Alphas Unleashed 2 (3 page)

Marcus opened the door and stepped in to the darkness, but I dawdled outside, waiting for him to turn on the light. But he didn't, and the moment stretched on, and I was getting nervous.

"Are you coming?" Marcus said from somewhere in the darkness.

"Why haven't you turned the lights on?"

"They need to be off for what I want to show you."

I paused a moment longer, considering. This was the moment in the movie when the young naive girl walks in to an obvious trap and the killer chops her head off because she was stupid.

"There's nothing in here that will harm you Sara, you have my word."

If he wanted to he could have just dragged me in there anyway. And I wanted to trust Marcus. I had to try. He hadn't given me any reason not to. I took a deep breath and stepped in to the darkness. Inching my way forward.

"Where are you?" I said, searching with my hands for some sign of anything besides blackness.

There was no response though, just a gentle whir as a fan on some kind of device started up. My heart started to speed up, I started to think very hard about running back, towards the sliver of light still coming from the open door.

And then all of a sudden the room was lit up by light, by a projector, playing a movie on the wall opposite the door. I could suddenly see Marcus, a few feet in front of me. He stepped around me and closed the door behind me to cut off the last of the ambient light.

I barely noticed him though, I was already engrossed in the images being projected against the wall. It was a home movie, and it looked like the mansion we were in, a few inside shots but mostly the outer grounds. In summer, if I had to guess. And then I saw Marcus, younger Marcus, from the picture, with his vest and his long hair and his big smile.

The Marcus in the room with me slipped past me again and slumped down on the floor underneath the beam of the projector. It was the first time I had seen him look even the slightest bit weak. I felt bad then, for thinking that he had been trying to punish me or hurt me or anything like that.

I went and sat down on the floor beside him.

"Your wedding day," I said, not so much a question as a statement.

"My wedding day," Marcus said, nodding. "Just about eleven years ago now."

We watched the video in silence a little while. It was a completely normal wedding video. Guests telling the camera how happy they were for the couple. People cracking jokes. Dancing. It looked fun.

"You look happy," I said.

"I was happy. Very happy."

The video came to the ceremony then. Marcus standing before a minister outside, the bride walking down the aisle towards him, everyone turned in their seats to watch her. It was beautiful.

"Who was she?" I glanced over at Marcus.

He smiled, "her name was Ailsa." I could hear the love still in his voice when he said her name. "I was the second son, she wasn't supposed to be mine, but the moment I saw her I knew I had to have her."

"Is that your brother?" I said, as a close up of an annoyed looking groomsman flashed across the screen. He looked so much like Marcus. A little thinner maybe, more severe, but still, it was hard to believe the smiling groom was the man sitting beside me.

"That is Abel, yes." The video panned across the bridesmaids. "And the first bridesmaid, that is my sister Amelia."

She looked wild and free and completely radiant.

We watched in silence a little while longer, as the minister said his words, the happy couple said their vows, and I built up my courage to ask the question that had been keeping me up all night.

"So what happened to them?" I finally blurted out.

Marcus let the video run a few moments longer, then paused it on the 'you may kiss the bride' moment. A perfect little moment in time, frozen on the wall.

"Amelia..." Marcus' voice drifted off, "she is alive and happy somewhere, I hope. That is a long story though, for another time."

I looked over at him. His eyes were glued to the frozen image on the wall. "And the rest?" I said, as gently as I could.

"Dead," Marcus said in a voice I could barely hear, "they're all dead." He let out a long, slow sigh. "Aisla and Abel and my mother and father, they all went in to Seattle for the day. To do nothing really, just some shopping, have lunch. But I was close to a break-through, or at least I thought I was, and I stayed behind to work, before my cultures died and I had to start over again. And the four of them didn't come back. At first I was so absorbed in my work that I didn't even notice. And then when I did eventually notice I just assumed that they had decided to stay the night in the city. By the time I tried to call, by the time I actually went in to the city myself to try and find them..."

