Flame of the Alpha

FLAME OF THE ALPHA

Lacey Savage

www.loose-id.com

Warning

This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id® e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

* * * * *

This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable.

Flame of the Alpha

Lacey Savage

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by

Loose Id LLC

1802 N Carson Street, Suite 212-2924

Carson City
NV
89701-1215

www.loose-id.com

Copyright © September 2007 by Lacey Savage

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.

ISBN 978-1-59632-543-2

Available in Adobe PDF, HTML,
MobiPocket
, and MS Reader

Printed in the United States of America

Editor: Maryam Salim

Cover Artist: Christine M. Griffin

Chapter One

“There! He went through the door of that warehouse. Search every inch of the place if you have to. I want the bastard found.”

“Dead or alive, Captain?”

“Surprise me.” A hint of amusement rumbled beneath the deep, authoritative voice.

Dante
Lotton
clenched his hands into fists as he squatted behind a twisted rocket toboggan in a children’s playground. Ten feet away, two of the four
Terran
officials pursuing him entered a warehouse filled with spare ship parts.

He hadn’t been foolish enough to go through the wide open door into the dark cavern beyond. As likely as not, he’d be trapped inside, a sitting duck just waiting for the authorities to get their grubby hands on him.

His mouth twisted in a snarl. Rage roared inside his stomach, awakening the beast lying dormant in his blood cells. It would be so easy to let the lion out to play. Those men would see no more than a golden shadow as he pounced, knocking them to the ground and tearing through their standard-issue uniforms. Even those ridiculous hermetically-sealed helmets wouldn’t protect them from the feral strength of his claws.

Pain flared in Dante’s wrist as he dug his claws into his palm. The need to complete the shift into lion form and overwhelm the men who’d been ruthlessly pursuing him for hours flooded his veins with adrenaline, calling to the part of him the
Terran
government sought to destroy.

He snarled at that thought. Who was he kidding? The
Terran
government wanted to destroy
all
of him, not just the part that threatened them. No mercy existed in these men. They had no intention of “fixing” him, even if such a thing were possible.

While they were at it, they’d gleefully destroy everyone else like him. They’d already killed millions of Alpha carriers since the Conception Prevention Act of 2115 had passed, nearly three centuries ago. Rendering the population sterile had been the key to achieving the government’s goal of controlling every aspect of its citizens’ lives.

Alpha carriers didn’t take kindly to being told they couldn’t mate, couldn’t conceive, couldn’t establish packs and families of their own. More importantly, their mutated DNA had built up antibodies so any sterilization method the government created was rendered ineffective within twenty-four hours of entering an Alpha-carrier’s system.

“He’s not inside, sir.” The officer’s voice scraped through the speaker in his sealed helmet as though he spoke from the bottom of a tin can.

The officer in charge, a tall, brawny man with a dozen etched insignias on his full Central Command armor, swept an arm out in the direction of the playground. Dante couldn’t see his face, but he was willing to bet it was twisted in a snarl. “Find him. He couldn’t have gone far. The spiders didn’t pick up his signature, so he must still be in the area.”

Dante forced himself to relax his fists. He had to think. His gaze darted upward, where an eight-legged spider-shaped camera sat atop a streetlight, its tendrils blinking as the red LED scanned its immediate surroundings for a heat signature.

Similar spiders perched atop every other streetlight in Vieux Orleans, effectively recording each movement the city’s citizens dared to make. Still, he couldn’t stay here. It was only a matter of time until the officers came close enough to spot him even without the aid of the devices that picked up a person’s wrist implant.

Dante rubbed absently at the smooth skin on the inside of his wrist. By now, they’d be questioning why their scans couldn’t locate the existence of his chip. Or maybe they weren’t wondering at all.

Maybe they knew.

Identification chips were implanted in all
Terran
citizens at the moment of their creation,
then
swapped out for an enhanced version when they completed their training and were deemed ready to contribute toward meeting
Terran
goals.

Dante didn’t have one because he hadn’t been
created
, much less trained here on Earth. He’d been born, and that alone marked him as a deviant specimen. Worse yet, it put a target the size of Mars on the back of his head.

