Alpha: An Urban Fantasy Novel (War of the Alphas Book 3) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Alpha

  Copyright

  About

  Dedication

  Title Page

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  ALPHA

  Book Three of

  War of the Alphas

  SM REINE

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  This book is sold DRM-free so that it can be enjoyed in any way the reader sees fit. Please keep all links and attributions intact when sharing. All rights reserved.

  Cover model photos sourced from Taria Reed at The Reed Files.

  Copyright © SM Reine 2015

  Published by Red Iris Books

  1180 Selmi Drive, Suite 102

  Reno, NV 89512

  SERIES BY SM REINE

  The Descent Series

  The Ascension Series

  Seasons of the Moon

  The Cain Chronicles

  Preternatural Affairs

  Tarot Witches

  War of the Alphas

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  ABOUT ALPHA

  No longer an Omega, Deirdre Tombs has found her animal. She only had to die and rise from her own ashes to discover it.

  And she’s returned with a purpose.

  For the first time in history, the role of Alpha is up for election. If Everton Stark took charge, he would disband the ruthless government organization that has made life miserable for shifters like Deirdre.

  One problem: Stark doesn’t want to run. He only wants vengeance against his wife, Rhiannon, who killed many of his followers and stole the Ethereal Blade.

  While Stark is focused on revenge, Rhiannon is focused on winning the election for Alpha. Victory means tearing the Winter Court apart with civil war. It means riots. It means unleashing a deadly unseelie assassin that devours souls. Anything to get her dragon shifter mate in power…with Rhiannon at his side.

  For Edgar, my Ace. I’m sorry.

  I

  A yellow moon crested over New York City.

  Moonrise was an event so predictable that it could be used to set watches, though it hadn’t always been that way. The moon used to rise during the day, sometimes. The hours that it appeared had varied based on season and geography. There had been formulas that allowed astronomers to calculate when and where it would appear.

  Then Genesis had struck.

  Now moonrise occurred whenever the sun went down, and moonset preceded sunrise by mere moments. This event, against all rational scientific expectation, seemed to occur in exactly the same fashion regardless of where the observer stood on the Earth.

  It was magic, no doubt about it, and that magic extended beyond the illusion of the turgid moon’s clockwork arrival. It reached to the surface of the Earth, influencing spells cast by witches, government policy, and, most frightening of all, the shapeshifters who lived predominantly in North America.

  Now that full moonlight touched New York City, the change was coming.

  “Crap,” breathed Mallory Reilly, hurrying to finish her paperwork.

  There were still three shifters waiting to check into her safe house, and those were three more shifters than she had space to hold. She had an overflow room where all of them would be able to shift together, but she had to run it through the registration program to make sure that their species were compatible first.

  The software—and the overflow rooms—were very new, implemented in response to an incident at another safe house. Two shapeshifters had killed each other in the parking lot overnight because there hadn’t been enough rooms to lock them away.

  Obviously the software hadn’t been tested enough. Mallory’s computer was crapping out on her.

  “What’s taking so long?” asked one of the werewolves.

  “I’m so sorry.” Mallory banged on her keyboard. “I want to get you guys in, I do, but—”

  “There’s no time,” said Ember Bane, another werewolf. His flesh rippled, sweat slicked his forehead, his eyes glowed.

  He was already starting to transform.

  They were out of time.

  “Two werewolves and a cougar shifter,” Mallory murmured.

  What harm could come out of sticking them in a room together?

  They were going to have to find out.

  This had only become a problem very recently. The fact that three shifters—three of them!—were seeking shelter for the transformation meant that they’d rejected Rylie Gresham as their Alpha. If they didn’t acknowledge her as their leader, then she couldn’t gentle their transformations on the full and new moons.

  More and more shifters were rejecting Rylie Gresham now, especially since she had announced that she was putting her position as Alpha up for election.

  Mallory had never seen so many people in need of shelter at her safe house.

  And the damn computer wasn’t working.

  She slapped the button to unlock the stairwell. “The overflow room is on the right as soon as you get downstairs,” Mallory said. “Don’t worry about check-in. I’ll lock up behind you.”

  “Thank the gods,” Ember breathed.

  He moved from the window, allowing Mallory to see that another woman—someone who wasn’t a shifter—had entered the secure parking lot. The newcomer strode toward the registration window.

  January Lazar was a famous reporter, and famously difficult. She had made a name for herself by interviewing Rylie Gresham, then became notorious by giving air time to Rylie Gresham’s worst enemy. A terrorist who wanted the Alpha dead. Everton Stark.

  If January Lazar was at Mallory’s safe house, then it could only mean bad things were about to happen. Mallory needed to protect the charges she had already checked into the safe house. She hit the button to lock down the stairwell even though the three shifters hadn’t gotten inside yet.

  “What are you doing?” Ember shouted. His werewolf friend, Dolf, slammed his fists against the door.

