping the asphalt, the sleek, sexy black car cut through space like a razor-sharp knife, like something out of a movie. When the driver noticed her, it clearly started to slow down, giving her a good view of the million-dollar waste of money. Sophie kept walking. Hopefully, this dude would just go on past and leave her alone. God knew she wasn’t interested in talking with him, and no, she wasn’t going to take a ride from him. She might be cold and wet, but at least the weather wouldn’t do much more than that. A person? Now, that was a different story. People were wildly unpredictable, and she wasn’t a big person, so someone might look at her and think, “Huh, I bet I could just drive off with her, and she couldn’t stop me.”

  The car kept slowing down, and eventually stopped. The window rolled down slowly, revealing a handsome man sitting in the driver’s seat. Sophie only gave him a glance, surprised by what she saw. She expected wealth, based off the car, but short of that, she hadn’t known what to anticipate. What she hadn’t anticipated, however, was at least a glimpse of a good-looking, muscular guy a few years older than her. Another quick glance confirmed what she thought she had seen: a strong-jawed, bearded man about thirty years old, with short black hair and striking, almost intoxicating crimson eyes.

  “Bad day for a walk,” he offered.

  Sophie kept walking stiffly, staying focused on the road but ready to defend herself if he reached for her. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  He brought the car to a slow walking pace. “Do you need a ride?”

  “Nope. Thanks.” She kept her responses quick and curt. She angled her head down so the rain wouldn’t hit her in the eyes. He didn’t pick up on the hint to leave her alone, obviously a little confused by her lack of interest.

  “You want to carry on walking in the rain, then? Was that your truck back there?”

  She looked over at him again. “I’m just going to walk.”

  He cocked his eyebrow skeptically. “Letting me give you a ride is a worse option than strolling through the rain, getting wet. Got it. Look, I’m already headed the same way. I can take you at least closer.”

  “Why do you care if I just walk?” she hissed back. “I don’t need you and your expensive car. I’ll be fine.”

  He drew back, and a glint of amusement formed on his face. “Huh.”

  “Huh, what?” She didn’t like the way that sounded, all smug.

  “Huh, I get it. You just don’t want to accept help from me, because you think I’m a jackass.”

  She kept walking. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  KRAK-BOOM! A massive lightning bolt tore through the sky a few hundred meters away, striking something out of viewing distance with a thunderous boom. Sophie jumped in surprise for a second, hesitating. It was one thing to make a principled stand by walking through the rain and staying independent. It was another thing to get struck by a wandering bolt of lightning. She inhaled deeply. She didn’t want to, but logic demanded that she get in the car and drive there so she wouldn’t end up on the 6 o’clock news. She could already see the title:

  Stubborn half-elf struck by lightning after refusing free car ride because of a principled stand.

  Before she could ask, he responded. “Feel free to hop on in.”

  2

  Identities

  The woman sitting beside Magnus was different. That much was clear immediately.

  Most women, when confronted with the car and his rather obvious wealth, were rattled. Some people chose to be awed and suck up. Other people froze up. Sometimes, people got awkward. But it was a rare person indeed that simply couldn’t give two shits about his money, and that was the category that his passenger fell into. She wasn’t fawning over him or his car, and she didn’t try to make any small talk. She didn’t even want to ride with him, which was fair. He was a strange man in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, she’d rather walk in the rain that ride with him.

  Since she’d gotten in the car, she’d looked over at him a total of four or five times at the most, not out of shyness but because she didn’t seem particularly impressed.

  He kept stealing small glances
over at her, trying to figure out what her story was. Based off the mud and the boots she was wearing, she worked physically somewhere, maybe on a ranch or a farm. Her pitch-black hair, though he could tell it could be absolutely beautiful if she tried, was pulled back in a practical way. Despite her rough getup and muddy, hardworking demeanor, he couldn’t help but notice an inherent sexuality from her, a sleek femininity that hid underneath the dirty clothes. Her brilliantly blue eyes were sharp and clever, and though she wasn’t speaking, he knew that her mind was flying a million miles an hour. Her movements were somehow sexy and tomboyish, like she was a beautiful woman but didn’t know it, a strange combination that he had rarely seen before.