And there was nothing
Terran
authorities loved more than shooting at targets.
Especially Alpha-gene carrier targets.

His gut churned. He wouldn’t even be on this saint-forsaken planet if the authorities hadn’t forced his ship to flee at a moment’s notice, leaving behind anyone unlucky enough to still be enjoying the Saint Valentine Festival at the time.

A bolt of anger jarred his thoughts. Had
Enigma
managed to get away? Or had the ship and its entire Alpha crew been blasted out of the sky without
so
much as a warning?

No
. He refused to think that way.
Enigma
was fine, as was everyone onboard. He had to believe that.
Terran
officials wouldn’t have been nearly as eager to lock down the spaceport and subject everyone who came within fifty feet of the place to an impromptu inspection if they weren’t rattled by
Enigma’s
ability to successfully evade pursuit.

“Over here! He’s hiding behind the toboggan!”

Dante’s stomach tensed with the desire to jump from his hiding place, shift in mid-leap, and land with his claws embedded in one of the men’s armored suits. Self-control won out at the last moment. He sprang up and bolted to his right, throwing his rage into the sprint. Government-issue boots clattered against the self-cleaning surface. Armor rattled as the officers gave chase.

The rush of the hunt pumped through Dante’s bloodstream, causing his heart to hammer roughly against his ribcage. He was used to being the one doing the chasing. Playing the role of prey wasn’t nearly as much fun.

Overhead, the cameras buzzed as their long-limbed cords stretched out, seeking to register his movements. A laser dart shot past his head, piercing a perfect spherical hole in a nearby tree trunk. The smell of scorched pine reached his nostrils, unsettling his stomach.

His bare feet pummeled the surface of the road, his heels slipping on the slick veneer as he burned off wave after wave of adrenaline and anger. A breeze cooled his overheated skin, drying the sweat that trickled over his chest to drip down into his navel.

This couldn’t go on much longer. There were only so many places to run where he’d be out of the all-seeing eye of the cameras, and he didn’t know the city. He hadn’t grown up here. He’d been born on the Mars colony, where the
Terran
Government's strict rules and regulations didn't have as firm a hold on people as they did on their native planet.

The streets looked abandoned, providing Dante with even less cover than he’d had at the playground. In the morning light, the city barely resembled the festive urban carnival locale it had been only hours earlier. On February 14, Vieux Orleans’ citizens had honored their patron saint with their hearts, their souls, and especially with their bodies. For one night out of the year, they indulged their hedonistic impulses in a carnal celebration worthy of the deity who oversaw every pleasurable encounter that took place on Earth.

This morning, the place looked as darkly desolate as it did during the other 364 days of the year. To make matters worse,
Engima’s
abrupt departure had prompted the authorities to declare a state of emergency. Anyone found wandering the streets would be arrested on sight.

Which left Dante scrambling for a safe place to hide.
Only, there were no such places for Alpha carriers.

An intersection up ahead had Dante scrambling to choose between two paths. To his right, a stark lot stretched out in front of an old-style mansion, its French columns swirling up to a balcony that ran around the perimeter of the building. A private, T23 model ship sat out in front, black paint gleaming in the morning sun.

His fingertips itched just from looking at the chrome beast, remembering what it had felt like to grip the manual steering shaft in his hand and yank upward as the vessel’s nose swung high in the air, responding to his every command.

One of the
Terran
officials raced to the ship, pulling out his weapon as he ran and flicked it from laser-mode to manual. A blue-tinged flame shot forth. He swung it sideways and the flame snaked a blue path along the ground, reminding Dante of engine fire and screams tearing through smoke-laden air.

He gulped down a heavy breath, practically tasting the soot on his tongue and turned on his heel to bolt in the opposite direction. Even if the officer hadn’t reached the ship ahead of him, Dante wouldn’t have climbed on board that craft. His piloting days were behind him.
Permanently.

A wall three times as tall as his height stretched toward the sky ahead of him. His left hand shot out instinctively, claws extending even before his skin made contact with the concrete blocks. The mortar crumbled as he scraped the surface, but he used his strength and his body’s forward momentum to propel himself upward until he scaled the entire height of the barrier and hurled himself over the top to free-fall almost twenty feet on the other side.

