Alphas Unleashed 1

Cora Wolf

Copyright © 2014 Cora Wolf

All rights reserved.

Ignore your urges and desires. Trust no one, especially other werewolves. Flee from the vampires that hunt you. And when the full moon forces you to turn you hide… and survive. This is how werewolf Sara Cole lives, and how she becomes cornered by two vampires, looking for another rare and valuable werewolf pelt to sell to the highest bidder.

But alpha werewolves Connor and Marcus have been craving a female werewolf for years, and they’re not about to let a couple of vampires take what they desire. They’ve rediscovered the lost ability to turn at will, and they no longer fear the vampires that hunt them. Now they are the hunters.

Connor isn’t shy about his lust for Sara’s curvy figure, and Sara is intoxicated by the scent of Connor’s strong, dominant wolf, even as she battles her deep-rooted mistrust of her own kind. Marcus, rich and reserved, doesn’t seem interested. But he is only biding his time, waiting for Sara’s mating heat to begin. He’s older, more experienced, and knows that he doesn’t have to chase Sara. She will come to him.

~~~

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I had never met a werewolf that had lived to see twenty. Soon after I made that realization, twenty became my secret goal, the one thing that kept me stumbling forward. If I could just make it to twenty, maybe that would mean I was a survivor, that I was the exception. I was constantly alone, and cold, and afraid, but twenty was the flicker of flame in my heart that stopped me from giving up.

But there I was, nineteen, and cornered by two vampires.

I'd almost made it to the full moon too, that was the most galling part. If I could have only kept ahead of the hunters for one more night I would have been able to turn on the full moon and make an escape. The vampires that hunted our kind were happy enough to track a werewolf in human form, but on the full moon, for just one night a month, the tables turned. On the full moon the vampires were the ones that hid themselves away while the wolves roamed the night, hunting them. And it wasn't that the vampires couldn't take on a werewolf in wolf form, but why fight fair when the odds were in your favor the other twenty-nine days of the month?

I never hunted the hunters though, as tempting as it was sometimes, as much as the wolf within wanted to kill and take vengeance. I always used that one night to run as far and as fast as I could, so that the vampires didn't have a chance of picking up my trail again. At least not for a couple weeks. Most werewolves didn't do that though, most chose to use the full moon to hunt vampires. Most of them died the night after. I ran, and survived.

I looked around the dead end alley one more time, hoping to see a door that had eluded me, a window, some shred of hope. But there was nothing. Just brick walls and trash. Not the place that I would have hoped to make my final stand, but it would have to do.

I leaned back against the brick wall and let out a long sigh, eying the two vampires slowly making their way towards me.

"That's right little wolf," one of them murmured in a soothing voice, "it's all over. Nowhere to go."

I pulled my hunting knife from the sheath on my back and held it at my side, letting them see it. I would go down fighting.

The vampire that had been talking laughed, "what are you going to do with that little wolf?"

I pushed myself off the brick wall and shrugged.

"No little wolf," the vampire said, "you've got us all wrong. We don't want to kill you."

"Oh no," the other vampire said, "were not going to kill you at all."

"We're just going to let you turn on the full moon and skin you," the first vampire said. "You'll survive. Probably. The werewolves we've skinned before were all alive when we let them go, weren't they?"

The other vampire nodded, "all alive. We run a humane operation, strictly catch and release."

"That's right," the first vampire said, smiling, "so you see there's no need for the knife."

"Fuck you," I said, and gripped the knife that much harder.

They came at me then, fast, but not so fast that I didn't get one good slice in at the lead vampire, leaving a long cut across the palm of his hand before he wrenched the knife from my grip and pinned me up against the brick wall with a hand around my neck.

"Fucking bitch cut me!" the vampire holding my neck said, showing the other vampire his bleeding hand.

"I did more than that," I said, "there was werewolf blood on that knife. You'll be dead by the end of the next full moon." It wasn't true, but he couldn't know that.

He threw me down on the wet pavement and started to frantically wipe the blood off of his hand. I tried to get to my feet and make a run for it but the other vampire saw me and kicked my feet out from under me, and I fell back to the wet pavement.

"Filthy fucking dog!" The vampire I had cut kicked me in the ribs a few times and as much as I wanted to scream in pain I laughed at him instead.

"You think it's funny?"

I swallowed down my pain and nodded, "I think it's hilarious."

He kicked me a few more times in the ribs and I couldn't help but groan a little with how much it hurt.

The vampire was pacing back and forth now, muttering to himself, while his buddy tried to calm him down a little. I didn't want him calm though, I wanted him to panic. Maybe he would do something stupid, and I could make a getaway. Not likely, but I would never stop trying to survive.

"Have you ever seen what happens to a vampire that has werewolf blood in them when there's a full moon?" I said. I hadn't either, but I'd heard stories. "The vampire blood and the werewolf blood fight it out in your body. Your blood boils in your veins. It cooks you from the inside out. The last vampire I cut with that knife screamed so loud and so long that he destroyed his own vocal cords. He lay on the ground, wheezing and shaking until it was over. It took all night, and I enjoyed every second of it."

"I'm gonna kill her," the cut vampire said, still frantically wiping at the cut on his hand.

"While your friend here is skinning me," I said, "I'll be listening to you die in agony. You'll be in even worse pain than me."

"You fucking bitch!" He lunged at me and locked his hand around my throat and I prepared myself. It was my ending. If I couldn't escape, then a quick death was the next best thing. But his friend dragged him off of me before he could snap my neck or rip my throat out or whatever he was going to do.

"You seriously gonna kill our meal ticket? You have any idea what a female is worth? How rare they are?" He gripped the vampire I had cut behind the neck, to try and focus him, "hey, we don't have to skin her you know, we could sell her. You know we're in Seattle right? You know who runs this town?"

The cut vampire laughed, "you think I give a shit?" He shoved his cut hand in the other vampire's face, "I'm dead!"

"She's messing with you!" the vampire said to the one with the cut. "She wants you to kill her. That knife probably doesn't even have werewolf blood on it."

"No no no," the cut vampire said, "I can feel it already, it's in there, her filthy fucking blood is inside of me, I know it."

"You're going to die screaming," I said.

The vampire I had cut gave me a baleful look.

"Don't listen to her, she's just trying to get in your head."

"Fuck this," the cut vampire said, "she's all yours, I'm going to open a vein and go drink a whole fucking sorority or something. Maybe I can drain her blood out of me. Or I'll go out in a blaze of glory. Or something. Fucking dogs." He started walking off.

He wasn't going to kill me then. Worse, he was going to go kill a whole lot of other people. And when he didn't start dying on the full moon he would come back and join his friend, and help him kill me, slowly and painfully. I wanted to scream but I didn't want to give them the satisfaction.

"You're a real fucking piece of work," the other vampire said, grabbing me by the upper arm and dragging me to my feet. "Good news is I can sell you for five times the price of a pelt for what's between your legs. And now I don't have to split it with that moron either."

What did that mean? Werewolves were hunted for pelts. And I had heard rumors of fighting werewolves against each other, but those were only rumors. Why was I suddenly worth five times the price?

He was just starting to push me forward, towards the mouth of the alley, his friend a dozen feet ahead of us, when two big, hulking shapes emerged out of the darkness.

"Who the fuck is this now," the vampire holding me said to himself.

"Oh shit," the vampire I had cut turned around and came running back towards us. "They're wolves man, they're fucking wolves!"

"In the middle of the city?"

"No werewolves, they're werewolves!"

The vampire holding me laughed, "damn, she really did a number on your head. It's not even the full moon. Get your shit together. Probably just some stray dogs."

But up ahead the two shapes slowly came out of the darkness. The first thing I could make out were the eyes, glowing golden even in the dark, and at the same height as my eyes. I wasn't exactly tall at five five, but they were definitely not dogs.

"What the...," the vampire holding me said under his breath, letting go of my arm.

The two vampires started backing up but I stayed right where I was. I watched, not really believing my eyes, as two huge male werewolves came stalking out of the darkness. They were both as tall as me, one almost jet black, the other a sandy color. I had never seen another werewolf with human eyes before, but every instinct in my body told me to flee. But I stayed completely still. If they really were somehow werewolves on the wrong moon they wouldn't hurt me. If they really were werewolves, they weren't here for me.

They both stopped in front of me and looked me up and down. They sniffed me, taking in my scent. Then the almost black one glanced at the sandy one, and together they passed by me, two towering bodies of muscle and fur sliding past, eerily silent in the darkness. I turned, and saw the two vampires where I had been only a few moments before, trapped at the end of the alley with nowhere to go. Served them right.

I heard two deep, guttural growls that sunk in to my bones and terrified me, and then I saw them lunge, and heard screams, and the tearing of flesh, and I did the thing I had always done, I ran.