  “Truck broke down, huh?” he asked in an attempt to spark up a conversation with this unusual woman.

  “The secondary fuel drain cracked,” she answered politely yet curtly, like that meant anything to him. Although he was coming up on 240 years old, he’d never been terribly mechanically inclined. By the time cars became mainstream, he had enough money to just pay someone to deal with them.

  She brushed her hair out of her face, which was when he noticed her ears—they weren’t quite pointy enough to be that of an elf, but also not round enough to be all human. She was a halfling—half elf, half human. Well, then they did have something in common; even if he was half dragon and half human, he knew the struggle of being a halfling. At least he didn’t show such an obvious characteristic of it himself. He dared not bring it up, but he filed it away. She’d surprised him a few times, first with the clothes and the mannerisms, and now, she was a halfling. Some people would probably stop the car and ask her to get out, or at least they would twenty years ago. God knew that your average elf would, but he had never seen the big deal. So what if someone switched species? Orcs, dragons, humans, elves, why would anyone care if someone loved someone that was outside of their genetic code?

  He calmed down and focused on driving through the storm. All of this was very odd. First, the funeral. Now, a fresh breath of air in the form of a halfling woman that wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Here was someone who was direct. He’d had a thousand conversations with people who said anything they could because they thought it would make him happy, but she was already different. Soon, he’d drop her off, but at least for now, he could enjoy that genuine communication.

  She gave him a few brief directions to their location, which wasn’t necessary because it was straight down the road. In the next few miles, she slowly relaxed. Whatever she was holding against him gradually dissipated, and she loosened up. Her posture remained about as stiff as a songbird perched in the chair, but she seemed to be trying to avoid putting too much of herself on it so it wouldn’t get wet.

  “I’m sorry about your chair,” she said after a few minutes. “It’s just gonna get wet.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He couldn’t care less. “I’m Magnus, by the way.” He extended his hand for her to shake. For one moment, he wondered if she’d accept it, but she met him halfway and shook it.

  “Sophie. I—I really do appreciate you giving me a ride. It’s been a rough day.”

  Her tone was guarded, yet it was genuine under there. For reasons Magnus couldn’t guess, she was acting like she was expecting him to get after her for something, like at any moment, he might whip out an asshole attitude and insult her. To be fair, she lived in a completely different world than him. He lived no more than an hour away, but this was a woman of the land, the sort of person that had grown up in the country and could fix damn near anything. To her, he probably was just some rich boy, and from the outside, he didn’t look a few centuries old. Based purely off his appearance, she probably thought he was in his thirties and that he’d inherited his money from dear old Mommy and Daddy. He could see it. There wasn’t a doubt that she had put him into some category. She didn’t fit nicely into any category with the strange mix-mash of her appearance and actions, but he’d still stuffed her into the “country girl” category and made it work.

  Stupid rich asshat.

  Sophie tried hard, but her mind just kept going back to the exact same thing every time she looked at the car: spoiled rich dude. She hated people like this. Yeah, he was doing a nice enough thing for her. Yeah, on a base level, he seemed decent enough, but she’d known people like this plenty of times. Maybe not to the degree of wealth; just people who thought they were the shit because their mom and dad had given them a bunch of stuff. The guy sitting behind her was maybe in his late twenties or early thirties, and he had a sports car worth more than most houses. No, she’d be willing to bet that this guy had struck the motherload with family. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as she had met some nice, wealthy people, but time and time again, young men with that much wealth ended up being irritating.

  For a while, she’d had a suitor in the same situation. He thought she was cute, and she, being young and naïve, had ignored her grandfather’s advice and gone out with the guy. It turned out that he couldn’t have cared less about her, thinking with his manhood instead of his heart. When his manhood wasn’t received well, he threw a big hissy fit, called her all sorts of names, and proceeded to make her life a living hell for the next two months out of childish rage. No, the sooner she got out of this guy’s car and back to her comfort zone, the better.