  “Great question,” January said. Her heeled pumps rapped against the parking lot as she strode up to the window. “What are you doing?”

  “We only allow shapeshifters here, ma’am,” Mallory said. “No press within the perimeter of the fence. You have to leave.”

  “Are you going to make me leave?” January asked.

  It was a tempting thought. Mallory fingered the charms dangling next to her window as she considered it. She had a few rudimentary spells that could be used to knock down an escaping shifter, but January Lazar was human. The spells might kill her.

  “If I have to,” Mallory said.

  Ember Bane cried out, and it sounded like a howl. His cry was echoed by the cougar shifter’s a moment later.

  They were changing.

  “Unlock the door, don’t unlock the door, it’s up to you,” January Lazar said. “I can do my piece here as easily as downstairs.” A few feet from the registration booth, she assembled a tripod and set her camera on top of it. She would be able to film the three shifters pounding against the door now as the moon rose.

  There were laws against video recording at safe houses meant to protect the privacy of the inhabitants. January Laz
ar knew that, and she obviously felt no fear of repercussions.

  Now another pair of people were entering the parking lot. The streetlights gave Mallory a great view of their faces.

  Everton Stark had arrived.

  “Are you filming?” he asked.

  “Oh yes,” January said.

  The cougar shifter recognized him and stopped trying to break into the safe house. “Everton Stark!” She crossed the parking lot to fall at his feet.

  January moved the camera to film it.

  The transformation was rapidly overtaking Bianca Grant. Her whole body shook with the change. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she fought against it, bucking with pain.

  Stark glanced at the camera to make sure it was focused on him, then kneeled in front of Bianca. He lifted her chin with a knuckle. Their eyes met. “Your transformation doesn’t hurt,” he said. “Change quickly, and change in peace.”

  Bianca’s eyes went blank. She stopped shaking.

  Within seconds, the animal form took over her. Fur covered her body. Her face elongated into a muzzle. Her knees reversed direction.

  A mountain lion stood where she had been kneeling.

  The werewolves tripped over their own feet to rush to Everton Stark.

  “Stay away from him!” Mallory called. “He’s dangerous! An enemy of the state!”

  They ignored her, but Stark’s companion didn’t.

  The woman who had arrived with Stark leaned down to look at Mallory through the window. “Hi there. I’m Deirdre Tombs.”

  “I know you.” She had seen Deirdre Tombs alongside Everton Stark in several videos online. The woman was just as deadly as the man. Mallory’s fingers slipped under the desk, searching for the panic button that would notify the Office of Preternatural Affairs of an emergency.

  “Great. So you’ve seen me killing people.” Deirdre formed her fingers into the shape of a gun and poked them against the glass. “Pop.”

  She wasn’t even holding an actual gun, but Mallory flinched.

  “Don’t push your panic button,” Deirdre said. “We’re not planning on getting any visits from the Office of Preternatural Affairs tonight. Okay?”

  Mallory’s forefinger came across the swell of the panic button.

  All it would take was one tap, and the Office of Preternatural Affairs would come running.

  But they could only come so quickly.

  They wouldn’t arrive in time to save her from Everton Stark and Deirdre Tombs.

  Stark was making the werewolves change now. They shifted from one form to the other peacefully, calmly, and January Lazar filmed it all.

  Despite her years working at a safe house, Mallory had never actually watched any of the shifters change. She was a witch. The weakest of the gaean classes. She knew to keep at least two locked doors and a handful of wards between her and the shifters on the nights of the moons.

  It was a horrifying thing to see, that change. The way that their bodies distorted and rearranged had to be painful. Bones broke and tore through the skin in multiple places.

  There was blood. There were also other fluids, which Mallory didn’t even want to identify.

  But the shifters looked so calm as they changed.

  Stark was doing that to them. That was powerful stuff.

  Mallory didn’t want to think about what he could do to her.

  She dropped her finger from the button, even though relenting made her heart sink.

  “Good. That’s good.” Deirdre was so friendly, so encouraging. “What’s your name?”

  “Mallory,” she said.

  “Okay, Mallory. If you keep being cooperative, then there’s no reason for anyone to die tonight. Understand? I’d love it if tonight ended without anyone dying. So I’m going to need you to unlock all the doors inside the safe house,” Deirdre said.

  “Why?”

  “Mallory, my friend, we just talked about this. I need you to be cooperative. Okay?”

  Deirdre still wasn’t actually holding a gun. She didn’t look all that threatening, either. When she spoke, she flashed a gap between her upper front teeth, which made her look cute rather than traditionally beautiful. A man’s flannel shirt over cheap jeans concealed her curves.

  She could have been any random shifter.

  Except that she’d come with that guy.