Dante’s heart raced as he flattened himself against the wall, listening for the sound of pursuit. After only a few short seconds, he heard the guttural, metallic cries of the officers as they stood on the other side of the wall, arguing about which one of them should climb over in search of him.

He couldn’t stay here. It was only a matter of time until the
Terran
officials discovered an easier way to enter the private garden in which he found himself. Crafted with obvious care, the blossoming sanctuary was redolent with the scent of blooming flowers. Dante was no expert on flora, but this place looked like a prehistoric version of Vieux Orleans and brought to mind what the city must have looked like millions of years earlier, before humans settled here and ruined the natural wilderness of the land.

Red cedar and black walnut trees stretched thick branches toward the sky. Hyacinths bordered fern-fringed paths, and the scent of ginger lilies and orchids teased his nostrils as he moved away from the wall.

The low drone of polite chatter echoed from the direction of the main path. Dante’s claws retracted. He inhaled deeply and released the breath on a heaving sigh as he stepped off the carefully sculpted path and slipped between the trees. The trunks were huge, easily as broad across as he was, providing him with the cover he desperately needed.

Now all he had to do was find another way out of here before the
Terran
government located him. Laying low in a gutter somewhere for a few days should give the authorities enough time to conduct a thorough search of the city and lift the lockdown measures currently surrounding the space port. Then he could figure out a way off this damned planet and contact his ship.

“Forgive me,
mon
patron
. I-I have failed you.”

The breathy, feminine voice stopped him in his tracks. A throaty sigh and a low groan followed the reverent
statement,
all sounding much too close to him for comfort.

He backed away slowly, trying to gauge the direction of the voice. It sounded like it had come from his left, where thick green foliage bordered a narrow opening between two trees.

The level of the woman’s words dropped to a low murmur. Passion infused the sound with a raspy, sensual quality, reaching his ears on a light breeze. The rapturous intensity infusing her tone carried clearly, sending a jolt of heat into his groin.

His feet carried him to the left despite his better judgment.

“I tried to find a Flame for the ceremony. I searched all night. The only man who even came close to meeting your requirements was already spoken for by another of your children.”

A brief pause heightened the sensual energy in the air,
then
a low, guttural moan fueled the raging sensations rapidly hardening Dante’s cock. He
had
to peer beyond the heavy leafage, if only for a moment. Then he could be on his way, getting as far away from those officers as possible.

“Everything’s prepared. Once a suitable Flame is found…” The woman’s voice dropped for a moment before rising again, breathless and heated. “I still have time,
mon
patron
. I can find…”

Dante pushed the edges of a low branch away from his face and stepped through the foliage into the deeper recesses of the private garden, where a glimpse of long black hair cascading over creamy shoulders instantly quickened his pulse. He went absolutely still, his eyes widening in surprise.

His gaze followed the lines of the woman’s back to the lush hips and firm globes of her ass,
then
settled on the thick dildo she’d inserted between the delicate pink folds of her pussy.

Dante’s breath caught on a groan. Need pounded in his cock, coiling inside his balls, causing them to draw up tightly into his sac. He ran his tongue across his dry lips as he watched the woman. She knelt in front of a massive statue of Saint Valentine, its bronze shimmer struggling to outshine the feminine perfection of her ivory skin. Her head was thrown back, and her hand worked furiously between her legs.

An offering
.

He’d heard of the
Terran
tradition to present a…
contribution
of sorts to the patron saint of the carnal arts when asking for his favor. Folklore had it that an orgasm went a long way toward ensuring the penitent received whatever he or she prayed for. Not of
Terran
descent himself, Dante had believed such rituals archaic, but last night’s Festival had convinced him otherwise. This achingly erotic display only served to intensify that impression.

The woman’s buttocks flexed as her fingers nudged the edges of her nether lips. She pushed the thick dildo farther inside herself until the ivory toy all but disappeared from view. Her thighs trembled as she propped herself up on her knees and bent forward like a supplicant would, one hand resting on the ground before her, the other frantically thrusting the dildo in and out of her succulent
cunt
.