  She tried to remind herself that Magnus wasn’t necessarily a jerk because of his money, but it was hard to do that when he was driving around in a car like that. It was one thing if he had bought it. She didn’t judge people who worked their whole lives and then bought something big and stupid, because although she still thought it was big and stupid, it was their money, and they’d put their blood, sweat, and tears into it. This was something much more annoying.

  He kept looking at her, for what, she didn’t know. Probably judging her. City people were big on that. Country people didn’t do that as much, but city folk, with their nice cars and their expensive tastes, tended to look at anyone with dirt on them and think “redneck.” So, conversely, she decided to try and figure out what he was all about, because the other option was doing nothing, and she might as well pass the next couple minutes at least being somewhat friendly. The more of a look that she got at him, the more confused she got.

  First, he was a thirty-year-old man in appearance. The hard, lean muscle was that of a younger man, but there was a cleverness in his eyes, a wisdom beyond his years that she thought she saw when they locked eyes for a moment. More to the point, what was with his eyes? They were almost ridiculously crimson, like that of an animal or something more than human. Contacts, maybe? The red eyes were normally an instant clue to someone being a dragon, but dragons tended to tower at the seven- or eight-foot range like kings and weigh about the same as a bull, and this guy was no more than a few inches over six foot. Still, nothing to scoff about, but a far cry from a monstrous dragon. No, what she was looking at was probably a human trying to look cool. For a second, she wondered if this could be a halfling before she remembered that no dragon would ever, under any conditions, soil their seed with anything other than another dragon. It was a weird, elitist culture that made elves look welcoming and kind by comparison.

  And then, when he was talking, he showed her something that she’d not anticipated: fangs. Another key thing to show if someone was a dragon or not was to look at their teeth, which featured more prominent fangs almost like a vampire, perfect for biting into meat and an obvious hint to their dragon bodies when they switched forms. She muttered something about being thankful for the ride, which was true, but her mind started going a million miles an hour. She was in a car with a dragon? She felt herself get more than a little nervous. It was wrong to judge other beings by their stereotypes, but a lot of the time, stereotypes were based on something. Elves were rich and vain. Did that mean every elf was rich and vain? No, but you’d have to look a long time before you found one that wasn’t. Orcs tended to be stupid and violent, and try as she might, she’d found very little evidence o
f the stereotype being wrong.

  And dragons? Dragons were the worst of all.

  Dragons were undeniably the most dangerous species. Even in human form, they were stronger, tougher, and faster than anything else on the earth. If Magnus was a dragon, he could run alongside the car and keep up without breaking a sweat, even with those dress shoes on. There were no more than a few dozen of them left, but all of them were wealthy beyond reason because they’d had sometimes thousands of years to accumulate. They didn’t give a single shit about other beings; they’d outlive a few dozen generations, and sooner or later, they’d grow disinterested in human affairs other than taking what they wanted. Why would they care, when someone’s entire lifespan was just the blink of an eye to them? It was like if another type of creature had been born when you were thirty years old, and by the time you were thirty-five, the whole generation was already dead.

  A new possibility crossed Sophie’s mind: this guy might be dangerous. A second thought crossed her mind: she was a horrible person for thinking that way. He’d pulled off the side of the road and was giving her a lift, so he had to have at least some kind instincts in there. She was half elf, but that didn’t mean that she was like most elves. So what if he could probably rip her arm off in the blink of an eye? That wasn’t his fault, and if he was a dragon, he could be way, way older than thirty.

  She found herself having to radically rethink her position on this. Okay, so she couldn’t judge him for having the car. If he was a thousand years old, he could have worked a lot longer than almost anyone else and could have bought it for himself. Of course, he could be a young dragon, but it still was bizarre to see one so comparatively short, even though he was quite a physical specimen for a human. Did they grow the older they got? Was he just a young one, and in another fifty years, he’d be seven feet tall? Or was he a halfling? Was that even a possibility? She hadn’t put a lot of thought into it, but dragons were not even close to humans. A full dragon could juggle cars if he wanted to, so it wasn’t too far of a leap to think that a dragon breeding a human would be… traumatic. For the first time in her life, she wondered if a dragon could even have sex with a human.