Marcus brought his knees up to his chest and curled his arms around them. "The apartment was covered in blood. Their blood. And a little vampire blood too. Just enough that I got the scent. And I've never forgotten it. And I've caught hints of it now and then, little traces here and there. And a name from other vampires that I've caught and killed. Drago. The vampires, they operate like a mafia almost. Drago runs the entire west coast of North America for them, and he's based in Seattle. Somewhere. I spent years living in the city, searching, but never found him."

There was a long moment of silence.

"It's funny, to think that Drago found everyone in my life that means anything to me so easily, and I lived in Seattle for years, trying to be found, and never stumbled across him. Anyway, after awhile I gave up. I came back here and started working on a way to make werewolves like the vampires make new vampires. But the answer has eluded me. The vampires have eluded me. Everything has eluded me, even female werewolves, until I found you that is."

He looked over at me and smiled, "you are the first real bit of good news that I've gotten in a decade Sara."

"Is Connor really so bad?"

Marcus laughed, "no, finding Connor was good news as well. Certainly. But Connor cannot reproduce, only you can. And that is, I'm guessing, the reason that you came to talk to me in the first place."

He was completely right, and he caught me completely off guard. I started to say something and then blushed. At least Marcus couldn't see that. Unless his senses were even better than I had thought.

"Connor has been trying to teach you to shift to your wolf at will. How is that coming?"

"Good," I said on autopilot, but that wasn't true at all. "Well, actually it's not going well at all. It's not him though," I quickly added, "it's me. The whole meditation side of it, clearing my mind of distractions... I'm terrible at it."

Marcus nodded, thinking a moment "What thoughts are distracting you?"

I laughed a little, embarrassed, "Connor. Thoughts of Connor."

Marcus smiled, "I see."

Marcus turned himself ninety degrees on the floor, so that he was facing me, his legs crossed. After a moment I got in to the same position, so that we were both facing each other.

"When I taught Connor to access the wolf side of him at will, meditation seemed like the best way to reach him. I believe I explained before that Connor was more wolf than human being when I found him."

I nodded. I remembered being a little worried about that, that Connor had once been like that. Primitive and feral. And dangerous. There was still a bit of that in him, but just enough that it was sexy, and not frightening.

"He needed a still body and a quiet mind to find his way past the wolf instincts that had taken him over. You, on the other hand, have the completely opposite problem. You have been raised surrounded by humans, trying to be a human. You've avoided all other werewolves for your entire life. You don't need less wolf in you, you need more."

"So no meditation?" That was a relief. I was terrible at it.

"The opposite. I want you to feel the lust, embrace it. You should let go and lose control. Surrender to your animal instincts."

That actually made a lot of sense. If only I had worked up the courage to come to Marcus a week earlier, I would be that much closer to figuring this transforming at will thing out. But tomorrow, when Connor woke up, I could start embracing my lust in earnest. I smiled a little to myself. I was rather looking forward to this new training regime.

"So what are you waiting for?" Marcus said.

I gave him a quizzical look, "what do you mean?"

"Close your eyes and try it out," he said.

I hesitated, and then closed my eyes, "it will be easier when Connor is with me, but I guess I can try it now."

"No," Marcus said, "don't think about Connor, think about me."

I opened my eyes again.

Marcus smiled cooly, "your feelings for Connor are already strong. What I want you to work on isn't just feeling lust for someone that you're already familiar with, and have feelings for, but lust for someone new, someone you
don't
have feelings for."

I thought about what he was saying, wondering if it was all just a game for him, to get what he wanted from me, or if he was actually trying to help me, and the way to help me just happened to involve me trying to fantasize about him.

"It's just," I blushed, "you've never look at me the way Connor does. It's hard to feel something for someone when they're obviously not interested in you."

"I only control my urges better than Connor. It doesn't mean I don't have those urges."

I started trying to wrap my head around that, but Marcus didn't give me any time.

