Mated to the Billionaire Werewolf: BBW Paranormal Bad Boy Billionaire Werewolf Romance (Kingwood Pack Book 3) (4 page)

“Nothing is going to happen,” she muttered to herself, clamping her eyes shut. “They can’t have just disappeared. Not even lycans can vanish into thin air.”

With her eyes closed, something strange happened. A slight breeze on her cheek pulled her to the left and without thinking, she turned that way. Opening her eyes revealed the path ahead, barely more than a parting of the undergrowth but a path nonetheless. She’d just needed to look at the problem a different way to find it.

A good lesson for life. She should put that on a mug.

Her footsteps hastened and she sped down the path. She didn’t know where she was going, not consciously, but something inside her did. Since it had more of an idea than she did and it beat freaking out and primal screaming, she got with the program and followed it.

That same instinct warned her to slow down as she reached a small rise, and by the time she neared the top, she was on her hands and knees, her belly near the ground. Not a moment too soon either.

She peeked over the top and found herself looking down into a clearing. Obviously well used, it had logs and boulders set around a central ring like seats, all occupied by lycans, some in human form and some not.

Her breath caught on a gasp and she started to duck into her hiding place before she realized they weren’t looking at her. In fact, no one had even noticed she was there. Instead, all their attention was on the center of the clearing and the two men who stood there.

Alex she recognized and her heart leaped, body instantly feeling the pull toward him. She reminded herself he wasn’t hers, not anymore… if he ever had been to start with. She forced her attention to the other man and her breathing hitched.

The snarl rose again in the back of her throat as everything within her rejected the sight of the man standing in front of Alex. Tall, tanned, and blond, he looked the archetype rich-boy jock, but he wasn’t.

Everything about him was fake, she could see it in the way he moved… like something that was playing human, but wasn’t anything near. Admittedly, he was good at it, but some of his movements were just too fluid and controlled.

Humans didn’t move like that. They were an uncoordinated mess, a jumble of body parts under the control of an erratic brain that looped commands together and somehow got all the bones, muscles, and sinews moving together at roughly the same time.

Vampire.

The snarl rumbled in the back of her throat, unheard over the distance. She watched as two lycans dragged in a hooded figure, whipping the bag off his head to reveal another vampire. He looked a little worse for wear, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to feel sorry for him.

These assholes threatened to kill Davie. For all she knew they had, unless…

The blond vampire took one look at the lycan’s vampire prisoner and nodded. Two men behind him, also vampires from the way their eyes and fingernails glittered a bit too much in the moonlight, shoved a figure forward. He stumbled, going to hands and knees in the dirt in front of Alex.

Eva caught her breath, something familiar about the boy catching her attention. Then he looked up and she was on her feet, racing down the slope between the seated lycans to throw her arms around his neck.

“Davie! Oh my god, Davie. You’re alive!”

Chapter Four

Like lycans, vampires had rules and a command structure. Unlike lycans, they ran in packs and like pixies, inhabited the underworld of the city. They stuck to back alleys and bars no one went into alone. Not if they planned to be breathing by the end of the night. If there was anything illegal going on, be it drugs, vice, murder, or any combination of the three. All controlled in some way or another by their leader, the Earl.

Given that they were all pathological liars with homicidal tendencies at the best of times, the Vampire Earl was a person most people avoided like the bubonic plague. And with good reason. Tall, blond, and with the kind of looks that had both men and women falling at his feet, Zane was not as wholesome as he looked.

Ruthless, single-minded, and vicious, he was spoken about on the backstreets with the same kind of awe Veyr was in more civilized circles. Alex had cooperated in a few… business deals with him. As few as he could get away with because the guy definitely had more than a few screws loose.

Word on the street said he was the bastard love child of a vampire and a captured valkyrie. Which was utter bullshit as far as Alex was concerned. Valkyries weren’t known to be cuddly. They’d sooner tear out a man’s throat just for standing in the way. And that was human males… so something as close to dead as a vampire? They’d eviscerate it on the spot, not get into bed with it.