  “Okay.” Mallory clicked through the new software to find the override for the locks on the interior doors. Most of the shifters who’d checked in that night were werewolves. They might beat each other up, but they probably wouldn’t manage to kill anyone.

  Deirdre glanced at the moon—the first sign of nervousness she’d shown. “Be fast about it.”

  “Fast as I can,” Mallory said.

  She found the override in the software. She shut her eyes, whispered a prayer, and clicked it.

  A quiet alarm chimed within the booth, alerting her to the fact that the doors were unlocked after hours.

  Deirdre stiffened. “What’s that?”

  “It’s just warning me the doors are unlocked,” Mallory said. “That’s all.”

  “Does it call back to the OPA?”

  “No, I think—I don’t know, I don’t think so. This program is new. I’m not sure. But I don’t think it does.”

  Deirdre called over her shoulder. “Hey! Stark! We might have a problem.”

  Everton Stark rounded on them. The shifters had finished changing and now two hulking wolves and a cougar sniffed around his feet. It said a lot about the man’s presence that standing between beasts of that size didn’t diminish him in the slightest.

  “No, no, no we don’t, there’s no problem,” Mallory said. “I’m cooperating. I’m doing exactly what you said. I unlocked the doors.”

  “What’s that alarm?” Stark asked.

  Even through the window—enchanted glass meant to withstand physical assault from super-powered shifters—he was a terrifying man. Not tall, but broad and barrel-chested, with arms that looked like cabers.

  “She unlocked the inside doors and it started going off,” Deirdre explained to Stark. “She says that it won’t call the OPA. At least, she thinks it won’t call the OPA, but she’s not sure.”

  He pressed a hand against the window, as if to test it for strength. The glass groaned.

  Mallory’s eyes flicked toward the charms hanging from the inside of the frame.

  “Did you call them?” Stark asked.

  “No,” she said.

  He seemed to weigh his options, considering the woman, the shifters at his back, and the reporter filming it all. “Open the stairwell.”

  “What?”

  He stared at her, giving her the full weight of his golden-eyed stare. All shifters Mallory had met had golden eyes that were superficially identical to his, but something about Stark’s was impossible to look away from.

  “Come on, Mallory,” Deirdre said. “Play ball with us.”

  “It’s just—if I open the doors—”

  Stark slammed a fist into the glass. Cracks spiderwebbed around his knuckles, spreading rapidly to the edges of the frame.

  Mallory leaped back with a shriek, her office chair falling underneath her. She tripped over it. Caught herself on the wall.

  “Open it,” Stark said.

  She had already opened the doors to the cells underground. If she opened the stairs too, then she would release every temporary resident of the safe house: twenty-five moon-sickened shifters who were beyond Rylie Gresham’s control.

  The wards surrounding the safe house’s parking lot were good, but not that good.

  Stark slammed his hand into the glass again.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll do it!” Mallory cried.

  The lock for the main door was easy to find. Her hands shook as she deactivated it.

  Stark punched the glass a third time. It didn’t stand a chance against him. His hand went through it. He ripped the glass away, smearing blood over the jagged edges as though it didn’t hurt him.
>
  Mallory squeezed herself in the corner of the booth, screaming. But he reached her easily.

  He yanked her through the window, and Mallory struggled to grab the defensive charms on her way out. The glass did hurt her. She wasn’t a shifter. She didn’t heal quickly like they did. Shards scraped down her arms, and she cried as he tossed her to the pavement.

  The air was crisp and wet with the memory of rain. Stark and Deirdre towered over Mallory, backlit by January Lazar’s light.

  “I did everything you asked,” Mallory said. “I’ve obeyed.”

  “You did,” Deirdre said. “But if your alarm does summon the OPA…” She shrugged. “We’ll need a hostage to get out of here. Hang tight. I’ll get back to you in a minute.”

  Hang tight? What else was Mallory supposed to do? She hugged a charm under her arm to hide it, dampness of the pavement soaking through her slacks, and she shivered. She’d managed to grab one charm from the booth but not one of the good ones—it was a spell to help her stay awake for the long night shift.

  January’s camera focused on her, and Mallory could only imagine what she must have looked like: mascara streaking, face puffy with tears, bleeding freely from her arms.

  Deirdre Tombs opened the door to the safe house stairs.

  “No!” Mallory cried, curling into the smallest ball she could manage.

  Nothing came out of the stairwell.

  The shifters might not have realized that their rooms had unlocked yet. The doors didn’t open automatically.

  “I’ll return shortly,” Stark said, and he vanished down the stairs.

  There were still three large, predatory animals prowling around the parking lot. They looked to be sedate while under Stark’s control, but that didn’t mean much.

  Stark had been killing people for months to draw attention to his cause. He had done it primarily by ordering innocent shifters to murder.

  And it worked.

  Making an example of people had given him a platform. It was the reason that Mallory knew who he was by name and by face. He was more famous than most actors at this point.