"In fact I have an even better idea," he said, and reached forward and wrapped two big hands around both my legs, pulling me across the smooth wooden floor towards him.

"Hey," I said, not sure what the hell he was doing.

As soon as I was close enough he leaned forward again and picked me up by the waist, spinning me around and setting me down in his lap, so that my back was against his chest, his big shoulders and arms wrapping around me. Not even Connor, as big and physical as he was, had ever used his strength to easily throw me around quite like Marcus just had. It sent a little thrill through my body.

But then I just froze in place, not sure what was happening. "Just relax," Marcus said in a low, soothing voice, pulling me back against his broad, hard chest with two hands on my shoulders.

How in the world was I supposed to relax, sitting in his lap like that? My heart was thundering away, and I was just about trembling from all the nervous energy suddenly coursing through me.

"Close your eyes again," he said, and after a moment of hesitation I did as he said.

"I only want you to think about one thing," Marcus said, whispering in my ear, his head pressed against mine, "the feel of our two bodies, pressed together. I want you to stop thinking, and instead feel how your body responds to mine."

I heard him inhale through his nose, "I want you to smell my scent, and feel the part of you that's the wolf, respond to it."

Hesitantly, I took his one big hand in both of mine and guided it towards my nose. I felt a little ridiculous, but I smelled his skin anyway. He smelled like high mountains and icy streams, crisp and bright and cold. Right away it was like taking a dose of a hormone drug. Feelings that I only had in the midst of sex with Connor came flooding to the surface. It was so strange to feel that engagement and to not be in the midst of something hot and heavy, that I started to lose it a little, wondering at what was happening to my body.

"Calm," Marcus whispered again in my ear. He slipped one big arm underneath my own arm, and then laced it up my body, his forearm in between my breasts, his big hand resting firmly on the inside of my shoulder. He pulled me back on to him with the arm, so that I was pressed against his chest, the weight of his arm on my own chest forcing my breathing to slow down.

"Feel our skin touching," Marcus said in a low voice again, "feel that connection."

I did my best to ignore how strange the whole thing was and do as he said, focusing on his arm across my body, his hand grasping my shoulder, the firm muscles of his chest against my back. I leaned down and smelled his hand again on my neck, but I did it with the intention of embracing that feeling this time, of tracing it back to wherever it originated from so that I could access that part of myself again and again and again. The wolf.

And again it was a hit of hormones, like snorting a powerful drug, but I didn't run away from the feeling this time and I sensed it, like a little bundle of nerves tucked away inside a dark corner of my brain. I touched it and felt the wolf springing free.

I gasped and trembled, backing away in my mind at the shock of it. "I felt it," I said in amazement, laughing a little, "I actually felt it, it was like this, this thing, sitting there in my mind and I touched it and I felt the wolf coming free." I was babbling, but I didn't care.

"And soon you
will
let it free," Marcus said, "but not tonight."

As Marcus was unthreading his arm from my chest I couldn't help but feel his erection, pressing against my butt, which was firmly wedged down between his thighs. And I knew all at once that he wanted me, and I wanted him. More than anything else in that moment I wanted his hands on me, on my skin, his scent in my nostrils again. I turned in his lap, to face him, and reached up for his face, saying with my hands what I wanted, but he gently took my wrists in his own hands and pushed them back down.

"Not tonight," he said, "we'll wait, for Connor."

How did he have so much self control? I couldn't even pretend to be in control in that moment, and I knew if it had been Connor my clothes would all be in rags on the floor by now. The brute had already destroyed half the clothes I had brought with me, though he promised he would buy me an entire wardrobe.

But Marcus resisted that pull towards lust that I was coming to identify with the part of me that was the wolf. Some parts of his body were betraying him though.

"Are you sure?" I said, wiggling my butt in his lap just a little, feeling his erection press that much harder against me.

"I'm sure," he said, and gently pushed me up to my feet, then got up himself. "Go back to bed. Now that you know what to look for you can practice more with Connor. Soon you will be shifting at will. I promise."