No, the only way a vamp could get a child on a valkyrie was if she was near dead. And what sort of life would such a half-breed have? A child whose two halves were in constant opposition. Half valkyrie, a creature born to dispatch the dead to the afterlife, and half vampire, a creature essentially dead. It would be in permanent agony.

Which explained a lot about Zane.

Which made the fact he was in bed with the guy now really not a good idea. Half-breeds were inherently unstable. There was no way around it. Zane had something Alex wanted, so he had no choice but to play the vampire’s game.

His lycan enforcers brought their prisoner forward and whipped the hood off his head. The captured vamp winced in the bright moonlight and hissed. Alex ignored him, his attention on Zane.

“We good?” Alex asked when the vampire didn’t move, not a flicker of anything crossing his features.

After all the trouble he’d gone through get hold of the blood sucker—a deal with another pack alpha who had links with another city’s Mistress and her hellhound lover—if it was the wrong guy he was going to be
pissed
.

“Zane?”

The other man blinked, his eyes black as pitch. For a moment Alex was sucked in, the dark pools twin maelstroms of seething hatred and rage. Then Zane blinked and his expression settled back into one of amused blandness.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

He motioned and two vamps dragged a hooded figure forward to dump him on the ground at Alex’s feet. The hood was whipped off to reveal Davie’s youthful features.

Alex blinked, taken back years, remembering that same face alight with joyful amusement at some game he’d concocted to keep the child Davie amused. He’d liked the kid… he’d had a lot of potential. But that all died when the vampire’s blood slid down his throat. Now he was just another bloodsucker.

One who tried to kill Eva.

Before Alex could make a move, Eva’s voice sliced across the clearing.

“Davie! Oh my god, Davie. You’re alive!”

Alex spun on his heel to see her racing down the slope toward them. For a moment his jaw dropped in surprise. How the hell was she here? She should have been out for the count with the sedative Frank slipped into her soup. He slid a glance at his second in command, whose jaw ground in frustration.

Somehow Eva had outwitted them. Fuck. That didn’t look good in front of the vampires.

She reached them, panting with effort and launched herself at her brother, wrapping him in a bear hug.

“Eva. Step away from him.”

Everything in Alex stilled, his wolf snarling at the vampire so close to the woman they loved. The beast rushed to the surface, trying to break his hold so it could tear into the vampire. Rip it limb from limb so it could never threaten their woman again.

Eva turned, her arms still wrapped protectively around Da—the vampire. Alex wouldn’t even think of him using that name. He wasn’t Davie. He was a dead thing. One about to be even deader if he got his way.

“Alex, it’s Davie!”

Alex ground his teeth as the vampire smirked. Oh, he was good, keeping his fangs carefully hidden in case the sight of them triggered a flashback for Eva. Most vamp victims didn’t remember an attack,
if
they survived, but Eva wasn’t entirely human. She couldn’t be. No human could have found this clearing, not with the aversion wards through the forest. A human would have been forced back, fleeing the place to suffer weeks of nightmares that would ensure they never returned.

“Eva,” he moved forward, his hand outstretched to call her to him. “He’s not what you think he is.”

“Please don’t let them hurt me, Eva!” Davie clung to his sister, a sob in the back of his throat and Alex’s lips curled back from his teeth in a snarl.

Vampires were excellent actors. Which was great because he planned on seeing how well the asshole did flopping around like a fish out of water with his throat torn out. And that was just for starters. After that, they could move onto the disembowelment blues. Vampires were hardy creatures. It could take days for it to die. Every pain filled moment would be worth it for what he’d done to Eva.

“Eva, please!” the vampire wearing Davie’s face squeaked when Alex and Frank closed in threateningly.

“We done here, Kingwood?” Zane sighed and rolled his eyes, his hand firmly around the neck of the vampire Alex had tracked down.

“Yeah, we’re done. Have fun with your little friend.” He ignored the fact Zane’s claws were buried almost up to the first knuckle in the kneeling man’s throat, blood flowing freely down his neck. It was up to him what he did with his… subjects. Although, to be honest, he really wouldn’t want to be in that one’s shoes.

