Page 13 of Mated By the Alphas
We have to deal with these fucking vampires before the Crimson Templars find out about them. My gaze never leaves Ansley asI consider this new pressing issue. We can’t have those bastards roaming the streets, hunting Scions. Not when I can’t even get control of my instincts.
I watch Ansley until the lights go out and she goes to bed. Watching her doesn’t tell me anything new about her, except that it takes her a really long time to go through a box of junk. No Fae magic. No witch magic. Nothing that reveals what lingers in her bloodline.
But since she’s safe, I go home. My penthouse has never felt like a true home. This concrete jungle feels more like a prison. Tonight, it’s worse. I pace for hours before finally collapsing into bed.
I’m restless when I sleep, dreams full of her intoxicating scent, her eyes, the sound of her heartbeat. Everything feels off, like the world is tilted, spinning out of control, and I can’t keep up.
When my eyes finally open, I’m already moving. Out the door, across rooftops, towards her apartment before I even realize what I’m doing.
She walks out of her apartment building and I feel the rush. The urge. The need. It’s overwhelming. I have to restrain myself because my instincts scream for me to chase her Uber down, tear the door off the hinges, and take her right there. Satisfy my urges. Chase my needs. Breed her until her belly is swollen with my pack’s future. Mark her so that the entire world knows she’smine.
The thought should horrify me. I’ve never felt this with a human. Never felt this with any Scion. These are ancient instincts that are only supposed to surface when a wolf finds their true mate.It’s what I was raised to believe I would feel when I found the she-wolf who was meant only for me.
“Fuck,” I growl, gripping the edge of the roof hard enough that concrete cracks beneath my fingers. I look down in confusion, then realize I’m not in my Third Form. I shifted into my true Human Form without even realizing it. “No! Fuck! What am I doing?”
Whatever is happening to me is getting worse. Being near her is both thrilling and horrifying. It threatens my control, my pack’s safety, everything we’ve built by staying hidden.
But something inside me won’t allow me to flee. Not yet.
I shift into my Natural Form, eight hundred pounds of fur and fang, and keep pace with her Uber. My claws shatter concrete as I propel myself across rooftops, muscles burning with exertion that does nothing to quiet the need. When the Uber finally pulls up in front of York Financial, a howl builds in my throat. I stifle it before it escapes, before I shake the rooftop and draw every eye below me skyward.
She’s at work. She’s safe.
The further she gets from me, the easier it is to control my instincts. The fog lifts. The need dulls to an ache instead of a scream.
I pant and snarl, then turn and sprint away. This time in the opposite direction. By the time I reach my building, I’ve shifted back to my true Human Form. The Third Form comes easier once I’ve settled down.
I walk through the door of my apartment with adrenaline fading and my urges settling like a heavy weight in my chest. A glass ofwhiskey helps, but it doesn’t cure me. The second takes the edge off. The third, I don’t even bother with a glass.
I finally pick up my phone and see that I’ve got a message from Remy.
Remy: I’ve got something on the vampires. I’m going over it with Storm now. Swing by The Den when you get a chance.
Hayden: On my way.
That’s what I should be focused on. The vampire threat. My brothers.
We can handle an army of freshly turned fledglings. They’re weak, mindless, barely more dangerous than humans with sharp teeth. But their maker is another story. Any vampire old enough to create fledglings has fed enough to be a real threat. If Remy’s calling me to The Den instead of just texting details, he’s found something that worries him.
That alone should have my full attention.
Should.
I shove my phone in my pocket, and head for the door. Vampires I can handle. Her? I have no fucking clue.
The Den is the first place my Pack called home in Chicago. An empty warehouse we bought and converted into a den. Eventually, we outgrew it. Not because we needed more space, but because we were forced to come to terms with our mortality and impending extinction. Some of us handled that better than others.
It’s hard to believe how much nature has been buried beneath this concrete. Over two hundred years ago, when I was cominginto my own as a wolf, Chicago was a tiny, isolated outpost centered around a military fort. Log cabins, fur-trading posts, and a population of a few dozen are the ancestors of today’s metropolis.
We watched from afar as it grew, keeping to the wilderness, staying hidden. We’d learned by then what happened when humans discovered us.
Then the Crimson Templars brought their crusade to Chicago. We watched the city burn while the bastards executed every Scion they could find. Men tortured and murdered in the streets. Women dragged from their homes, raped, and burned at the stake. Children rounded up and slaughtered before they were old enough to understand why.
I can still hear the screams. Still smell the burning flesh.
That was where my pack made our final stand against them, trying to save what remained of Chicago’s Scions, trying to buy time for the survivors to run. We came out of the wilderness to fight a battle we had no chance of winning, but we fought anyway. What else could we do? Watch them die and do nothing?
I wear some of those scars on my skin. The worst of them—the ones inflicted on my soul—only my brothers have ever seen those.