~~~

How? It was the only thing that I could think about as I made my way back to the foreclosed house where I had been sleeping the last few nights, where my single bag of worldly possessions was hidden.

How had they turned to werewolves when it wasn't a full moon? I had never even entertained the idea that something like that was possible. All my life, from the very first time I had turned, just after puberty started, I had only ever done it on a full moon. I had tried to
stop
the transformation plenty of times, and had never even come close to succeeding. And after the first vampires started hunting me, when I had only just run away from the safety of the group home, I had wished that I could turn when I pleased like werewolves did in the movies, to fight back against my hunters. But I had never even tried. I wouldn't have known where to start.

The few other werewolves I had come across over the years had never even hinted at the ability to turn on anything but a full moon. And those two vampires hadn't really believed it, probably not until they were being torn limb from limb.

So how had they done it?

I briefly considered going back and asking them, but dismissed the idea right away. I hadn't encountered many other werewolves, but I had learned early on to avoid them. The males only ever had one thing on their minds when they caught the scent of a female, and I had never been interested. At least, not interested in those particular males. But my lack of interest had never stopped them from trying to force themselves on me anyway. The hunting knife I carried was as much for other werewolves as it was for vampires.

Those two I had just seen though... they were twice the size of any other male I had encountered. If they caught up to me and decided they wanted to have me there would be no fighting them off. No, going back was definitely not an option.

I made it to the street with my foreclosed house on it. I would grab my bag and keep moving, and when the full moon rose I would turn and get as far as I possibly could from that place. Those two particular vampires had been on my tail for months, so at least I wouldn't have to worry about them anymore. I could use this opportunity of not having anyone chasing me to get a fresh start. Somewhere sunny. Nevada maybe. A small town. Because Seattle had been a mistake, clearly. I had hoped that I could get lost in a big city, that my scent would be too muddled to follow. Clearly I had been wrong.