Zane grinned and yanked the captured vamp up to his feet. His expression was pure malevolence as he held the trembling guy in front of him in a loose embrace. Not a sexual one, although all the reports said Zane swung both ways, but still an intimate one. Zane was apparently a master of torture, though, and there was something about torture that created a link between the torturer and his or her victim.

“Oh, I intend to. Have fun with yours.”

And with a laugh, a cold wind blew through the clearing and the vampires were gone as though they’d never been there.

Alex returned his attention to Eva.

“You shut your mouth,” he glared at Davie. “Eva,” his voice was firmer this time as he injected a healthy dose of dominance from his wolf into it. “Step away from him. Now.”

“No.” Her chin shot up, lips set in a hard line as she challenged him with her gaze. “I won’t let you hurt him.”

Alex ignored the gasps that rolled around the clearing and stepped forward. To her credit, Eva didn’t back down, just glared right back. Curling his lips back from his teeth, he growled.

The sound started off low, but grew in intensity as he pushed more and more of his wolf into it. Her eyes widened and her lip quivered, but she still held her ground against him. Which shouldn’t be possible. He was alpha here and she was barely even lycan.

Their eyes locked in a battle of wills. Stepping forward, he loomed over her, deepening his growl to make her yield to him. She
would
yield to him. New wolf she might be, kind of, and his body might burn for her, but he couldn’t let her challenge go unanswered.

“Back down, Eva…” he warned, knowing his wolf flared in his eyes. “Before this gets serious.”

With his words, he brought the full force of his dominance to bear. She gasped, her entire body trembling. Head bowed, she stepped away from Davie, her body fought every step of the way.

“Take him,” Alex ordered, motioning to Frank. Instantly two enforcers swooped in to drag the vampire away kicking and screaming. Alex didn’t bother to watch. His attention focused on Eva in front of him.

Shit. She had defied him.

In front of the entire pack.

“We are not human, Eva. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking we are.” He didn’t reveal his inner turmoil, even though the need to take her into his arms and tell her it was going to be okay ate away at him.

It wasn’t going to be okay. She had challenged him

He had to punish her.

“She challenged a higher ranking wolf,” Isabella declared from the slopes. Grumbles of agreement followed her words, making Alex curse mentally. “Or is your ‘pet’ exempt, Alex?”

He shot a hard look toward the female, warning her to keep her mouth shut. But as bitchy as Isabella was, she was right. He couldn’t afford to have Eva relegated to ‘pet’ in the pack. That would lay her open to use by all… she’d be everyone’s bitch, literally.

And he would be forced to kill to protect her.

Frank stepped up to his side, a constant, reassuring presence. Coiled in his hand was the pack’s one instrument of discipline: a silver tipped, leather whip. Not designed for pleasure, it was an ugly thing, and Alex knew only too well its bite.

He sighed, stepping back.

“Ten lashes, and left until sunrise,” he ordered, turning away as Frank and the enforcers stepped toward Eva.

He couldn’t watch. Not with her.

Her screams rang in his ears as he walked away, tears falling unheeded down his cheeks.

Cruel to be kind.

He just hoped she forgave him.

*

The blood drained from Eva’s face as she watched Alex walk away. Every detail of the scene engraved itself in her memory. The moonlight playing over Alex’s dark hair, the tension in his shoulders as he walked, Davie screaming her name as two burly werewolves dragged him away. The wind picked up, howling through the branches of the trees overhead, an eerie whisper that set the hairs on the back of her neck to rising.

“Alex, please…” she called after him, trying to follow, but finding her way blocked by Frank and two of the biggest lycans she’d ever seen in human form. Their hard expressions made her shiver. Shit. She was in so much trouble now.

“Please,” she begged, locking her gaze with Frank’s. “I apologize, I was out of line. There’s no need for all this.”

Their hard expressions didn’t waver and she backed up. Fast. But each way she tried, left or right, more lycans blocked her path, their faces sickly eager for… what? Her gaze dropped to the whip in Frank’s hand and she swallowed. Hard.

“You’re…” She lost her voice for a second, but then regained it. She couldn’t do anything about the quiver of fear when she spoke again and hated herself for it. “That’s barbaric.”